Two Shifts On A Single Map

SHIFT #1..........................................SHIFT #2

Friday 4/30/10................................Saturday 5/1/10

10 Hours= 5:30 to 15:30................ 11 Hours= 4:00 to 15:00

100 Miles for 32 Fares................... 160 Miles for 29 Fares

$150 Net from $313 Gross......... ....$250 Net from $412 Gross

$105 Lease/$33 Gas/$16 MTA Tax........$105 Lease/$42 Gas/$14 MTA Tax

10 unique situations..........................8 unique situations

UNSOLVED ETHNOLOGIES

I enjoy guessing exactly where and what purpose a passenger is off to when they provide a block or intersection as their destination. Call it creepy. I like to think of it as field work anthropology. A pleasant man in a fancy suit hopped in on Park in the 60s. He requested Fifth between 27 and 26th. Are you going to that building with all the chandeliers in the brightly lit lobby? No, I'm going to the not-so-fancy building across the street. Upon research, I found that it is the NY MarketCenter, 20 historic floors with over 200 showrooms for trade shows from a wide range of product categories. I'll leave it at that for now.

ONE'S STRANGE URBAN LANDSCAPE IS ANOTHER'S WORKPLACE

Just before 9 A.M. a Mexican man hurried out of Grand Central Terminal and approached my window very timidly. It's the second time in two weeks I got a fare to the Mexican Consulate with under 10 minutes to make it there on time for a crucial appointment. I think it's important for cabdrivers to know where it's located and the fastest way to get there from any other point in Manhattan, especially from the transportation hubs they are most likely to come out of. I was on Vanderbilt and 43rd. The consulate is on 39th between Park and Madison. Walking distance, but not if you're clueless. I shot down 43rd, hung a left on Fifth, another left on 41st, a right on Park, and a right on 39th. Voila! One minute early. I had thought about dropping him off on Madison, but he might have gotten lost again.

PASSENGERS FROM LIBYA ARE AS RARE AS THOSE FROM CAPE VERDE

Just before 10 A.M. I was hailed on Eighth by a casual Libyan man named Kamar. He just wanted to go across town to Second Avenue. We conversed about the similarities between Judaism and Islam. I loved his North African accent and he loved my openness. I wonder if he knows that Barnes and Noble flies a flag at the entrance to their bookstores that is identical to that of his country: solid green. Later on I picked up a young lady from the above-mentioned islands off the coast of western Africa. I could not, for the life of me, guess her origin.... something I'm often good at. She herself said people ask her if she's Asian, Latino, etc..

FOLLOWING RULES FOR TAXI DOWN TO THE TEE

Minutes later I was on 43rd and Lexington. A woman was hailing on the west side of the street, which is a big no- no for cabbies between 7 and 1 P.M. I motioned her to cross the street over to my side and to my surprise, she complied. I explained about the anti-taxi signs in the bus lane and she completely understood. She agreed it has become much more common to see cabs pulled over by the police. I hope she spreads the word about crossing the street to hail a cab there.

UNDERSTANDING EXPRESSIONS IN ENGLISH

Even though I moved to the U.S. when I was four years old, I never really learned all of the expressions people use in English because my immigrant parents never used them, nor did my mostly immigrant peers growing up in ethnically diverse parts of L.A. and Houston. I've learned so many new expressions in the last three years, simply from hearing them used in the backseat of my taxi. One lady on her cell phone said, "It's water under the bridge." I initially guessed it meant that 'it' was where 'it' should be (whatever 'it' was). I later discovered (on the web) it means something in the past and no longer important.

THE BEST SHAWARMA IS ON THE TONGUE OF THE BEHOLDER

A family trio on their last day visiting from Ramat Gan (suburb of Tel Aviv) claimed that the Shawarma at Bereket (Turkish spot on Houston Street) is even better than the heavenly stuff on the street back home. I found that hard to believe, so I tried it myself. The Turks call it Doner Kabab, even though it's the same exact thing: meat shaved off a rotating spit. I try to limit my consumption of meat, since it has a negative impact on the planet, but Shawarma is one of my Achilles' Heels. Bereket turned out to be alright, but not as great as the Israelis made it out to be. I've always gone there for Falafel, which they do really well. However, my favorite spot for Shawarma remains the new place on Second, between St. Marks and 7th. It's called Cheep's and it's only $3.75 for a loaded sandwich. That's an unimaginable bargain in NYC, and DELICIOUS!

APPLYING SKILL ORGANICALLY

Just before noon I picked up a guy at Macy's on 34th. He was in an incredible rush to get to 19th and Sixth, and he understood that no left turns could be made until Ninth. He said, "just do your best and I can run from nearby if that's easier." I took Ninth down to 22nd, made a left, and dropped him off at Sixth, so he could run three short blocks. 18th Street would've swallowed more time with all its delivery trucks. This was accomplished in five minutes flat, and was met with a compliment: "You're an excellent taxi driver." Always nice to hear.

ON DUTY IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE

My sister called frantic and in need of a favor. She's at the end of her third year at Parsons New School for Design and she might just be the next big name in fashion. She needed her final essay edited for grammar and content within the next hour. I always carry my little netbook in the cab, so I pulled into the taxi relief stand on 16th, by Union Square. Sure enough, there was free WiFi on that block, and I was able to revise her paper and email it back to her.

CAB RIDE TO MEET WITH A CELEBRITY

I nearly never get anyone famous riding in my cab. I do, however, come within a degree of them. Around 1 P.M. I picked up an eccentric New Yorker in Midtown who was on his phone the whole way up to 77th and Columbus. He was debating over which snacks to serve at some event. He then said, "I am going to meet up with John Fraser right now." Upon later googling the name I discovered he's a renowned chef who owns a restaurant precisely on the corner where I dropped this guy off. I've had world-renowned chefs in my cab before, but I never caught their names.

COAST TO COAST TO SEE HIS DAUGHTER

The last fare of the day was a moody guy who visits his teenage daughter in L.A. bi-monthly. He didn't seem too happy with his life, but I think I managed to uplift him ever so slightly. Since it was already 2 P.M. on a Friday afternoon, we took the local Brooklyn route to JFK.

FROM SHIFT #2

I was taken to work by a cabbie from Uttar Pradesh who has hacked only 1 day a week for 8 years. He spends the rest of his time as a termite exterminator.

A BACHELOR'S DEGREE DON'T MAKE YOU SMART

My first fare was a polite (but drunk) couple who came off as Columbia grad students. They had me transport them from Chinatown back to their uptown abode just after the bars had closed. They tried to pay with a credit card, but the transaction wouldn't go through. I gave them a cash receipt upon cash payment and she asked if she could have the receipt for the first transaction too. "It won't print out because it didn't work," I said. She got real nervous, as if under the impression that she had paid twice. I guess there are some crooked cabbies out there who tell you the credit transaction failed, even after it just processed successfully, so that you pay them in cash as well, essentially doubling the fare. She stumbled out all worried and said she would figure it out in the morning. I hope she figured out that there is nothing to figure out. And it was already morning, by the way, in Morningside Heights.

For those of you who constantly anticipate this happening, know that the great majority of cabdrivers are honest people, regardless of how rude they might seem to you. Driver rudeness comes from overworked jadedness so don't take it personal. If you have to swipe your card a few times before it works, there's no reason to believe it's charging every swipe. Only one successful swipe is possible per fare. If your card is declined or unreadable by the machine, don't assume the driver is secretly scheming to make you pay in cash. Both the cheap machines installed in our cabs by entities we have no control over, and the cards themselves, are unreliable and not in any way our fault. Try to have cash as a backup if you jump in a cab, and please be aware that if you end up making us wait for you to try all of the cards in your wallet or purse, or make us drive around to find you an ATM, the lost time is directly hurting our income for that shift, so tip accordingly.

SLEAZEBALLS GET FREE PIZZA

Another drunk fare entered the cab in Hell's Kitchen and asked to go to a pizzeria on 14th because a gay clerk works there who has a crush on him and always gives him free slices. This guy reminded me of my friend Cormac, but chauvinistically opportunistic. He spoke of the gay clerk the same way he'd speak of easy girls. Cormac isn't like that, but a doppelganger nevertheless.

NEW JERSEY! KNOW YOUR WAY HOME WHEN DRUNK IN NEW YORK

From that same spot two drunk teenage girls got in and asked how much to Jersey City. I said what I always say: regular fare to the tunnel and then double rate, plus the toll. They seemed clueless about directions once inside Jersey, so I held my breath for what might come next. Luckily, they accepted the PATH train alternative. I dropped them off at the Christopher Street station. Later I noticed a South African driver license in the backseat that might have belonged to one of them, but the picture didn't match my memory. Regardless, if you know anyone by the name of Melissa Coton, who left her ID in a yellow cab, please refer them to my email address.

SERVING THE HUMAN BEINGS OF BED-STUY

Because God only know how much they already put up with. Just before sunrise I was returning from a fare out to deep Brooklyn when a black woman and her three children (one an infant) hailed me on the corner of Bedford and Fulton. It's uncommon to be hailed by anyone in that neighborhood, much less a mother with her kids at dawn on a Saturday morning. I have no doubt in my mind that 99% of the other yellow cabs coming down that street would have flown right past them. I'm so glad I was hailed by them because I love serving the under-served segments of my city. To the Ridgewood border they were headed and I rounded the fare from 12 to $10, which she gracefully accepted, appreciatively.

HIPSTERS SEEK YELLOW CABS ON CERTAIN BLOCKS

I've had such good luck coming down a certain street after dropping off anywhere east of Bushwick Avenue, that it's become my routine route of return toward Manhattan. The Mckibben Lofts often have a steady stream of all-night party-goers exiting its doors. Whether they're waiting impatiently for a car service or walking to the L stop, they'll hail me if I roll by. This time I had two foreign hipster ladies, one from Italia and the other from Ecuador, on their way to 92nd and Madison, a $23 fare that most other cabs would have missed in their incessant race back to Manhattan. Why pay the return time and gas out of your own pocket?

DO YOU KNOW OF A GOOD PLACE?

At 7 A.M. I picked up a Montreal documentary filmmaker at Times Square. She's here to interview an elder Jewish writer who survived the Holocaust and she had stayed up all night to organize all of her information. She was headed to breakfast in the Village so she could stroll through Washington Square Park afterward. It's the second time in a couple months that an out- of- towner has asked me to recommend them a diner in the Village. What else but the Waverly? It's either that or 7A Cafe.

AN UPTOWN ROLL ON A SATURDAY MORNING

Downtime? What's that? At 8 A.M. I picked up an Inwood fare in NoHo. Along my return through Hamilton Heights I picked up another Inwood fare. Upon dropping that one off, an East Village fare hopped in. That's what I call an Uptown (and Downtown) roll. $32, 14, and 37.... back to back! And then right before 10 A.M. it happened again. I picked up an Upper West Side fare on Canal Street, and from there I didn't move an inch before a Brooklyn Heights fare hopped in. From that destination I had a lad with 15 minutes to catch the Bolt Bus on West 34th. Right on time! Those were $19, 31, and 25.... back to back! That's how you make $250 in 11 hours. A mixture of luck, intuition, talent, swiftness, and charm.

Go for a swim in the Florida Keys or anywhere along the Atlantic coast of Florida while you still can.....

Photo Credit: NASA's Terra Satellite/ The Huffington Post

Serene on the Seventeenth

Photo from fascinating Gothamist article about cabbies.

At 4:30 A.M. I depart the depot and come over the Brooklyn Bridge. Several vacant cabs hog the main off-ramp (Civic Center), so I opt for the Park Row exit instead. A vacant cab heads straight onto Barclay, so I go left down the Canyon of Heroes. Just before Bowling Green, I pick up my first fare. Up Avenue of the Americas. Right on 34th. Have a nice night (day).

Just a few feet ahead I stop for Craig, my second fare. We take Madison and Broadway all the way up to 161st Street. My taxicab is the friendliest, most non-judgmental one he's ever ridden in. His advice on heterosexual romance is the most omniscient and non-intrusive that a drunk, homosexual passenger has ever offered. By the time we get to Harlem, he feels so comfortable that he politely asks if he could sit up front, and I instinctively let him. He tacks on a $20 tip to the $19 fare and disappears into the predawn abyss.

As I make a U-turn for downtown again, I am hailed by a man trying to get to his hotel on 125th and St. Nicholas. It's his birthday and his "lucky night." At the first red light he rolls down his window and asks a woman walking on the sidewalk if she has a cigarette. She comes over and he opens the door. She steps right in and they start making out. I haven't had my cup of coffee yet and I'm entirely unsure of what's happening. She pets his head and tells him to relax. She has a thick New York accent and he sort of does, too. He rounds the tip to the next dollar and they step out.

Minutes later I scoop up two buff men on Central Park West at 105th, heading up to 171st and Fort Washington. As soon as they exit the cab, a vulnerable young transplant from San Luis Obispo runs over and hops in. He's going to 96th and Amsterdam. With that, my predawn roll in upper Manhattan ends. It isn't until after sunrise that I find my next fare, and only due to swift stratagem.

I'm cruising up 4th Avenue and vacant cabs infest every possible route, except East 10th. As I complete that long and potentially treacherous right turn, a man in my peripheral vision steps out of his apartment building. I slow to a crawl and poke my head out the window. Mere eye contact yields a trip to Flushing Avenue and Bogart (Brooklyn). I return via Metropolitan, which yields a pleasant fare back over the bridge to 9th and C, followed by okra on rice for breakfast, at the Punjabis on Houston St.

Around 8 A.M. I transport a Tudor City trio to Newark Airport ($55). After returning through the Holland Tunnel I pick up a Jewish trio in TriBeca, en route to Friends Seminary for their teen's exam. Upon dropping off, I turn the corner onto Rutherford Place and stop to jot down a few notes. Soon I hear whistling from behind. One of them needs a brisk emergency ride back to TriBeCa to grab documents they forgot at home, and then come right back. I do it all with a smile. He says, "I want you to have lunch on me." That's two $20 bills and $10 from the initial trip. $50 in 25 minutes. Or $105 in justsengers, bridges and tunnels, driver philosophy, exceptionally sweet passengers, food, income, lower manhattan, mid and uptown over an hour. That alone covers the (fixed) lease!

Second half of the shift coming soon to a blog near you.....
Stop in at the tips blog for today's digest: Wishful Yearning (Citizens' Band)

A BOOK REVIEW OF

I enjoyed this book quite a lot. It's exciting to learn about the state of the profession, decade by decade, since the early 1900s. I enjoy how people's image of taxi driver evolves and devolves, in ever-fluctuating waves. I'm especially fond of the fact that the author himself used to be a cabdriver. He is now the distinguished Fulbright professor of history at Beijing University. Here are a few of my favorite chunks from the book:

"The NYC cabdriver personifies the energy and zeal of the world's greatest city."

"Cabdrivers make up the human element of the New York City experience."

"In taxi is the university of all humanity."

"Cabdrivers only stick together in traffic. The rest of the time they suffer from occupational loneliness and often wind up as blabber-mouths, exhibiting a weak drooling volubility to passengers (now cell phones) in which sense and nonsense are inextricably linked.

"When adjusted for inflation, cabdrivers' annual income was less in 2003 than it was in 1929."

CUTE CARTOON-LIKE RAMBUNCTIOUSNESS

"New Yorkers strived to commemorate their cabbies. One work of art created unexpected problems. In April 1996, the city installed a statue of a man hailing a taxi at the corner of 48 and Park Avenue, The piece was entitled "Taxi" and was sculpted by J. Seward Johnson. Within a few weeks, the city had to move the statue back away from the street because cabdrivers competing for the fare were getting into accident after accident."

MID TO LATE 90's W/ MAYOR GIULIANI

"As city harassment of cabbies increased, turnover soared to over 50 % in less than 5 years. Garage owners who in the past had supported the TLC 's crackdowns, now complained that good drivers were leaving the industry because of the burdens of petty but expensive tickets."

QUOTE FROM EACH DECADE

"After dark, the cabdrivers guided and transported willing New Yorkers into forbidden worlds (1910s)."

"The Jazz Age was celebrated in NY as nowhere else, and cabdrivers were eager participants in the whirlwind frenzy of nightclubbing, easy sex, and social liberation that made the 1920s in NY so notorious."

"The public credited cabdrivers with oracle-like knowledge about politics, the 'chief source of public opinion' about candidates" (1930s).

"Rationing of gas and of private car use and fares flush with wartime earnings made cab driving easier and more profitable than ever (1940s).

"Newspapers ran stories that assured New Yorkers that in the event of an atomic bomb attack, cabdrivers' knowledge of city streets would help avoid traffic snarls."

"Observers began to describe cabdrivers as philosophers, comparing them with Socrates, who was a 'great street talker in Athens' " (1950s).

"Generous cabdriver stories enchanted Americans who identified cabbies as the ultimate New Yorkers".

" The average hackie is an honest, hard-working, careful and skillful driver who's been doing this kind of work 'temporarily' for many years." -journalist Hy Gardner

"Now cabbies ranked with coal miners and below farmhands (1960s)".

"A helpful article in Reader's Digest listed the many ways cabbies helped policemen and performed acts of courage and charity." (In response, Mayor Wagner proclaimed January 27th to be 'Taxicab Day')

"The backseat was so uncomfortable that a journalist argued that fares were forced into a "paralytic yoga position, fists clenched into the white-knuckles mode, knees to the chin, eyes glazed or glued shut, bones a-rattle, teeth a-grit." " (1970s)

INTERESTING DATES

1/1/1970 A law made yellow the official color of all medallion cabs, required that they be equipped with bullet-resistant dividers, and assigned undercover police to drive cabs.

3/2/1971 Mayor Lindsay signed a law creating the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

(artwork by Red Grooms, whose depictions of taxi life are classic)

SERVING LA GUARDIA TO THE MAX

It's always a mouthwatering mystery for the cabdriver to wait in line at the airport taxi lot, wondering who (of all the people stepping off their planes) is going to happen to be at the front of the passenger line (at the terminal) when the cab finally creeps its way up there (from behind a solid single-file stream of taxis). The most fist-clenching unknowns are....

1. Will they be going to Manhattan, just into the neighborhood adjacent to the airport, or all the way out into the land of rate 4 (double on the meter beyond city limits). This becomes especially relevant nearing the last 1/4 of one's shift.

2. Where did they fly in from? Perhaps they're foreigners, domestic tourists, here for a brief business venture, or just plain New Yorkers returning from trips with just as many variables.

On one particular episode in and out of La Guardia (NY's domestic flights hub), I was sort of on a roll (aside from the 2.5 hour holding lot delay and an adventurous incident with a college boy from Shanghai, who was studying Biology at SUNY in Stony Brook). It all began at 7:17 am on a Sunday last month. I shuttled an out-of-town couple to the end of their splendid urban vacation. I never learned which North American city they were from because all three of us were too tired to converse. Don't be alarmed. A fatigued cabbie doesn't allow themselves to be delirious, just cranky and quiet, with bloodied coffee eyes. By 7:30 we were at the terminal, thanks to the thoroughly unoccupied bridges of Williamsburg and Kosciuszko.

It wasn't until 10:00 that I was bestowed with a new passenger. Until then I had passed the time imparting a few tricks of the trade upon a young new duo of Sikh drivers from my garage that had recognized me in the massive central holding lot (though not as big as Kennedy's). The college freshman who rechristened my cab had moved from far eastern China to far eastern Long Island in the last year, to attend the State University of New York. The first thing he said upon entering, and kept repeating profusely in a thick Mandarin accent, was "30-09 Broadway in Queens, the Long Island Railroad please".

I'm always afraid of seeming as inadequate or as apathetic as the common cabdriver, especially because of my unusually youthful appearance. Therefore I always try to be as nimble as humanly possible about locating the destination in my mental map, choosing the best route, and merging into traffic.... all within seconds. But every now and then I'm either stumped or the request simply doesn't make any sense. This one was the latter. "Sir, I believe there are closer LIRR stations than that. There's one in Flushing and the main hub is in Jamaica. Where in Long Island are you trying to go?"

He immediately grew very concerned and robotically repeated the address, which as far as I could tell, was in Astoria. Why would you go that far west to catch an eastbound train if there were stations nearby? I started driving down Junction, making my way toward the part of Jackson Heights where Broadway begins, in case the address was (for some Queens-eccentric reason) down there, even though the logical location (according to the digits) would be by the corner of 31st Street in Astoria, (coincidently) where the N and W subway trains stop overhead.

That was one of the few shifts in which I forgot to bring my hefty sack of maps with me. Otherwise, I would have simply checked the MTA map for clues to decipher his intent.

He only got more nervous and less understandable, but he did finally mention that he was in fact headed back to school in Stony Brook (Suffolk County).

I drove up Broadway, all the way to the address he'd given me, all the while warning him that (as far as I knew) there were no LIRR stations in Astoria. I even shut the meter off way early and told him $16 would be his total fare (in an attempt to calm him down). When we got there I pointed at the elevated subway platform and told him that he could theoretically take a city train and eventually arrive at a commuter rail junction, but that it made no sense for him to have taken a taxi to that spot.

I pulled his heavy suitcase out of the trunk and threw it on my back. I assertively motioned and called him to follow me as I began walking briskly up the staircase with his bag. He tried to tell me it was OK and he didn't need my help, but I had to figure all this out for at least myself and my insatiable geographical curiosity, and he looked like he would've died carrying that suitcase to the platform. I glanced at an MTA local and regional map (back to back on each side) that an agent gave me. Sure enough, the LIRR station in Woodside would've been his best bet, followed by a transfer unto the Port Jefferson branch in Jamaica.

We had just been by that part of town less than 10 minutes ago and it would end up taking him the better part of an hour to make that connection aboard the subway. I pointed all this out to him on the map and offered to drive him back over there free of charge. He gave in quite easily and the whole mood of our relationship made a 180 degree turn. He displayed a very carefree and thankful attitude, as if all of a sudden he discovered he could completely trust in me. His welfare was my main concern (not my time or income).

He broke into a wide grin and started telling me all about how badly he wanted to switch majors to Chemistry and how much less complicated the train system was in Shanghai. He explained that google had given him that erroneous address and that I was "a very warm-hearted person." Actually, nope. I'm merely setting an example of the way I'd like all of humanity to behave. Loving my neighbor as myself, as the saying goes, because that is life's main purpose. At the end of the trip he offered me an extra $10 bill. I took it because one should not block another's opportunity to give, or take, for that matter.

From Woodside I returned to the airport empty because I had a shortie pass. These are slips of paper that the airport taxi dispatchers hand out to cabdrivers when the fare isn't going beyond Queens. It enables the driver to return and get a new passenger without waiting in the enormous lot again, but it must be done within 90 minutes (more than enough time). Otherwise, waiting that long the first time would have been severely detrimental to their total net profit for that shift, and cabdrivers would be less likely to stay and serve the arriving flights upon shuttling over departing ones.

I bounced right back out of the airport with yet another college student. I guess this was the big end of winter break for all the area schools (of higher education). She goes to Parsons and lives in Williamsburg, just like my sister. I asked her to let me guess the city she had flown in from by telling me the first letter.

"I had one lay-over and the cities start with 'V' and 'M'."

I scanned the U.S. map in my head, since La Guardia is 98% domestic flights. I could only think of Minneapolis and the 'V' must be some small town in Minnesota?

"I'll give you another hint. The flight came in from the north."

"Oh yeah, Canada Air goes here too! That's easy then. Vancouver and Montreal!"

She had been skiing in British Columbia over the break and her father's company, Nestle in London, was sponsoring both her education and her vacation. For this she was grateful.

After dropping her off on Bedford and South 4th, I decided to drive up the main drag of local artisans, on my way back to the airport empty again (since I had yet another shortie pass). The plan was: if I picked someone up going into Manhattan, that would end my airport love affair. But otherwise, La Guardia was shaping up to be my pin ball machine for the day. I had one hipster take a ride just down the street with a couple buckets of paint. Then I found myself heading to the airport empty again. On the way there I tuned in to a lovely new musician's NPR debut on the radio. I got to indulge my ethnomusicological obsessions by learning about Zee Avi, who mixes Malaysian and English lyrics with beautiful acoustic/ukulele skills. Two of her must-hear songs are "Bitter Heart" and "Kantoi." You can watch these on YouTube.

I came back to LGA and got a slightly uptight couple heading to Brooklyn Heights. From that same neighborhood, I picked up a nice man going to Windsor Terrace. Then I cruised vacant through Park Slope, en route to Manhattan, when I picked up a trio from Dallas who needed a ride to the Waldorf (hotel), to get their luggage, and then onward to EWR (Newark Airport).

So after all those Brooklyn/Queens fares in a row, I was finally shot back into Manhattan by the same passengers who shot me right back out of the island again. And they happened to be friends with Derek Lam, the fashion designer who gave my sister an internship a couple of summers ago, after his partner got a ride to work in my cab one morning (my greatest serendipitous networking breakthrough to date). I know these all sound like a whole lot of tangents, but I'm just trying to point out how evident the interconnectedness of everything is in this profession of mine. I love it!

INSIDE SCOOPS

Drivers' lounges at taxi garages across NYC vary widely in the ways they operate and in what content they post on their walls. Most of the signs, however, are announcements and warnings for the cabdrivers. In this post I've included a few signs from the previous fleet I leased from in Long Island City. I like referring to them as the Russian mafia because of the sneaky sleazeball vibes they put out in their dealings with us (the workforce.)

Above is a notice that says, "We are letting you know that car wash located on 43rd Avenue, corner of Crescent Street is opened to serve you." The garage has an account there, since it is not the duty of the driver to pay out of pocket to keep the cab clean. Below is just a random, funny, unusual scene. Taxi roof cones, etc. stored haphazardly on top of a vending machine.

And now for a bit of hypocritical irony. Above is the chart that tells you how much it costs to lease a taxicab at that garage, depending on what time you start. Though a normal shift goes from 4 or 5 am until 4 or 5 pm (or pm to am), this garage likes to charge extra if you wish to begin your shift early.

Now look at the sign below. It says, "A driver shall not operate a taxicab for more than 12 consecutive hours." Does that mean this garage expects its cabbies to return from the streets as early as they left, after being that much further in the hole with their overhead expenses? If you've ever driven a taxi in NY you know that is total Baloney.

The only motivation for a cabdriver to be an 'early bird' is to try and hope that a couple extra hours of exposure to the boroughs might inch them slightly closer to a living income. To have to dish out more money for this slim gamble of an opportunity is frankly an abomination to our morale, and illegal if I'm not mistaken.

My current garage in Brooklyn does not engage in such . They respect the extra effort I make to improve my own lot by showing up at an even ungodlier hour. That's why I refer to them as the Greek gang. They too are greedy, but not as rampant as the Russian mob. Their garage feels more like a family, drivers included. Their dispatchers (a Trinidadian and a Bangladeshi) often dissuade us from tipping them (out of solidarity), as opposed to demanding it like black mail.

Between me and you, I've never leased a cab from this garage that had a spare tire, a jack, or a wrench. And if you ask the management about it, they'll send you to the mechanics. And the mechanics will tell you, "tough luck." The sign above is a crock.

MY FIRST EVER 20 SECONDS OF AIR TIME

I tripped on a few of my words, but I still had a chance to be a voice in the massively variegated, yet little known world of taxi drivers.... though there are probably very few other cabbies who feel the same way about cabsharing as me. I appear about halfway through the clip, starting at 1:20. In response to the reporter's question, I simply try to say that all New Yorkers and visiting guests of every socioeconomic status should feel like they have financial access to taxicabs as often as the wealthy elite seem to.

If someone higher up on the ladder would relinquish some of the fortune they make off of the NYC taxi industry, perhaps drivers could make an income more in line with their grueling efforts, and other hardworking people wouldn't have to limit their taxi rides to the days they're late for work. But none on top would sacrifice for the greater good, so at least maybe a plan like this might help. And it would benefit the environment.

GUMPTION IS ESSENTIAL

NICE RUN: A CONSECUTIVE STREAM OF WORTHWHILE FARES. Mind you this developed during the otherwise slow mid morning downtime hours....

I fished two foreigners from the art galleries district at 10:15 am and ferried them to the Upper West by 10:30 ($16). Ten minutes later I had crossed over to the Upper East and caught yet a bigger fish. She'd just left dental surgery and mumbled a need to go to downtown Brooklyn. Clear and steady down the FDR and over the oldest bridge got us there by 11:00 ($25). The destination immediately became a point of origin when a lost couple approached the cab in search of Atlantic Yards Mall.

Upon dropping, a right turn on Atlantic Avenue yielded more fruit: a business lady who couldn't wait on the bus anymore ($10 for those two little fares). Within five minutes of that short trip into Cobble Hill I was positioned in the right place at the right time for a fare from the Heights to Kips Bay. She was a classic character of a Gothamite, although not memorable, aside from $20 made in 20 minutes.

Around the corner from that drop I came across an older lady with more humility and inner peace than all of that week's passengers combined. And like an angelic godsend, she had me stop on the very corner of 23rd and 9th where a younger girl and her suitcase awaited a yellow cadmium airlift to La Guardia. $37 in 35 minutes (gracious tip for graceful service).

Sitting outside Terminal B for the following 90 minutes might have seemed like the end of this "nice run", but the magic wasn't over yet. After a nice lunch break among the idle yellow rows of the central holding lot, a kindhearted couple from Toronto had me transport them to Gansevoort Hotel ($40 for friendliness and funicular finesse). The moment we pulled up, a doorman offered me a fare right back to La Guardia again. He wouldn't take my tip, but instead shook my hand and said, "you're the nicest cabdriver this taxi stand has seen today".

A rather pushy dude from southern California stumbled out of the lobby and made me guarantee him a $30 maximum. I said sure. It had been his first ever visit to NYC and the occassion was his 40th birthday. By 4 pm we were at the airport and he dished out $37 for the $30.10 on the meter. Must have been an enjoyable ride. With that it was time to return the cab and call it a day.

Long story short I grossed $200 in under 6 hours, which isn't incredible, but generally satisfactory considering I started that shift at 6:30 am, paid the garage $105 for licensed vehicle usage, and $25 at the gas pump. I had the overhead covered by the time this "nice run" began, so the math calculated out to around $15 an hour this time around. Not bad with the economy and all.

POLAR OPPOSITE OF A KICK IN THE BALLS

HERE'S A CAPRICIOUS APPETIZER OF BULLETINS FROM THE CAB.... FOLLOWED BY A DESSERT OF TAXI FLASHBACKS FROM THE FIRST FEW DAYS OF BECOMING A HACK: DON'T FORGET TO SCROLL DOWN FOR THAT.

• De la Ciudad de Panama: a random hairstylist on vacation.

• A proud 3rd year resident surgeon at Mt. Sinai. Too full of himself. Almost lost his cool when I crossed the park at 86th instead of his usual 96th. But it was 5am on a Sunday morning. Perhaps a bit too robotically wired as well.

• I like to play geographical trivia with my passengers and I always break the ice by asking them to give me just the first letter of the place they're from. Nine times out of 10 I can guess it. But this time I had a 'tricky' Greek guy in the cab. Since his accent all but gave that away, I asked him to give me the 1st letter of where in Greece he's from. He said 'K', which threw me off completely because in English they don't spell Crete with a K. Oh well. Win some, lose some.

• My windshield smashed into an airborne pigeon for the first time. These slovenly beautiful creatures tend to glide low and stroll about near wheels, but always manage to slip out of the way, no matter how impossible it seems. But not this time. Headed west on W57th, full throttle with a near replica of my little sister, who was running late to manage a booth at Pier 94. She witnessed it and tried to calm me down because my karma nosedived when I saw those fluffy gray feathers fly out like a fatal pillow fight. It felt like a hit-and-run. I came back after I dropped her off and felt relieved not to find any birds or their guts lying on the roadside. But who know what may have happened. I was prepared to take the pigeon to the nearest vet clinic.

• Two southern ladies got in and began what sounded like a lively conversation. As we soared downtown and the minutes went by, their interactions were sounding less and less coherent. All of a sudden I realized that they had each gotten on their cell phone at the same time and had not been chatting with each other at all. But their intervals of speech had been right on the ball.

• Another instance of unintentionally odd passengers was the tipsy Latino I took out to Flushing. We spoke in solid English the entire ride and I hadn't revealed my Castilian fluency, not through accent, appearance, or otherwise. He blabbered the whole time, but used not a single word in Spanish. And at the end, all of a sudden, he burped and said, "izquierda" (left).

• Captain Sully, who landed an airplane in the Hudson River, has warned the airline industry that if they keep making pay cuts, they'll see their most skilled and experienced pilots end up leaving, in search of more worthwhile endeavors. It's funny to me how similar this predicament is to that of the truly talented, knowledgeable, and downright caring cabdrivers, slowly making their exit out of the taxi industry, due to mounting animosities set forth by the NYPD, the TLC, the DOT, the GPS/credit card people, TAXI TV, the greedy garages, city hall, and anyone else involved in making our lives impossible, simply because they've decided to either put a negative label on all of us or just take advantage of our helplessness.
  

SO I FORGOT THESE NEXT FEW POSTS EVEN EXISTED. I FOUND THEM IN THE OLD BACKLOGS OF MY LIVE JOURNAL ACCOUNT. I HAD MOVED TO NEW YORK FROM FLORIDA IN THE SPRING OF 2006. IN THE 6 MONTHS LEADING UP TO THE BEGINNING OF MY LIFE AS A CABDRIVER, WITH THE HELP OF TWO SHORT-LIVED OCCUPATIONS, I HAD LEARNED NOT ONLY MY WAY AROUND, BUT HOW TO MANAGE IN THE UNIQUE CHAOS OF NYC TRAFFIC:

#1. Bike messengering for champion courier in Manhattan.
#2 Box truck driving for Hercules Movers, Inc. all over the tri-state area.

Early October 2006: I was lucky to have Abel Zamora, a doddering Chilean, as my taxi school teacher. Since 1972 he's been driving cabs in NYC and his aura glowed 10 times brighter than any professor I ever had in college. 30 classmates representing 15 nationalities, all shy at first, but loudly debating advantageous routes to common destinations by the end of our 1 week crash course. A wide range of thick accents pervading the room, of mostly south central Asian, East European, and west African origin. Teacher would quiz us questions on the geography of New York City. I'd let 5 erroneous answers get yelled out before giving him the correct one. During breaks many students would come over with their road atlases and request my help getting oriented with the landmarks and traffic patterns. Stories of my bicycle messaging days would surface and so would giggles. I think this made them more considerate of 2 wheelers, having been shown that bicyclists are human beings and even cabbies too sometimes. No women attended the class, but that doesn't mean I haven't seen women cabdrivers on the street, cause I have.

Our curriculum consisted of bridges, tunnels, one ways, squares, parks, avenue endings, rules regarding customers fornicating in the back seat and service animals for disabled patrons, major thoroughfares of each borough, random changes in street names and numbers, appropriate metered fare calculations, transversals connecting the UWS with the UES, rare access ramps to highways, fire hydrant exceptionalities, determining cross sections using unique formulas of NYC address algebra, parallel and perpendicular intersections, compass directionalities, and more.

I passed taxi test with a 92. It's been 2 almost weeks now, so we're talking 48 hours or so remaining before that taxi license snails into the mail. Between the money orders, licensing, drug testing, the class, the exam, being unemployed since I got back from Florida, and sending mother a bulk of chinese herbal pills she requested, I managed to go completely broke. So I returned to that moving company again and did the furniture hauling one more time for a handful of days. That job is so much easier in the cold weather than it was in the summer. Nothing but a t-shirt on at the end of October in suburban NJ. But I'm looking forward to dropping the boxes and picking up the steering wheel.

October 25, 2006: Taxi school is over and the final exam too. These last two hurdles now behind me, but yet another bureaucratic delay: the actual Taxi license takes 10 days to get mailed. Similar to a month ago when I had to wait for DMV to mail me a NY State driver license.

The moment my 'hackie' card arrives, I will rent out my 1st every yellow cab for a 12 hour shift. From then until mid December I won't stop hustling these streets on four wheels, except to sleep. I know some of you think I'm just adding to the loud, gasoline-obsessed, bicycle-hating madness of our developed world, but it's been a dream of mine since 1st grade. In 2 months I'll walk away from this hyper-stimulating metropolis with a few thousand dollars that will sustain my worldly travels for an unspecified amount of time off, beginning with Latin America and Europe. But before I hit the int'l road, I'll stop in Florida again, to recharge inner batteries among family and friends

November 19, 2006: The taxi license landed in my hands three days ago. I had to go pick it up, cause it was mailed back to the commission since no one had been home to sign on it when it arrived. Out of the handful of yellow cab garage facilities, I picked one closest to the cluster of apartments where I couch surf, which, by the way, all happen to be in the same vicinity..... Brooklyn's northern neighborhoods of B'wack, Bed-Stuy, and W'amsburg.

J&I Maintenance, a fleet of both newer and older cabs, hired me with an agreement to work 5 days a week: Sun to Thurs. 12 hour shifts, from 4am to 4pm. Renting out the cab for a discounted $85 per shift. Cab hits the streets with a full tank of gas and I must return it that way. Aside from that, I keep every dollar the meter charges, plus tips. An income of pure cash, no check cashing hassles.

Yesterday was my first day. Up until dawn things were slow. No one out on the streets to pick up. But between 8 and 2, the minute a passenger would exit the cab, a new one would step inside for a ride. It totaled out to 19 fares, each one with its own unique destination, and fluctuating levels of occupancy, talkativeness, formality, impetuosity, and generosity. New Yorkers in a serious hurry, entering my cab like winds of a hurricane, uttering nothing to me but the cross streets, and occasional lane change requests, like the backseat drivers that they are. On their cellulars the entire duration of the ride, asserting demands from who knows who, via numerous brief calls. Tourists chatting amongst each other in their native tongue, inquiring me about all the peculiar sitings outside the window, with destinations like Rockefeller Center, Penn Station, Sheraton Hotel, and Cooper Square. All of them hailing me down from the edge of the sidewalk with their right hand in their air.

Even got to take an investor to Wall Street, an old lady and her grand-daughter to the end of Sheepshead Bay, these two Japanese businessmen from Terminal 1 at JFK airport to Midtown, and plenty of other special people with special destinations. It's nice having Sabbaths off for sure. And I'm serious about going anywhere in New York and its surroundings to pick up a friend or friend of a friend and delivering them wherever it may be. 1.800-825-1713 (NO LONGER VALID). I love this job more than any other one I've ever had. It's even better than figure modeling for drawing students in art classrooms, or being Jim Baker's right hand as we clean out his Secret Garden. God only knows how hard those are to beat.

The insane occupation of guiding a checkered yellow missile through the electromagnetic streets of this atomic city is more mind blowing than I had ever imagined. At the end of the twelve hour shift a sadness sets in that is comparable to an action-packed video game addiction. Eyes all swollen from being fixated upon a turbulent screen, butt cheeks numb from sitting, and bladder bruised from holding urine for too many hours, due to lack of legal pit stop spots throughout Manhattan.

December 2, 2006: Being a YELLOW TAXI CAB driver in NEW YORK equals a happiness I haven't felt since I was a playground child. It erases conventional limitations and elicits meaning from its erratic surroundings like no other. The city breathes, wrestles, and implodes upon itself with each passing minute. Cabbies are perpetually engaged in its effervescence. Our immaculate sense of distance, space, and the intuition to know what split second decisions might be made by pedestrians and bicyclists. The way we shift lanes, left to right and back, accelerating and breaking with a 40mph range from one second to the next. Coming within inches of buses, trucks, and each other. Yet no collisions whatsoever. Zilch!

Like a cockroach whose nervous system allows it to dodge your every swat with no thought processing, or sperm racing eggbound as seen through a microscope. A four lane avenue might suddenly become a single lane, and it doesn't stop the blood cells from flowing right past the clot. Driving in the city yields such sensory stimulation overload, forcing me to pull over at any open gap to jot down thoughts and ideas. That's when a customer might walk up, open the door, step in, and say 3rd and 50th please, before returning to their cellular conversation. I often make the mistake of assuming that they're still talking to me. I respond wholeheartedly, only to find myself 'embarrassed' for interrupting their call. Especially when they say, "good morning, how are you?"... but not to me.

This trade might very well be the one with the most tricks. There's slick solutions to every complication. Some that I can't even express out loud. The main cause for jams and gridlock in NYC are motorists from out of town who attempt to cross an intersection even though it's obvious that they won't clear the box, hence blocking everyone with a newly green light. That's when 100 horns go off, each with its own exclusive pitch, creating an orchestra of numbness. Combating this involves jolting forward, cautiously yet assertively, the moment the light switches to yellow on them.

Inconsiderate passengers take advantage of their backseat heating controls and leave it blasting after they've exited. I'm prefer windows rolled down while the cab is empty, since I'm wearing layers of warmth. I'm forced to park and squeeze my head through the narrow partition slit to turn the damn thing off.

Some fascinating passengers have included a woman with multiple sclerosis on her lunch break, trying to get a dozen errands done via taxi. Or the wealthy family on their way to dad's panoramic office view in Midtown on Thanksgiving morning for the big Macy's parade. We stop at a bakery so he can grab them breakfast and there's this poor man stumbling down the sidewalk, crying. So I motion him over. Says his apartment in the Bronx caught fire yesterday and his entire family's homeless. The kids in my cab are stunned, but their mommy casually says,"oh that's so sad" in a sarcastic tone. I jump out, hug, and hand him a Jefferson. He stresses he's not a begger and refuses it. Does wealth have the power to make people insensitive to human pain?

Then there's the fancy young trench coat woman on route to the Upper EastSide. She requests,"90th & Park, far right corner" with outstanding insolence. I knew she was trouble from the get go. At the destination there are 3 cars standing right where she wants off, so I float ahead to the nearest vacancy. "Oh, MY GOD, I'm practically at 91st Street at this point", she exclaims with disgust. She can't stand to walk 30 extra feet. I almost dragon-fired her right out of my cab. The lack of worldly perspective on some of these people. Outrageous!

So many more passenger stories, good and bad ones, I'll have to tell you face to face some day. Let me just leave you with this last quick bit... every black passenger is so relieved to see a cab stop for them with such effort, like from the opposite side of a busy street, the way I have. Makes you wonder what they go through to catch one. Actually, I was late to the work one morning, so I caught a cab to the taxi garage. On route the cabbie shared all his suggestions with me on how to do things. On was to pretend I don't see blacks when they hail me, and ignore white hailers on the same block, so no one'll play the race card.

I've calculated my daily earnings and they're averaging out to around $15 an hour. The other day I waited in the taxi lot at La Guardia Airport. Next to the ocean of yellow cars I saw a snack stand with the same basic things as inside the terminals, but for a small fraction of the price. This be a hint hint for anyone hungry at an airport from now on. While waiting to move forward in line, some cabbies were feeding pigeons. Others were gathered on their prayer rugs, bowing before Allah. A scene of foreign serenity amidst this domestic flight hub.

15 CLAMORINGLY ABSTRACT POTSHOTS

#1. A cocktail waitress from Winnipeg: home to Astoria from the bowling alley on West 42nd.
#2. An elder trio from Minsk: to church service in Boerum Hill from their doorstep in the E.V..
#3. The skinny version of Morgan Freeman goes 4 dollars worth and says, "God be with you".
#4. Windshield gets dangerously dusty on the newly salted expressway and urine flies unto your face when you pour the piss bottle out the window to substitute the empty washer fluid tank. You can call it 'minimal maintenance' on the fleet garage's part.
#5. Maori father and son who just immigrated here (NYC) from New Zealand now find themselves not driving fast, but flying low from Chinatown to Sutton Place and breaking the sound barrier in a cadmium yellow light.
#6. I often get the straphangers who never take cabs, but are running late to work. These MTA aficionados and the bartenders who do a marvelous job of empathizing are the best tippers of all. They know our professions put us up against the worst mental states NYC has to offer.
#7. Hannah Temple boards the front seat of the taxicab for a couple hours of co piloting and part of the plan is to roll past the evening's scheduled humanitarian Gaza demonstration in Manhattan, but out of the hundreds that show up, everyone gets either arrested, sent to the hospital in an ambulance, or promptly escorted back to subway pits and parked cars on parallel avenues, courtesy of NYPD on bullhorns in paddywagons and on foot. Hooray for freedom of speech!
#8. Swank man pops out of Webster Hall and jumps into your cab. He's visiting from his customized mansion in Western Mass. that he brags about the entire ride. He's here for GlobalFEST '09 and wants a ride back to the Hilton in midtown. That's all fine and dandy, and we even get into a friendly chat about our mutual love of international rhythms. He suggests I attend next year's event because it's well worth the $40 admission. Now mind you the cheapest room at this hotel is $219, plus his gas, tolls, and steep parking rates. He hands me a $100 bill and asks for 10 back on an $8.10 fare. "But sir this is not a twenty" and I hold up the bill. He says, "oh, well in that case gimme 90 back". Not a single utterance of appreciation for this whopping act of honesty. He steps out and doesn't look back. My heart sinks low. I understand these things must be done without expecting anything in return, but this just adds to the feeling of bleak helplessness that comes with providing a service to the best of your abilities and being very poorly compensated for it time and again.
#9. First long distance fare beater in my 28 month cabbie career occurs the following night. It's just past 4 am on a Wednesday morning and I'm idling on the corner of Prince and Thompson in SoHo. People are emptying out of Milady's bar and one guy in his mid 30s comes inside. He sits there silent until I ask, "where to?"
"Queens, take the LIE" is all he says, in a voice almost as shady as this. Twenty minutes later we're in front of his single family unit on Mexico Street in St. Albans. The meter reads $38.20 and he says,"I gotta go inside to get some money. Wait right here." Before I can protest he slips out the cab and into his house. Twenty minutes later he still hasn't come out and I've never called the cops in my life, mostly out of indifference. But this time I feel an urgent thirst for justice. It takes them another twenty minutes to arrive. They wail the siren for a moment and put all their strobe lights on before knocking on the front door. Lights remain on inside but no one answers. They come back shrugging their shoulders. Nothing they can do. They say I should have demanded advance payment but that happens to be highly illegal under TLC rules. I bite my tongue, clench my teeth, and cut my losses by heading to nearby JFK airport.
#10. Zubin rides the front seat of the taxicab to triple check if this is indeed a job he would want to do part time. Looks like the verdict is positive. People hesitate to get in when we respond to their street hail because they think we're undercover cops. He's a substitute teacher in NYC schools and perhaps I should be doing that too. Did it in Florida for a brief period of time. He's an Iranian Jew and when I reverse haphazard yet clear through an intersection to catch a missed street hail he remarks it's a very Persian thing to do, as in very genius.
#11. We pick up the lady who was La Reina de Turkiya at last year's International Coffee Beauty Pageant in Colombia. It was the first time Turkey was ever represented. She's currently couchsurfing among friends in NYC and considering a permanent relocation from Istanbul.
#12. A few days later that plane lands in the Hudson River and when I suggest to a passenger that it should be put in a park and turned into a playground like I've seen them do to old planes in other countries, she gets emotional about how good an idea that is and tips me like 45%.
#13. On MLK, Jr. Day I get this murmury and miserable young Bangali dude in the cab who claims that this holiday is only for the blacks. I don't bother arguing, but what about all the other struggles people like MLKJ stand for. They represent the triumphant human spirit.
#14. Financial absurdities I keep hearing on the radio making me lose momentum in the otherwise perpetual taxicab hustle hunt for rapid rider turnover rates because I see how easily billions of dollars flow above me, while the trickling down takes hundreds upon hundreds of hours to accumulate into an income on the streets. Three new local stadiums are being built next door to older ones that, if you ask any developing or underdeveloped nation, are in near mint condition. The 2nd Avenue subway tunnel might be a need postponed for too long already, but here we are again in the midst of economic depression. That is precisely what stopped this line from being built in the 1930s. And how about that John Thain character? Spending lavishly as CEO and then disappearing so as to leave less of a trail. Who the hell needs an 83.1 million dollar salary? Only someone with a damn heck of a lot of charitable ideas in mind. Not some numskull in an deceitfully ironed suit.
#15. Jenine Bressner of Rhode Island rides shotgun in the taxicab late one Sunday night and our suspicion of being potential soulmates and twin siblings from other nibblings is confirmed. We both have a tremendously vigorous admiration for life and the world as a whole. We absolutely love learning, teaching writing, editing, and being fit on various fronts (muscles, intellect, and spirit). We each have a plethora of future goals that involve the proliferation of our independent artistic endeavors, an ongoing altruistic service to humanity, and ecological homewardboundness. We both have an extensive travel destination list and a commitment not to be merely tourists in our peregrinations. Our lifestyles and ethical stances mirror one another. The both of us are multiethnic Jews who deplore violence and negativity whatsoever. We can more or less communicate in three languages. And juiciest of all, we have an immense physical attraction to each other. The only issue to look out for is that we're both Leos and therefore must be mindful not to burn each other up in contending passions. It's like putting two confident lions or blazing suns next to each other for prolonged periods of time. It can either turn into one unstoppable ball of flame or two charred and wilted carcasses of infatuation. I have reason to trust in the fireball. And no it ain't making holiday stops at the shopping mall this fall.

PLUMP SAMOSAS

Shifting paradigms makes a really slow shift like the day after Christmas go by easier. I just imagine/pretend I live in a Communist state and so my job is not to chase desperately after the widest possible profit margin, but rather to serve the riding public as needed, in return for basic needs (net income on the worst days is literally hand to mouth).

Otherwise I'll drive myself insane to come up with 2 fares an hour. I took an Indonesian couple visiting from San Francisco to a NY Knicks game. They had not known that 'knicks' is short for knickerbockers, nor that 'the Mets' is short for 'the Metropolitans'. Los Metropolitanos (sounds better in Espanol)! Earlier that morning I'd taken a drunk young Jewish hipster home to the corner of Hooper and South 4th. Upon flagging me down by Tompkins Square Park he'd simply said "Williamsburg". I didn't want to pry at first, but as we descended off the bridge I had to ask which exit to use. His index finger flew in every direction. Next thing to come out of his mouth was, "this is Hasidic Williamsburg, I'm not Hasidic", all flustered and claiming he had given me the exact street corner upon entering. The 978th biting of the my own red hot tongue. He later apologized for being drunk and obnoxious.

New Year's eve is supposed to be the most lucrative of all 365 nights to drive a cab in NYC. But I decided to have a life for once. No use risking trouble with lunatic passengers, street closures, and intoxicated motorists. Instead I picked up my old friend Chip from the airport at 23:00 with two bicycles strapped to the trunk and we rotated amongst three parties on two wheels along the north side of Brooklyn. Liquid blankets for the zero degree wind chill and buzz clippers in hand for impromptu dance floor haircuts. 2009 came into view from the roof top terrace with a 360 degree panorama of fireworks and echoes of city wide mirth.

The night ended on a bad note when, at 4:30 am, I brought up the Strip to a circle of revelers. Someone went on to say, "why don't the Gazans go live in Damascus? It's nice there this time of the year." I couldn't help but respond with, "why don't the western Negevites go live in Moscow?" One side wants freedom and the other wants security. Can't become autonomous unless you give us quiet, but you can't give us that unless we give you a viable/workable sense of self determination and the smallest ounce of genuine respect. It's so non existent. Call me crazy, but if I had been the leader of the Zionists in the 1940s, I would have settled all my refugees in an area the size of the Gaza Strip, seeking the least problematic of possible spaces. Perhaps splitting into two enclaves. One on the Mediterranean coast and the other somewhere in the southern Negev. I would have maximized resourcefulness and humble appreciation amongst my population. I would have made sure that those who were already on the land when I got there were consulted with utmost esteem. That would eliminate the need for military defense. One dense, compact urban center or two for the Jews while the rest of Palestine be left to their jurisdiction. With their permission, we would have cooperated on extensive plots of mutual agriculture in the large rural tracts in between. And they would have gladly allowed us access to the biblical landmarks via organized round trip bus/truckloads to and from our enclave(s). This intense bilateral hatred wasn't there before we created it with our arrogant and (who truly knows how) violent push to take over and control every last square kilometer of that beloved territory. Unfortunately it's all or nothing with us (Jews). 'Nothing' being the annihilation we are at risk of experiencing if we continue building a monstrous list of enemies. Why must we be so thick headed? So ignorant of the humility our creator wants us to emulate. Imagine the tremendously beautiful coexistence we could have nurtured if we hadn't bullied our way through all these years. But I was raised in Los Angeles, Texas, and Florida, so what do I know?

A French New Yorker named Arnold got a flat on his brand new luxury SUV on E11th. I was the first cab coming down Third Avenue so I took him to buy one of those instant disposable mini C02 tire inflators from the nearest gas station. I offered to wait on the corner and mount his spare on if this didn't work. Turns out the valve was busted, so my idea was implemented, but not before he wasted another 15 minutes digging under the seats for an imaginary magic pump he claimed came with the SUV, according to the manual he kept perusing under cellular glow. I kept suggesting we bring the spare over to the same nearby station and inflate it there, which he finally succumbed to. He was also stubborn when I warned him of its instability with his wife and baby still inside, while the flimsy jack barely held up one side of his heavy vehicle. At some point someone had come out of their building and asked me to help them lift a delicate, old fashioned baby stroller up three flights of stairs. Almost an hour later Arnold had hit the road again with a smile. I was also wearing one, having received sixty dollars from him, after assuming I had missed out on crucial fares around town. As long as I'm not losing too much income, I love scenarios that go beyond the average taxi stint. Arnold more than reimbursed my time. The effort though was my pleasure.