IN MY CITY

Always lots to see and do here. some of my favorite things include a 9,335 sq. ft. architectural model of NYC containing every single building constructed before 1992 in all 5 boroughs; a total of 895,000 individual structures. at the Queens Museum of Art in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Open Wednesday - Sunday: 12 - 6pm. It's always PAY-AS-YOU-WISH!

And the best eatery ever is:

CURRY LEAVES MALAYSIAN RESTAURANT.

135-31 40th Road Flushing, NY (end of 7 train).

Best Meal: CURRY MEE WITH VEGETABLES ($5).

Open daily 6:30 am until 11:00 pm

CAN'T MAKE IT THERE. YOU PERHAPS?

FREE CONCERTS IN NYC

Summer Stage at Central Park (near E72 and Fifth) is hosting several fantastic upcoming shows:

On Saturday, June 26th, from 3 to 6 PM, three eclectic international bands will play. I'm excited about Omar Souleyman, who has been on the frontline of the dance-folk-pop scene in Syria since 1994. Tinariwen, the pied pipers of social conscience in the southern Sahara, will also be performing. Toubab Krewe, a fusion band from North Carolina, will blend West African music with rock.

On July 3rd, Istanbulive II will go down. Five hours of Turkey's most contemporary sounds, starting at 2 PM. Not quite as traditional as I would've liked, but an intriguing language to hear in song nonetheless. On July 11th, Jimmy Cliff, one of Jamaica's reggae legends, but more importantly (and on the same day): Victor Deme. He's from Burkina Faso and his voice, guitar, and humility are profound!

On August 22nd at 3 PM, The Specials will be playing at that same stage in Central Park. In case you're not two-toned and rude, this British band helped revive Jamaican Ska music in the late 70s and early 80s. Speaking of the 80s, Public Enemy will be on stage August 15th. And on September 26th is the Black Sea Roma Festival. I love 'Gypsy' music!

In addition to Central Park, there are free concerts occurring at several other parks:

Brand Nubian will perform at Crotona Park in the Bronx on June 23rd at 7 PM.

Brooklyn Bandshell in Prospect Park:

July 2nd, at 730 PM, The Fab 5 and Uzalo

July 9th, at 7 PM, Ozomatli/ Fidel Nadal/ Toy Selectah

The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival on August 28th at 3 PM at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, and the 29th at Tompkins Square Park in the Village.

There are many more performances, but these are the once I've highlighted, according to my tastes.

ETERNAL RUMSPRINGA OF THE MUNICIPAL ARRONDISSEMENTS

Dos (2) mapas de dos (2) turnos de dia (day shifts) from this past autumn. 24 hours of slapdash circumstance, split into 2 neutrally bouyant pools of slippery time. All the while building vocabulary, butchering jokes, and discombobulating molecules. It's the life of a happy-go-lucky (but not johnny-come-lately) trilingual taxicab aviator. Without a single traffic light it would feel more like a mid-air flight. The Hebrew letters were stenciled in (courtesy of my art journaling aunt's nifty utensil) on a recent visit to L.A.. Now I just have to find stencils for all the other written tongues I love, but know not yet how to read: Mandarin, Arabic, Hindi, Tibetan, etc.. Early mornings, between fares, the dial is often set to 89.9 FM (non-commercial and student-run), for the soothing ragas and galvanizing reggaes. Robust, complacent, and bionic all at once.

Bedpan Alley on York Avenue: the most boreal fare departure on the green shift (see map color). Bedpan as in how bedridden patients go potty. Alley as in a cluster of medical institutions. Boreal as in closest to the arctic. The corner that Ansche Chesed is on took that title on the red shift, while Lehmen Center for the Performing Arts in Bedford Park (Bronx) made the cut for septentrion terminus, and all the way from Sunnyside (Queens) of all places. The green shift's answer to that was the intersection that is home to Kieselstein-Cord and L'Ocitanne on the Upper East.

Yana, a friend from Moscow, was my guest of honor during the first eight fares of the green shift. She has always dreamed of driving a taxicab, but felt less so after this first-hand experience. I've never been a passenger of hers, but I know her personality would turn her into a great cabbie.

Many homeless panhandlers have told me that the only motorists who hand them change are cabdrivers. I believe it. We might not be without a roof over our heads, but we're on a frontline in the basic human struggle to survive. We must forge our way ahead, or be left behind just the same, because unlike the lawyers, surgeons, psychiatrists, engineers, managers, etc.... society has yet to assign a sustainable value to our endless efforts, those of us who try (our best.)

I imagine that, like me, most cabbies in NY have their preferred territorial turf to hunt for fares. Of course, you have your perpetual hotel and taxi stand loungers. And many of us wander aimlessly up and down the avenues without giving much thought to strategy or any sense of hyperlocal inclination. Union Square is the nucleus of my cruising grounds. Anything below 29th Street is Kosher in my kitchen. Anything above it and I feel like a fish out of water. Unless a passenger requests to be driven up there, I don't bother with Midtown, or Uptown for that matter. I'd rather go to Brooklyn.

I'm a downtown cabbie. I like my Villages, my Chelsea, and my Chinatown. Long live Alphabet City, the LES, and the FiDi. You can catch me in TriBeCa, NoMad, NoHo, NoCa, and the Civic Center. Less stress, less traffic congestion, less pretentiousness, less police harassment, and less of the dull, mainstream tourists. More locals and visitors alike who can actually think outside the box and/or appreciate history, art, music, diversity, honorable character, and quality cabdrivers. I know it's not as cut and dry as I'm making it sound. You have assholes, dimwits, snobs, and lame cops everywhere. But I know which communities I can serve with a stronger sense of eagerness and belonging.

Lastly, let's step out of our little bubble for a minute and take a look two things that I'm not very happy about :

#1. Israel ruining what's left of its diplomatic ties with Turkey and the world by being a naval bully.

#2. Guatemala being devastated by two 'natural' disasters in two days.

real life cartogram radio robot dance

Photo Credit: Marilynn K. Yee/ The New York Times

Ever since I was little my geographic imagination and infatuation with ultra urban landscapes has been off the wall. Whenever the daydreamer in me stares at cracks in the sidewalk, they look to me like tributaries leading to rivers and so on. If the cracks are straight lines they represent streets, especially if there are ants navigating along them in both directions.

Many of us taxi drivers who keep blogs tend to include a blog roll for our network of fellow taxi scribes. These rolls are often set up to display the one that most recently posted an entry, and so on down the line. In essence, we take turns jumping to the front of the pack, just like taxicabs in traffic. Those of us who take a nap on the curb or at the airport end up remaining in the same spot at the back of the line. How analogous.

I'll never forget my dad's story about a waiter who asked him if he wanted soup or salad. He thought they said, "would you like super salad?" When he answered, "yes please!," the waiter got annoyed and asked again. "Soup....or salad?" There were so many other options through the course of the meal that my dad was the one who became annoyed. Sometimes I feel like the waiter, and I assume the passenger feels like my dad.

Do you want that in the trunk?
Do you want to go up Sixth or Eighth?
Do you have a crosstown street that you prefer?
Do you want the left or the right side?
Do you want the near or the far corner?
Are you paying cash or credit?
Do you want the receipt?

THREE FAST NOTEWORTHY FARES OF RECENT:

1) In the Flower District I was hailed by a trio with lots of nursery merchandise, including a mid-sized tree in a large planter that had to fit across the floorboard, over their laps, and out the window. It all worked out just fine.

2) A couple got in with their newborn infant and joked about how they don't want to wake the baby because if he started to cry the cabdriver would kick them out of the taxi. That always-present initial ice broke right then and there. I didn't even have to make an effort. The rest of the ride was sweet and hilarious. It was nice to be reminded that there are people out there who still think of cabdrivers as human-- not a robot you can switch on and off, who emotionlessly listens to the re TV ads behind his head all day (which make it nearly impossible to have symbiotic communication with the passenger). A robot who can't make or receive any phone calls either, obviously because robots don't require any sort of interpersonal interaction. 12 hours of complete isolation a day? No problem!

3) A strung- out filmmaker hopped in on Bedford in Williamsbug. He had a cow in the backseat when he realized he spilled lens cleaner all over his video camera, because the cap came loose inside of his bag. He called up a colleague and the destination changed from somewhere in SoHo to the camera shop on Canal and Walker.

Valerie Smaldone, the graceful radio personality on news talk 710 am, aired an interview she conducted with an awkward, less-than-eloquent cabdriver on May 13th, during her lunchtime program on the hidden little facts of New York. The lucky cabdriver to be featured that day happened to be me. Here's a link to the on-demand podcast. My two minute segment of audial fame can be found toward the end of the show, around 75% of the way through.....

http://67.72.16.166/wor/2382022.mp3

AN EXCITING SHOW COMING UP IN BROOKLYN
MARCHING BANDS AND SKA BANDS ARE SOME OF MY FAVES....
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115222455162251

Tomorrow is Int'l Roma Day

Collage Spread From An Old Journal

In the final days of 2004 I started filling this sketchbook with depictions of thoughts, actions, and the observations that inspired them. At the time I had just completed 5 years of college. I'd been working full time (simultaneously) to cover tuition, so I only had 10 or so thousand dollars worth of loans left to pay off. But my intolerance of accruing interest led to an obsession over odd jobs to obliterate my debt.

My degree to be an elementary educator never fully appealed to me. I love children, but I'm no fan of rigid classroom structures. I prefer to be out and about, teaching (and learning) things, but not necessarily anything in particular (just yet.)

My Leo horoscope instructed me to spread my good intentions; be brave in promoting my ideals; ramp up my powers of persuasion to a new level; but not waste my time trying to win over dumb beasts, bad listeners, and narrow-minded dogmatists. To this day, over 5 years later, I remain in that battle.... but like the weaker person in an arm wrestling match, whose hand is perpetually tilted backwards, but never all the way against the table. Forever in it to win it!

FOOTSIE NOTES:

1. AYUDA MUTUA means mutual aid in Espanol.

2. THE PIONEER ANOMALY is an observed deviation from predicted trajectories and velocities of various "unmanned spacecraft", most notably Pioneer 10, 11, and my life.

3. Oscar Wilde once said, "a cynic knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing."

4. Farid El Atrash, born Syrian, raised in Egypt, is widely considered "king of the Oud."

SCRUMPTIOUS SNIPPETS FROM 1/25/10

It was the one year anniversary of my beloved Jenine and I. I spent the later part of the day caged inside 4H55, earning what would become a near personal record-breaking net profit of $272 for 13 hours of navigation on a Monday night in this nefarious metroplex.... all while wishing I was with her, whether in her state or mine. Ocean or Empire. Many say long distance relationships only last if they are the real deal. This one has proven true, through and through. Here are the high and low-lights from that lonesome taxi shift of 37 fares (that became less melancholic when Fela Kuti filled the radio with his perfect soundtrack to taxi driving at night. If you're not familiar with his music, what a pity).

16:00: a scruffy duo of Dutch men in show biz enter the cab near the Fashion Institute of Technology en route to West 4^th. Each is on his own cellular call, but both dialogues center around some film shoot in Cape Town. All in English. No trace of Afrikaans. I get nine for a $7.40 fare. That's a 22% tip.

Down the block enters a woman who reminds me of my step grandmother (a psychologist in L.A.). En route to Chelsea I guess (out loud) she's an NYU professor, based on where I picked her up and her demeanor. I'm correct! She teaches law, and although a bit jaded, holds a pleasant chat with her inquisitive cabdriver. I get eight for a $6.30 fare. That's a 27% tip.

17:00: Scoop up a fare from Soho to La Guardia. Lady in a suit who came here on a business day-trip from Chicago is home bound. Her fingers are crossed because apparently it's snowing heavily there. I get thirty for a $22.90 fare. That's a 31% tip! My wait at the airport is brief and I'm soon city-bound again with yet another pleasant lady in a suit, who also flew in from Chicago (for a corporate meeting tomorrow). She had been stuck at O'hare International for several hours (due to weather) and she is ready to call it a night at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown, but we end up in an unexpected traffic jam on the QMT tunnel approach.

I felt bad because I told her this was the quickest way there during the evening rush, since most of the congestion is often outbound along this route at that hour. 1010 WINS finally clarifies the situation. There are emergency roving pothole repairs in progress near the toll booths. She tells me not to stress out about it. I get forty for a $35.37 fare (far more expensive than it should be). Precisely why she gave me a 13% tip. Far more expensive than it should have been. I wonder about the fate of the other lady's flight (and Chi-town cab ride home?). Delays abound about the land.

18:00: A retired Finnish double date on vacation (and staying at the Roosevelt) step in as soon as she steps out. They're heading to a hockey game at Mad Square tonight. They're fond of the Rangers because talented Finnish players have historically lined their ranks. We got into other histories too. Like that of Finland itself. Ruled by Sweden, then Russia, and finally independent. I mentioned a movie on my favorite films list about a 3-way language barrier that didn't stop two enemy soldiers and an indigenous Laplander from becoming friends. It's called Kukushka and they had indeed seen it (and agreed it's superb). I really like it when someone from the actual country a film is set in approves of that film. Gives me the right to keep advertising it. Got thirteen for an $11.60 fare. That's a 12% tip.

20:00: A couple hours later I was back in the Penn Station vicinity. I was hailed by two women who had taken the day off from work to take Amtrak up to Albany, to join a large demonstration against contamination of water caused by the extraction of natural gas, which the governor recently gave the green light for in several sensitive sections of upstate NY. Both ladies wore professional attire. One was Taiwanese. The other was Filipina. I dropped them each off in their respective neighborhoods of Chelsea and Greenwich Village. Got twelve for a $10.40 fare. That's a 16% tip.

21:00: Barely noteworthy, but definitely the blockheaded simpleton of the night. He was a schmuck in a suit, slightly younger than I am, with a sense of entitlement more inflated than a hot air balloon. I only had my own window down when he got in, and it wasn't like the interior of the cab was cold. The first thing he said was "roll up the windows." Not a please or a thank you in sight, and with condescension in his tone and persona. "Is that good?," I asked, upon leaving only a crack open for my own sanity. "I guess," he replied, with the audacity of a 5 year old. The rest of the ride was silent. Got ten for a $9.10 fare from Hell's K to No Ho. That's a 10% tip. Like I said, not much of a story, but it infuriated me. I have anger in my genes and too much pride on my zodiac sign.

But it didn't take me long to cool off because of the grace and humor with which my next passengers treated me. They were an older couple who commute down from the Mohegan Sun resort once a week to teach Casino Business at NYU. They were heading up to Grand Central so I instantly guessed that they had parked their car in New Haven and jumped on the MTA North. Damn I'm good at guessing geographical technicalities. That's the second time in one shift I transported NYU professors and played a guessing game with them. Got eleven for an $8.20 fare. That's a 34% tip!

02:30: a young, native New York couple get a ride from a bar on Bedford to their Ridgewood apartment. She's Guyanese, and by the way he treats her, he's a prick (who claims to love farting because of the fuzzy feeling he gets down below.) "That's because your prostate is right next to your ass," I remark, in a smart aleck tone. All the while I'm pondering how she should just get a strap-on and help him achieve more of that anal pleasure he was talking about, instead of putting up with his perpetual verbal abuse. He did tip me better than anyone else that night, and I am frankly appreciative of that. His intoxication allowed him to be more sensitive toward how effortful and efficient I was at my job. Got twenty six for a $13.90 fare. That's an 87% tip!

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!

diurnal tachycardia

Hybrid taxicabs have crept up and infiltrated the iconic streams of Crown Vic for many months now. Though I remain the steer of an old school icon, I've become increasingly ashamed of not making the effort to find a garage that would lease me a hybrid. That was until now.

I just read something quite disturbing in the taxi newsletter. It turns out that just as compact fluorescent bulbs defeat their own energy efficient purpose when you repeatedly turn them on and off, hybrid vehicles emit more CO2 than conventional ones when used in the extreme stop and go conditions found in places like New York (nothing compares). I'm not sure this information is entirely accurate. It might be a ploy on behalf of traditionalists. I myself am what you'd call a flexible tenacity slicker. Therefore, although I adhere to my perspectives with passion, I'm simultaneously on guard for and urgently open to epiphanies, whether internal or imported, that could flip those views upside down, right on their ass.

Both scenarios involve the irony of the apparatus requiring more juice to start up and less to keep going. I've always had a splinter in my cortex about burning fossil fuels for a living. But every time I've expressed these concerns to eco-sensible peers, I've received the same comforting response. A city full of taxicabs is several times more sustainable than a city full of private vehicles. And on top of that, I do an unquestionably good job at it. By that I mean a stellar combination of....
-acutely galvanic maneuverings
-geographical acclimatization
-a voraciously assertive attitude
-blunt honesty about traffic patterns, ETAs, and fare estimations
-an overly accommodating approachability
(especially towards guests of our city)
-utmost respect for bicyclists and busdrivers
(minimal amounts for anyone else)
-the ability to navigate organically through swarms of pedestrians without costing anyone behind you the light (letting three cross the walk and then squeezing by before the next three)

All of these and a whole lot more are essential to a genuinely adequate NYC cabdriver. More than people want to give it credit for. We're not white collars. Nor are we blue. We're cadmium yellow light. Prepare for supersonic flight and the respite of an elevated kite.

I keep a pouch in the cab that contains both the free NYC condoms that I pass out to passengers and the Emergen-C packets that I occasionally pour into my jug of H2O. Sometimes I'll find myself accidentally having reached for the wrong one when my eyes must remain glued on the road. You can't pour a condom into your water. It won't boost your immune system. Speaking of that, I often bring a couple cloves of garlic on board to chew on, and its odor befuddles some of my fares.

I love it when the early parts of a shift line up perfectly like a row of Tetris cubes. Last Friday I hit the streets at 04:00. Off the Q Boro, I followed Lex to 23rd. Three dozen blocks on the tail end of a bar night and no fare? Time to get ill. One vacant cab split to the right. Another sped straight through. Up for grabs was the left. That Third Avenue light and I always synchronize with each other. Round the bend to the right stand two men hailing. Off to South Slope in the BK we go, all clubbed out and talkative. Less than a block away from where we said our goodbyes, in jumps un Mexicano con mariachi, meritoriously loud in his ears. "Roosevelt and Junction (Corona) please." That's not one, but two fares of $30 or more in under an hour. Eminence!

Fatigue overcame me early this morning while fare fishing in Carnegie Hill. I pulled over and laid my head down for 45 minutes, while remaining in the driver seat. During that time I had a dream about some lady with a dog on a leash that was looking for a taxi. She'd seen my vacant cab first, but then made a face and tried to run over to another cab. Each time the cab would become occupied before she could reach it. So she'd turn back reluctantly towards me. She repeated this cycle what seemed like a dozen times, until all of a sudden someone jolted me back into consciousness by knocking clamorously on my window. Standing there outside my hovercraft was a statuesque executive with a uniquely deep voice, asking if I was available. As we pulled away from that nourishing curb, I noticed how fresh the nap had made me. But I could use a taxi dream interpreter.

Actually, something somewhat similar to that dream occurred within a couple hours of that nap. An older Japanese couple from Rhode Island opened my back door and began to step inside, only to suddenly step repugnantly back out. It had been raining and this couple was profusely reiterating that the seat was wet, while escaping over to the taxi behind me. While that driver was refusing to take them for having an outer borough destination, I was wiping off the back seat (merely moist) with my stash of stray napkins. They noticed my effort and came bouncing back again. I smilingly let them know that they could have simply brought the 'wetness' calmly to my attention and waited 5 seconds for me to address the problem. No need to run off and try to catch another cab. After all, they were merely going on leisurely visit to their daughter's condo in Brooklyn. It turned out to be a real enjoyable ride for them and I alike, full of fascinating conversational points. They asked why I hadn't become a limo chauffeur, like the guy who drove them in from the Ocean State. Thought bubble: "Because then I would have been too busy kissing your delicate buttocks to have any time for an intriguing, down-to-earth chat like this."

On a shorter note, one of Ben Harper's tour managers jumped in my cab on Avenue C and begged me to rush him up to his Upper West Side hotel. I must say, that was one of the most delightful fares I've had in a while. We talked about growing up on the southwestern quadrant of the Los Angelino sprawl. I lived in the part of that vicinity known as Lomita from ages 4 to 11, and it really helped shape who I am today. He was born, raised, and still lives a few neighborhoods over, in what is known as Inglewood. He mentioned growing up on the same block as Pharcyde and watching them go from inconspicuous jam sessions to stardom in a matter of months. Our conversation immediately led to a thorough mutual listing of the Jazziest horn samplings from Hip Hop's golden age, of which we are both very fond.

BAILIWIX AND BIVOUAX

Read (rap) these homemade lyrics to the beat of this instrumental:

Self appointed guardians of the status quo
Plainclothes detail struck with its own ammo
A deported Dominican at Queensbridge station
only tried to avoid some Metro card inflation

But who's a cabdriver to judge the situation
Roles would undergo weekly rotation if we had our way
Bus drivers, traffic agents learning empathy the hard way
Chess matches manifest in brain cell expulsion via urination
Without pointing at an empty bottle like taxi percolation

Cops hide out by the south exit ramp with a perpetually painful paper fine
For those coming off the FDR unto Houston without stopping at the sign
Little kid in the cab asks his mom: 'is it better to be early or on time?'
And when we arrive he asks 'are we late?' you know he's in line...
Phenomenal we're malleable as clay and yet some other mom allows her child to play
with the backseat GPS screen during payment with a credit card
and almost beats the fare by denying cash confirmation with no regard

A Chicago businessman bounces out of hotel 41 and hasn't had breakfast thus far
Cabbie asks if he wants to grab a slice as they roll passed the 99 cent pizza bazaar
Odd questions like this hurled from the front seat make a square feel awkward as fuck
But hey eccentric hacks can have exceptional knacks and still deliver the hurried puck
Just figured it made sense to sacrifice 10 seconds and undo two famished bellies
But this suit had no trust that both the means and the end could be smooth as strawberries

There's no shortage of white collar criminals, they're practically everywhere
Beijing reroutes water from thousands of miles and it's a loss that the farmers bare.
Four elder intellectualists crowd into the cab on their way to an art museum nearby
One of them compares collage journaling to visual hip hop, which nearly makes me cry.

On the next post you'll see a list of traffic regulations for each Manhattan intersection
and a list of all the other jobs that I've had since the age of 16 and their effects on my soul
And a list of peculiar prerequisites for the soul mate I haven't met before.
It's been plenty of years since I've had to find myself looking at the front door.

Gimme 22 minutes, I'll give you the world.

Before I go into tales of cabdriving, I'd like to invite my dearest New Yorkers on a bicycle adventure this Saturday (5th). It's my only day off. A friend and I plan to pedal through Flushing Meadows Park, stop by the Queens art museum, ride over the GW/Bayonne bridges for great views of NYC from NJ, and board the SI ferry back into town. I have an extra bike. Get in touch.

This past Friday I drove the PM shift for the first time. Just wanted to get a taste. No plans to make it a habit cause my body gets better rest at night. First fare a Dutch couple I mistook for Scandinavians. They taught me the correct pronunciation of Brooklyn (Breukelen) and swapped spots with a traditional Texan family en route to a sybaritic restaurant on the UES. The aging macho father sits up front, annoyed at his newly married daughter's back seat inquiries: "Dad, do you want to visit the cigar bar after dinner? But first we have to find out if blue jeans are allowed." They're in for a disappointment. Soon the roles are a switched again, with a sumptuous, semi-elder French mossback couple entering and uttering a single word: "Peninsula". Nightly rates at that place and the size of my tip are like night and day. I guess its exact address should have been in my rote memorization, along with 40,000 other locations. Or perhaps I should have gone to taxi school in London, not Queens Plaza. I'll remember places I can relate to. So, no, saying "it's by abercrombie & fitch" doesn't clarify anything. I swear it's so much more fun, less time consuming, more spiritually rewarding, and just as lucrative to take two working class women to the nearest subway station from their alphabet city housing project. After that it's on to some intoxicated dude duo that stumbles out of a busy club and politely request Penn Station. All trip long, one deplores the other for having made out with someone who had an ugly face. "Yeah, but the rest of her body was nice." Blah bla bl b. Time to go back to NJ, boys! Then at around midnight this pre-adolescent was operating his remote control taxicab right out in the middle of a heavily trafficked strip along St. Marks Place in the East Village. From the safety of the sidewalk this kid navigates the little toy car back to the curb , narrowly avoiding it getting crushed.

Final fare of the night was by far the best. At 3:39 am an old Polish lady headed home to Maspeth (Queens) stood at the corner of 6 Av and 28th. Her coworkers from the largest department store in the world had just treated her to a few drinks. She had her head poked through the partition the entire ride as she chatted unscrupulously with me, comparing her miserable 75 hour workweek with mine. Laughing ferociously at the mutual list we assembled of similarities between customers at Macy's and typical taxi passengers. Wish I had a grandmother like that.

On Thursday my friend Cassandra, an upbeat schoolteacher from Florida, rode along in the cab with me and had a great time sightseeing New York as we delivered people all over town. She had considered riding one of those double decker bus tours, but discovered this was much better for plenty of reasons. Around two dozen acquaintances have taken me up on my "on duty taxi copilot" offer since last winter. Don't wait too long. I might be retiring from the taxicab profession as early as early this autumn. Outside of hacking, my life has revolved around trying to deplete resources in the kitchen so they don't rot in this apartment that is devoid of all its residents for nearly three weeks, except for the one solitary cabbie who stayed in town. Also, I'm serious about memorizing the lyrics for that song "They want EFX" by DAS EFX, to use as performance art in social situations where the air needs slicing, like bread. Ever heard that song. So intricate.