Signs at J & I Taxi Garage

Jenine took these pictures at the garage. She found the signs especially interesting. This car was blocking part of the garage's driveway. So the garage put this sign on their windshield. "A question: When do I get to use my driveway?" By the way: the garage never actually uses that driveway). This is from Grandma Rose's menu, taken yesterday. I think they mean email list.

Lluvia Nieve

Just reminding myself that I do love and appreciate summer the most, no matter how mysterious and pretty winter is.

Lots, and Lots of Signs

L

Might As Well Be.....

.....a chain of islands. This map makes the West Bank look almost likethe Philippines. It's the current, most fragmentized version of a Palestinian state yet.... and it's reality, except that if the blue parts of the map were actually water, its citizens could fish. Instead, the blue is the whole of present Israel, including both Israel itself and colonized swaths of the occupied territory. Instead of coastline, there are massive walls. Instead of seafood, there are plots of fertile farmland that people can't reach and tend to, and sustain themselves with. Hey, don't blame me! I voted for the one-state solution. One world rather, to be shared by all people. Information about the origin of this imagined map can be found on a neat cartographic blog that I just discovered, which I found through yet another neat cartographic blog.

Map Credit #1: Julien Boussac/ Atlas Du Monde Diplomatique. Map Source #2: Afroasiatic German/ Wikipedia

AT THE READY

Being “on-duty” takes on a much deeper meaning to me than simply hacking. I am the eyes of New York. My scanning of every inch of public space and my vigilance of every visible human being, though done for the sake of seeking out a fare, can't help but double as a form of citizen patrol. I am at all times prepared, at the drop of a dime, to (reasonably) step into any situation and facilitate safety, justice, and the well-being of strangers.

My ears prick up when I hear vulnerability and/or aggression on the streets. My eyes read facial expressions and bodily gestures like a studious Jew reads the Torah. My reflexes spot movements as if the seconds of time are getting sucked forward ever so slightly, like a mosquito that successfully evades a swat. I get in and out of the cab readily, like a milkman making his rounds.

Ideally, my work bag for the cab contains jumper cables, a tire iron, a car jack, a couple of used inner tubes (as ropes), a subway map in case someone needs directions, an air pump for bicyclists with low pressure, the shirt off my back, etc.

Brahman or Holstein?

I have a little question for the Taxi and Limousine Commission of NYC. What happens if a Kennedy airport fare hails my cab in Manhattan around 3:00 PM? If I take them, I most definitely will be late to the garage, which strictly requires the cab be brought back by 4:30 PM. If I refuse to take them, they could report me to you.

See, at 3:30 PM (every shift) I switch on my OFF-DUTY lights and head for my garage (in downtown Brooklyn), while slowing to a near stop in front of every street hail to check if they're going downtown (Manhattan or Brooklyn), in which case I'll gladly take them. If I were to start turning on my OFF-DUTY lights at an earlier time, in order to avoid impossible airport fares, I could get in trouble for NOT actually being garage-bound just yet. These are risks we all (cabbies) take, on top of the hundred other risks (and odds) stacked against us.

Avoiding eye contact and pretending not to have seen someone with lots of luggage isn't an option either, especially if they happen to be black (which elevates it from refusal to racism). Also not an option is simply returning to the garage a whole hour or two early. This job is only economically viable if you max out your time and presence on the streets, because the lease rate is steep and fixed. The TLC is good at addressing public concerns, but they leave cabbies as clueless and vulnerable as a herd of cattle standing next to an electric fence. It seems that's the way they want it. Someone please tell me if I'm wrong. I hate to be so cynical and assuming.

My fellow taxi driver and book author, Melissa Plaut, would certainly agree. Check out her fabulous article in the Huffington Post, about how the TLC giving us a bad name is consistently unwarranted.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-plaut/taxi-drivers-guilty-until_b_509934.html

Murphy's Homeless and Karma's Lonely

In front of this Vitamin Shoppe, next to the staircase to the ACE train, is someone's makeshift home. In life you either have enough to splurge much of the time, or you don't know where your next meal is coming from.

Just as people say they can always catch a cab, until they actually need one..... cabbies go through long vacant periods without finding a fare, until someone finally steps in. Then all of a sudden there are hands hailing on every street corner.

I once learned that Murphy's Law only exists in our overly logical minds. In reality, everything that can go right, will go right. Let's be thankful for every breath of air, every sip of water, every morsel of food, every ailment we're not undergoing, every single one of our functioning senses and organs, every warm and dry stretch of restful sleep, and every waking hour.

What is Misspelled?

A misspelling and some seemingly paranormal activity on the meter.

FROM FIGURE MODELING TO CABBIE NEWS AND FASHION

Back when I lived in Florida, I used to model for high school and college drawing classes. I'd stay still in difficult poses for long periods of time, so that the art students could get a good sketch of the subject. I'd bring in all sorts of props to entice them to draw; like pick axes, shovels, hammers, hats, balls, books, and sometimes a knotted assortment of used rubber bicycle tubes to stretch out in. I'd use all these props to create poses that were more exciting for the students to draw than what they were used to (figure models with no imagination).

These pictures were taken by Sunny Shokrae, a professional photographer who came on board the cab to gather visual material on behalf of Danielle Friedman, a journalism student at Columbia, who had been interviewing cabdrivers for a story on how we feel about GPS + TAXI TV SCREENS. Obviously, we are not OK with the same obnoxious blurbs being repeated each time a new passenger gets in. She contacted me through this blog and interviewed me in the cab for an hour while jotting notes down. I hadn't felt like I was being watched by as many eyes as this since my days as a figure model in those art courses. Not much came out of it, except this article, and these leftover photographs.

McGuinness Management

Beautiful twilight sky, contrasted with the dark starkness of the taxi lot.
That pole in the back resembles a minaret in the distance if you use your peripheral imagination.


Notice the three different hues of emanating light in the background:
Amber streetlights. Isolated florescent apartment windows.
And a subtle glow of urban purple in the predawn skies.


Exhaust pipes leaning haphazardly against an exterior wall.
And in the foreground an old taxicab partition with a hole cut out in the shape of a TV screen.


Seems as if the taxicab's jaw was torn wide open.
Chassis and wheels below. Everything else left suspended in mid air. Looks painful.
What could possibly call for such violence. Reminds me of a Colombian necktie.


Mikey and I hanging out between our two parked taxicabs in the Meatpacking District around 4 A.M.
He only works on the weekends. I miss his cellular support on the weekdays.



Mode of transportation to go pickup a taxicab before a shift: BICYCLE!


The one half inside the garage looks kind of like an optical illusion of....
....two different cabs, because of the lighting.



Junior Pulaski Auto Repair across the street.
They lease the space from Gus, the Greek magnate who owns a vast ocean of taxicabs,
real estate, and the nearby gas station where we are required to fill up our tanks at shift's end.
You know that game, Monopoly? Us hacks are the playing pieces.
The race car, wheelbarrow, sack of money, horse and rider, shoe, dog....
....train, battleship, cannon, thimble, top hat, and iron.... all rolled into one!


A video clip of cabdriver, garage owner, and taxi dispatcher arguing over money issues.

Around Brooklyn

1. FISHING FOR L TRAIN PEOPLE: Hovering on Bogart with crossed fingers.
2. UNSPOKEN UNITY: cab yields to cheese bus at crossroads of Bill, Wick, and Stuy.
3. KHASSIDIC CORRIDOR: Quasi-public transport from far southwestern WB to Boro Park.
4. HONORABLE GUEST: global hitchhiking connoisseur Guillaume C.
5. WILLY BEE BRIDGE: corner of South 6th and Kent at dusk.
6. KEAP AND HOPE: remarkably wholesome graffiti mural in Williamsburg.

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.