Clocks Forward, Proletariats Backward

At 4:15 this morning I ambled out of my Brooklyn cavern and walked west 4 blocks. On the last stretch of sidewalk from which one can safely hail a cab and have it turn left unto the BQ Expressway ramp (ain't paying for no red lights), I snatched a passing cab that sniffed my subtle intentions. A 22 year veteran from Peshawar rolled down his window. Confidently, I declared "Do you wanna go downtown Brooklyn?" His response was enthusiastic (therefore competent) enough for me to hop in.

Until recently I worked out of a garage that was 10 minutes away by bicycle, 20 minutes via subway/walking (only 3 trains an hour) or 5 minutes by cab. Their available shifts dwindled down over time to only Sundays. Since I'm saving for summer travels in Europe, I need more workdays. So I switched back to the very first (of three) garage I leased cabs from when I first got my hack license (2006). They now require a 5 day schedule, with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. I'd rather rest on the Sabbath, but I'll take what I can get.

This garage is 25 minutes away via bicycle or subway/walking. It's 10 minutes by cab. An $11 fare. $15 with the tip cause I don't have the heart to give a good cabdriver any less than that. I avoid the bad ones (if at all possible) by sniffing them out before I get in. I only take a cab to work if it's raining, too cold, or I overslept. I must be frugal since I only average about $190 a shift, depending on how many breaks I choose to take (zero for 200+) and luck of the passenger turnover rate.

At 4:44 am I was assigned to taxicab 7L62 by my favorite dispatcher (of 10 I've met), the magnificent Bobo (of Haiti), who always carries the sincerest smile. Today's shift would entail 134 miles of urban meanderings and two fares to Newark Liberty International (within two hours). Oddly coincidental, since I normally only get one fare to that airport every couple of months.

The shift also entailed brief, but peak moments of nail biting, like the puddle on MacDougal Street that turned out to be a crater lake of a pothole, as I dashed through it, sending a 10 ft. splash at pedestrians on the sidewalk. NYU students, on a Sunday stroll, shrilled at the top of their lungs, as I faded into the horizon with my giggling Korean passenger.

At one point I was cruising down Fifth Avenue (in the sixties) when I spotted a sheepish hand flail about and drop, just before disappearing behind a stopped MTA bus. My peripheral vision had sensed a gang of tall, lost Europeans huddling around a map. I was on the opposite side of the street and had to instantly drop my speed from 34 to 4, in order to pull into the first available fire hydrant. I put it in park and ran across. There they were, four lovely Norwegians attempting to figure out where to have breakfast. They were stunned (and grateful) that a cabdriver would go so far as to fetch them by foot, to initiate what would become the best cab ride of their visit. They explained that after breakfast they planned to walk around Greenwich Village.

Their question was, "are there any good traditional American food in that neighborhood?" First word that came to mind was diner, a term they weren't familiar with, but I knew that's what they wanted. Off hand, I could only think of the ones along the eastern and western flanks of 23rd Street. Not the Village. I called up my main man Mikey (who also drives a cab) and he unveiled a brilliant idea: the Waverly Restaurant (on Sixth Avenue)! They fell in love with the place before they even stepped inside. I was given $15 for a $10.50 fare and my helpfulness. The tips are in the pudding. I owe you one, Mikey.

The last two fares of the day were off-duty negotiations. At 3:45 PM I was coming down Ninth en route to the Manhattan Bridge for the shift change in Brooklyn. My garage is strict. I must be back by 4:30 PM. No if or buts. I follow TLC regulations by having my doors locked, off-duty lights on, and window cracked, which allows me to gently negotiate destinations with would-be street hailers (without being accused of refusal). I make a left unto 23rd (in order to cross town without hitting Holland Tunnel traffic) and stop in front of an elder lady who is hailing me. "Where are you going?," I ask through the crack.

"The Morgan library museum (Madison and 36th)," she says achingly while standing with imbalance. I immediately unlock the doors and motion her to enter. First thing she says, as we're on our way, is "I don't think you're supposed to do that (in an authoritarian tone). " She is referring to the fact that I asked for her destination before letting her in. But there is a (humanitarian) loophole in that law, which I've copy/pasted below in blue (off the TLC website). The loophole exists simply for the purpose of not leaving everyone in Manhattan stranded, between roughly 3:30 and 5:00 PM, without a single cab around available.

I couldn't believe she was actually going to pull this on me. Before I even saw her, I was already facing the challenge of completing task A thru H within the next 45 minutes:

A. Maneuver through five Manhattan neighborhoods,

B. a long bridge with rush hour traffic,

C. and two Brooklyn neighborhoods.

D. Fill up at the gas station,

E. fill out my trip sheet,

F. gather my belongings,

G. run the cab through the basic daily mechanic inspection,

H. park it, and have the night dispatcher punch out my trip sheet.

But out of compassion for her, and an idealistic overconfidence in my capabilities, I had decided to let her in and go 13 uptown blocks out of my way, because I knew she'd have difficulty finding a cab at that hour. Besides, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I drove past and ignored a stranded elderly person. And besides that, the refusal law (although existing for several little reasons) is mainly about curbing widespread racial profiling, which makes catching cabs a difficult feat for blacks. It was Danny Glover's complaint, filed in 1999, which brought this law to the surface of everyone's mind. The result, as I've witnessed and experienced it, has not been a reduction in racism among cabbies (which remains nearly the same), but a pandemic of white pedestrians using their misconstrued understanding of this law to lash out in anger against cabbies and unwarrantedly claim victimhood when finding themselves stranded during the shift switch.

If taken to court by a complainant, you must be able to prove that it was indeed the end of your 12 hour shift, which is effortlessly easy. The TLC itself has the proof. It's on their GPS data, which records every detail (of when and where) while a cabdriver is logged on to the system (including how many consecutive hours they've worked).

The very last fare I did pro bono for a nice man who was only going down Third Avenue from E12 to Houston (in my direct path), and I had already turned off the meter. He threw 3 dollars at me anyway.

Upon returning the cab, I learned that Napoleon (the night dispatcher) is from Leogane, the town (18 miles west of the Haitian capital) where the epicenter of the quake was located. With glazed-over eyes, a forced smile, and his New York lingo in a Kreyol accent, he said, "fogedaboudit, don't even ask what happened." As you know, the day dispatcher (Bobo) is also Haitian, but from which part of the half island nation? I don't know yet.

§2-50 Refusals

(a) A driver shall not seek to ascertain the destination of a passenger before such passenger is seated in the taxicab.

(b) A driver shall not refuse by words, gestures or any other means, without justifiable grounds set forth in §2-50(e) herein, to take any passenger to any destination within the City of New York, the counties of Westchester or Nassau or Newark Airport. This includes a person with a disability and any service animal accompanying such person.

(c) A driver shall not require a person with a disability to be accompanied by an attendant. However, where a person with a disability is accompanied by an attendant, a taxicab driver shall not impose or attempt to impose any additional charge for transporting the attendant.

(d) A driver shall not refuse to transport a passenger's luggage, wheelchair, crutches, other mobility aid or other property.

(e) Justifiable grounds for the conduct otherwise prohibited by sections 2-50(a), 2-50(b), 2-50(c) and 2-50(d) shall be the following:

(1) another passenger is already seated in the taxicab;

(2) a hail from another person has already been acknowledged by the driver, and that other person is being picked up or is about to be picked up. Provided, however, that a driver shall not acknowledge the hail of a prospective passenger over the hail of another prospective passenger with an intent to avoid transporting the passenger whose hail was not acknowledged;

(3) the passenger is carrying, or is in possession of any article, package, case or container, other than a wheelchair or other mobility aid, which the driver may reasonably believe will cause damage to the interior of the taxicab, impair its efficient operation, or cause it to become stained or foul smelling;

(4) the driver is ending his or her work shift, has already illuminated the “Off Duty” sign, locked both rear doors, and has transmitted the relevant information to an electronic database for entry on the electronic trip record or, until a taxicab is required to be equipped with the taxicab technology system as defined in section 2-01 of this chapter, and thereafter whenever the taxicab technology system is inoperable for not more than forty-eight (48) hours following the filing of an incident report with the authorized taxicab technology service provider as set forth in section 2-26 of this chapter, indicated on the written trip record that he or she is off duty and proceeding to his or her garage or home;

§2-53 Accepting Passengers While Off-Duty

(a) A driver who has illuminated the "Off Duty" light may not solicit nor accept a passenger unless that driver is returning the taxicab to his or her garage or home and has transmitted the relevant information to an electronic database for entry on the electronic trip record or made a written trip record entry "Returning to garage (or home)" and the passenger's destination is directly en route thereto; when the last passenger is discharged, the driver shall lock the doors and return to his garage or home.

§2-54 Solicitation of Passengers

(a) A driver shall solicit a passenger only from the driver's seat and only with the words "taxi" or "cab" or "taxicab."

BEST OF OTHER TAXI BLOGGER POSTS

I'd like to take this opportunity to share a few of my favorite entries to have been churned out by fellow taxicab bloggers in recent times:

First of all, I want to point out a fairly new member in our driver-writer network, who has all but blown me away with his stupendous abilities as an author and as a Boston cabdriver. I know a few months ago I raved about a new taxi blog out of Boston, but this one is even newer. I've heard it said on many occasions that Boston is "one of the smartest cities" in the country (due in large part to its universities).

Since I am a strong believer that there are multiple (forms of) intelligence(s) across the human landscape, I believe it takes more than just plain book smarts and

over-rationalized lab research to pass as a "smart city." A (just as) large segment of the population must have certain (less logical) sensibilities, like appreciative

resourcefulness, interpersonal diplomatic xenophilia, and street savviness. That's what excites me when not one, but two of the best new taxi story-tellers have

come out of Boston. I don't particularly (personally) care for that city, but I am glad to see that it can now truly merit the title: "one of America's smartest cities" (at least in my book), thanks to its wise and word-prolific cabdrivers.

With no further ado, I present to you: HACKNEYED SOJOURN. A Boston taxi blog. Literally every one of his few entries are solid. By the way, the other Bostonian I was mentioning is THE HACK. He's also got back-to-back, masterpiece postings. And now we come to my favorite New Yorker in this worldwide network of ink-slinging

hacks. If you only have time for two entries, these are my recommendations:

http://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2009/09/three-nights.html#links

http://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-beat-ticket.html#links

Short and sweet (or honest) entries from two different drivers:

Here's an excellent one about the NYPD/TLC's heartless attack on cabbies:

http://nycab.blogspot.com/2010/02/give-me-break.html

A picture taken at the JFK holding lot. Dozens of nationalities represented and each

ethnic huddle of cabbies plays its own music loud while standing around, shooting

the shit: http://nyc-cab.blogspot.com/2010/03/spanish-music-torture.html

I haven't even had a chance to look at all the other blogs on my international roll,

so forgive me if I failed to include one of your remarkable taxi stories in my review.

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.

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!

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.

FREEGANISM

When I moved to NYC in 2006, some of the first friends I made were part of something called the Freegan movement. I had arrived from Florida with nothing but an old bicycle, a map, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and a sleeping bag. The first two weeks I spent nights on park benches and cardboard in the nooks of buildings. The second day here I found a job in the Village Voice classifieds. I delivered envelopes and packages on my bicycle for Champion Courier. They paid $3 per item and since all the nice runs were given to seniority, I was averaging around 6/hr. Far below minimum wage, but an exhilarating introduction to life in the Big Apple.

One day I happened to be fixing a flat in the Garment District when these two kids from the Freegan Bicycle Workshop walked by and offered me some donuts they had just scored on the curb around the corner. I followed them back to their space and made friends with all the other little Freegans. I learned some basic bike mechanics, where to look for free food, possibilities for squatting/couch surfing, and a whole lot more.

Through Rachel Sakristan, an artist and good friend from Barcelona, I met a wonderful couple from Andorra and Brazil who were in New York to shoot a short documentary about the so-called "Freegan" movement. They came along in my cab one shift and interviewed me on camera about my views regarding the philosophy behind it. I just saw it for the first time this week. Edu and Priscilla finally emailed me a Quick Time attachment of the clip. They weren't able to complete their documentary due to lack of funds. I must say, I'm not very fond of my barely coherent babbles throughout the 5 minutes. Wish I could have been more eloquent.

Jenine doesn't like the way the word "Freegan" is used now because it originally meant something else and because other words for what it means now have already existed for a long time. She's old-school in some ways and I like that about her. A freegan used to be someone who was a vegan, but would temporarily become vegetarian if the eggs, dairy, or pizza were free. Today the word Freegan has expanded to include anyone who not only eats ANYTHING (including meat) if it's free, but also seeks to find all the other components of life for free. Jenine prefers the older word GLEANER for this definition.

It's similar to my dissatisfaction with the spelling of the word Hanukkah. The 'H' doesn't do the rough guttural sound any justice. And the 'Ch' version already has a different sound in English. My conclusion would be to spell it Khanuqa. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy my expressive hand and finger gestures throughout the clip, because it's the only articulate aspect of the interview (my speech is laughable).

LIFE PARTNER

There she is standing outside my cab, as if a random Union Square passerby. But she is no stranger to me. That graceful lady wearing colorful quilt-like fabric, holding a pink down, and sporting the colossal, ever-evolving glass bead necklace she made, is my significant and beloved other, Jenine Bressner. Soon it will be a year since we met.

I don't know if I ever told you, but it was this blog that facilitated our union. First I saw the charming face and words of what appeared to be a down-to-Earth, multi-ethnic Jew on a friend's wall on Facebook. My entire life I had been waiting patiently to find a soulmate of a special blend of unexpected genes. I sent her a blunt message, inquiring on her ethnic soup. I am well aware this comes off as rude, creepy, and xenophobic.... but I do it with everyone, knowing true to my heart that it comes from a place of admiration and innocent fascination with the overlapping of cultures, customs, and creeds. Her response was curt and more or less impersonal.

I knew then I had one last chance to break the ice and that I had better make it good. I couldn't pester her with too many words. I decided to simply send her a link to my blog. After all, its contents are a raw expression of who I strive to be: a voice of euphoric empathy for the world's wonders found in its people and their demographic spectrum. I had absolutely no expectations, and to my surprise, she did indeed pick up on this vibe. By the way, she is of Eastern European and Filipina backgrounds. And I have Hispanic, Romanian, and Polish roots. You can call us "Ashkephardic". But that is not what this post is about.

It's my opportunity to thank Jenine for helping me fine tune my desire to pursue the crafts of writing and photojournalism, and to proliferate public awareness of its existence. It is also my chance to share with you a few of the methods she utilizes to create new things and inspire humanity towards a more self-actualized sense of empowerment. Above is a picture of what were the blank backsides of her business cards, which she fed into a laser cutter to engrave my name, email, and blog address unto. Originally I had hand written the info unto a thick stash of her cards, one by one, and passed them out in my cab as a form of double sided advertising for us both.

Jenine was recently chosen to participate in the worldwide Fab Academy. She's been learning to operate various machinery to produce almost anything one's imagination can take on. She has come up with some marvelous results. Formulating ideas and following through with delicate, time-consuming precision on computers.

You can see pictures and read the details on her blog, along with everything else she's made over the years with an endless inventory of tools and materials. The list is as replete with ingenuity as a cluster of colleges. Berkeley or Beantown, minus pretense and ulterior motives. It's as diverse as the Queens neighborhood of Elmhurst and its nationalities, only more integrated. It is as well-informed as the walking Wikipedia that Jenine herself is, only more accurate than a lot of what's been put on the web. It's as meticulously and anomalously crafted as Mohandas himself must have been by the environment that shaped his gumption.

Jenine lives in Providence and adds daily to its already distinct flavor of artistry, via flame worked glass, intricate embroideries for practical uses, unconventional sculpting, stitching, soldering, milling, forging, serging, vinyl cuttings, air brushing, homemade lip balm, hand bound books, immaculate pen drawings, wall prints, textile earrings, ruffle beards, dolls, pom poms, fabric anemones, recycled shoes, museum quality jewelry, heat set metallic textures, continuously refined D.I.Y. clothing and culinary contraptions, efficient scavenging of discarded items that become effective studio components, and all this is just the beginning.

Now let me tell you how she's used her skills to encourage my endeavors. Above you can see the vinyl cut stickers she produced, which I placed on my lap top, but could eventually scatter about the city on bumpers and stop signs. My blog address in yellow impact stencil font, since I regard taxi driving to be a (nonviolent) military discipline of sorts. My name in an blue arabesque font, since I've an affinity to the Middle East.

Jenine sets aside time to proofread, edit, and revise most every new article I type. Her suggestions are priceless. When visiting me in New York, she offers to sit in the front seat of the taxicab so I don't miss a shift. She mingles with my fares, resulting in larger tips. The rides seem to take half the time to accomplish, which brings smiles from both the backseat and from behind the wheel.

Sometimes we'll park the cab for a gastronomical pit stop and she always has a list of eateries she's been researching, where independent shop owners strive to make it a genuine experience. We also explore museums and other cultural attractions together. She never fails to leave my mind saturated with her acute attention to particularities among all the art and D.I.Y. experiments around us. This in turn enables my fluidity of envisioning my own potential, both artistically and practically, and of course the marriage of each. That precise fusion is to me what"JB Fireworks" is all about. As she herself puts it, "There are no boundaries in my life".

Above is a picture at Kenny's place, inside Essex Market. He is to her an example of what she values most: independent thought and skilled craft (which you can see in both his book and thedocumentary about him). He is however a bonafide jerk, which is only valuable if applied in moderation and interspersed with kindness. He's a cook. He should know that recipe. Even the most NEW YORK of New Yorkers know that.

I make myself available every time she needs help transporting her art to an exhibition and I'm humbled that she trusts me enough to hold down her booth while she walks around as a living showcase and self-marketer. Much like my overhead (shift lease and gas total), she has to pay the promoter a flat rate for a table and then work her way toward breaking into the black. I can very much relate to this. However, the economy has rocked the sale of craft work much worse than it has the taxi driving industry in NYC, which manages to stay afloat due to it being seen as more of a necessary service. In most other cities, though, the state of hackneying is in just as bad a rut. The picture above is of Jenine setting up her booth at the most recent Bizarre Bazaar in Boston.

As she wrote in her blog most recently, she plans to slowly veer away from the under-appreciated labor of amassing stock and traveling to display it around the country. I too seek to move on from my own dead-end form of self employment, not toward the other extreme (wage and schedule slavery), but rather in the direction of realizing all my bigger potentials in the world. Together we will support and uplift one another into ever-higher levels of both financial and spiritual contentment.