tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-316180822024-03-28T11:52:53.991-05:00Cabs Are For KissingEugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.comBlogger196125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-78598596091847204462021-05-24T10:12:00.035-05:002022-03-04T18:38:26.535-05:00The Comment That Went Viral <p><span>I subscribe to the online edition of the New York Times. There's a feature in it -- the comments section -- of which I'm particularly fond. Roughly half the articles, and nearly all of the Op-Eds and Guest Essays, have a comments section. On any given day there are <i>thousands</i> of comments from readers -- in fact, sometimes a single article by itself may receive over a thousand. It's like the old "Letters To The Editor" of the print era on steroids. </span></p><p><span>It's easy to make a comment. Here are the rules of the game:</span></p><p><span>-- comments are moderated for being "on-topic" and "civil"; </span></p><p><span>-- they cannot exceed 1500 characters; </span></p><p><span>-- each article which permits comments has a time limit for submissions. If you get to it too late, it will be closed;</span></p><p><span> -- you can make a comment to a comment (a "reply"). Thus discussions occur among commenters.</span></p><p><span>-- comments can be "flagged" by readers as inappropriate. They may then be removed by moderators.</span></p><p><span>-- you can click "Recommended" beneath a comment if you really like it. These "Recommended" comments can then be viewed in a window of their own when you click on "Reader Picks". They're listed in order of which got the most. This creates a popularity contest of sorts among the readers. </span></p><p><span>-- there's also a section called "NYT Picks". Click on that and you will see the comments chosen as most deserving of attention by the moderators of the Opinions Section. </span></p><p><span>-- and finally there's an icon for "All" comments, listed in chronological order.</span></p><p><span>Because the Times is one of the most widely read and respected papers in the U.S. (and the world), it attracts readers who are often quite well-versed in the subjects being written about and their comments may offer a new perspective that had been overlooked by the author of the article. It tends to be a smart crowd.</span></p><p><span>I consider myself well-versed in certain areas: New York City in general; taxi driving and the taxi business; transportation; and, of course, my own experiences with the human race as a longtime NYC taxi driver. If I feel I have something relevant to say to an article in these zones, I will often make a comment using the pen name "Old Yeller". </span></p><p><span>So here's what happened...</span></p><p><span>On August 24th last year the Times ran an Op-Ed by Jerry Seinfeld called <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Feur04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.nytimes.com%252F2020%252F08%252F24%252Fopinion%252Fjerry-seinfeld-new-york-coronavirus.html%26data%3D02%257C01%257C%257C8881482766324d921a6d08d84851fe52%257C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%257C1%257C0%257C637338864274595435%26sdata%3DbCEwfMgswZhnF%252Bt1Zt3n84vHEE65IhU6NsxgeDZm%252B%252BI%253D%26reserved%3D0%26fbclid%3DIwAR1wT6j9kdy9Gru0ZyWAEDLrahpLCVN7u0upvsXseb3F8DX4VMRWDmH1dgs&h=AT3iVbHSiZL5Ra2YK9TCIOTmT18pG9P518AySjwJ0LqUij0360hQZVXeROscoNQyyuVOLXRfccAoej2W7VG71Zi1ZQc4q_1B5gYS92BcM8H1DZkJDlgvBUVazuQ7ntlv72buteE&__tn__=H-R&c[0]=AT3MML7b9HFtK1XS_VwDI-HoyqgcYuKr4VV0djuTrlxfO9_6MsFMe7wHvQoN8Mbx4t6lI4To9j6Fe217QulAZlfMXHGMlsFAtgg6IaMOyEFZJAci3zOuoC7u6FUa0vsJUo8k6mKGDougS525GrjveZVe_i8" target="_blank">"So You Think New York Is 'Dead' (It's not.)"</a></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/08/24/opinion/24Seinfeld2/24Seinfeld2-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="535" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2020/08/24/opinion/24Seinfeld2/24Seinfeld2-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span>In his piece Jerry came down pretty hard on "some putz in LinkedIn" (the owner of a comedy club in Manhattan who, after relocating to Miami, had written what was basically an obituary on the city.) Jerry kicked the guy's butt, so to speak, and made a good case for the city's resilience and revival. Before the comments section was closed it received a whopping 2,740 comments. One of them was mine. And thus began the journey of a comment...</span><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>-- I started my day on August 24th as I always do, reading the Times over breakfast. And after breakfast. I did <u>not</u> see Jerry's Op-Ed. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>-- Later in the day I received an email from <a href="https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fshebeatmusic%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7C4678327a645b485a0f7008d91e2f2d3f%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637574010232071903%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=473qPdJVr%2B0QbqM1Q91ZTm%2FPKGkzSecvimC8qRmTqK0%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank">my buddy in the U.K., Jodie Schofield</a>, alerting me to Jerry's article and providing a link. How could I have missed this? I read the article, loved it, and immediately wrote this comment:</span></div><div><span face="nyt-franklin, helvetica, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;"><blockquote><br /></blockquote></span><span><span face="nyt-franklin, helvetica, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">"</span><span style="font-size: medium;">I've been a NYC taxi driver for many, many years. My favorite type of ride is the rare one of picking up a man who has just emerged from a hospital following the birth of his first child. It is the best day in his life and I usually find it difficult to hide my own tears of joy as he tells me all about it.</span></span><span face="nyt-franklin, helvetica, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span></span></div><div><span><span face="nyt-franklin, helvetica, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">
My second favorite ride is similar. It is a young person with a dream who is coming to New York City for the very first time. I am the taxi driver taking him or her to Manhattan from the airport. I insist on the Upper Level of the 59th Street Bridge as our route. Excitement grows as the city grows larger and larger as we approach Manhattan. Finally, almost at ground level, the ramp takes us so close to the surrounding buildings that we can actually see the people inside. Touching down on E. 62nd Street, my newly minted New Yorker is experiencing for the first time the "energy" that is so often spoken of. It's like watching a child approaching a roomful of birthday presents. All things are possible.
It will take more than a crumby pandemic to change that.</span><span style="font-size: large;">"</span></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); white-space: pre-wrap;">-- About 15 minutes after I submitted the comment I received an email from the Times telling me it had been approved. (Normal procedure, they do that for every comment they publish.)</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- An hour later I checked the comments section of Jerry's article to see if I'd received any "recommends" or, better yet, if my comment had been chosen as a "NYT Pick". It had received a handful of recommends but was <u>not</u> a NYT Pick. Oh, well. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- After another hour, I checked again. I discovered that my comment had miraculously been switched from the "All" section to the "NYT Picks" section! Wow, that never happens, at least not to me. Wondering what could have caused this momentous turn of events, I found that a reader named Flaminia from Los Angeles had made this reply to my comment: </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;">"@Old Yeller, THIS should be a Times pick."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; font-size: medium; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently a moderator agreed. In the contest of Which Comment Gets The Most Recommends, this is a big deal. The elite "NYT Picks" comments are seen by more readers than the ones in the "Reader Picks" and "All" parts of town. More views means more Recommends. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Unbeknownst to me, a fire was being lit. I'm not sure of the exact timeline, but as far as I can tell it began in the morning of Aug. 25th with a tweet from Morgan Von Steen (@mvonsteen, who tweets about "design & technology in </span></span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">government, especially</span> </span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); color: #333333; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">New York"). She tweeted:</span> </span></span></div><div><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="caret-color: rgb(15, 20, 25); color: #0f1419; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="caret-color: rgb(15, 20, 25); color: #0f1419; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This comment on </span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-xoduu5" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 20, 25); color: #0f1419; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap; z-index: 0;"><span class="r-18u37iz" style="-webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: horizontal; flex-direction: row;"><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/JerrySeinfeld" role="link" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1b95e0; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; white-space: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">@JerrySeinfeld</a></span></div><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 20, 25); color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">'s piece in </span><div class="css-1dbjc4n r-xoduu5" style="-webkit-box-align: stretch; -webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; align-items: stretch; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 20, 25); color: #0f1419; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: column; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; white-space: pre-wrap; z-index: 0;"><span class="r-18u37iz" style="-webkit-box-direction: normal; -webkit-box-orient: horizontal; flex-direction: row;"><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/nytimes" role="link" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1b95e0; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; white-space: inherit; word-wrap: break-word;">@nytimes</a></span></div><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" face="-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(15, 20, 25); color: #0f1419; display: inline; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"> made me tear up. </span><img alt="Pleading face" class="r-4qtqp9 r-dflpy8 r-sjv1od r-zw8f10 r-10akycc r-h9hxbl" draggable="false" src="https://abs-0.twimg.com/emoji/v2/svg/1f97a.svg" style="caret-color: rgb(15, 20, 25); color: #0f1419; display: inline-block; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; height: 1.2em; margin-left: 0.075em; margin-right: 0.075em; vertical-align: -20%; white-space: pre-wrap; width: 1.2em;" title="Pleading face" /> </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span>And then she posted the comment itself.</span> </div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span><span style="font-family: inherit;">As the day went on, Morgan Von Steen's tweet generated over 9,000 retweets, more than 1,400 Quote Tweets, 76K likes, and a <a href="https://twitter.com/mvonsteen/status/1298239818082787328" target="_blank">swarm of comments</a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, many reminiscing about their own first ride into Manhattan, their ride in a taxi on the day their first child was born, and especially about their love affair with New York City. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">We were off to the races.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">-- Upworthy.com on Instagram posted Morgan Von Steen's tweet, generating another 53K likes:</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmu501vESVUH-oDMXTmvLsUQwy9ZMPxBaWKXApZ9x0VkQC6MpQPE5pAzKF7yix6OUp5Ff7Ma1ImjWrJiMI_XCZmKnhSobDlA6ZJk4MjGJDzyTwcU2TYn96JobzZRwBBiUuilPfQ9VXM1kR-OLZrJnRNms3DIUQNUpzJ-UJCLnzDg7bBXXJ4U8=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="443" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjmu501vESVUH-oDMXTmvLsUQwy9ZMPxBaWKXApZ9x0VkQC6MpQPE5pAzKF7yix6OUp5Ff7Ma1ImjWrJiMI_XCZmKnhSobDlA6ZJk4MjGJDzyTwcU2TYn96JobzZRwBBiUuilPfQ9VXM1kR-OLZrJnRNms3DIUQNUpzJ-UJCLnzDg7bBXXJ4U8=w185-h400" width="185" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">-- The attention the comment was generating got on the radar of the NY Times Opinion Section people. They highlighted it on LinkedIn:</span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0Sbomzhft-A-vu9FxUZGS6nPd5wkn9KjyCgPKZuZT1_H-hFtTQu5usuuzRfTMCEFNk91KkDrghYMwkkylBDxVwsDpriMZ1y_UNg1E-2c-1NYm5NJXhoNdDjKJcbkSo3IG60K7YZuFb0NiY218oHZ6cqZSnJDO2PW1lLQiKjEoBrzYYOhJ_fs=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="444" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0Sbomzhft-A-vu9FxUZGS6nPd5wkn9KjyCgPKZuZT1_H-hFtTQu5usuuzRfTMCEFNk91KkDrghYMwkkylBDxVwsDpriMZ1y_UNg1E-2c-1NYm5NJXhoNdDjKJcbkSo3IG60K7YZuFb0NiY218oHZ6cqZSnJDO2PW1lLQiKjEoBrzYYOhJ_fs=w185-h400" width="185" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">-- My daughter, Suzy, and my nephew, Sanjay, alerted me that my comment was apparently going viral. That was exciting, but, wait! People reading it would only know that some cab driver in NYC calling himself "Old Yeller" had written it. I want people to read my book and my blog, of course, and they don't know that "Old Yeller" is me. Some clever way to identify myself was needed...</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/118446679_10158552027664518_3500813269853639181_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=dbeb18&_nc_ohc=pNXdIloJw2kAX_xRx1r&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-1.xx&oh=f4990177abd1773c86a38546e7bbec24&oe=60CB44AC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">-- I went back to the replies to my comment in the NYT Picks. I discovered that Patricia Caiozzo from Port Washington, New York, had written: "@Old Yeller. Your post is excellent. Perhaps you write in your free moments? You should." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perfect! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">-- I replied: "@Patricia Caiozzo. Thanks, Patricia. In fact, I do. I have a blog called 'Cabs Are For Kissing'. Hope you'll stop by." And then I added a link to my blog. Now not only readers of the Times could find me, but the moderators of the Opinions Section could, too. And for the next few days, presto, the hits on my blog went out the roof.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">-- At the same time Suzy got on Twitter to inform commenters who were wondering who this "Old Yeller" guy is and shouldn't he write a book or have a column in the Times or something, that Old Yeller is her <u>father</u> and he <u>did</u> write a book, and here's the name of the book, and he has a blog, too, and here's the link to <u>that</u>. (This is why you have children.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">-- Jodie in the U.K. did the same thing, except for the part about me being her father. There is no truth to that rumor.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span>-- A few hours later Sanjay alerted me that Gov. Andrew Cuomo had retweeted Morgan Von Steen's tweet and had added: </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql oi732d6d ik7dh3pa ht8s03o8 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d9wwppkn fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" color="var(--primary-text)" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: block; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;"><h3 class="gmql0nx0 l94mrbxd p1ri9a11 lzcic4wl aahdfvyu hzawbc8m" dir="auto" style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 4px 0px 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="nc684nl6" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl oo9gr5id gpro0wi8 lrazzd5p" href="https://www.facebook.com/GovernorAndrewCuomo/?__cft__[0]=AZWrk-pmhu9K0dTxJtWE-LnpBWeNd_arjUGgblZAgOFxjdH7iFaaG3yQLOpELmTyVdRdLZsgWCMfSnf1CwARZXMrVFQUMHW393yELAFLQtiYVaRkK2cl1GQes5VjYO13LEk&__tn__=-UC%2CP-y-y2.g-R" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--primary-text); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Governor Andrew Cuomo</span></a></span><span class="l9j0dhe7 h3qc4492" style="font-family: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.1em; position: relative;"> <span class="nc684nl6" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><div aria-label="Verified" class="oajrlxb2 gs1a9yip g5ia77u1 mtkw9kbi tlpljxtp qensuy8j ppp5ayq2 goun2846 ccm00jje s44p3ltw mk2mc5f4 rt8b4zig n8ej3o3l agehan2d sk4xxmp2 rq0escxv bnpdmtie pq6dq46d mg4g778l btwxx1t3 pfnyh3mw p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x tgvbjcpo hpfvmrgz jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso l9j0dhe7 i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of du4w35lb lzcic4wl abiwlrkh p8dawk7l" role="button" style="-webkit-user-select: none; align-items: stretch; border: 0px solid var(--always-dark-overlay); box-sizing: border-box; cursor: default; display: inline-flex; flex-basis: auto; flex-direction: row; flex-shrink: 0; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-height: 0px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="hrs1iv20 pq6dq46d" style="display: inline-flex; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><i aria-label="Verified Account" data-visualcompletion="css-img" role="img" style="background-image: url("https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v3/yh/r/iokBib8sKWG.png"); background-position: -17px -784px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: auto; display: inline-block; height: 12px; width: 12px;"></i></span><div class="s45kfl79 emlxlaya bkmhp75w spb7xbtv i09qtzwb n7fi1qx3 b5wmifdl hzruof5a pmk7jnqg j9ispegn kr520xx4 c5ndavph art1omkt ot9fgl3s" data-visualcompletion="ignore" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 50%; border-bottom-right-radius: 50%; border-top-left-radius: 50%; border-top-right-radius: 50%; font-family: inherit; inset: 0px; opacity: 0; pointer-events: none; position: absolute; transition-duration: var(--fds-duration-extra-extra-short-out); transition-property: opacity; transition-timing-function: var(--fds-animation-fade-out);"></div></div></span></span></span></h3></span></div><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql oi732d6d ik7dh3pa ht8s03o8 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d9wwppkn fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb mdeji52x e9vueds3 j5wam9gi knj5qynh m9osqain hzawbc8m" color="var(--secondary-text)" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: block; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2308; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="tojvnm2t a6sixzi8 abs2jz4q a8s20v7p t1p8iaqh k5wvi7nf q3lfd5jv pk4s997a bipmatt0 cebpdrjk qowsmv63 owwhemhu dp1hu0rb dhp61c6y iyyx5f41" style="align-content: inherit; align-items: inherit; align-self: inherit; display: inherit; flex-direction: inherit; flex: inherit; font-family: inherit; height: inherit; justify-content: inherit; max-height: inherit; max-width: inherit; min-height: inherit; min-width: inherit; width: inherit;"><a aria-label="August 25, 2020" class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gmql0nx0 gpro0wi8 b1v8xokw" href="https://www.facebook.com/GovernorAndrewCuomo/posts/3576593889038465?__cft__[0]=AZWrk-pmhu9K0dTxJtWE-LnpBWeNd_arjUGgblZAgOFxjdH7iFaaG3yQLOpELmTyVdRdLZsgWCMfSnf1CwARZXMrVFQUMHW393yELAFLQtiYVaRkK2cl1GQes5VjYO13LEk&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-y-y2.g-R" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="j1lvzwm4 stjgntxs ni8dbmo4 q9uorilb gpro0wi8" style="display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; overflow: hidden; vertical-align: top;"><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A<span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">u</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">g</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">u</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">s</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">t</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;"> </span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">2</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">5</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">,</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;"> </span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">2</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">0</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">2</span><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;">0</span><span class="jpp8pzdo" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="rfua0xdk pmk7jnqg stjgntxs ni8dbmo4 ay7djpcl q45zohi1" style="clip: rect(0px, 0px, 0px, 0px); font-family: inherit; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; position: absolute; width: 1px;"> </span><span aria-hidden="true" style="font-family: inherit;"> · </span></span></span><span class="g0qnabr5" style="font-family: inherit; white-space: nowrap;"><span class="tojvnm2t a6sixzi8 abs2jz4q a8s20v7p t1p8iaqh k5wvi7nf q3lfd5jv pk4s997a bipmatt0 cebpdrjk qowsmv63 owwhemhu dp1hu0rb dhp61c6y iyyx5f41" style="align-content: inherit; align-items: inherit; align-self: inherit; display: inherit; flex-direction: inherit; flex: inherit; font-family: inherit; height: inherit; justify-content: inherit; max-height: inherit; max-width: inherit; min-height: inherit; min-width: inherit; width: inherit;"><span class="ormqv51v l9j0dhe7" style="font-family: inherit; position: relative; top: -2px;"><i aria-label="Shared with Public" class="hu5pjgll m6k467ps" data-visualcompletion="css-img" role="img" style="background-image: url("https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v3/ya/r/HZblBvmPfu-.png"); background-position: -13px -322px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; background-size: auto; display: inline-block; filter: var(--filter-secondary-icon); height: 12px; vertical-align: -0.25em; width: 12px;"></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a></span></span></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="ecm0bbzt hv4rvrfc ihqw7lf3 dati1w0a" data-ad-comet-preview="message" data-ad-preview="message" style="font-family: inherit; padding: 4px 16px 16px;"><div class="j83agx80 cbu4d94t ew0dbk1b irj2b8pg" style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: -5px; margin-top: -5px;"><div class="qzhwtbm6 knvmm38d" style="font-family: inherit; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a aria-label="August 25, 2020" class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gmql0nx0 gpro0wi8 b1v8xokw" href="https://www.facebook.com/GovernorAndrewCuomo/posts/3576593889038465?__cft__[0]=AZWrk-pmhu9K0dTxJtWE-LnpBWeNd_arjUGgblZAgOFxjdH7iFaaG3yQLOpELmTyVdRdLZsgWCMfSnf1CwARZXMrVFQUMHW393yELAFLQtiYVaRkK2cl1GQes5VjYO13LEk&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-y-y2.g-R" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;"><span class="d2edcug0 hpfvmrgz qv66sw1b c1et5uql oi732d6d ik7dh3pa ht8s03o8 a8c37x1j keod5gw0 nxhoafnm aigsh9s9 d9wwppkn fe6kdd0r mau55g9w c8b282yb iv3no6db jq4qci2q a3bd9o3v knj5qynh oo9gr5id hzawbc8m" color="var(--primary-text)" dir="auto" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3333; max-width: 100%; min-width: 0px; word-break: break-word; word-wrap: break-word;"><div class="kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">The naysayers have predicted the “decline” of New York before. They have always been proven wrong — and they will be again.</div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">Read this beautiful comment written by a NYC taxi driver on Jerry Seinfeld's New York Times op-ed.</div></div></span></span></a><span class="b6zbclly myohyog2 l9j0dhe7 aenfhxwr l94mrbxd ihxqhq3m nc684nl6 t5a262vz sdhka5h4" style="cursor: inherit; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; position: relative; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: inherit;"><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="font-family: inherit; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span color="inherit" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; text-align: inherit;"><a aria-label="August 25, 2020" class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gmql0nx0 gpro0wi8 b1v8xokw" href="https://www.facebook.com/GovernorAndrewCuomo/posts/3576593889038465?__cft__[0]=AZWrk-pmhu9K0dTxJtWE-LnpBWeNd_arjUGgblZAgOFxjdH7iFaaG3yQLOpELmTyVdRdLZsgWCMfSnf1CwARZXMrVFQUMHW393yELAFLQtiYVaRkK2cl1GQes5VjYO13LEk&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-y-y2.g-R" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 400; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"></a></span></span><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><a aria-label="August 25, 2020" class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl gmql0nx0 gpro0wi8 b1v8xokw" href="https://www.facebook.com/GovernorAndrewCuomo/posts/3576593889038465?__cft__[0]=AZWrk-pmhu9K0dTxJtWE-LnpBWeNd_arjUGgblZAgOFxjdH7iFaaG3yQLOpELmTyVdRdLZsgWCMfSnf1CwARZXMrVFQUMHW393yELAFLQtiYVaRkK2cl1GQes5VjYO13LEk&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-y-y2.g-R" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 400; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></a><a class="oajrlxb2 g5ia77u1 qu0x051f esr5mh6w e9989ue4 r7d6kgcz rq0escxv nhd2j8a9 nc684nl6 p7hjln8o kvgmc6g5 cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x jb3vyjys rz4wbd8a qt6c0cv9 a8nywdso i1ao9s8h esuyzwwr f1sip0of lzcic4wl q66pz984 gpro0wi8 b1v8xokw" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/newyorktough?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZWrk-pmhu9K0dTxJtWE-LnpBWeNd_arjUGgblZAgOFxjdH7iFaaG3yQLOpELmTyVdRdLZsgWCMfSnf1CwARZXMrVFQUMHW393yELAFLQtiYVaRkK2cl1GQes5VjYO13LEk&__tn__=*NK-y-y2.g-R" role="link" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; font-weight: 400; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0">#NewYorkTough</a></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div></span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><span>-- My head was beginning to swell. Governor Cuomo, wow! It was almost enough to make me forget that he had renamed the new Tappan Zee Bridge after his own father. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>-- And my head-swelling problem was not helped when an article from the online business magazine Fast Company was brought to my attention, claiming that "the best thing about about Jerry Seinfeld's 'NYC Is Not Dead' article is this cab driver's response" (click <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fastcompany.com%2F90543640%2Fthe-best-thing-about-jerry-seinfelds-nyc-is-not-dead-article-is-this-cab-drivers-response%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR37dwwLrixRvJ5C2XuN8wpWtMiQMRPaKl9dtDmCOZ2Eg5NDkZT1HfurQY0&h=AT3_ILSyphhsDzQwzmtN8nDSgEd4ps8Si0tEsF_mBLPu2ekriev5J4VYy4JNeasj6gr6_ILwqPNBQgP2n-l8BbRknRnJ0-bTufalfYhojY940bAGBk9EeELiMM_q-PH2yEYmKO4&__tn__=R]-R&c[0]=AT2tzTYerMuLTkRq2asLb67vxjYzc97G3_Dvo7AjrSGFZ8LNsYLuZZtD4ymHywsfRjAPlMn9rO5wFfyypgAQyx6OS3q1NJSA6R0Go9BdrW4VZLv52jXK7TqVzjJoa-7ULprhKDtGPlqv4lzRb4zW1AGaRPs" target="_blank">here</a> for that.) Could my comment have upstaged the great Jerry Seinfeld? Is that possible? I'm thinking I may need to have the doors in my house widened so my head can fit through. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>-- To make my head-swelling matters worse, there was <i>this</i> from supermodel Bella Hadid, with 32 million followers on Instagram:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjnqyQxEWS2_-QiPdFSUamd_jBHWTiU0UgHEhktv2qid_Y4cU2NRsPiJOElTlTvTb_icE8zRwc6YRQKQMRITJEy-N_VfNo1W6KeE-Mz7mNKFNXDyMpqZokoWJZhgxh_uLNn6JQKtbZin0lJeMjePyzr2116DtL3f__Hi4-MO82RpfoDm5DPlY=s960" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="443" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjjnqyQxEWS2_-QiPdFSUamd_jBHWTiU0UgHEhktv2qid_Y4cU2NRsPiJOElTlTvTb_icE8zRwc6YRQKQMRITJEy-N_VfNo1W6KeE-Mz7mNKFNXDyMpqZokoWJZhgxh_uLNn6JQKtbZin0lJeMjePyzr2116DtL3f__Hi4-MO82RpfoDm5DPlY=w185-h400" width="185" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">-- And then her sister, Gigi, another supermodel who has 50 million followers on Instagram, did the same. </span></div><div><p><span>-- On Aug. 26th, more media attention in<a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Feur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com%2F%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%252Ffemail%252Farticle-8666571%252FNYC-taxi-driver-shares-story-city-bounce-response-Jerry-Seinfeld-op-ed.html%26data%3D02%257C01%257C%257Cfbabd8a244304611fd9208d84a56acd1%257C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%257C1%257C0%257C637341083405992576%26sdata%3DRzcMvsjitc6oEgkYH12lbJM1ff5tjCjQuVSFaa8T6%252BU%253D%26reserved%3D0%26fbclid%3DIwAR3viWH-TKqcY4dt0huyVcGRgPO2tA0_64mzLgqluDc1mXzRIicuIm5b0Dk&h=AT2Fk1ukhZXawWBqlguQ2buCWm6KPPbMb9jckeXtvyYdJ4b_i_cpIbElm9L5V-0i4i-RAT-L0YqbeKQDxDvzE47zQ7Loxi1DGsTWflPeqfO86qSYoB42w74T39yVhB1Dc53r8qs&__tn__=H-R&c[0]=AT2PFLlOkVe2A0gag8iAN0SENaXCN8e-s9cNCRR0tvPUPPFfCHehZ8SC-abNxZVeLAD9UWeArY_ow3Bge5hQf7niN24qMKDEa2LwYJQmWeRXLcypBcrVM5_l8Y6QZXTPQcrhXyw_JMkC0qquY3P5Cf9ej8I" target="_blank"> this article in the Daily Mail in the U.K.</a> </span></p><p><span>-- After that it became difficult, if not impossible, to figure out the numbers the comment generated. If there's some way of calculating this I'd like to know about it, but I guess it's safe to assume it must have been in the millions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span>NY Times Interview</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>On Aug. 27th I heard from Shannon Busta, an editor on the NY Times Opinion Desk, informing me that as far as she knew this was the first time a comment to an article in the Times had ever gone viral, and asking if I'd be interested in being interviewed. I was. It was half an hour, <u>live</u> -- which is the interview equivalent of walking on a tightrope. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>Click <a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fp%2FCErn6kNpuYn%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2BlM8CMhtOBqeYwTskB1-2Iny_oP54zI5TQM_TA5WuIw2xMFCleTnaTCM&h=AT38djA00JOjCLDASFfijrrvOxx_UX1TeyPd8NrSiiXJikilQXWwNbSQOPsYSkp5psqOLb86JaHgcDsmSlWtZEXrxOFfn7M7umgv8FzM2Khp09c1voDdHz5L7XWlZxHI-TThTCo&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT37CG0Jlh_z1s4PWeGwW51BhpLrJJ6NXJbq0jLlHHTJkqjExG-Ym3ps0uZGsKC7UIR5zUcG8M1DPxs5KsoJxmENFGQ6QRHHj5mUejXvr02ScsaRqZZWSYkbIAXXvmtyxTzQrSbSlYmfXnS-zJyjH-SEYzk" target="_blank">here</a> to see the interview.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span>Why Was The Comment So Popular?</span></p><p><span>For one thing, it was short and to the point.</span></p><p><span>It was written at a time when virtually the entire human race was suffering from a mutually shared reality, and with no end in sight.</span></p><p><span>More than that, I think, it was because it has the power to rehabilitate the personal purpose line lying dormant in the minds of those who read it. There are certain people -- you could call them dreamers or creatives -- who at some point in their lives have had an epiphany. They have discovered exactly what their purpose is in this lifetime. They have made a promise to themselves to pursue that purpose, no matter what it takes. For many, this means coming to New York City. The skyline of New York, one of the great sights of the world, is symbolic of that dream. To recall that first moment they ever laid eyes on it is to blow apart the barriers that have been holding them down and bring their purpose back to life. </span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><p><span>You could just about raise the dead with that.</span></p><p><span><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span>Two Concise Paragraphs</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>I've been asked where the full versions of the two stories that are tightly packaged into the comment can be found. The story of the "newly minted father" is in this blog. It was published on March 16, 2013. Go to <a href="https://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-best-day-of-your-life.html" target="_blank">The Best Day of Your Life</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>The story of the dreamer coming to the city for the first time and seeing the New York Skyline as we approached Manhattan was published in my book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-New-York-Taxi-Driver/dp/0007500955/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">Confessions Of A New York Taxi Driver</a>. I am including it here in my blog for the first time. Go to <a href="https://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2021/05/from-jfk.html" target="_blank">From JFK</a> or just scroll down. It's right below this post.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span>And Then There Was This</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span>In November a facsimile of Jerry Seinfeld's op-ed on a gigantic billboard was attached to the facade of a luxury apartment building under construction in the Upper East Side. Unfortunately the Comments Section was not included! Read about it<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjR2pHNnd7wAhVAFVkFHe7jCEAQFjACegQIAhAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnaftaligroup.com%2Fpress%2Fnaftali-builds-jerry-seinfelds-new-york-times-on-madison-ave-condo%2F&usg=AOvVaw0O-TIsR0DEiQ68teSDwuDR" target="_blank"> here</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="The Benson: 1045 Madison | Luxury Condominiums Upper East Side" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://the-benson.com/uploads/press/21.jpg" style="height: 542px; margin: 0px; width: 542px;" /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p></div><br />Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-26177017142037057262021-05-23T10:01:00.007-05:002021-06-15T11:30:18.960-05:00From JFK<p><span>I had been waiting in the taxi lot at American Airlines for half an hour or so on a pleasant evening in June, 1990, when suddenly the line started moving -- two flights had come in simultaneously and the newly arriving passengers were jumping out of the terminal like popcorn popping. Within five minutes one of them was sitting in the back seat of my cab and we were on our way, fortunately, to Manhattan. (When you pick up a fare at the airport, you're always a little worried that the ride will be a shortie to Brooklyn or Queens. Manhattan is the place you want to go.)</span></p><p><span>My passenger was a twenty-something kid, an "Agog-er", eyes all aglow at seeing the Big Apple for the very first time. New York, he said, was the place he'd been dreaming of coming to "forever" and finally his dream was coming true. He was from the Midwest somewhere and had studied documentary filmmaking at a couple of different schools, and now at last it was time to take the Big Plunge. His excitement was palpable even though we were still ten miles away from the part of New York that even New Yorkers call "the city"... <i>Manhattan.</i></span></p><p><span>You know, I have been saying that one of my favorite kinds of fares is the one with elderly people who are still enjoying living. Let me confide in you now that my <i>very</i> favorite type of ride -- the one at the top of the list -- is this one, the trip to Manhattan with the wide-eyed virgin, so to speak. I become the impromptu tour guide, an embedded guru, offering advice and insider skinny, but secretly longing to experience vicariously the thrill I hope they are about to have when they see <i>it</i> for the very first time.</span></p><p><span>After twenty minutes of stop and go on the Long Island Expressway we arrived at the last exit you can take before entering the Midtown Tunnel -- I did <i>not</i> want to take that route into the city -- and I got off there. We drove a few more blocks and soon arrived at the exact spot where I needed to be for this particular ride -- the entrance to the Upper Level of the 59th Street Bridge on Thompson Street. I made a right onto the long ramp that rises, before it feeds onto the bridge, above houses, factories and the Number Seven subway line. There are five bridges that span the East River, but the one with not only the best view, but the best <i>feel</i> is the Upper Level of the 59er, and that's why I chose to take him this way. </span><span>I wanted him to feel it.</span></p><p><span>Now here's the thing about the Upper Level -- first the broad skyline, that endless vista of skyscrapers -- is one of the great sights of the world. You can see many of New York's iconic structures quite clearly, and that in itself is spectacular, but the main thing, due to its location and its clear sight lines, is the sense you have of the city getting larger and larger and LARGER as you approach it. New York, that faraway dream, is becoming a reality.</span></p><p><span>Look -- <i>look</i>! -- there it is! It's really there!</span></p><p><span>And then, as the roadway of the bridge begins to descend toward ground level, the immensity of the place starts to sink in. The buildings gradually surround you -- <i>look, you can see people inside them! --</i> and one has the sense of being literally devoured by Gotham. </span></p><p><span>Finally touching down on East 62nd Street, the "energy" of New York City hits you square in the face. People are crowding the sidewalks, walking quickly as if they're late for something, the traffic is bumper to bumper, and, hey, look at that -- there really </span><i>are </i><span>yellow taxicabs all over the place. The feeling comes over you that if there actually were a place where your dream will come true, <u>this</u> is what it would look like.</span></p><p><span>I studied my passenger in the mirror. He was gazing eagerly out his window, trying to take it all in, mesmerized and enchanted, as I hoped he would be.</span></p><p><span>"So, what do you think?" </span></p><p><span>"Wow!" </span></p><p><span>We headed across town on 63rd Street, made a left on 5th Avenue, and started coasting down the avenue which runs straight through the middle of Manhattan. </span></p><p><span>"Look, " I said, "there's Central Park."</span></p><p><span>"Oh, yeah, wow!"</span></p><p><span>"There's Tiffany's."</span></p><p><span>"Wow!"</span></p><p><span>"There's Rockefeller Center."</span></p><p><span>"Oh, yeah, wow!"</span></p><p><span>When we got to the south side of 34th Street, I suddenly pulled over to the curb and stopped.</span></p><p><span>"Get out," I commanded.</span></p><p><span>"Get out?"</span></p><p><span>"Yes, get out and look <i>UP</i>."</span></p><p><span>He did what he was told and found himself gazing at the tallest building he had ever seen. You just can't appreciate the size and magnificence of the Empire State Building unless you're standing directly beneath it.</span></p><p><span><i>"Oh my God!"</i> he exclaimed as he climbed back into the cab. He smiled like a little kid at his own birthday party who was about to start opening a whole roomful of presents.</span></p><p><span>Oh, yes.</span></p><p><span>He had arrived.</span></p><p><span>It had begun.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Saturday, January 18th, 2020, Good Evening! | Viewing NYC | New york city travel, New york life, Nyc at night" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/99/13/c4/9913c48015f4baac0986d5f18936f5b0.png" style="height: 625px; margin: 0px; text-align: start; width: 499.73347547974413px;" /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span>Excerpted from</span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-New-York-Taxi-Driver/dp/0007500955/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8Confessions Of A New York Taxi Driver" target="_blank"> Confessions Of A New York Taxi Driver</a><span> (HarperCollins)</span></p>Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-34019497812388583832020-06-07T17:05:00.029-05:002022-01-22T12:56:28.560-05:00The Rhinoceros Story<div class="separator"><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Here's a story from the vault. It's always been an oral narrative I've told to passengers in my cab when it seemed appropriate, but until now never written up. It concerns a certain rhinoceros with anger management issues. How could that have anything to do with driving a taxi in New York City? Read on.</div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />First, some history...<br /><br />I grew up in <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjC7cuYnvDpAhVOmuAKHXqIC-8QFjAAegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLevittown%2C_New_York&usg=AOvVaw3xITGxioNGG5hPl0nLDr7c" target="_blank">Levittown, New York</a>, about a forty-five minute drive from Manhattan, where I was a student in a typical American high school. I graduated in 1967. It's common to look back at that time in your life as the "good old days", but not for me. I couldn't wait to get out of the place! It felt like prison to me. This was the '60s and the tumult of the era was weighing heavily upon me. The prospect of spending another four years in an academic environment, which is where most of the kids I knew were headed, had no appeal whatsoever. I wanted to get far away and "see the world". However, the idea of being drafted into the U.S. Army and being shipped far away into the world of the Viet Nam War also had no appeal. So the thing to do, at least if you were a white, middle-class American boy, was to get yourself into college. That was your ticket to stay out of the military, at least for a few years. It was called a "student deferment". So I needed to find a college that could serve both of these needs.</div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on">And find one I did in an offbeat school which had just recently been established not far from my hometown by the Society of Friends (the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheist_Quakers" target="_blank">Quakers</a>). It was called <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiK7KKooPDpAhU3j3IEHfNYB3UQFjAAegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.liu.edu%2FGlobal%2FAbout&usg=AOvVaw3A9_6jf78_pc5ItXlw7lJX" target="_blank">Friends World College</a>. (Actually it was an "institute" when I enrolled in September of '67. It was so new at the time that it was still in the process of becoming accredited by the State of New York. When that occurred, about a year later, it could then officially be called a college.)</div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />The basic idea of Friends World College was to create a learning experience in which students could grow into young adults with a "world view". For four years they would spend successive semesters living in different parts of the planet. This would not be sitting in classrooms, reading books, and taking exams. It would be an integration into the cultures in which they were living.<br /><br />It was very loosely structured. There were no examinations or formal courses. The only real requirement was the keeping of a journal of one's thoughts and experiences. Seminars and field trips were offered mostly having to do with topics which were progressive in that era, such as ecology, civil rights, consumer cooperatives, regional development, universal suffrage, intentional communities, and socialism. Individual projects were encouraged and advisors were assigned to each student to offer guidance.<br /><br />My first semester was spent at the North American campus (if you could call it that) on Long Island in a converted barracks leftover from a decommissioned Air Force Base named <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiJi67oovDpAhXPmHIEHfC3CwwQFjADegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMitchel_Air_Force_Base&usg=AOvVaw3mcRjTh11I70-YfPnKTqlL" target="_blank">Mitchel Field</a>. There were 37 kids in my class. We not only participated in student activities, but we shared work responsibilities like cooking and cleaning. So this was not just a school, really, but a community. Here I had finally found a group I could fit in with. Spirited, intelligent, socially conscious to the point of being willing to <u>do</u> something about it, adventurous, iconoclastic: these would all be apt descriptions of the kids there, and of the faculty, too. Plus we all traveled around in the preferred mode of hippie transportation in those days, the Volkswagen bus. </div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><img alt="68 vw bus for sale" class="rg_i Q4LuWd" data-index="0" data-lt="" data-src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR8lJj7HnEtKURQUKCJ5biBTx5hMq_XkdmTFA&usqp=CAU" height="245" jsname="Q4LuWd" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR8lJj7HnEtKURQUKCJ5biBTx5hMq_XkdmTFA&usqp=CAU" width="320" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on">My second semester was spent in <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwivk6fHo_DpAhVYoHIEHfQIB3sQFjAAegQICRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FKenya&usg=AOvVaw3UkFCpUlQb6gqjL0BeD9PE" target="_blank">Kenya</a>, in East Africa. Now <u>this</u> was "far away" indeed. Not only in distance, but in time. Kenya had only recently obtained independence from Great Britain and in 1968 was barely a nation state. Being there was like traveling back in a time machine to an era when people lived in tribes, subsisted from the land, had very little, if any, contact with the outside world, and needed to be aware at all times of the dangers posed to them by their own predators, the animals. </div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Our center was in the capital of the country, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjq2bPAx_DpAhXpUt8KHWgsCPEQFjAAegQICRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNairobi&usg=AOvVaw0RvYih2CowCW-epGFsX4Rt" target="_blank">Nairobi</a>. It had many of the basic things we took for granted back home such as buildings, electricity, running water, paved roads, telephones, a post office, and a hospital. But once you were just a little bit away from Nairobi, wow, were you ever in a different world. Some of the things that remain engraved in my memory are:<br />
<br />
-- living among people who never in their lives owned a pair of shoes. Over the years the bottoms of their feet eventually became so calloused that they actually became their "shoes".<br />
<br />
-- realizing that in the months I lived in Kenya not only had I never seen a tractor, I had never seen a horse-drawn or ox-drawn plow. What I did see were women bent at right angles tilling the soil by hand.<br />
<br />
<br />
<img alt="April | 2011 | Brown. Girl. Farming." class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://natashabowens.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/hoe_photo.jpg" style="height: 405px; margin: 0px; width: 500px;" /><br />
<br />
-- going on a field trip with a few other students which was led by Jesse, a young man employed at the center, who escorted us to the village where he'd grown up. We had to leave our VW bus behind and walk the last mile because there were no roads which led to the village, only trails. At one point along the way Jesse suddenly screamed "Get down!" and we all hit the dirt just as a mass of bees the size of a truck flew right over our heads. Damn! Continuing on, we were greeted effusively by villagers, some of whom bestowed presents upon us. <i>We were only the second group of white people they had ever seen. </i>(Jesse had brought students from the previous class to his village a few months earlier. They were the first.) We were graciously welcomed by Jesse's parents who served us a wonderful meal. The homes in their village were made by building a frame from sticks and filling in the gaps with cow manure. When it dries it hardens like clay and keeps the rain out. Should a big storm come and wash the homes away, the villagers simply build new ones.<br />
<br />
-- the school rented a house in the village of Machakos. I stayed there for several weeks.<br />
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One day a long line of ants somehow entered the house, marched across the wooden floor, and exited on the other side of the place. The "soldier" ants formed two columns and remained stationary. In the lane they created, the "worker" ants, moving swiftly, carried small bits of food. This went on for about an hour and then quite suddenly they were all gone. <i> Just passing through</i>.<br /><br />
-- one of the few other places in Kenya which at that time could be called a city was <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiEiqTfyvDpAhWwkHIEHQ2zDFMQFjAAegQICRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMombasa&usg=AOvVaw1rrhbXpBGEpjJcyEp73QCo" target="_blank">Mombasa</a>, on the Indian Ocean, 273 miles from Nairobi. These two cities were connected by what was then the<i> only paved road in the country</i> (other than those within the cities themselves). Once while traveling in a car on this road with one of the faculty members we encountered some elephants standing right in the middle of it, blocking our way. We moved forward quite slowly but got a little too close to them. Suddenly one turned, raised his trunk, and started running toward us in a most unfriendly manner. Not wishing to dispute the point, the car was hastily thrown into reverse and we backed up until the elephant was satisfied we were far enough away from him. Then he went back to his buddies. We sat there for what felt like half an hour before they finally went on their way. <i>We'll move when we damn well feel like it.</i><br />
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<br />
It was on this same road one day that six of us students -- none over the age of nineteen -- were making a journey from Nairobi to Mombasa in one of the VW buses. I don't remember why we were going to Mombasa but I do recall that we were in no rush to get there. It was to be an all-day trip but not an urgent one. We had some time to kill and to explore whatever might come our way. And what came our way was...<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjlsobOzPDpAhVLUt8KHRQABpgQFjAAegQICxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTsavo_West_National_Park&usg=AOvVaw2DtM4TdYjLiDRwBDU5Mkh5" target="_blank">Tsavo</a>.<br />
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Tsavo (pronounced SAH-vo) is Kenya's largest National Park. It's an area set aside for animals to live in their natural habitat. No towns, no factories, no taxi garages. Just wide open land. If you're a human, you come with the understanding that you're in Animal Town.<br />
<br />
Sometimes when I speak about places like Tsavo to people I feel a need to emphasize the size of these so-called "parks". This is<i> not</i> a theme park, like a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwip8OHbzvDpAhXEknIEHR2LCEkQFjAAegQICRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSix_Flags_Great_Adventure&usg=AOvVaw11an-1mwmnJ2cEIABuVeso" target="_blank">Great Adventure</a> or<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiyyrTZzfDpAhXWoXIEHTsYAc0QFjAAegQIChAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDisney%2527s_Animal_Kingdom&usg=AOvVaw3MMkWP2E2QOc5LF4o1EX7M" target="_blank"> Disney's Animal Kingdom</a>. These national parks are extraordinarily huge. Tsavo's land mass is 8,494 square miles (22,000 in kilometers). That's almost exactly the same size as the entire state of New Jersey in the U.S. and slightly larger than Wales in the U.K. <br />
<br />
We'd been rolling along in the bus for a few hours since departing from Nairobi, just looking at the usual sights along the road. The landscape in this part of Africa is primarily flat, open plains, not heavily vegetated as you'd find in a rain forest or a jungle. Your field of view is usually relatively unobstructed, allowing sightings of things like baobab trees and herds of zebras and antelopes.<br />
<br />
We came upon a sign telling us we were approaching an entrance to Tsavo National Park. <br />
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<img alt="Airstrips and entrance gates in Tsavo west national park" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://www.focuseastafricatours.com/wp-content/uploads/tsavo-west-national-park-gates.jpg" style="height: 332.13793103448273px; margin: 0px; width: 602px;" /><br />
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We stopped and pulled over to the side of the road. A quick tally was taken -- "Hey, wanna check out Tsavo?" -- and the consensus was a unanimous, "Sure, let's do it!" <br />
<br />
So we approached the entrance where a gatekeeper was sitting in a little hut. After a brief conversation we paid him the entry fee of a few shillings, and he handed us a crude hand-drawn map which looked something like this:<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VcxBWsOu-80/Xt0i7hp0cSI/AAAAAAAAHRI/HBJgiO5X4gU5tLCkEzxix7qQusZhj9I_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/1EA7322E-412E-4111-AC74-234015663E97_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1275" data-original-width="1600" height="254" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VcxBWsOu-80/Xt0i7hp0cSI/AAAAAAAAHRI/HBJgiO5X4gU5tLCkEzxix7qQusZhj9I_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/1EA7322E-412E-4111-AC74-234015663E97_1_201_a.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
Then he opened the gate and into Tsavo we drove.<br />
<br />
The map was pretty much useless as it had no way of calculating the distances between things, no clues as to which animals might be found at any particular location, and no words of caution other than the standard "do not step out of your vehicle". The only thing that looked like it might be of interest (simply because of its name as there was no information about what could be found there) was the "lodge". And so, even though we had no idea how far away it was, we agreed:<br />
<br />
"<i>Let's go to the lodge!</i>"<br />
<br />
Our excursion began. We'd all been to at least one other park like Tsavo, so we already had an idea of what it would be like inside. The roads are all dirt, of course, and are just about wide enough for two vehicles to pass by in either direction. Sightings of gazelles, zebras, and elephants are common. (The elephants in Tsavo actually appear to be a reddish-brown color due to the volcanic soil they like to roll around in at a watering holes.)<br />
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<img alt="The Red Elephants of Kenya | The Ark In Space" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-J9Eq9izrb4w/URUnGhhgP6I/AAAAAAAAkAU/bG28BJHDRvI/s640/red+elephant+elephants+tsavo+kenya+africa+2.jpg" style="height: 403.52812500000005px; margin: 0px; width: 602px;" /><br />
<br />
It was also not unusual to see baboons, ostriches, water buffalos, giraffes and, with a little luck, lions.<br />
<br />
After we drove about five miles we saw a little cluster of vehicles ahead, just a bit off the road. This is a sign that there is an unusual sighting to be had, so we went over to take a look. Sure enough there was a family of cheetahs hanging out in the grass. None of us had ever seen a cheetah before so this was special.<br />
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<img alt="Close Encounter With a Desert Roaming Cheetah – National ..." class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" height="124" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/De-Jong-Butynski-cheetah-Meru-NP.jpg" style="height: 374.8480713723432px; margin: 0px; text-align: start; width: 602px;" width="200" /></div>
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It's interesting that some of these animals get quite used to vehicles like ours just showing up and parking close to them. One assumes that over time they've simply gotten used to our presence, or at least the presence of these things with four wheels, and don't see them as a threat or a source of food. The cheetahs barely gave us a second look, and we were right next to them.<br />
<br />
Well, that was interesting. We drove on -- probably, I would guess, for about another five miles for so, just following the line on the map. Suddenly, wait, stop the bus. A decision had to be made. <br />
<br />
According to our little map we would eventually come to a place where two roads converged. If we wanted to get to the lodge we should follow the road to the left. But there was a problem. First, there were no signs on these roads. They didn't have names or numbers, they were just there. Secondly, the road which went to the left was not a wide one like the one we were on. It was merely a narrow, two-tire-track road. Was this the road to take? We couldn't be sure. But, what the hell? It went to the left, so...<br />
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...we took it.<br />
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<img alt="Tsavo Discovery Tour - Kenya Safari" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" height="210" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSZ_xB3NgwYzJhxDl2JiRHjowX2FhnE8aGvEIDBZ64wOqTxx9ws&usqp=CAU" style="height: 395px; margin: 0px; width: 600px;" width="320" /><br />
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It was a little bumpy, but passable. We continued along for a few miles, not seeing much of anything but birds and trees. No elephants, no zebras, nor any of the usual gang. And then, truly out of nowhere and without anyone even noticing that it was coming right at us -- we were charged by a rhinoceros!<br />
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It was running <u>very</u> fast, I'd say at about 30 miles per hour, and it "crossed our bow", so to speak, missing the front of the bus by only a few yards. Then it kept running in a straight line, kind of like a prehistoric cannonball, and disappeared from sight. One of the students, Sally Puleston, an avid photographer, was sitting in the front seat with a camera already perched on her knee and instinctively snapped it, getting this incredible shot:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Vq7ayp1SkQ/XtvyC17vNtI/AAAAAAAAHQ8/-0L605Z0RRgNDNwxL93WkHj4LQBo6toNgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92C3310A-DBEE-42B3-8EE5-4B9002E54C2B.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0Vq7ayp1SkQ/XtvyC17vNtI/AAAAAAAAHQ8/-0L605Z0RRgNDNwxL93WkHj4LQBo6toNgCLcBGAsYHQ/s400/92C3310A-DBEE-42B3-8EE5-4B9002E54C2B.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Sally Puleston McIntosh</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Yes, that's the actual rhino which charged us.<br />
<br />
Along with laughter, our reactions were simultaneous yelps of "holy shit", "oh my God!", "whoa, man!" and whatever other expletives were common in 1968. Someone may have even blurted out "groovy!" It was like we'd been watching a movie and suddenly here's the scary part. <br />
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For some reason not feeling that the rhino was going to turn around and come after us again, we just continued along on our way --<i> to the lodge!</i> -- and rather merrily. But after another two or three miles on this two-tire-track-excuse-for-a-road, a new dilemma suddenly presented itself: the road led into a stream and continued out on the other side. <br />
<br />
What to do?<br />
<br />
We got close enough to the stream to see that a) it was about twenty yards wide, b) it had a sandy bottom, and c) the water was about a foot deep.<br />
<br />
Could the bus make it across the stream? Maybe. Maybe not. <br />
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What to do?<br />
<br />
The decision-making process among six teenagers began. <br />
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The kid who'd been driving the bus thought we could make it across. His idea was to back up, pick up speed, and <i>go for it, man!</i> Three of the others agreed. It looked doable to them. Only myself and one other student, Mary Noland, had second thoughts. <br />
<br />
Like, wait a minute:<br />
<br />
-- our VW bus isn't an all-terrain vehicle, like a Land Rover. It's got small wheels and a tiny engine. It's not made for this kind of thing.<br />
<br />
-- we don't know how soft the sandy bottom is. We may not be able to pick up enough traction to get across.<br />
<br />
-- the sand may be camouflaging rocks or holes which could not only get the bus stuck but could damage it.<br />
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The others disagreed. The basic reasoning was still, "Oh, come on, <i>we can make it!"</i><br />
<br />
Voices began to rise. It went something like this:<br />
<br />
-- Hang on, what if we DON'T make it??? We're on a road that's more like a trail than a real road. We haven't seen a single other vehicle since we've been on it. What if we get stuck in the stream and can't get the bus out? Who's gonna help us? What if we sit here for a day or two and nobody comes along? We only have enough food to last for today. Someone's gonna have to WALK back to the main road to get help. Who wants to volunteer to walk back to the main road? And remember, between here and the main road there's a RHINOCEROS which just ATTACKED us! A RHINOCEROS! <br />
<br />And if these weren't reasons enough, there was this:<br />
<br />
-- look, we don't even know if we're on the right road to get to this lodge.<br />
<br />
-- who cares about the damned lodge, anyway?<br />
<br />
-- even if we make it across the stream now, we're going to have to do it again because we'll be coming back the same way. So it's <i>twice</i> we'll have to make it across the stream.<br />
<br />
-- let's just get the hell out of here and hope we don't meet Mister Rhinoceros again.<br />
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Finally we all agreed.<br />
<br />
We turned around and drove back to the main road. Luckily we did not see Mister Rhinoceros again and we arrived in Mombasa, if I recall, just before sunset.<br />
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Plus we got to live.</div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: center;">********</div>
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This "rhinoceros story" became one of the milestones in my memory for future reference. Years later it helped me conclude that, among many ways of categorizing types of people, you could say that:<br />
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1. There are people who can learn from observing the experiences of others. (foresight)<br />
<br />
2. There are people who <u>can't</u> learn from observing the experiences of others but <u>can</u> learn from their <u>own</u> experiences. (hindsight)<br />
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3. And there are people who can't learn even from their <i>own</i> experiences. (no sight)<br />
<br />It also demonstrated to me that survival has a lot to do with the ability to simply confront what appears before you, to not be pretending it isn't there. This isn't a movie you're in, it's your life. <br />
<br />And it's helped me understand that there are people in this world who need danger to feel they are alive. If it isn't dangerous, it isn't fun. You meet people like that every once in a while.<br />
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Okay, let's fast forward ten years. It's 1978.</div>
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Now I am driving a taxi in New York City, an occupation that has recognizing danger as one of the requirements for doing the job for more than a week. (See my post <a href="http://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2008/01/three-strikes-and-youre-out-system.html" target="_blank">"The Three Strikes and You're Out System"</a> in this blog.)</div>
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One day I picked up a young man -- twenty-something, friendly, bright, talkative -- who was en route to JFK. That's about a forty-five minute ride, so it provided time for us to have a real conversation. I learned that he was from somewhere in the Midwest, had never been to New York before, and was impressed with the hustle and bustle of the city. He'd graduated from a college in Ohio, had a couple of jobs since then which he'd found pretty boring, was not married or in a relationship, and was now going out into the world "to make my fortune". </div>
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Interesting! It's not every day that somebody tells you he's off to make his fortune. </div>
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"Where are you going?"</div>
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"To <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj4s77Wz_DpAhWUg3IEHZzZC0wQFjAAegQIERAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLebanon&usg=AOvVaw2M1V24hmerCxW_nrUsa98U" target="_blank">Lebanon</a>."</div>
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"Lebanon? Why Lebanon?"</div>
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"They're having a <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi8suWE0PDpAhVRhXIEHSwLAkgQFjAAegQICxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLebanese_Civil_War&usg=AOvVaw0662Ik_8ehKT2ad50kOgi0" target="_blank">civil war</a>. I'm gonna sell arms and ammunition."</div>
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"Really! Who are you going to sell them to?"</div>
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"I don't know. I'll find out when I get there."</div>
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"Uh, have you been to Lebanon before?"</div>
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"No."</div>
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"So you have contacts over there?"</div>
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"Not yet."</div>
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Oh my God, this was a guy who saw himself as some kind of character out of a movie: a Robin Hood, James Bond, or Lawrence of Arabia. But I saw him as someone who was about to go to great lengths to get himself killed. Apparently he had <u>no</u> <u>idea</u> what he could be getting himself into. He also had no considerations about the ethics of profiting from the sale of weapons to people who were trying to kill each other. It was all going to be a glorious adventure. And he'll be rich. </div>
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I thought I'd take a shot at changing his mind, as unlikely as that was being that here he was, already on his way to the airport. Nevertheless, I pulled the rhinoceros story out of my hat. When the subject of danger comes up in conversation, especially when it involves people who seem to have a blind spot in that area, if there's time and they're up for it, I will tell them the rhinoceros story. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So I said something along the lines of doing what he's planning on doing sounds intriguingly dangerous and I've got a great story about danger for you. It's kind of long, but do you want to hear it?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Of course he did, being that danger was his thing.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So I told him how this group of teenagers riding around in a VW bus in a game park in Kenya (I didn't mention its name) back in '68 had a close encounter with a rhinoceros and how obtuse we were to the danger we were in at the time. Just a rite of passage from adolescence, I said. I was trying to bring the story around to how maybe he should rethink what the danger of being an amateur arms dealer in an unknown country might be, but before I could get to that he interrupted me. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Wow", he said, "that is so interesting that you should tell me this!"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Why?"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Just last year the mother of a friend of mine was on a safari in a game park in Kenya. She stepped out of the vehicle they were riding around in to take pictures and she was trampled to death by a rhinoceros!"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Oh my God! Really?"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Yes!"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Do you know the name of the park she was in?"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Yeah," he said, "it's called Tsavo."</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It may have been the same rhino.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div></div>
Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-16140244626510568852020-01-18T23:28:00.087-05:002020-09-04T16:07:11.388-05:00Why The Medallion Tanked <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For several years now the most talked-about topics of conversation with passengers have been Uber and the fate of the once coveted taxi medallion. How an established commodity selling for as much as 1.3 million dollars in 2013 could drop in value to virtually nothing in the span of a year is quite a story and I find that not only New Yorkers but people from all over the world are often quite interested in it and many are surprisingly knowledgeable about it as well.<br />
<br />
And yet I have not encountered a single person who actually understood the true reason for the medallion's decline. Nor have I read an article that pinpointed exactly what happened. The assumption is always that Uber showed up and took the passengers away or, according to a recent series of articles in the NY Times, that predatory loans agreed to by unsuspecting drivers were the cause. (To read these articles click <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiy4-zp6oPnAhXBrVkKHWx2BAcQFjAAegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F05%2F19%2Fnyregion%2Fnyc-taxis-medallions-suicides.html&usg=AOvVaw10f1UpGtEPqivzuGBR-zHA" target="_blank">here</a>. This is outstanding investigative reporting by Times reporter Brian Rosenthal.)<br />
<br />
It is true that these are both parts of the story, but they do not identify the primary cause of the medallion's collapse. What I'm doing in this post is setting the record straight. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Some</u> <u>History</u></div>
<br />
You may already know about taxi medallions. If not, here is some information about them:<br />
<br />
A medallion is a license -- symbolized by a piece of metal (called the "tin" in the industry) -- attached to the hood of a cab. It's a license not to drive, but to <i>own</i> one taxicab. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/06/nyregion/00taxi120/00taxi120-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="800" height="212" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/06/nyregion/00taxi120/00taxi120-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The owner of a medallion may or may not be the driver of the cab. Most often the driver of a yellow cab in NYC is <i>not</i> the owner. The owner is more likely to be an investor who either leases the medallion to a middleman (known as a "taxi broker", who in turn sets up a driver with the medallion, a taxicab, and insurance) or the owner of the medallion leases it to the operator of a taxi garage. Taxi garages, also known as "fleets", vary in size. Some may have only ten or twenty cabs. Others have hundreds. There are many taxi garages scattered around New York City, mostly in the boroughs outside of Manhattan.<br />
<br />
The medallion system was set up in 1937, during the Great Depression. In those days all you had to do to get a permit to be in the taxi business in New York was to have a car and pay a $10 annual fee to the city. The industry was so easy to enter that there were eventually way too many cabs for the amount of business on the streets. No one could make a living with that much competition. So the city decided to stop issuing new annual permits (medallions) altogether. If you didn't renew it you lost it and as a result the only way to become the owner of a taxi medallion was to purchase one from someone who already owned it. Thus a market was created for the medallion. Business remained poor for several more years and the number of taxis dwindled from over 30,000 to exactly 11,787, where it stayed until 1996 when the city auctioned off 133 new ones. After World War II ended in 1945, however, business picked up considerably and the demand for ownership of a medallion steadily increased along with its value, which rose to its peak in 2013 at 1.3 million dollars. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
It should be noted, however, that many thousands of car service vehicles -- far more than the number of medallion cabs -- were added to the streets of the city as time went on. But only the medallion cabs could legally pick you up by means of the street hail. All other for-hire vehicles had to be summoned by telephone.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>2013</u></div>
<br />
Okay, that should be sufficient history. Now here's the story. Why did the medallion drop from $1.3 million to virtually nothing in less than a year?<br />
<br />
Let's go back to the year 2013. Conditions in the NYC taxi industry are pretty much the same as they've been for decades. There are approximately 13,000 yellow cabs (one cab for each medallion) on the streets, a number that is set by law and does not increase, as noted, except on the rare occasion when new medallions are auctioned off by the city. <br />
<br />
The majority of taxi drivers are working out of taxi garages. Working conditions, as always, are far below the labor standards of most American workplaces. <br />
<br />
Drivers must pay leasing fees for twelve-hour shifts -- either a day shift (5 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or a night shift (5 p.m. to 5 a.m.) They also pay for filling the tank up with gas at the end of the shift. <br />
<br />
It takes about five hours of driving time to break even, so you don't start making money for yourself until that point is reached. You don't <i>have</i> to work the full twelve hours of a shift -- that's okay -- but you still have to pay the full price of the shift. It's not charged by the hour, or by a percentage of the money from passengers. It's charged by the shift.<br />
<br />
There is no union looking out for the drivers, only a taxi advocacy group called the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwifq9_shYbnAhVyiOAKHSfUAasQFjAEegQIBxAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytwa.org%2Fmission-and-history&usg=AOvVaw3Bk9QsaLbk4ui_wP4uHX7J" target="_blank">Taxi Workers Alliance</a>. They try their best but they are not a real union because they have no clout -- that is, they have no ability to call for and enforce a strike. No one<i> </i>who has any real power to improve your working conditions -- like the mayor, the Taxi and Limousine Commissioners, or the owner of your garage -- is looking out for you. There is nothing resembling a human resources department in the taxi industry that you'd find in any big business in the United States.<br />
<br />
There is no overtime.<br />
<br />
There is no health insurance.<br />
<br />
There are no sick days.<br />
<br />
No paid vacations.<br />
<br />
No pension.<br />
<br />
No profit sharing (of course).<br />
<br />
No bonuses.<br />
<br />
Although they pretty much fit the description of "employees", drivers have been deemed "independent contractors" by city law since the early 1980s. (And there went the concept of "benefits".)<br />
<br />
Once you're out on the road you are driving in a kind of perpetual horse race with other taxi drivers to be the first to arrive at people waving their arms in the air. It's <i>very </i>competitive. Some cabbies prefer to work the airports and spend a lot of time waiting in lots at LaGuardia or JFK. Others choose to wait in lines in front of hotels, museums, or clubs. Most, though, are battling traffic and other taxis on the streets of Manhattan in search of their next customer.<br />
<br />
After you have won your prize -- a passenger -- you must provide service to a person sitting a few feet behind your head. It's not like you're moving cargo. You've got people -- virtually every type of person imaginable -- to contend with. <br />
<br />
You're carrying cash. Even though about 70% of the payments are made with credit cards, the fact that you are known to have cash could make you the target of a criminal. You cannot legally refuse service to anyone unless they are "disorderly" or intoxicated and you can be fined heavily or even have your license revoked if you're found guilty of doing these and other offenses by one of the TLC's <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiTg5GQ4pPnAhWpTt8KHbKEDd4QFjAKegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FKangaroo_court&usg=AOvVaw2GQyHyIWlipJmUiUnhZzsq" target="_blank">kangaroo courts</a>. <br />
<br />
So it's a dangerous and usually a thankless job.<br />
<br />
And yet, even with all these liabilities, there are always plenty of drivers. The great majority of them are immigrants from third world countries. Why? Because as substandard as these working conditions are, they're still a lot better than whatever they had in Bangladesh. Or Nigeria. Or Haiti.<br />
<br />
Indeed, one problem owners of taxi garages never had was a shortage of drivers. Drivers would tend to come and go, but new ones showing up and old ones returning were <i>always</i> in sufficient supply. Quite often there were more drivers than there were cabs, which gave the owners of taxi fleets a great advantage. If they didn't like a driver for whatever reason, they could simply refuse to lease him a cab. This put drivers in a position of needing to put up with varying degrees of unfairness if they hoped to continue working there. <br />
<br />
Dispatchers demanding "tips". <br />
<br />
No compensation for lost time if their cab breaks down. <br />
<br />
Payment to the garage for accidents which is not returned after insurance compensates the owner. <br />
<br />
And so on.<br />
<br />
Perhaps the greatest unfairness of all was forcing drivers to accept a "weekly deal". It's better for the owner of a garage to assign one driver to one car and be assured of payment for an entire week than to let drivers work whichever days they preferred. This meant that even if they took a day off to be with their families they were still paying for the shift for that day.<br />
<br />
The point I'm making here is that drivers for decades have been utterly taken for granted. I mean "utterly"<i>, </i>as in completely, totally, absolutely, entirely, thoroughly, in all respects, and to the hilt.<br />
<br />
Look at this:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JE_IKqhZqNE/SqT4532yOcI/AAAAAAAAC_M/F1GBVmAXGbU/s160" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="383" data-original-width="512" height="298" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_JE_IKqhZqNE/SqT4532yOcI/AAAAAAAAC_M/F1GBVmAXGbU/s160" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
I took this picture in 2009 at my taxi garage. It pretty much tells the story. Labor Day is the one day of the year in the USA that is set aside as a national holiday to honor working people. One driver took it upon himself to write "WE ARE NOT SLAVES" on this insulting notice.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>2014</u> - <u>Uber Arrives</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
Although according to Wikipedia<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&ved=2ahUKEwj9zNHL4obnAhWlSt8KHfNZBawQFjALegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FTimeline_of_Uber&usg=AOvVaw0OdaZbV_K2SO7IaWaTPbtO" target="_blank"> Uber "went live" in NYC in 2011</a>, it didn't have any impact on the taxi business here until early in 2014. Then, quite suddenly, everywhere you looked -- on billboards, on TV, on the internet, and especially on the backs of buses -- there were ads from Uber directed not at customers, but at <i><u>drivers</u>.</i> Some of these ads were actually offering guarantees of monthly income, something completely unheard of in the history of the taxi industry. <br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nF50JJmwwQk/Xh-u3T8FiHI/AAAAAAAAHO8/fa5OygnKN1YBrTFENz5oWMXOrDwcVDrmgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/fullsizeoutput_840.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1305" data-original-width="1600" height="261" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nF50JJmwwQk/Xh-u3T8FiHI/AAAAAAAAHO8/fa5OygnKN1YBrTFENz5oWMXOrDwcVDrmgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/fullsizeoutput_840.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uaLm2fWa5H4/Xh-ws2Dv4MI/AAAAAAAAHPQ/EDFBfL8zBTAVeu8GsUQebL_fjcatb83VQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/fullsizeoutput_841.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1586" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uaLm2fWa5H4/Xh-ws2Dv4MI/AAAAAAAAHPQ/EDFBfL8zBTAVeu8GsUQebL_fjcatb83VQCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/fullsizeoutput_841.jpeg" width="317" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tZh_A2MxPjw/Vo3ZwbYwfWI/AAAAAAAAHBM/E7msp62M1jE/s1600/DSC06217.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1155" data-original-width="1600" height="288" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tZh_A2MxPjw/Vo3ZwbYwfWI/AAAAAAAAHBM/E7msp62M1jE/s400/DSC06217.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
In 2014 Uber pulled off what I would call a military-precision invasion of New York City. You've got to have several things in place simultaneously for this to be successful.<br />
<br />
1. You've got to have a public that has heard of you and has access to you. There was considerable word of mouth about Uber in the United States from people who traveled to places where Uber had already set up shop. And by 2014 everyone had a smart phone, so access, of course, was automatic.<br />
<br />
2. You've got to be able to provide your service to the public immediately. If you promote a car service and an app to the general public and then you can't provide a car and a driver, you're finished. That's what happened to <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjS86WaoonnAhUx1VkKHdfBAaIQFjABegQIAxAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHailo&usg=AOvVaw0G0Sf0WqOFFrhQLTrbt7R7" target="_blank">Hailo</a>.<br />
<br />
3. You've got to have a business model and all sorts of administrators to put it into action. This means people, policies, locations, and equipment. You've got to have the app set up and ready to go without crashing, tech personnel to maintain the app, people to answer phones, people to explain the deal to drivers and get them on the road, managers, lawyers, and staff to run offices. <br />
<br />
4. You've got to have a ton of money. By demonstrating its success in other locations before it arrived in New York, Uber was able to obtain venture capital from major investors. By June of 2014 they had secured over a billion dollars in funding. <br />
<br />
5. And finally, you've got to have a green light from the city you're about to invade. City officials turned a blind eye as Uber was able to add unlimited numbers of for-hire vehicles to the already congested streets of Manhattan. (By 2018 there were over 100,000.) I think it's safe to assume that the savvy leaders of Uber would not have attempted to enter the world's largest taxi market in the way they did (not with small steps, but with a bang) unless they felt confident that they would not be met with serious opposition from the mayor, the TLC Commissioner, or the City Council.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Meanwhile, At The Taxi Garage</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let's take a look into the world of the taxi garage. Imagine that you operate a taxi garage and you own or lease a hundred medallions. That's one hundred cabs, double-shifted. Two hundred drivers.</div>
<br />
If every shift is sold out that means you've got two hundred drivers paying you approximately $125 every day for the use of a cab for twelve hours. That's a lot of money coming in, but you also have an enormous overhead. Your expenses include:<br />
<br />
--- the cabs themselves which by TLC rules must be replaced every three years.<br />
<br />
-- the parts for the cabs which are in constant need of repair.<br />
<br />
-- the cost of the garage. This includes whatever you pay for renting the space if you don't own it, for property tax and insurance if you do own it, the parking lot for the cabs, the equipment you need to maintain the cabs, office machinery and office supplies.<br />
<br />
-- insurance for the cabs, over $500 per month per cab.<br />
<br />
-- a body shop and its equipment.<br />
<br />
-- perhaps a tow truck.<br />
<br />
-- personnel, including mechanics and dispatchers.<br />
<br />
-- lawyers.<br />
<br />
-- accountants.<br />
<br />
-- fees paid to the city.<br />
<br />
-- and let's not forget the cost of leasing medallions if you don't own them or paying for loans that may be outstanding on the medallions that you do own.<br />
<br />
Clearly, it's an expensive proposition to run a taxi garage in New York City.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>The Key Question</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<u><br /></u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
About a year after the medallion crashed it occurred to me that I didn't know the answer to a very pertinent question about the economics of the taxi business. I keep up with these things and I was sure I'd never heard the answer to this question in conversation nor had I learned about it from trade magazines or in the media. So I posed the question to the owner of my taxi garage, a person who has operated a fleet of as many as 240 cabs for thirty years: </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"What percentage of your cabs have to be out on the road for you to break even?"</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
He answered immediately without needing a moment to think about it. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
"Eighty per cent."</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Eighty per cent to break even. That, ladies and germs, is a <u>great</u> piece of data.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Here's another one: the customers of the owner of a taxi garage are <u>not</u> the passengers who get into his taxis and pay for a ride. His customers are the <u>drivers</u> who lease his cabs. His income comes almost entirely from his drivers. It is of little concern to the garage owner if passengers are happy with their rides or even if his drivers are out on the streets for the full shift and racking up lots of money on the meter. In fact, it would be fine with him if the drivers <u>don't</u> work the full shift. It would mean less wear and tear on his cabs. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The customers of the owner of a taxi garage are his own drivers. That's where his money comes from.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Why The Medallion Tanked</u></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The medallion did not tank because Uber took the passengers. Uber certainly took many passengers but not enough so that you couldn't still make a living driving a yellow cab. I can say this for a fact because I've been driving a yellow cab since 1977 until the present. It's true that I'm making less than what I was before Uber showed up in 2014, but it's not that much less. There's still plenty of business for yellow cabs.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And that's because the business model of the medallion cab -- people who live and work in an extremely condensed piece of real estate (Manhattan) step out onto the street, wave a hand in the air, and a yellow car suddenly appears and whisks them away -- is actually competitive with and often better than the app. I see people all the time standing there waiting for their Uber to show up while available yellow cabs are driving right by them. The app may have replaced the telephone but it has not replaced the street hail. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The medallion also didn't tank because several hundred drivers were swindled by predatory lenders. There are over 40,000 people in New York City who have valid hack licenses. There were thousands of people who never drove a cab but purchased medallions strictly as investments. The misfortunes of a relative few could, and should, lead to reforms in the way loans are made and even to compensations to these drivers, but it would not by itself destroy the confidence that so many others still had in the commodity.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The medallion tanked because <u>the</u> <u>drivers</u> <u>defected</u> to Uber. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
They suddenly left the garages, in big numbers, and did not come back. New drivers considering entering the industry chose Uber instead of yellow. Old drivers considering returning to the profession decided to give Uber a try instead of taking the old twelve-hour shift deal. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Drivers, who for so many years were taken for granted, whose working conditions were deplorable, saw the possibility of a better life if they left the garages and went with Uber. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
No more twelve-hour shifts.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
No more working for five hours before you break even. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
No more waking at 3 a.m. to get to the taxi garage by 5:00 to start your twelve-hour work day.</div>
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<br /></div>
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No more working all night and not getting to sleep until 7 a.m.</div>
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<br /></div>
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No more dispatchers shaking you down.</div>
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<br /></div>
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No more being turned away because all the cabs are already leased out.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Now you can own and drive your own vehicle.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You can make money even if you drive for just a few hours.</div>
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<br /></div>
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You can arrange your schedule to give you time with your family.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Work when it's busy.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Work whenever you feel like it.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Surge pricing!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Unfortunately, and predictably, this didn't last. As time went forward Uber (and Lyft), like the owners of taxi garages, showed themselves to be not particularly concerned with the welfares of their drivers. In fact Travis Kalanick, Uber's founder, shamelessly announced that the long-term goal of Uber was to completely do away with their drivers and replace them with self-driving cars! These companies allowed their market to become saturated with unlimited numbers of drivers and the good times were over. It was, and still is, actually very similar to the situation which led to the creation of the medallion in 1937.</div>
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But in 2014 Uber sure looked great if you were working out of a taxi garage.</div>
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At first the drivers began to drop away like weary soldiers disappearing from their ranks on the long march home. You might wonder whatever happened to so and so who you used to see at the garage every day. Someone would say out of earshot of the dispatcher that so and so went to Uber. The word started to get around from these early defectors that they were doing so much better now, making as much money in two or three busy hours as they were making in twelve at the garage. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I will never forget what I started seeing in September of 2014. Traditionally summer was always the slowest season for yellow cabs due to so many New Yorkers being out of town on vacation. Many cabbies took time off in the summer, too -- the only time of the year when they may not have had to worry about losing their weekly deal. I might see a dozen empty cabs parked on the street in front of my garage in the summer months, whereas at other times of the year there would be perhaps just two or three out there, waiting for repairs. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
But every year right after Labor Day, it would be as if a switch had been turned on. Immediately the business was back, the traffic was worse, the shifts at the garage were selling out, and things were back to normal. This did not happen in 2014. Instead there were dozens of empty cabs sitting on the street because they did not have drivers. In fact, the owner of my garage had a new problem -- he had no place to put his cabs. He had to start paying to keep them in commercial parking lots. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Driving around the city I saw the same thing. Every taxi garage with dozens of empty cabs on the streets. As months went by, nothing changed. Rows and rows of empty cabs at every taxi garage. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The days of endless supplies of drivers were over.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This meant that the garages were below their 80% threshold. They were losing money.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Worse than that, the <i><u>confidence</u> </i>in the medallion evaporated. There was no reason to believe that things were ever going to get better. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
This carried over into the taxi broker segment of the industry as well. As mentioned above, some drivers preferred to lease medallions rather than continue working out of garages. They'd go to a middleman (the broker) who'd set them up with a medallion (owned by an investor), a taxicab, and insurance. He'd then guide them through the red tape of the Taxi and Limousine Commission and they'd be in business for themselves. Part of this arrangement would be for the driver to sign a contract agreeing to continue to lease the medallion for an agreed upon period of time. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Let's say the driver signed a two-year contract to lease the medallion in November of 2012. The two years go by; it's now November of 2014. He sees that all the drivers he knows who went to Uber are doing great, much better than he is. Is he going to renew his contract to lease that medallion?</div>
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No. He's going to return it to the broker. See ya later.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Also, getting back to the owners of taxi garages -- they usually own some medallions themselves but they, too, were leasing medallions from investors. Seeing that they no longer had enough drivers and were losing money, did they renew their leases with the medallion owners?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
No. In order to cut their expenses they reduced the number of cabs in their fleets by returning the medallions they did not own. My garage shrunk from 240 cabs to 144.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
What if you were the person who bought a medallion (or ten) strictly as an investment? That commodity which had been giving you a great return in the form of a monthly check from a broker or a fleet owner has now been returned to you. There are no drivers to be found and you are getting <u>nothing</u>. If you owned only one medallion (and one cab) at least you could still make money by driving the thing yourself. But you can only drive one cab at a time. And you own ten medallions.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You are screwed.<br />
<br />
Supposing you owned a bank or ran a credit union. Would you still accept the medallion as collateral for a loan? <br />
<br />
No. So the existing medallion owners could not borrow on their own medallions in the hope of riding out the crisis.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Supposing you were someone who had been considering buying a medallion and you understood what was happening. Would you buy a medallion for a million dollars? Would you buy one at any price at all? No, you would not. Nor would anyone else.</div>
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If no one will buy a medallion, what is it worth? </div>
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Nothing. </div>
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<br />
So <u>that</u> is the story. That is why the medallion tanked. The engine that was producing the wealth -- the drivers -- galloped out of the stable in the hope of finding a better life. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It's a story that has a certain karmic appeal to it.</div>
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If you kick a horse long enough it will no longer be around to pull your wagon.</div>
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-29769030308432403332019-12-19T19:47:00.000-05:002019-12-21T15:06:40.370-05:00How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I stopped for a couple of passengers the other day on the Upper West Side who announced with some enthusiasm that their destination was <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwigv6KYqsfmAhVpUN8KHYb3BkIQFjAAegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCarnegie_Hall&usg=AOvVaw0AetAfMOrRwZP6L3IM7vE3" target="_blank">Carnegie Hall</a>. I could see they were in a good mood, and this made me think they might be candidates for <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjPg-i69cLmAhXSUt8KHe9WD7QQFjAAegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.carnegiehall.org%2FBlog%2F2016%2F04%2FThe-Joke&usg=AOvVaw2JPBjesEKQX8ITqpDfgrjX" target="_blank">the oldest joke in the world</a>. <br />
<br />
So I fed them the line:<br />
<br />
"How do I get to Carnegie Hall?"<br />
<br />
They were right on it. <br />
<br />
"Practice!" they called out in unison.<br />
<br />
We remained at the curb for a few moments while I gave this some serious consideration. <br />
<br />
Finally, as we pulled out into traffic, I said...<br />
<br />
"Nah... I think I'll just take Broadway down to 57th Street and make a left."<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-86710822339285189512019-02-24T10:09:00.000-05:002019-09-21T10:57:56.252-05:00What It Takes, Part 3 -- Epilogue: McEnroe Returns<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Note: Best to read Parts 1 and 2 below before reading this one. </div>
<br />
<i>Epilogue</i> (noun) -- a section or speech at the end of a book or a play that serves as a comment on or a conclusion to what has happened. (the Apple dictionary)<br />
<br />
I love epilogues, especially when one occurs in real life, as if life itself were a story. In the context of a ride in a taxi in a big city like New York, epilogues are rare indeed because in most cases you will never meet your passenger again. So whatever you may have found to be interesting, or quirky, or disturbing about your passenger -- whatever the circumstance was -- it will remain unresolved in your mind. You may occasionally find yourself wondering, "whatever became of so-and-so?" You wish you could meet that person again just to find out or so you could satisfactorily end the story yourself.<br />
<br />
I had an epilogue in my cab last year on April 22nd, a sunny Sunday with birds chirping and happy trees serenading the city with a concerto in the key of delicate green.<br />
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<a href="https://www.ytravelblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IMG_6479.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://www.ytravelblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/IMG_6479.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
As I was waiting at a red light on Central Park West a bit before 4 p.m., the right rear door opened and a passenger jumped in. Before I could say "hello" he barked, "<i>59th and York and make it fly!</i>" Apparently he was in a big rush. <br />
<br />
This kind of request is usually made in the form of a polite question, not a blunt command. I looked in the rearview mirror to evaluate the situation. In other words, why should I drive any faster than I normally do? Is this really an emergency? I had one of those Nissan minivan cabs that day<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://s.aolcdn.com/dims-global/dims3/GLOB/legacy_thumbnail/350x197/quality/95/http://www.blogcdn.com/slideshows/images/slides/282/536/9/S2825369/slug/l/2013-nissan-nv200-taxi-00-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="197" data-original-width="350" height="225" src="https://s.aolcdn.com/dims-global/dims3/GLOB/legacy_thumbnail/350x197/quality/95/http://www.blogcdn.com/slideshows/images/slides/282/536/9/S2825369/slug/l/2013-nissan-nv200-taxi-00-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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which has a partition running the entire width of the cab. One of the few things I like about this vehicle is that it allows the driver to fully view the passengers in the rear. It also has an intercom that actually works, enabling the driver and passenger to hear each other. So I was able to take a good look at this guy. <br />
<br />
Hey, wait a minute -- he looked familiar.<br />
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<a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgXaQkXYZMzr_rW06-YqWRBDd6CADSh5W3WIpi2BkqNEoKI-ntgA" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="239" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgXaQkXYZMzr_rW06-YqWRBDd6CADSh5W3WIpi2BkqNEoKI-ntgA" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Oh my God, it was McEnroe. Again. Much older. After thirty-four years he has returned to me, the prodigal passenger.<br />
<br />
<i>"Mister McEnroe!</i>" I exclaimed.<br />
<br />
Big mistake.<br />
<br />
If you recall from the second story in this series, the correct way to address John McEnroe is by referring to him by his last name only. I should have remembered this and I immediately suffered the consequences of my blunder.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"WE DON'T HAVE TO TALK!</span>" he screamed.<br />
<br />
Now if this had been virtually <i><u>anyone</u> <u>else</u> <u>in</u> <u>the</u> <u>world</u></i> I would have tossed the guy out of my cab. It's a dignity issue. You can't allow people to talk to you that way unless, of course, they are drunk and much bigger than you. But this was McEnroe. Actually, it was kind of charming. I smiled as if he'd said, "Hello there, how are <i>you</i>?", which in his own way is sort of what he did. <br />
<br />
I stepped lightly on the gas and we began moving downtown on Central Park West. His destination required me to make an almost immediate left turn onto the transverse which runs through the park at 65th Street. It's the fastest route to the East Side. But the transverse was closed due to a parade on 5th Avenue that day, so we had to cut over to Broadway, a detour. McEnroe didn't take this lying down and began venting his rage at Mayor de Blasio, the tyrant who had no doubt orchestrated this outrage. Ridiculous to get so upset, you say, but think about it. This is McEnroe. Everyone knows how McEnroe feels about referees and mayors are pretty much the same as referees. Right? <br />
<br />
I realized there was no point in continuing on in that vein. Instead, I said:<br />
<br />
"Hey, do you remember what you were doing in the evening of March 13th, 1984?"<br />
<br />
This non sequitur caught his attention. He perked up and forgot about the mayor. <br />
<br />
"I have no idea."<br />
<br />
"You were in my cab. I picked you up from your place on East End Avenue and took you to the Garden to a Knicks game. We talked about sports. I told you about the time I hit some balls with Martina Navratilova's coach." <br />
<br />
McEnroe's face lit up. "I think I remember that ride!"<br />
<br />
Well, that handled his <i>don't-talk-to-me</i> and his <i>I'm-in-a-big-rush </i>state of mind. Suddenly McEnroe was friendly, conversational, and in no particular hurry. We began a rambling conversation about various subjects, one thing leading to another, as often happens in a lively exchange. My long tenure as a taxi driver interested him and he asked me some questions about my more memorable rides. One that I mentioned was the ride with a couple of Mafia hit men to Newark Airport. That led to him telling me about a book he'd been reading at the time, <i>I Hear You Paint Houses</i>, which led to how much money Netflix was reportedly paying Martin Scorsese to direct the movie version. And so on. <br />
<br />
By the time we were about halfway to 59th and York I suddenly realized that I had the rarest of rare opportunities at hand. And that this was <i>really</i> going to be fun.<br />
<br />
Let me explain: in the last 34 years I have told the stories in Parts 1 and 2 of this series to countless passengers in my cab. If the subject of tennis comes up, or if anything to do with what it takes to be the champion in a sport comes up, if time permits I will tell my passengers those two stories together. First the story about how pleased I was with myself that I was able to hit the serve of Mike Estep, Martina Navratilova's coach. Then the story about what McEnroe's response to me was, seven months later, when I told <i>him </i>how pleased I was with myself that I could hit Mike Estep's serve:<br />
<br />
"<i>Well, Mike's never been known for his serve," </i>McEnroe had said.<br />
<br />
It burst my little bubble. <br />
<br />
This always gets a laugh. Then to make my point I really dig into McEnroe, putting emphasis on certain words. I'll say: "here's a guy who is number ONE... in the WORLD! NO ONE can beat him! In the WORLD! NO ONE! But he's just a <i>little concerned</i> that maybe his TAXI DRIVER can hit <i>his</i> serve. But then, oh, wait, it's okay. It was only Mike Estep. I'm safe." <i> </i><br />
<br />
After a brief pause for more laughter I'll put the finishing touches on my speech:<br />
<br />
"What we're looking at here is compulsive competitiveness of a magnitude that is borderline insane! This guy is asylum bait. He's surrounded by assassins. Even his <i>taxi driver, </i>for God's sake, is a potential threat to his dominance in the world of tennis." <br />
<br />
And the point I make is that <i>this </i>is what it takes to be Number One.<br />
<br />
So -- the rarest of rare opportunities at hand was this: due to the high level of affinity that had been created between us by our free-flowing conversation, I knew I could now tell McEnroe the story I'd been telling passengers for 34 years<i> about</i> him<i> <u>to</u> him. </i> Just the way I tell it. In life this just never happens.<br />
<br />
So I set him up.<br />
<br />
As we hit some traffic on 57th Street, I asked him if he remembered what he'd said to me in 1984 about my tennis session with Martina's coach. Of course he did not, so the door was open. I started at the beginning with Mike Estep hailing me on 6th Avenue in August of 1983, how friendly he was, how he was telling me things about the men's tour he probably shouldn't be telling anyone, about how he always beats Martina in a real match, and so on, leading up to his invitation to come out onto the court so I could see what it's like to try to hit the serve of a pro, and then later observing the ferocity of Martina when she played him in a practice game for real.<br />
<br />
Watching McEnroe in the mirror, it was clear that he was enjoying the story and I was in safe territory when the story became about him. So I brought it on...<br />
<br />
"...so it's seven months later, March 13th, 1984 to be exact..."<br />
<br />
"...you're going to the Garden, you're in my cab, we're on the FDR Drive..."<br />
<br />
"...I'm telling you how happy I was with myself that I was able to hit his serve..."<br />
<br />
"...you move forward in your seat, a look of concern on your face..."<br />
<br />
"...what was his name again? you ask..."<br />
<br />
"...Mike Estep..."<br />
<br />
"...you move back in your seat, all relieved..."<br />
<br />
"...well, you know," you say, "<i>Mike's never been known for his serve"...</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I check in the mirror to see how McEnroe's responding. He's loving it. I continue, with emphasis:<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"...</i>it's 1984. You're the Number ONE tennis player in the WORLD! NO ONE can beat you! In the WORLD! NO ONE! But you're just a <i>little concerned </i>that maybe your <u>TAXI</u> <u>DRIVER</u> can hit <i>your</i> serve! But then, wait, it's okay, it's only Mike Estep. <i>I'm safe</i>."<br />
<i><br /></i>
Looking again at McEnroe, I see he's just about doubled-over in laughter. I move in for the kill. In mock exasperation, squealing:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
"<i>Mike's never been known for his <u>serve</u>?"</i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
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</div>
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And then, the coup de grace, both middle fingers raised high in extended triumph:</div>
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"FUCK YOU! FU-U-U-CK YO-U-U-U McENROE!"</div>
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Now he <i><u>is</u> </i>doubled-over in laughter. </div>
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I tell my passenger to go fuck himself and he loves it. A great accomplishment for me, but I knew it wouldn't offend him. Self-deprecation has always been one of McEnroe's sterling qualities -- his saving grace, actually.</div>
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A feeling of calm set in as the laughter subsided. We rode in silence for half a minute or so, then traffic for the 59th Street Bridge brought us to a complete stop at Park Avenue. I told McEnroe I knew a cab driver trick to get around it and proceeded to turn one block south to 56th Street, which is always completely empty. As we began to zip along at a decent pace, I remembered that in our previous ride back in '84 I had kind of set him up for giving me a big tip. We now had only a couple of minutes before we'd arrive at his destination, but I realized it could be done again.</div>
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"You know, for many years you held the record for being the best celebrity tipper in my cab," I said. </div>
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"Really! Who broke it?"</div>
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"Leonardo di Caprio. Back in 1997. He wanted to know who was the best celebrity tipper I'd ever had in my cab and I said, 'believe it or not it was John McEnroe, who gave me double the meter.' Then he said, 'well I'm gonna give you <i>triple </i>the meter.' And he did. Pretty impressive, considering he was really just a kid at the time."</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Looking at him in the mirror, I could see a certain look of concern appearing on his face which I'd seen before. Remember, this is a man who suffers from Obsessive Competitive Syndrome. </div>
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I continued:</div>
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"That record stood for 17 years until it was broken by Derek Jeter. Jeter gave me <i>quadruple</i> the meter."</div>
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<br /></div>
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McEnroe was indeed concerned. "What was Jeter like?" he asked. "I've never met him."</div>
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I told him Jeter was as advertised -- friendly, funny, easy to talk to, unpretentious. </div>
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We arrived at his destination, the Sutton East Tennis Club (of course!) at 59th and York. The fare was $19.30 and I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind -- "should I give this guy <i>quintuple</i> the meter?" That would be almost $100. Could he do it? The title of Best Celebrity Tipper Of All Time was within his grasp -- again! -- and the tension was almost palpable. </div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
McEnroe, like most people these days, was paying with a credit card. As the passenger is touching a screen in the back to enter the tip, the driver can watch on his own screen in the front to see what's happening. McEnroe began tapping. If this had been taking place in a stadium, the crowd would be hushed in nail-biting anticipation. </div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<i>Could he do it?</i></div>
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The numbers began coming up on my screen, ever so slowly, one digit at a time... a five, then a zero, then a period and two more zeroes. Fifty dollars. A valiant effort, ladies and gentlemen, but, alas, not enough. He had come up short. So sad, really, to see Father Time catching up with them. Even the great ones must fall eventually to his relentless pursuit. </div>
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But wait!</div>
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Number of times what's on the meter is only one way of determining the winner. Simple quantity would be another, more accurate, means of awarding the trophy. Di Caprio's ride in 1997 had been a short one and triple the meter came to about fifteen dollars. And Jeter's ride was also a short one, around $8 on the meter and he gave me two twenties. A $32 tip. </div>
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So actually McEnroe had done it! After 34 years he had come back to reclaim his title -- the Best Celebrity Tipper of All Time In My Cab. </div>
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Without question the greatest comeback in taxi history!</div>
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I immediately decided he should receive a trophy -- my book. I always keep a copy handy on the dashboard should the need arise to show it to passengers and this was just such an occasion. </div>
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Thanking him for his tip, I announced that I had something for him -- "because you're <i>special</i>!" And I held it up for him to see. I couldn't hand it to him because the partition in these Nissans is solid with no window, so I told him to come around to me to receive his prize. While he was on his way I wrote an inscription: "To John McEnroe, Thanks for that double the meter in 1984! Best wishes, Eugene Salomon." </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I handed him the book, we shook hands, and by the big smile on his face it seemed to me that he was as happy to receive it as he was when he'd been handed one of his many trophies for winning the U.S. Open. </div>
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Although that could be something of an overstatement on my part. </div>
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I found myself basking in the afterglow of that ride as my day continued on. While taking a break at one of the many Starbucks around the city I reviewed mentally what had transpired earlier. By confronting and skillfully communicating with an angry passenger I had turned the ride into a pleasant experience for the both of us. I had transformed "we don't have to talk" into a fifty dollar tip. I had explained to the passenger the route I was taking and expertly navigated the city streets to get him there in the shortest possible time. I was so able to get myself on his wavelength to the point that even saying "fuck you" to him was completely appropriate and appreciated. And I had given him a book written by his own taxi driver, something that is not likely to happen to a passenger even once in a lifetime. Putting all modesty aside, that is <i><u>what</u></i> <i><u>it</u></i> <i><u>takes</u></i> to rise to the very top echelon of a subset of our culture called "taxi driver".<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-4900014176606204192018-10-04T11:52:00.004-05:002022-12-08T22:03:15.902-05:00What It Takes, Part 2 -- My (Verbal) Tennis Match With John McEnroe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You know, having a conversation is a lot like playing tennis. A statement is made from one person to another, then it's responded to, tossed around, back and forth, each person trying to make his or her "point", each trying to "score". This can be obvious, as in a debate, or it can be subtle, as in a friendly dialogue. To some people, even saying "hello" can be an attempt at making a score before your opponent does. That's how it was in the evening of March 13, 1984, when I looked in my rearview mirror and found that John McEnroe was sitting in the back seat of my cab. <br />
<br />
It was the doorman of his high-rise on East End Avenue who'd hailed me and opened the door for him but since I'd been looking down at my trip sheet, filling in the required information, I hadn't yet noticed who my new passenger was. I simply called out my usual "hello" and awaited the response. Would this one be friendly, in a big rush, arrogant, a drunk, a serial killer, or what? McEnroe's response was a hard, direct shot, you might say, to my forehand.<br />
<br />
"The Garden," he said.<br />
<br />
Now, what was most important here was what <i>wasn't </i>said. He didn't say "hello" back to me. He didn't say "please". He didn't say "Madison Square". Just "the Garden", as if I automatically knew who he was and which garden he was talking about. It was more of an order than a request and at the same time it tested the ability of the recipient (me) to respond in kind. An excellent opening -- I didn't yet know who he was, but he'd already scored. Point, McEnroe.<br />
<br />
I looked straight into the rearview mirror, wondering who would be speaking to me this way. I recognized him immediately and shot back my own gut response:<br />
<br />
"McEnroe," I blurted out, showing surprise but no great enthusiasm.<br />
<br />
I give myself a point here because: a) I returned his sharp opening with one of my own. If he had intended to be blunt with no mincing of words, he got the same from me. b) I didn't show any false respect or false adulation or false friendliness. It was just "McEnroe", not "Mr. McEnroe", or "Oh, John McEnroe!" Basically I was conveying an attitude that said, Okay, I know who you are, but you're not on a tennis court, buddy, you're sitting in <i>my </i>cab, so don't start up with any of those shenanigans you're famous for. I can hit your serve. Point, Salomon.<br />
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His return caught me off guard. "Yes, it's <i><u>me</u></i>," he said, more to himself than to me and barely loud enough to be heard.<br />
<br />
Now this was a switch, a complete change of style. His words could be interpreted as "Yes, the Great One is in your presence," but his tone was self-deprecating. Here was John McEnroe in person poking fun at John McEnroe the celebrity, actually satirizing himself. It was an impressive display of flexibility as a conversationalist. Point, McEnroe.<br />
<br />
We volleyed as we headed south on East End Avenue. <br />
<br />
"Are you playing tonight?" I asked, thinking maybe there was a tennis match at the Garden. No, he said, he was going to a Knicks game.<br />
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"Take the Drive?" I asked. (Meaning the FDR Drive, the highway that runs along the east side of Manhattan.)<br />
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"Yeah, please."<br />
<br />
"Who are the Knicks playing tonight?"<br />
<br />
"The Suns."<br />
<br />
A couple more easy lobs were exchanged with no points scored. <br />
<br />
Then, fearing the conversation might peter out for lack of fuel, I changed tempo by employing a technique I've used on other celebrities. I express my regrets that I'm not all that familiar with their area of expertise (even if I am) because here would be a great opportunity for me to learn something from someone so renown in that field. Celebrities live lives of annoyance from mundane questions posed by strangers and this may cause them to be reluctant to engage. So by pleading ignorance (or even pretending you don't recognize them) it has the effect of putting them at ease.<br />
<br />
"Too bad I don't really know that much about tennis," I kind-of-lied as I made a left on 79th Street and approached the entrance to the Drive, "or I might be able to hold down an intelligent conversation here. I mean, I play a little, but I don't really know the fine points of the game."<br />
<br />
Looking in the mirror, I watched his facial expression loosen up just a notch. I edged into the opening I had created. "Funny," I said, "I seem to keep getting professional tennis players in my cab."<br />
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McEnroe was interested. "Really? Who?"<br />
<br />
I could feel a big score coming up. Here was the famous John McEnroe showing an interest in the not-famous <i>me.</i> To hell with modesty, a surge of what let's call self-importance was rising from within and it felt good. <br />
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I told him about a couple of fares I'd had with tennis players whose names I didn't remember. After talking for half a minute, however, I realized I was getting too chatty and that McEnroe's interest was waning. So I served him up my big story ("What It Takes, Part 1") about how the previous summer I'd driven Mike Estep, Martina Navratilova's coach, out to a private club in Queens to practice with her; how Mike was such a great guy; how he'd asked me if I'd like to watch them practice; how I'd always wondered if I could return the serve of a pro, so I asked Mike if he'd hit me a few balls when we got there; and how -- isn't this great? -- he <i>did</i>.<br />
<br />
McEnroe was all ears. Not to brag but, really, I had the guy in the palm of my hand.<br />
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"Could you hit it?" he asked.<br />
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John McEnroe, the number one tennis player in the world, wants to know about <i>my </i>tennis game. Yes! Point, Salomon!<br />
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"Yeah," I said and, not trying to disguise my pride, I told him how I'd actually been able to get my racquet -- actually, Martina's racquet, ha-ha -- on the ball. Not with any authority, mind you, but still, after a few serves I was getting my timing down and I <i>could </i>hit it. Not bad for an amateur, huh?<br />
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McEnroe moved forward, a concerned look on his face. <br />
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"Who was that again?"<br />
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"Mike Estep," said I.<br />
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"Oh," he said, and he moved comfortably back in his seat again. "Well, you know, Mike's never been known for his serve."<br />
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Ping!<br />
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The little bubble I'd been sitting in for the last seven months came bursting apart and evaporated into the atmosphere. <br />
<br />
<b><i>"Mike's never been known for his serve."</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
With one quick stroke I'd been reduced to the pathetic little tennis wannabe I actually was. <br />
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Point, set, match -- McEnroe. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Damn!<br />
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I made a right and got on the FDR Drive. Having been so profoundly reduced in stature, I found I could think of nothing to say to McEnroe so I just reverted to my job description as a New York City taxi driver and stepped on the gas. Soon we were barreling along at 50 miles per hour in the middle lane, and for the next half a minute there continued to be no conversation between us, McEnroe no doubt quietly savoring the conquest of my dignity. Understandably my mood began taking a turn toward the Dark Side. What good was living, anyway? There's always some venomous creature waiting to put its fangs into you just when life seems all zippity-do-dah. Why continue slogging on with it? </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The idea of an end-it-all-with-a-glorious-bang entered my mind. I could unfasten my seat belt, pick up speed to about 100 miles per hour, and crash into the stone wall that runs alongside the highway. McEnroe hadn't fastened his own seat belt so he'd probably go flying into the East River. This concept had an element of poetic justice to it which I found very appealing. Mike's never been known for his serve, huh? We'll see about that. I moved the cab over into the right lane and started looking for a good place in the wall to crash the cab.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8xr66sn3ptW86309F8fiaB6_RcPA4lKxEZ44AWmwzQ_ZMEDlaCpz1IS1nvPH30X8skQLcT0wA59M-yCscUQSvs5IR5ubp06NhEk5wvUOqeH6YSgQqu3QMqHun4Yo2lNina6BQODfFr-nPuQHi1DfaO_fwXz4d3OF0PXQ_eBMOrTo-_yok4W0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="550" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8xr66sn3ptW86309F8fiaB6_RcPA4lKxEZ44AWmwzQ_ZMEDlaCpz1IS1nvPH30X8skQLcT0wA59M-yCscUQSvs5IR5ubp06NhEk5wvUOqeH6YSgQqu3QMqHun4Yo2lNina6BQODfFr-nPuQHi1DfaO_fwXz4d3OF0PXQ_eBMOrTo-_yok4W0=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />But then, wait. I reconsidered.<br />
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All right, one way of looking at it would be that I had been demolished, even humiliated, by McEnroe. But let's take a step back and delve into this a bit, shall we? Here's a guy who is ranked NUMBER ONE in the WORLD. There are MILLIONS of tennis players, ALL OVER THE WORLD. They play this sport in schools, in colleges, in leagues, in private clubs, or just with friends. If you're GREAT at it you may actually become a professional and make some kind of a living at it. But then you're up against all the other players from ALL OVER THE WORLD who are also GREAT. Nevertheless you may become an elite player, rise high in the rankings, and become famous, respected, and wealthy. But if you're the GREATEST OF THE GREAT -- if you are ranked NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD -- you will have earned the AWE of both the general public and your own colleagues because NO ONE IN THE WORLD CAN BEAT YOU! NO ONE!<br />
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And yet John McEnroe, the best tennis player in the world<i>,</i> and, some might say, the best tennis player of all time, is <i><u>concerned</u></i> that maybe his <i><u>taxi</u></i> <i><u>driver</u></i> can hit <i><u>his</u> </i>serve. But then, oh, it's okay. It was only Mike Estep. I'm safe. <br />
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Ladies and gentlemen, what we're looking at here is compulsive competitiveness of asylum magnitude and I suppose we're also looking at <u>what</u> <u>it</u> <u>takes</u> to be Number One in tennis and some other sports. He is surrounded by assassins. <i>Everyone</i> is a threat. This is a guy who is one referee's bad call away from being surrounded by men in white coats and whisked off to the happy farm. <br />
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No, I decided, I would not crash the cab into the stone wall that runs alongside the FDR Drive. In an act of considerable magnanimity, I would let McEnroe live. I realized he hadn't won the <i>match</i>, he'd only won a set. So the game was still on. But what I needed to do here was to clarify for myself what the object of the game we were playing actually was. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I thought about it. For him, I realized, it was to shape me into a dutiful listener so he could hear himself pontificate. But for me, the game, in the time-honored tradition of taxi-driving, was to set my passenger up for giving me a big tip.<br />
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I awarded myself a point for this brilliant insight and the match continued. <br />
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Easing up on the pedal, I steered the cab back into the center lane. Our conversation resumed, turning to sports in general -- football, baseball, hockey, basketball. I began to notice that he'd listen carefully to whatever I had to say, wait just a moment, and then correct me. My strategy was to listen carefully to him as well, but <i>not</i> to correct him. For example, when at one point he interjected into the conversation that tennis is the greatest sport that ever was, I didn't contradict him even though everybody knows that baseball is the greatest sport that ever was. Agreement creates affinity and affinity is crucial in the tipping phase of the ride. So it could have appeared to an observer that McEnroe was scoring all the points here, but in reality I was holding even with him. <br />
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We exited the FDR at 34th Street. The conversation had turned to boxing and McEnroe was telling me that Larry Holmes, who was then the undefeated heavyweight champion, would soon lose. <br />
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"Who'll beat him?" I asked.<br />
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"He'll beat himself," McEnroe snapped back. A return with some real zing to it, especially considering that the person giving it was himself was the champion of the tennis world at that time, and McEnroe received a point for style. <br />
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We moved along on 34th Street and as we approached 2nd Avenue McEnroe committed a breach of taxicab etiquette by telling me to turn left and take 31st Street to the Garden. The offense here is giving simple directions to a professional driver, as if I don't know how to get to Madison Square Garden. But in this case I let the <i>faux</i> <i>pas</i> pass without comment as it suited my game plan. The street he chose is actually the slowest way to get to the Garden from the East Side because you'll get a red light at every intersection. He was adding three minutes to the ride. That's good for the meter but what I liked most was that it was giving me more time to work him for the tip. Advantage, Salomon.<br />
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As we began our crosstown trek on 31st Street McEnroe, perhaps realizing that the end of the ride was approaching, suddenly seized complete control of the conversation and began to preach in earnest about his issues with tennis. This was good news. I could be getting taxi-driver-as-therapist money here.<br />
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First he hit on the officiating. His complaint, he said, was that the officials aren't professional officials. He pointed out that in baseball and football the players get to know the officials on a first-name basis. In a close call their decisions are respected because the players know they are competent. But in tennis, he said, you see new faces in every tournament, officials you've never met before. Trust in their competence isn't given a chance to develop. </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;" trbidi="on"><img alt="FLASHBACK: John McEnroe calls umpire &#39;moron&#39; at Queen&#39;s Club | Belfast News Letter" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" height="142" jsaction="load:XAeZkd;" jsname="HiaYvf" src="https://www.newsletter.co.uk/webimg/TUFZMTIzODYwNDA1.jpg?width=640&enable=upscale" style="height: 383.634px; margin: 0px; width: 542px;" width="200" /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I thought, wow, you know, he makes a good point here, and I awarded him one. I'd never heard that argument expressed before and it made perfect sense -- of course, a lack of trust in the professionalism of the officials would create problems with the players. But a few moments later I realized, wait, this is McEnroe's justification for why it's okay to berate officials during a match, as he was so famous for doing. I took the point away for faking himself out.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Next, he took on the fans. "New York fans are the <i>worst</i>," he squawked, recalling when he'd played against Vitas Gerulaitis, who was from Queens, in the finals of the U.S. Open in 1979. What are the odds, he asked, of two guys who are both from Queens ever making it to the finals of the U.S. Open, played in Queens, in the same year? And the fans?<br />
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"They booed <i>both </i>of us!"<br />
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Now here McEnroe was clearly committing a foul. It would be one thing if he had it out for one particular fan or for even a certain type of fan. But <i>all </i>New York fans? Come on. I had no choice but to deduct a point for unsportsmanlike conduct.<br />
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We arrived at the Garden. I pulled up to a special side entrance on 31st Street where McEnroe wanted to be dropped off, stopped the cab, and started tallying up the points. With the penalty point deducted from his score it appeared to be a dead heat. So... this match was going to be decided by the tip. The fare on the meter was $5.20. (This was in 1984. Today that ride would cost around $15.) A cheap or -- considering it's a celebrity -- even an average tip would force me to conclude that my efforts had been in vain and I would have to concede the match to my opponent. It would have to be a definitive, excessively generous gratuity to win.<br />
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With tension mounting, McEnroe opened his door and stepped out onto the street. He reached into the pocket of his coat and, stepping halfway back into the cab, handed me two bills: a five and a single. It was going to be an eighty-cent tip, slightly less than average for a $5.20 fare. I would have to interpret this as a snub, a cheapskate's ace, and give the final point and the match to McEnroe.<br />
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But wait!<br />
<br />
McEnroe reached into his pocket again. Out came several more bills which he handed to me with an almost apologetic look on his face. He closed the door, waved goodbye, and walked toward the Garden, smiling. I counted the bills. There were six singles. So McEnroe had tipped me $6.80 on a $5.20 fare, better than double the meter. It was the best tip I'd ever received from a celebrity, a record that stood for twelve years.<br />
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Point, set, match -- <i>Salomon!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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Notes:<br />
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1. This is the second in a three-part series, "What It Takes". Stay tuned for Part 3, "McEnroe Returns".<br />
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2. I am able to recall the details of a ride taken 34 years ago is because a) it was particularly memorable, and b) I've always kept journals of my most interesting rides.<br />
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3. There's a documentary recently released about McEnroe's year, 1984 (the same year he was in my cab), in which he won an incredible 82 out of 85 matches. To see a clip from <i>In The Realm Of Perfection </i>click below:<br />
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4. Click on this one to see a taxi nearly running over McEnroe (from the movie <i>Mr. Deeds</i>):<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-39073273809640883512018-09-07T21:30:00.007-05:002020-08-02T11:18:00.953-05:00What It Takes -- Part 1, Martina and Mike<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For most of us today, sports are a part of our lives. As toddlers we are already playing catch and kicking balls around. As children we play in games with our friends and idolize the grown-ups who play the same games we do (and they wear uniforms!). Getting a bit older we may participate in organized leagues and start to take our games more seriously. Such a person may begin to think:<br />
<br />
<i>I wonder if I could play this sport professionally myself?</i><br />
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As time goes on it becomes clear that some people have been blessed with skills which set them apart from their peers. He or she may become the star of one (or more than one) of their school teams. They may receive a scholarship from a college which is interested in their athletic ability. Scouts for professional teams might even be watching them and offer them a contract. <br />
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So a selection process is at work here. Let's say you're one of these people who've progressed this far. You're a professional athlete at some level. You're finding the competition now is really fierce. You most likely will be thinking:<br />
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<i>I wonder if I can continue to compete successfully in my sport for years to come? How long can this go on?</i><br />
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Okay, let's say it does go on. You're an established professional who's beaten the odds and you are still playing at the highest level. But being somewhat famous and making a lot of money are not enough, you find. The selection process is still at work for you. Now you are no longer asking -- no, actually you are <i>telling </i>yourself:<br />
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<i>I am the best who ever was. No person, no obstacle, can stop me. I choose this for my destiny: I am Number One, I am the greatest player to have ever played this damned sport, the champion of the ages, that's who I am. I <u>will</u> not be, I <u>cannot</u> be, defeated. </i><br />
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People like this are rare. You have probably never met one.<br />
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Driving a taxi in New York City for all these years, I've met two of them. From those rides I was able to gain an insight about <u>what</u> <u>it</u> <u>takes</u> to stand alone on top of the mountain. Here are the stories, in chronological order....<br />
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MARTINA AND MIKE<br />
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On a sunny, mid-August day in 1983 I saw my next fare waving at me at the corner of 56th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. He was a 30-something guy, white shorts, a polo shirt, and in the hand that wasn't up in the air he was carrying about half a dozen tennis racquets. Placing them carefully on the back seat as he got in (I noticed) he told me his destination was a certain country club out in Douglaston, Queens, about a thirty-minute ride. </div>
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Well, I'm always sizing up my passengers as they get in, mainly to ascertain whether or not they're conversational. This often means picking out something to comment on in the environment, saying something about it, and noting their response. In this case, it was easy: </div>
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"So what's with all the tennis racquets?" </div>
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"You know who Martina Navratilova is, the tennis player?"</div>
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"Oh, sure."</div>
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Although I don't really follow the sport as a fan (I'm a casual player), it would have been difficult in 1983 not to know who Martina Navratilova was. She was the number one female tennis player in the world at the time and she was <i>very</i> famous. </div>
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"I'm her coach," my passenger said cheerfully, "and these are her racquets. I'm going out to Queens now to practice with her."</div>
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"Oh, right, the U.S. Open," I said. "When does it start?"<br />
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"It starts tomorrow for the qualification rounds, but Martina isn't playing until Monday."<br />
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Just from the pleasant tone of his voice, I knew I had a real conversationalist here. And clearly there could be plenty to talk about. I became (once again) the interviewer of my own talk show and he, my special guest. </div>
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His name was Mike Estep. He was a professional tennis player himself, he told me, ranked 250th on the men's tour. By the end of the ride, however, he would be ranked Number One in a unique category of my own invention: <i>The Friendliest Passenger In My Cab Of All Time. </i><br />
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Mike was totally happy to answer any questions I threw at him, and then some. Things like:<br />
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"How long have you been Martina's coach?"<br />
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"I just recently came on board. You know, she's never won the U.S. Open. I think I can help her do that."<br />
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"How so?"<br />
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"Well, the main thing is she's got to charge the net more. Be more aggressive."<br />
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"Oh."<br />
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I knew nothing about tennis strategy but appreciated his candor. I realized a door had been opened for me here. I could ask this guy anything about anything.<br />
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"When you practice, do you ever play a game for real?"<br />
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"Sure."<br />
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"Who wins?"<br />
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"Oh, I beat her every time," he said -- not bragging, just matter-of-factly.<br />
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Interesting. The number 250 male can beat the number one female. Every time. Or so he says. I wondered if this could really be true. Hmmm...<br />
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I let the conversation flow around a bit and Mike told me some of his stories about being on the tour. About how he'd once played an exhibition match in India against that country's top tennis player and, although he lost the match, he was happy to have lost because it caused the people who'd come to see them compete (the Indian locals) go home smiling. Another story had to do with a time a couple of years earlier when he'd been playing at Wimbledon. They have a parlay betting method in the U.K. in which a bettor can choose the winners of several consecutive matches on a card and if all his picks win, the bettor can walk away with quite a bit of money. Mike learned later that there had been a gambler who had a card in which he'd correctly picked the winners of several matches and needed just one more correct pick on his card to win a small fortune. That match had been a match that Mike had played in and won, but the gambler had picked his opponent to win it, so he wound up winning nothing. "The other guy is higher ranked than me," Mike said, "but what he [the bettor] didn't know is that I always beat him." He felt bad for the gambler, adding that he had no illusions about his own chances of going much further in the tournament. "It's not like I'm going to win Wimbledon," he said. <br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Mike_Estep_wrc02855.jpg/220px-Mike_Estep_wrc02855.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="220" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Mike_Estep_wrc02855.jpg/220px-Mike_Estep_wrc02855.jpg" /></a></div>
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Our thirty-minute ride went by very quickly, which is a phenomenon that can happen in a taxicab when there's no lull in the conversation. As we were about to enter the parking lot of the private country club in Douglaston where Martina was staying, Mike surprised me:<br />
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"Would you like to come over and watch us practice?"<br />
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Every once in a while I answer a question correctly. Dismissing immediate thoughts of "needing to get back to work" I replied:<br />
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"Sure!"<br />
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What an extraordinary invitation! So I parked the cab right there in the parking lot and the two of us got out and began walking toward the tennis court, about a hundred yards away down a path to our right. A thought came to mind: as a fan of baseball and, as mentioned, as a casual tennis player, I've often wondered what it would be like to try to hit a ball thrown by a Major League baseball player or to hit the serve of a professional tennis player. Is it really that hard to hit it? Would I even <i>see</i> it as it went zipping by me? I realized I had an opportunity at hand and seized the moment. I said to Mike:<br />
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"You know, I've always wondered what it would be like to try to return the serve of a professional tennis player. Do you think you could hit me a few?"<br />
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Now, keep in mind, I'm not an imposing kind of person andI would never have asked this question unless I was sure it was appropriate. But Mike had already shown that he was such a friendly guy that there was no question in my mind that he'd be glad to accommodate me if he could.<br />
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"Well," he said, "if Martina's not out there yet... sure."<br />
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We arrived at the court. About a dozen people were gathered around, waiting to see Martina. But instead what they saw was her coach and a guy wearing jeans with a big smile on his face go out onto the court. Martina had not yet arrived.<br />
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How surreal was this? Thirty-five minutes ago I was driving my cab up 6th Avenue looking for a fare. Now I am standing on a tennis court with one of Martina Navratilova's racquets in my hand, waiting for her coach to start hitting me serves. I am eagerly awaiting being humiliated in a nice way by my own inability to play the game, and in view of a bunch of spectators. Bring it on!<br />
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Mike raised his racquet in the air and pumped one at me. <br />
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To my surprise I reacted in time to hit the ball. It didn't go anywhere near the net, but it didn't go past me, either. I was pleased. Mike hit me another one. I hit it again, a little better this time. On the next serve (and now I'm starting to bounce back and forth in imitation of how tennis players awaiting serves put their bodies in motion just before the ball is hit to them) I hit the ball over the net. Out of bounds, but over the net. Mike hit me another one, and a few more. On each serve, as I was getting my timing down, I was hitting better shots.<br />
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I'm starting to think, damn, maybe I'm better at this sport than I've given myself credit for. Maybe I should take this game more seriously, get into a league myself, take lessons. I could be a contender.<br />
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Suddenly out onto the court steps Martina Navratilova. She sees her coach playing tennis with some guy holding one of her racquets in his hand. <br />
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Martina, in her Czechoslovakian accent, looking at Mike: "Who's dis?"<br />
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Mike, nonchalantly: "Oh, it's my taxi driver."<br />
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Martina: "Oh!... Okay!"<br />
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And with that she sits down, her back against the fencing that surrounds the court, to watch us play. <br />
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Oh my god, now I am playing tennis with not only a bunch of spectators gawking at me, but under the gaze of the best female tennis player in the world, as well. And I'm playing with <i>her </i>racquet! Pressure! Mike serves me again, and this time I hit the ball over his head, again out of bounds but at least I'm getting the center of the racquet on the ball. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm too old to turn pro.<br />
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On his next serve, Mike puts some "English" on the ball, causing it to spin sharply off to one side as it hits the surface and making it completely impossible for me to hit it back. This was great fun, a bit of well-deserved showing off on his part, and after one more of these, thinking it better not to overstay my welcome, I returned Martina's racquet to its rightful owner, thanking her and Mike profusely for their hospitality, so to speak. I walked behind the fence and found a solitary position (not among the other spectators) from which to watch their practice session. <br />
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Martina stepped out onto the court and it began. <br />
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They had what appeared to be a set regimen of drills. In one of them they stood only about ten feet apart from each other on opposite sides of the net and volleyed back and forth, machine-gun-rat-a-tat-tat style, a marvelous display of reflexes and coordination. These were professional, conditioned athletes doing their homework, you might say, although with their grace and precision it seemed to me they could just as well have been ballet dancers or circus acrobats. There was also a physicality about them, Martina especially, that was striking. She exuded strength, the musculature in her arms and thighs sculpted like a statue of an Amazon warrior. <br />
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This is not to minimize Mike. At one point during a break in their routine, he walked over to me and asked me what I thought.<br />
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"It's hard for me to believe there are 249 guys better than you," I replied. He was that good.<br />
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Returning to the court, they began to practice by playing a game for real, to win. Immediately I remembered what Mike had said in the cab:<br />
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"Oh, I beat her every time." <br />
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Now I could get to see for myself if this were really true. They played for about twenty minutes, and they played hard. Did he beat her? Yes, in fact, he did. And this is what gave me my first insight about <u>what</u> <u>it</u> <u>takes</u> to be the one standing alone on top of the mountain. <br />
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It was Martina's ferocity in missing a point in a practice session. Ferocity <u>at</u> <u>herself</u>. It was a little scary to witness. I was glad I was standing behind a fence!<br />
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Now you may be recalling how upset you may have become in some game you had once been trying to win, but did not. You may be thinking that that's how Martina must have felt as she failed to anticipate what the trajectory of Mike's next shot would be and watched helplessly as the ball went whizzing by her. I'm going to make an assumption here that you are underestimating what Martina's actual response was. "Upset" is not the word. Nor would "dismayed", "agitated", "unnerved", "angered", "disturbed", or "flustered" be the words.<br />
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I believe the more accurate description would be MORALLY OUTRAGED.<br />
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No, this was not just a return she'd failed to make. This was an INJUSTICE. This was an IDIOCY that was UNACCEPTABLE. This was failure to store grain in anticipation of a harsh winter. This was not properly securing your fishing boat to the pier before the big storm hit. This was putting twenty grand on a horse named Alvoc because Jack, the local bookie, says he has inside information. <br />
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After failure, the mindset becomes akin to a hard knuckles fistfight in a VIRTUOUS WAR to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to RIGHT THE WRONG THAT HAS BEEN DONE.<br />
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<i>That</i>, along with all the skills, is <u>what</u> <u>it</u> <u>takes</u> to become Number One.<br />
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Mike Estep, the friendliest passenger who ever rode in my cab and a tennis virtuoso, had what it takes to rise to the middle rankings on the men's tour. But he didn't have that.<br />
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Martina did.<br />
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And a couple of weeks later, for the first time, she won the U.S. Open.<br />
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<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <img alt="Martina Navratilova | 30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present ..." class="rg_i Q4LuWd" data-iml="150587" height="376" jsname="Q4LuWd" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTRJgy6gPmiCwxGNaPsy9e1yywmfvYGr5LPpA&usqp=CAU" width="283" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
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*****</div>
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This is the first in a three-part series, "What It Takes". Stay tuned for Part 2, "My (Verbal) Tennis Match With John McEnroe".</div>
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-85367679989310036962018-05-28T14:00:00.001-05:002022-03-03T20:38:29.846-05:00Get `Em While They're Hot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
What's that? <br />
<br />
You <i>still </i>haven't bought my book, <i>Confessions Of A New York Taxi Driver</i>?<br />
<br />
Well, good news, your holding out is about to pay off, at least if you own a Kindle. HarperCollins is now offering the ebook edition for a mere $4.99 on Amazon.com. The price had always been $10 and change, so... what a bargain.<br />
<br />
Just click<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-New-York-Taxi-Driver-ebook/dp/B009BZ6B3U/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1439314611&sr=1-1#" target="_blank"> here</a> and you're on your way.<br />
<br />
Say what?<br />
<br />
You need further convincing?<br />
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A promotional video or something?<br />
<br />
Well all righty, then, here you are:<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-90975315277531890342017-12-06T21:58:00.001-05:002020-07-19T12:22:54.267-05:00The Fan Strikes Back<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Baseball.<br />
<br />
It's the one sport I am really a fan of, and I have suffered much because of it. <br />
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As a kid I was raised as a fan of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_Giants_(baseball)" target="_blank">New York Giants</a> baseball team by my father, himself a lifelong devotee of that franchise, and I worshipped the players. Then, when I was nine years old, they packed up their bats and balls and moved to San Francisco, taking my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Mays" target="_blank">Willie Mays</a> with them. What a slap in the face to an innocent child who'd done nothing but love them! <br />
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It was the first in a long series of betrayals that were yet to come.<br />
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There followed four years of abandonment and bitterness. The only baseball team left in town was the Yankees, but switching to them at that time was not an option, as I'd been thoroughly indoctrinated to see them as The Enemy. So I trudged through empty days in some kind of baseball purgatory, left on my own to play second base for my Carvel 91 Little League team without a role model to emulate nor a guide to show me the way. <br />
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Strange thoughts of retribution began to creep into my universe. I would find myself sitting in class in elementary school with my attention drifting to mental scenarios of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Stoneham" target="_blank">Horace Stoneham</a>, the owner of the Giants at that time, showing up at my front door and begging me for forgiveness. I would insist that he move our Giants back to New York City and come to my school to make the announcement with me at his side. He'd give me a bunch of tickets to games. He'd send Willie Mays over to my house to give me tips on hitting. My friends would see me hanging with Willie and would be jealous. Billy O'Reilly would offer to be my best friend if he could just get to spend time with Willie, too. Of course I would not allow it.<br />
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Not surprisingly, my grades began to suffer.<br />
<br />
But in 1962 it looked like things might be starting to turn around. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Mets" target="_blank">New York Mets</a> were created as a new National League expansion team, and, although they were awful in terms of winning games, they served as an adequate replacement for the Giants. Things went along smoothly until 1969 when they made the mistake of winning the World Series. With their fans now <i>expecting </i>them to play like winners, they immediately began to implode. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Ryan" target="_blank">Nolan Ryan</a>, a rising star who went on to become one of the best players in baseball history (and today has thousands of kids named after him) was traded away. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Seaver" target="_blank">Tom Seaver</a>, who had earned the nickname "The Franchise", was let go in a silly contract dispute. Mets management thought it would be a good idea to decorate Shea Stadium with gigantic neon stick figures of baseball players and to have a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Run_Apple" target="_blank">huge plaster apple</a> rise from a huge plaster hat whenever a Met hit a home run. <br />
<br />
I felt my intelligence was being insulted. Hey, Mets, I'm an educated baseball fan. I don't need flashing lights and electric apples to keep my attention on the game. Still, I followed the team and rooted for them even though they quickly descended into mediocrity and worse.<br />
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Then in 1975 free agency arrived, thus planting the seed of the fan's moral dilemma. From a human rights point of view players of course should be able to be paid what the market will bear. Who are the owners to prevent players from offering their services to the highest bidder? Slaveholders? It was actually heartwarming, for a while, to see the big stars making big money. <br />
<br />
But things soon got out of hand. Apparently what the market would bear, what with all the TV revenue, ticket sales, concession sales, trademark income, and so on, was more than anyone could have imagined. The average annual salaries of Major League baseball players ballooned from $113,000 in 1979 to over $3,000,000 in 2006. And that was the <i>average! </i> The big names were making tens of millions per year with guaranteed contracts that paid them that money even if they had bad years or sat half the season on the bench. <br />
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The average working person began to have a hard time relating to this. A teacher or a cop makes barely enough to keep food on the table and maybe not even enough to take the family to a baseball game, but some guy who can run a little faster, throw a ball a little harder, and hit a ball a little better can make... <i>what? Tens of millions of dollars</i><i> </i>for playing baseball for just a single season? Some began to question the values of our culture -- a disconnect was setting in.<br />
<br />
You would think that when some guy is making millions of dollars a year for playing a game that he'd be happy with what he's got, perhaps even thanking his lucky stars every day for his good fortune. But no. In 1981 the players and their union thought they should get more. So they went on strike, canceling 713 games. In 1994 there was a lockout (this time the owners wouldn't agree to the players' demands) which abruptly ended the season in August and cancelled the entire post-season, including the World Series. <br />
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Then, to make matters even worse, in the late '90s we found out that many of the star players were actually cheaters. Some guy whose name was on your kid's t-shirt was actually jacked up on "performance-enhancing drugs". Aside from the betrayal of trust that it loudly proclaims, this even tore away at the history of the game. Now when a new record is being approached (such as the number of home runs hit in a season or in a career) the question invariably arises as to whether or not the new record should count in the record books if the player had ever been found to have been taking PEDs. <br />
<br />
You know, with all of the perfectly valid things to become cynical about in this world, baseball should not have been one of them. But it was. I myself had become so disenchanted about the way things were going that <a href="https://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2008/06/im-free-agent.html" target="_blank">I decided I was a "free agent" as a fan</a> in 1985. My loyalty was no longer a given -- it had to be earned. I had to wonder why I was even bothering to pay attention to these overpaid, pill-popping cheaters. After some soul-searching I realized what it was.<br />
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It was the game itself.<br />
<br />
Baseball. <br />
<br />
It's the most intriguing, most theatrical, most balanced, and most intellectual sport ever invented. Consider this:<br />
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In baseball...<br />
<br />
--- there's no clock. A game could theoretically go on forever. There's no possibility of a tie. I love that.<br />
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--- it's a game in which a contest between two individuals (the pitcher versus the hitter) immediately shifts into a game between multiple team players the moment the ball is hit.<br />
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--- it's a game of likelihoods, represented as statistics, which keep you thinking as the game continues, not just watching.<br />
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--- you don't have to have a huge body to play it at its highest level. In fact this year a player on the Houston Astros, Jose Altuve, who stands at just 5 feet, 6 inches, won the Most Valuable Player award in the American League. A player on the Yankees, Aaron Judge, who is 6 feet, 7 inches, came in second in the voting.<br />
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--- it's like a symphony, with diminuendos (moving slowly) building into huge crescendos (increasingly unbearable tension with every pitch).<br />
<br />
--- you can get to know the players as individuals. They're not hidden behind masks, like in American football. They're not in constant motion, as in many sports. Each player on a team comes to bat four or five times in an average game. This gives the fan opportunities to become familiar with them as personalities, similarly as you would come to know a character in a drama. <br />
<br />
And then there's this, as aspect of the game I find especially endearing:<br />
<br />
Baseball is the only sport in which a fan in the stands can, in certain specific circumstances, become an active and legal <i>participant </i>in the game itself. When a batter hits a ball in the air that is heading for the stands, once the trajectory of the ball crosses the point that separates the stands from the playing field, the rule book states that the fan in the stands has as much right to catch the ball as the player on the field who is also trying to catch it. If that player is on <i>your</i> team, you should get out of his way and let him catch it. But if he's on the opposing team, the fan should try to catch or deflect the ball himself before the player can get to it. For that specific moment the fan in the stands is actually a player on the team! <br />
<br />
Every once in a while this magnificent aspect of baseball actually determines the outcome of a game. October 9th, 1996, was one of those times. The New York Yankees were playing the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of the American League Championship Series. Late in the game Derek Jeter hit a long fly ball to right field that was descending close to the fence. A twelve-year old kid named Jeffrey Maier reached over and scooped the ball into the stands. It should have been ruled fan interference but the umpire called it a home run and a great controversy ensued. Nevertheless, the call stood (this was before they used videotape replays to decide close plays) and the kid became instantly famous. He was dubbed the "angel in the outfield" by the New York media and appeared on talk shows. Not only that, but he went down in baseball history and to this day any good Yankee fan or serious fan of the sport knows his name.<br />
<br />
Here's the video of the incident:<br />
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And this is what aired on The Today Show the next day:<br />
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<br />
Okay, all of the above is to set you up for what occurred in my taxi in the early morning hours of August 30, 2002. Here is a story from "the vault", one I have told to many passengers in my cab but never before gotten around to writing -- a tale of retribution by a fan who just couldn't take it anymore...<br />
<br />
<br />
I'd started my shift late that night and that, along with a few lousy rides, had dampened my mood. Plus there was something else going on that night which was really bothering me -- the deadline of yet another threatened baseball strike was set for midnight. If an agreement wasn't reached by that time, the season would come to a halt -- there would be no baseball the next day and, who knows, maybe not for the remainder of the season.<br />
<br />
I'd been following this on the radio, of course. Just after the midnight hour an announcement came over the air that the deadline had been extended -- the negotiations between the owners and the baseball union were continuing on into the night. This was hopeful, but it was still maddening to me as well. Just the idea of millionaires thinking their working conditions could warrant a strike... it was infuriating. This strike thing was really getting under my skin.<br />
<br />
The night went on. Business was slow. According to my trip sheet, at 2:09 I picked up a guy and a girl coming from a bar on 47th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue and took them to 26th and 6th. After dropping them off I headed back to 47th Street and at 2:24 picked up another fare, two young ladies, and took them to 89th and 2nd. I then drove downtown to see if I could catch a fare at a club on 56th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. It was a good move. At exactly 2:51 four people came out of the club and entered my cab.<br />
<br />
Three of them were beautiful young women, well-tanned and well-cleavaged, wearing skin-tight party dresses. They squeezed together in the back seat. The fourth passenger was a guy who might be called a "cool dude". He had on an expensive-looking suit and wore his hair in abbreviated dreadlocks -- not the full-length kind that would go down below the shoulders, but a shorter version that ended in mid-neck. It was an unusual look that caught my attention.<br />
<br />
As he sat down next to me in the front seat, he immediately took control of his new environment. "Hey, man," he said, "let's get something else on the radio." Then, without bothering to ask me if that was okay, he reached over and changed the station from the one I had on ("oldies" rock and roll) to one he preferred (hip-hop). He then turned around in his seat and started carrying on with the girls. <br />
<br />
It was a severe breach of taxicab etiquette. Passengers in party mode often want some kind of dance music to keep them in the groove, and requests are always honored. But to reach over and change the station without even asking... well, that's beyond rude. It's belittling to the driver, as if he's not there, not really a person. And, although it is a mode of public transportation, it's still <i>my car</i> you're in, buddy.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, I choose not to make an issue of behavior like this. My thinking in these situations is, okay, this passenger is acting badly, but he will be out of my life in ten or fifteen minutes. Most people are relatively polite and there are always a few who are too full of themselves to notice, or care, how their behavior affects others. That's how it is. I can tolerate this. There's no need to take a stand. <br />
<br />
I pulled out from the curb and drove east on 56th.<br />
<br />
"So where are you heading?" I asked, since no one had yet given me a destination.<br />
<br />
"Just go downtown, man, we're gonna find another club," the cool dude said, then he turned around again and continued chatting it up with the ladies.<br />
<br />
I made a right on Lex, which goes downtown. The party was continuing as we drove along, the music loud, the laughter loud, and the driver not enjoying the experience. As we approached 34th Street I was told by the cool dude to pull over and stop beside an all-night deli. <br />
<br />
"Just getting some cigarettes," he said, "back in a minute." He got out of the cab and was joined on the street by one of the girls from the back seat.<br />
<br />
As I watched him open the door to the deli, it suddenly hit me -- I realized who this guy was! This was Tony Tarasco, a baseball player currently on the Mets, an outfielder, who had once played for the Baltimore Orioles. Earlier in the season I'd read an article in the newspaper about him, about how he'd been in a gang in Los Angeles when he was a teenager and was able to leave that behind to become a big-league baseball player. It showed a picture of him with this hair style, the abbreviated dreadlocks, which was why I recognized him. And if you watched the above video you would already know that it was Tony Tarasco in right field in Yankee Stadium on October 9th, 1996, who was trying to catch the ball that was deflected into the stands by the young fan.<br />
<br />
Well, wasn't this interesting! Here it was, nearly three in the morning, a baseball strike pending, and I've got a baseball player in my cab who at the moment was buying cigarettes and was not yet done partying. I looked at the two girls in the mirror -- beautiful, so well put-together, all that cleavage, a couple of </div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.findagrave.com%2Fphotos250%2Fphotos%2F2001%2F222%2Fmansfieldjaynebio.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.findagrave.com%2Fmemorial%2F665%2Fjayne-mansfield&tbnid=oNjqIMJF2ahQFM&vet=12ahUKEwiFv_GB6dnqAhVOON8KHajYDuQQMyhnegUIARCpAg..i&docid=f52XOJfve04FBM&w=250&h=338&q=Jayne%20Mansfield&client=safari&ved=2ahUKEwiFv_GB6dnqAhVOON8KHajYDuQQMyhnegUIARCpAg" target="_blank">Jayne Mansfields</a>. They were making small talk between themselves. One of them, apparently, was from Sweden. <br />
<br />
All these bits of information began to whirl around in my mind... my long-lost Giants, the hapless Mets, millionaire athletes living in bubbles, the steroids, the strikes, the magnificence of the game itself, soaring ticket prices, radios, the magnificence of the game itself, night clubs, cigarettes, the magnificence of the game itself, cleavage... <br />
<br />
I was starting to feel emboldened. I reached over to the radio dial and turned it back to my own station. That was more like it. <br />
<br />
The door opened. Tony Tarasco and the other girl got back in the cab. Right away he noticed the station had been changed. <br />
<br />
"Hey, man, what happened to my music?"<br />
<br />
"Oh, the girls didn't like it. I turned it back." <br />
<br />
A complete lie, but at the moment it seemed like the right thing to say.<br />
<br />
There was a hesitation. And then, in what can only be attributed to <i>divine intervention</i>, at that very instant a bulletin came on over the radio with the latest news about the baseball strike. Both of us stopped talking and, listening intently, we learned that the negotiations were still continuing on into the night. Then, just as the report ended, I seized the moment. Turning to my station-changing passenger, I went into a loud and angry mock tirade that went pretty much like this:<br />
<br />
"If those MOTHERFUCKERS <u>DARE</u> go on strike, we're NEVER coming back! NEVER! FUCK these over-paid millionaires! FUCK THEM! Less than a year after 9-11 and THIS is what these MOTHERFUCKERS want to do? Go on STRIKE? Oh, boo-hoo, you poor little baseball babies, you only made three million dollars last year! Are you KIDDING? Go on STRIKE? FUCK THEM! I'm telling you, man, if they go on strike, we fans are NEVER coming back! NEVER!"<br />
<br />
He seemed to have enjoyed the rant. With a big smile he said:<br />
<br />
"Oh, man, you don't know who I <i>am!"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
There followed what in the theater is called a "pregnant pause"<i>. </i>If life were a novel, this would have been the moment of climax, when the hero knows that his war has been won, his journey done, his object of desire attained. All that remained was procedural.<br />
<br />
Savoring the moment, I flipped my own demeanor to cheerfulness and, with a big smile, I said:<br />
<br />
"Oh, yes, I know who you are. You're Tony Tarasco. And I've got <i>two words</i> for you, Tony..."<br />
<br />
He was stunned, truly, as if he'd been caught by a right hook to the chin.<br />
<br />
"What?"<br />
<br />
I went for the knock-out:<br />
<br />
"<i>Jeffrey</i> <i>Maier</i>! That kid's more famous than you are!"<br />
<br />
His bravado flying out the window, he seemed to have descended into an introspective spin and was at a loss for words. Finally, he said:<br />
<br />
"Well, I don't know about <i>that</i>..."<br />
<br />
It took a few moments for Tony to regain his composure. Then we had a civil back and forth about the pros and cons of the looming baseball strike. My point of view was, among other things, that it was less than a year after the Twin Towers came down and thousands lost their lives. Millionaire athletes going on strike in times like these would be the epitome of greed and disrespect. His argument was that it's a short career and players need to be thinking about their grandchildren.<br />
<br />
I looked in my mirror at the three curvy ladies in the back seat. It was hard to imagine them as grandmothers. <br />
<br />
By the time we arrived at the new club, any hard feelings that may have arisen from my sneak attack had dissolved. Tony turned out to be a good sport. At one point he showed me an electronic device he had attached to his belt with which he would vote either "yes" or "no" to whatever agreement might be reached in the negotiations. I thought that was cool and pretended I was going to try to yank it away from him. He enjoyed that, which I appreciated. It showed me he was a guy who could be kidded around with. <br />
<br />
"Vote 'yes'," I demanded as we reached their destination, a new club. With a smile and a wave goodbye (and an excellent tip, I must say) he and the girls were gone.<br />
<br />
The next day the news was that an agreement had been reached and the players had voted to accept it. There would be no strike.<br />
<br />
Later I learned that Tony had been quite correct about one thing he'd said to me -- it is indeed a short career, at least for most players. Two days after he was in my cab, he played in his last game in the Major Leagues. His career as a player was over, although he has remained in the game as a coach.<br />
<br />
But I was correct about another thing. I have told this story to scores of passengers in my cab, each of them describing him or herself as a baseball fan. I ask them all if they remember the name of the kid who deflected the ball into the stands. The great majority of them do -- "<i>Jeffrey Maier</i>"! But only one passenger so far (who turned out to be from Baltimore) remembered the name of the player who was trying to catch that ball. <br />
<br />
So you can go to a baseball game, try to catch a ball that is heading right toward you and, if Fate decrees it, you can wind up being better remembered in baseball lore than many, if not most, of the players who actually played the game.<br />
<br />
Baseball -- the magnificence of the game itself. <br />
<br />
<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-43624741490059802242016-12-17T20:09:00.001-05:002016-12-17T20:09:58.438-05:00The Tenth Anniversary of Pictures From A Taxi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
November 24th was the tenth anniversary of my street photography blog, <i><a href="https://picturesfromataxi.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Pictures From A Taxi</a></i>.<br />
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You know, New York could be called a street photographer's heaven. People of every description, things that suddenly jump out at you from their secret hiding places, profound oddities, dogs, the occasional coyote... this city is just begging to be photographed.<br />
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I decided to start carrying a digital camera (with a hefty zoom lens) around with me in my cab in 2006 for several reasons. For one thing, it would make my already adventurous profession even more interesting. Instead of just waiting for the light to change, I am scanning the the sidewalks for a shot. A second reason was because with digital it is so much more doable than it had been prior to that revolution in the world of photography. No more waiting for your film to be developed. Instant editing that would have taken hours in a darkroom. And a third reason was because I wanted to add "mass" to the "significance" of this blog, which is mostly text without many pictures. Instead of just publishing random shots of New York to accompany the posts here, I thought it better to create a whole new blog of nothing but photographs.<br />
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That was ten years ago. For quite a few years I was publishing a new picture virtually every day, so the quantity of pictures has really added up. There are to date exactly 2,220 posts, each consisting of simply a picture, or maybe two or three if it was warranted. There would be many more, but let me tell you something about street photography -- you've got to be really fast! For every shot I got there were ten I missed because I didn't have enough time to pick up my camera and shoot. Things happen very quickly out there, plus I'm often moving myself (although I'm proud to say that on some occasions that has not prevented me from getting the shot).<br />
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Recently I completed a rather massive project of indexing all the pictures in the blog by subject matter (which I should have been doing all along). So if you click on the label below each picture you will see other pictures with the same theme. And of course if you click on the picture itself it will blow up in size, quite possibly revealing details you may have missed in the smaller version. <br />
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What I have decided to do to celebrate this momentous occasion is to pick out my fifty favorites from all these images. Since November I have been re-publishing one photograph a day from the collection, a picture that in my own opinion is one of my best. (I apologize in advance to all the pictures that were not chosen. You know I love you all, but let's be honest, some of you are just not as good as the others.)<br />
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So I hope you'll click on over to <i><a href="https://picturesfromataxi.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Pictures From A Taxi</a></i> to check out the ones I've chosen -- in no particular order, my Fifty Favorites.<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-25361734498825676262016-11-15T13:03:00.000-05:002016-11-27T01:10:37.990-05:00Educating Joey Essex<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I appeared recently on British television in an episode of the popular reality show<br />
<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educating_Joey_Essex" target="_blank">Educating Joey Essex</a>. </i>The idea of the show was that Joey comes to America to learn about the American election. I was Joey's taxi driver on two days of shooting. First, picking him up at JFK and then driving him and the pro-Trump bloggers "Diamond and Silk" to the Trump Tower in Manhattan. Joey had to keep the peace between me and Diamond and Silk as we had a bit of a difference of opinion about the candidates!<br />
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Great fun and a terrific crew. <br />
<i><br /></i>To see an interview of Joey Essex talking about the show, click <a href="https://youtu.be/FUJ0Pf5QFYk?t=16" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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To see Diamond and Silk on YouTube click <a href="https://youtu.be/QOaEGQzFaPg" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Pictures:<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-8727572174137150222016-11-08T12:11:00.000-05:002016-11-08T12:13:40.101-05:00The American Way<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Below is a post I wrote and published the day after the election of 2012. It is a reminiscence of an extraordinary experience I had while casting my vote for President and Vice-President of the United States in the election of 1984. I think it's particularly relevant today...</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I entered the voting booth yesterday here in the United States, I was reminded of what was a very special Election Day occurrence I witnessed in 1984. Although it's a divergence from the usual taxi theme of this blog, I would like to share that story with you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 1984, also a presidential election year, the contest was between the Republican incumbents, President Ronald Reagan and Vice-President George Bush (the elder), and the Democrats </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Mondale" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Senator Walter Mondale</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> for president and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Ferraro" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Representative Geraldine Ferraro</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> for vice-president, the first female to run for the second-highest office in the land in American history. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I lived in a part of Queens called Forest Hills at that time and, as it happened, that was also the area of New York City where Geraldine Ferraro made her home. Now, my home was a one-bedroom apartment and hers was an expensive single-family house with a front and back yard, but that didn't matter. We were neighbors. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My polling place was located in the gymnasium of an elementary school, P.S. (Public School) 101, several blocks from my home, and I walked there at around 1 p.m. on Election Day. As I approached the school, I could see that the place was more or less surrounded with media and police vehicles, and I realized why they were there: this was the same polling place where Geraldine Ferraro voted. I entered the gym and as I was busy signing in (which is how registered voters record that they have shown up and cast a vote), there was some commotion around the entrance, and in came the candidate herself.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, the place went abuzz. She smiled and waved to everyone and was immediately surrounded by television reporters and the like. Many in the room, including myself, approached her to shake hands and wish her well. And then something happened that struck me as being unseemly. A group of Republican supporters on one side of the gym started chanting, "Four More Years", repetitively and in unison, the message being that they wanted her opponents, and not her, to be elected. That went on for about a minute and then kind of fizzled out on its own.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ms. Ferraro was quite used to this sort of thing, of course, and it did nothing to alter her smile nor to abate the excitement in the room. After a while she entered a voting booth, one of those contraptions with a lever that opens and closes a circular curtain for privacy, to cast her vote. A few booths down, I entered one of my own. So what we had here, only several feet apart, were the candidate for the second-highest office of the United States of America and a taxi driver both exercising their right -- considered sacred by many -- to vote.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To me, this demonstration before my eyes of how we in America choose our leaders was a truly wonderful and inspiring event. What I realized during my walk back home was even more wonderful and inspiring, however. It was that when the chanting of "Four More Years" suddenly interrupted the mood in the gym, <i>nothing happened</i>. Not only did none of the many police or Secret Service agents in the room move forward to hush them, no one even <em>thought</em> of doing so. It was a public place and they had the right to express their opinion, period. The freedom of speech, guaranteed to all by a constitution that has stood since 1789, is so engrained in the psyches of the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">citizenry that it is completely unquestioned. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new";"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And that is the American way.</span> </span></div>
Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-25100435734093926632016-10-13T20:28:00.000-05:002016-11-04T15:14:08.435-05:00More Donald Trump Stories From My Cab<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In looking through my journals recently (I've kept journals of my most interesting fares since I started driving a taxi in 1977) I came across two more Donald Trump stories, both from 2011. I contend that firsthand data (you witnessed it yourself) and secondhand data (someone you know witnessed it and told you about it) can be valuable in validating or contradicting third-hand data (the media). So with that in mind, here they are, again without embellishment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1. January 31, 2011 -- I picked up a sixty-ish Hispanic woman and drove her to JFK, a forty-minute ride, at 4 a.m. She told me she worked for many years for a very wealthy woman who had just died at the age of 94. This elderly woman had a home in Palm Springs, California, and an apartment in New York City in Trump Tower. My passenger said she is now returning to the Palm Springs home where her husband is a gardener. I asked her if she ever meets Donald Trump in the Trump Tower building and, if she does, has she ever seen him NOT wearing a suit and a tie. (This was on my mind ever since I'd noticed that in all the years Trump has been showing up in the media I had never seen him without a suit or tie, even when a TV camera would show him sitting in the stands at baseball games.) She said that she had met him occasionally in the elevator and, no, come to think of it, she had never seen him wearing anything but a suit and a tie. She said Trump was always polite and interested in her opinion about the service in his building. She recalled that he asked her once if the doormen were friendly. She also added that the doormen say that Trump doesn't like to shake hands with people and that she sometimes sees his young son being pushed around in a stroller by a nurse and followed by two bodyguards close behind. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"That's the price of being too famous," I said to her.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">2. June 30, 2011 -- I picked up a young Hispanic man in Queens and drove him to Washington Heights in Manhattan, a thirty-minute ride, at midnight. He told me he works in maintenance for the Trump Organization and that the next day he will be taking a test for his license to operate boilers (a big deal for him). I asked him if he had any Donald Trump stories and he recalled one. He told me he had once been working at the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park, which is managed by the Trump Organization, and Donald Trump personally fired one of the workers because he wasn't dressed in the proper uniform -- instead of a black shirt and black pants, he was wearing a white shirt and black jeans. "Asshole," my passenger said. He added, however, that the perks of his job are great. (No mention in my journal of what the perks are, unfortunately.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He said that he <i>has</i> seen Trump not wearing a suit and tie, "but only when he's going to play golf." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He also told me that the owners of residences in the Trump building on Central Park South pay $80,000 </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">a month </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">for the maintenance of their apartments and that the man on the top floor, a penthouse, "owns a major bank." This last bit of information I found particularly interesting because it gave me a gauge, a little measuring stick, by which to better comprehend the difference in wealth between the 1% and the rest of us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">$80,000 a month for maintenance. I own a small condo myself. I pay $103. </span><br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-28218927216338512732016-09-24T13:11:00.000-05:002016-10-13T15:16:49.469-05:00Donald Trump Stories From My Cab<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">No, I’ve never had Donald Trump in my cab. Now that would be an interesting story, of course, because it would be firsthand data for me, secondhand data for you, as opposed to information received via the media. However, since the primaries began in February of this extraordinary election year in the U.S., I have had several passengers in my taxi who told me Donald Trump stories of their own. And that does count for something. It’s source information, unedited.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 14px;">Here they are, in chronological order, </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">without</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 14px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">embellishment:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">1. March 8 -- an older gentleman, in his seventies I would say, got in the cab in Midtown and we drove up to his Park Avenue address at 81st Street. ("Park Avenue address" is code, btw, for "old money, very wealthy"). He was on his cell phone for most of the ride, but when he'd ended his call I asked for his opinion about the upcoming election. Without needing any prompting, he told me he'd </span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">once had some kind of business deal in progress with Trump (no specifics were given). He said he'd never met him in person but had spoken with him on the phone. He said he should change the name of his book from</span> <i style="font-family: inherit;">The Art Of The Deal </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">to </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">The Art Of Changing The Deal At The Last Minute.</i></span><span style="font-size: 14px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 14px;">The implication here, as I understood it, was that Trump was </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">unscrupulous, not good to his word, sneaky, and that the deal, whatever it was, did not go forward. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">As he left the cab his parting words, referring to Trump, were, "He's a bad man."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">2. May 3 -- I had a middle-aged woman en route to the News Corp. Building on 47th and 6th, where Fox News is </span></span><span style="font-size: 14px;">located. She told me that her husband works as an "ad director" there, meaning he arranges which commercials will be shown in which time slots. She said that recently her husband and a colleague were waiting for an elevator to arrive in the building and when the door opened there stood Donald Trump with a couple of security guards beside him. As her husband and his colleague moved forward to join them in the elevator, they were stopped by the security guards. But Trump intervened, allowing them to come in with them. As they rode together in the elevator, however, there was no conversation with Trump because her husband, she said, was "in shock".</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">3. July 10 -- a middle-aged man in my cab told me he is a construction contractor in Florida. He said that a friend of his had once been in charge of a Trump construction project there and at one point during the operation he pulled all his workers off the job and refused to allow them to continue working until he was paid the money that was owed to him for work already done up to that point. Apparently Trump had a reputation for not paying his contractors and his friend was wise to this. The ploy, my passenger said, was successful. Trump paid him what he was owed and the construction continued.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">4. August 7 -- a 30-something woman going from 30 Rock (Rockefeller Center in Midtown) to the Upper West Side. After chatting with her for a few minutes she told me she is a makeup artist at NBC and used to work on the show "The Apprentice". Realizing I had a rare opportunity here, I began quizzing her about what it was like to actually do Donald Trump's makeup and, of course, what about his hair? Here's what I learned (and this is breaking news)... </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">a) His hair is real. At least, it's not a piece. She couldn't say whether or not he has plugs because she didn't work on his hair and couldn't get in there, but it's definitely not a toupee. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">b) Regarding the orange face: Trump has a skin condition known as rosacea (the enlargement of facial blood vessels, giving his cheeks and nose a flushed appearance). She said that when she worked for him she used makeup that gave his face the appearance of a natural skin tone. Now, however, he does his makeup himself and is using a yellow substance which, when applied over the redness of his face, creates an orange tint (yellow + red = orange).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">According to my passenger he won't listen to advice that he should change to another cream or ointment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">c) What it was like to be an employee of Donald Trump: she enjoyed working for him, was treated respectfully, and was well paid. She said if she worked only half a day she would still be given a full day's wages.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">d) Trump's children: she liked them, too. The only thing she found objectionable about any of them was that Donald Junior is a hunter. Other than that she thought they were fine people.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px;">e) Would she vote for him? No.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">For me, stories number 1 and 3 add credence to reports we’ve been hearing for months that Trump has a long history as an unscrupulous businessman, a shark swimming in the shark-infested waters of real estate development, that you cannot believe what he says, and that he is not to be trusted.</span><span style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">Stories 2 and 4 lead me to believe that on a personal level he can be a nice guy.</span><span style="font-size: 14px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">Story 4b suggests that reports are true that it is difficult or even impossible for him to accept advice from people who are experts in a field and that he trusts his own instincts above all else.</span><span style="font-size: 14px;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ah, the things you can learn driving a taxicab in New York City! Should I come upon further stories from a firsthand or even a secondhand source, I will pass them on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 14px;">For more of my </span><span style="font-size: 14px;">thoughts</span></span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> about this election please click <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=31618082#editor/target=post;postID=11271663626057192;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=postname" target="_blank">here</a> for the post, "What The Man From The Atomic Energy Commission Told Me".</span> </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span></span></div>
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-112716636260571922016-09-21T12:56:00.001-05:002022-03-12T12:31:18.515-05:00What The Man From The Atomic Energy Commission Told Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">You never know who will show up in the back seat of a taxicab. It’s like a talk show on wheels, really. A guest enters, we chat for a while, then he or she exits and the next one gets in. It’s quite a remarkable human situation, if you think about it, especially in a city like New York where the movers and shakers of the world tend to congregate. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Back in 1992 I had a passenger in my taxi who made a puzzling statement to me and this statement, considering who he was, has kept me thinking about its meaning ever since. This story is actually one of the most frequently told stories to passengers in my cab, although I’ve never written about it until now. And I do so now because with presidential politics being what they are in the United States at this time, I feel a responsibility to share this information. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My passenger was an American man who I estimated to be in his ‘70s at the time. I remember thinking that he looked to be in great physical condition for his age and that he mentioned to me that he walked ten miles a day, which impressed me. I don’t recall how it came up in conversation, but somehow the following datum emerged: he told me he had once been a member of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Atomic_Energy_Commission" target="_blank">Atomic Energy Commission. </a></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whoa. You may not be old enough to know what that meant, but if you were around in the ‘50s and ‘60s you most likely do. The Atomic Energy Commission was the highest level federal agency in the United States which regulated the use and development of atomic energy, including the creation of new types of atomic weapons. In terms of its importance to the country, it might be compared today to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency" target="_blank">National Security Agency</a> (the NSA) or the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA" target="_blank">CIA</a>. Top secret, hush-hush agencies with great, sometimes controversial, responsibilities to the security of the country. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Realizing that I had a rare opportunity here, I tried to make the most of it in the limited time we would be together. I know I asked him several questions which he was glad to answer, but there is only one thing I specifically remember asking his opinion about, </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">something I’d already had some attention on for a few years.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that was this: it had occurred to me some years prior that there seemed to have been a shift in the public consciousness concerning the threat and consequences of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_warfare" target="_blank">atomic war</a>. It seemed to me that people weren’t nearly as concerned about it as they had been before. You didn’t see articles in the papers or magazines about it anymore, or hear people talking about it anymore. Nobody seemed to be worried about it anymore, even though the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War" target="_blank">Cold War</a> was still going on. I don’t know when this change occurred, but I supposed it was a gradual thing that may have started in the early ‘70s, perhaps when the Viet Nam war ended — I don’t know.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was growing up in the late ‘50s and throughout the ‘60s, the seriousness of even the possibility of nuclear war was <i>very</i> much in the public consciousness. I would say that it and the arrival of television were the two things that shaped the psychology of my generation. These two developments created a significant “generation gap” between us Baby Boomers and our parents, actually. They had lived in a world where nuclear bombs and televisions did not exist. This resulted, I think, in a different view of the world for us and certainly a different view about warfare. For all the millennia preceding the advent of the atomic bomb, warfare meant men fighting directly against other men with some sort of hand-held weapon or by shooting short-range explosives at each other. Even in the most horrific wars, it was still understood, if not consciously then subconsciously, that when the war was over, or even if it was never over, the human race would still exist and although it might change for the better or worse, there would still exist what is called “civilization”.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The invention and then the proliferation of nuclear weapons, however, changed that very basic reality. For the first time in human history, weaponry had been created which could mean the extinction of civilization, if not the extinction of the human race itself and perhaps even all forms of life on the planet. <u>Man</u> <u>had</u> <u>developed</u> <u>the</u> <u>means</u> <u>of</u> <u>destroying</u> <u>himself</u> <u>as</u> <u>a</u> <u>species</u>. And this would happen not through masses of armies going up against each other but by certain people pushing certain buttons which would launch the nuclear missiles. Thus the new reality was that even if everything seemed harmonious and peaceful, this world would always be a very dangerous place. It could all end tomorrow, complete destruction, just like that, if certain people pushed certain buttons. That’s a pretty depressing thought, isn’t it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I grew up knowing, and worrying, about this. With the Cold War brewing it was always in the back of my mind that <i>this</i> day could be the <i>last</i> day. This fear was heightened considerably by the </span></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis" target="_blank">Cuban Missile Crisis</a> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">in October of 1962 when the Soviet Union and the United States came to the brink of nuclear war. It was horrifying. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I remember one specific incident which occurred in my 8th grade music class during the crisis. Our teacher brought out a record of the music from a new Broadway show called </span><i style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiorello!" target="_blank">Fiorello! </a></i><span style="font-family: inherit;">about the former mayor of New York City, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiorello_LaGuardia" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">Fiorello LaGuardia</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">. We were to listen to the record and there would be a discussion about it when it was over. She placed the record on the turntable and we waited for the music to begin. However, this show didn’t begin with music. It began with the blaring siren of a fire engine. (Mayor LaGuardia was famous for showing up at fires.) The entire class, hearing the sound, let out a collective scream. Not a funny, teenage scream — a real scream of terror. That’s how on edge we were, and we were only kids.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So I brought this up with my passenger. I asked him if I was correct in my observation. Did something change? Are people in general not concerned about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust like they used to be? He thought about it for a moment and then told me that I was correct, it was true. And then he added this comment, and these were his exact words:</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“A country that’s worried about a nuclear war is a country that won’t buy a new car.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t remember if I asked him what he meant by that. I don’t think I did, actually, maybe because we were at the end of the ride. But his comment has stayed with me all these years. If it had come from just anyone, I suppose I would have forgotten about it the next day, but this was coming from the guy from the Atomic Energy Commission, so it carried significant gravitas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After giving it much thought, and after hearing the opinions of many passengers in my cab, I came to the conclusion that what he meant was that a country of worried people was bad for the economy, with the implication being that a robust economy was an important ingredient in keeping the peace, not only in America but around the world. Plus this: what’s the point in having the media and governmental agencies agitating the population about nuclear holocaust when there’s nothing the average person can do about it, anyway?</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I decided he was right. This made sense. A population which believes the world may end tomorrow might well turn out to be a population of nihilistic, live-for-today stoners. What it takes for a society to prosper — the steady flow of commerce — could be reduced to a trickle. No Brillo pads to clean your sink. No gravy on your mashed potatoes. No invention of the iPhone. No <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokemon_Go" target="_blank">Pokemon Go</a>. If things get bad enough in a country, people will become desperate. Governments can be overthrown by violence and atomic weapons can get into the hands of some very destructive people. So the man from the Atomic Energy Commission was right. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As this presidential election cycle rolls forward in the United States I have given his comment even more thought, and it seems to me something was overlooked. A country that is not keenly aware of what atomic weapons can do is a country that might elect a rabble-rousing loose cannon to the presidency -- a person who could conceivably blunder our way into a nuclear holocaust. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So there <i>is </i>something the average person can do about it. He or she can understand that the risk of atomic warfare is the number one issue in any presidential election, and vote accordingly. No other issue even comes close. Not bad trade agreements, not student debt, not illegal immigration, not psychotic lunatics opening fire in shopping malls, not even climate change. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Please consider this: the president of the United States, when it comes to nuclear war, virtually has the power of God. By his or her command all we know of civilization could quite suddenly come to an end. By his or her command billions -- <i>billions</i> -- of people could perish, perhaps even <i>every human being</i> on this planet could perish. Perhaps even every living <i>thing </i>on the planet could perish. Is that not the power of God?</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So temperament, sanity, intelligence, and empathy mean everything in a presidential election. It’s the great decision we as Americans must make every fourth year, and it tests our wisdom as a nation. Candidates who are rude, impulsive, thin-skinned, angry, and impossible to give advice to can be elected to the offices of mayor, governor, and senator all day long, and sometimes are. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But never to the presidency.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The motto of one of the great American presidents, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt" target="_blank">Theodore Roosevelt</a>, was “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. There are plenty of big sticks in the United States arsenal. It’s the “speak softly” part that is so important in a nuclear age. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you’re an American, I do hope you will give this your most sober consideration before you vote.</span></span><br />
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<span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">There are links to several Wikipedia pages in this post. I’m giving three of them again here in case you missed them:</span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_warfare" target="_blank">Atomic War</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War" target="_blank">The Cold War</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis" target="_blank">The Cuban Missile Crisis</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I suggest that you to go to these sites and read the articles. I know it’s disturbing to read this stuff, it really is, but I feel we cannot afford to be unaware of what is really at stake in this and in every presidential election. Go to the Cuban Missile Crisis page first and listen to the riveting audio of President Kennedy addressing the nation. Then imagine the wrong person being the president at that time.</span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I feel strongly that all Americans need to be conversant with this subject. "The Nuclear Age" should be required study for everyone at the high school level, in my opinion. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the world we live in. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Let’s not kid ourselves.</span></span></span><br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-13842557967891259282016-09-01T14:04:00.000-05:002016-09-01T14:14:37.310-05:00Driverless Taxis? My Op-Ed in The Guardian<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There was an announcement in the worldwide media several days ago that Uber and Volvo have been working together to develop the technology for a driverless taxi and that the first of these cars are already being tested on the streets of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania (USA). <br />
<br />
Is this the beginning of the end of the profession of Taxi Driver?<br />
<br />
I was asked by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us" target="_blank">The Guardian</a>, one of the UK's top newspapers (with an online edition for the US), to write an Op-Ed on this <i>disturbing</i> news...<br />
<br />
Click here:<br />
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/22/driverless-cars-taxis-cabs-uber" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/22/driverless-cars-taxis-cabs-uber</a><br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-39226085229098389172016-04-11T23:10:00.000-05:002016-12-17T20:39:12.506-05:00Harry Belafonte<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The great<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Belafonte" target="_blank"> Harry Belafonte</a> and his wife Pamela Frank were passengers in my cab yesterday. Cheerful and exuberant, he took a minute to oblige my request for a picture.<br />
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If you are not familiar with Harry Belafonte, please click on the link above and check out his Wikipedia page. He has been an inspiration to millions, including myself, since the 1950s, and he continues to be.<br />
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Would you believe he is 89 years old?<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P3J0DuAAGR0/VwxzHyrkkII/AAAAAAAAHHI/kfhCGUUWnzwN2FFMi5VCdsQi_55V8VtQQCLcB/s1600/DSC06326.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-P3J0DuAAGR0/VwxzHyrkkII/AAAAAAAAHHI/kfhCGUUWnzwN2FFMi5VCdsQi_55V8VtQQCLcB/s400/DSC06326.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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(Photo by Pamela Frank)</div>
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-79031869086605055152016-03-28T23:06:00.000-05:002020-01-28T11:04:48.023-05:00What It Takes To Get Rid Of A McDonald's<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here's a question I've asked dozens of passengers in my cab over the years, and I'll ask it to you now: have you ever -- <i>in your life </i>-- noticed a McDonald's that, once it was there, ceased to be there? Think about this for a minute... I'm talking about every town or city you've ever lived in, every town or city you've ever known, every highway you've ever driven on that had a rest stop, every mall you've ever shopped in: have you ever known of a McDonald's that went away?<br />
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I'll bet you can't name even one.<br />
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I say this because no one in my cab has ever been able to think of one. Well, actually there was one passenger who could. He said there was a mass shooting in a McDonald's in San Diego, California, in 1984 in which twenty-one people were killed, and in the aftermath the McDonald's Corporation decided to raze the building and donate the land to the city rather than reopen it. However, a new McDonald's was eventually built just a few blocks away. So it's debatable as to whether or not this counts.<br />
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Wondering why this was so, I learned through conversations with passengers and with a bit of research on the net that in the great majority of cases the McDonald's Corporation owns the land upon which the restaurants are constructed. A realtor in my cab recently told me, in fact, that people are mistaken if they think McDonald's is in the hamburger business. Actually, he said, they're in the real estate business. The value of their real estate holdings, including the land itself and the buildings, is more than 28 billion dollars.<br />
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So imagine my surprise when I drove up 10th Avenue in Manhattan a few weeks ago and noticed that a fence had been constructed around a McDonald's at 34th Street and it was shuttered up. This was especially interesting to me because this very same McDonald's was, in fact, demolished about twenty years ago and I remember thinking at the time that it was the only one I knew of that had ever gone away. Especially strange, I thought, because it was one of the very few restaurants in Manhattan that had its own parking lot. You could actually park your car and go into the place to eat, unheard of in the real estate paradise known as Manhattan. And now it was gone? <br />
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No! What happened was that, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra" target="_blank">Hydra</a>-like, it came back! A new, bigger, two-story McDonald's arose in its place and was super-sizing the fries, sodas, and shakes all over again. What, I had to wonder, could it possibly take to kill off one of these joints? <br />
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The answer to that question requires a closer look at what's been happening in the section of Manhattan that is bounded from north to south by 34th Street and 30th Street and from east to west by 10th and 12th Avenues. It has its own new name: "Hudson Yards". "Hudson" because the Hudson River is right there next to 12th Avenue and "Yards" because the construction that's underway there extends over the West Side Rail Yard, where trains headed for Pennsylvania Station come, go, and hang out. It's a massive real estate development which when completed is expected to consist of sixteen skyscrapers with more than 12 million square feet of office, residential, and retail space. An extension of the Number 7 subway line -- a massive construction project in itself -- was recently completed and opened for business with a station on 34th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, the first new subway station to open in New York City in twenty years. <br />
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It's a big deal.<br />
<br />
So why did the McDonald's go out? Well, it was due to the value of its land, of course. We all know about "location, location, location" and this is a location wet dream. It's about an acre of the most prime real estate imaginable, literally adjacent to the new subway station. Who was the genius who years ago decided to acquire a plot big enough for a parking lot? Incredible.<br />
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I had to wonder what the price could have been for the McDonald's Corporation to sell out. Happily, I was able to extract this information from two recent passengers in my cab. One was a real estate lawyer and the other an executive of the development company which bought the land. (It's amazing to me how, when I decide that I want certain information, somehow a passenger shows up in my cab who provides me with it. It's been happening for years -- a phenomenon, really.) <br />
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Anyway, what do you think it was? Before you read on, just sit back for a minute and think about it. An acre of land in the middle of a huge, huge real estate development in a whole new section of Manhattan that has its own new subway line -- what do you think that's worth in today's dollars?<br />
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Okay, here's the answer (drum roll, please)...<br />
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One hundred and forty-four million dollars, including the air rights.<br />
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One hundred and forty-four million dollars.<br />
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So now we know. <br />
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That's what it takes to get rid of a McDonald's.<br />
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Sorry, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me" target="_blank">Morgan Spurlock</a>.<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-69188596787515997052016-02-10T20:04:00.000-05:002016-02-11T00:49:13.385-05:00The Weeknd<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Tuesday nights at around 3 A.M. -- that's an interesting time of the night for a taxi driver in New York City. It's the time when the streets are not only at their emptiest, but when the "creatures of the night", so to speak, are most likely to appear from the shadows -- and that could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the creature. I was getting ready to end my shift at that time a few months ago, not in a creature-of-the-night mood, really, so when I saw a relatively normal-looking pair of humans hailing me at the corner of 54th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, it was a welcome sight. The two of them -- an attractive, young white lady wearing a tight-fitting party dress and a hip-looking black guy carrying a guitar case -- jumped in and the guy said they wanted to go to the Affinia Hotel at 31st Street and 7th Avenue. The doors closed and we were on our way, but we went barely a block when there was a problem.<br />
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The guy suddenly realized he'd left his card (credit card) in the bar. This meant we had to loop around to 5th Avenue, cross over on 53rd Street back to 6th Avenue, and then make a right turn on 54th Street, where the bar, a place called Connolly's, was located. This was okay with me, of course, as it meant more mileage on the ride, assuming he went into the bar, got his card, and we continued on to the hotel. The young lady, however, was not comprehending the problem. She thought he said that he'd left his card in his <u>car</u> and didn't understand how that could happen. After a prolonged discussion, the guy finally realized her confusion and told her the card was in the <u>bar</u>, not in his car. "My car's in LA," he said. They both laughed. Well, he laughed. She guffawed. This misunderstanding was not merely funny, it was hilarious, from her point of view.<br />
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Overhearing this little episode made me curious about this couple so I kept my attention on them as I made my way back to Connolly's Bar. I took note of the way they were. She was clearly a bit tipsy -- a happy, but not drunk, attractive female. She spoke to the guy ebulliently, full of agreement, listening carefully to his every word, and sitting so close to the guy that a cab driver could only assume that they were more than friends -- or were about to be so.<br />
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The guy, though, was much more subdued, laid-back, cool and calm, but not in an off-putting way. I could see that he liked the girl, liked the affinity and attention he was receiving from her, and was perhaps playing his cards a bit carefully, not wanting to blow what surely must have looked like a winning hand. He wasn't doing a lot of talking, though. The girl was the gabby one.<br />
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We circled around and in a couple of minutes we arrived at Connolly's on 54th Street. The guy opened his door and stepped out onto the street, leaving his guitar in the cab.<br />
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"Be right back."<br />
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"Okay," she beamed back.<br />
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He gave her a half-smile and walked into the bar.<br />
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The moment the guy disappeared from sight she turned her attention to me. With wide-eyed enthusiasm she exclaimed:<br />
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"Do you know who he <u>IS</u>???!!!"<br />
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I, of course, had no idea who he was, so I said, "The guy who left his guitar in the cab?"<br />
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My quip went unnoticed by my passenger and continued on its journey into outer space.<br />
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"He's The Weeknd!" she squealed.<br />
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"What do you mean? It's Tuesday."<br />
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"No, no, he calls himself 'The Weeknd'." She became a bit serious for a moment. "It's his stage name. But it's not spelled the same. You leave off the 'e' after 'week'. So it's not like you say 'The Week End'. It's more like you say 'The Weakened'. It's like a double-meaning."<br />
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"Oh."<br />
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She lowered her voice a notch. "His real name is 'L.J.', she said, "but he doesn't want anyone to know." Suddenly she seemed worried. "Don't tell him I told you who he is when he comes back, okay?"<br />
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"Oh, sure, don't worry. It'll be our little secret."<br />
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Her smile returned.<br />
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"Okay, so who is The Weeknd?" I inquired (of course).<br />
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Her unbridled enthusiasm returned. "Oh, he's a singer. He's the hottest thing around right now! He's HUGE! I mean HUGE!!! He's on all the radio stations! He's all over the place on YouTube! He's HUGE!"<br />
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"Really, wow! So who are you, his girlfriend?"<br />
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"Well, ha-ha, not exactly... we just met in the bar." She then giggled in the way that people often do when they're about to engage in a guilty pleasure. A "My Bad" grin appeared on her face and remained there.<br />
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"Ohh, I got it," I replied. I smiled back, as if to say, "I'll be your secret coachman."<br />
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So now I did get it, indeed. She was his Thank-You-For-Choosing-Me-Sir pick-up of the evening. And the place they were on their way to is also known as the Shagalicious Hotel, by Marriott.<br />
<br />
"So how did you and The Weeknd wind up in a bar at three in the morning?" I wanted to know.<br />
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"Ohhh, well, he just played at a big fund-raiser at MOMA," she said. "$50,000 a plate! Can you imagine that -- $50,000 a plate! He was the entertainment."<br />
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It did make sense. Although the main entrance to MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art) is on East 53rd Street, there's an open-air terrace that extends to 54th Street, right across the street from Connolly's Bar. So I assumed The Weeknd and his people must have headed there after the show.<br />
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We continued to chat it up for a couple of minutes which meant that she went on bubbling all over the top about how big a star The Weeknd is while I pleasantly acknowledged whatever she said. But then, suddenly, there was a hitch in the plan: the guy who calls himself "The Weeknd" returned to the cab, sat himself down, and announced to my passenger that he was having a problem with his card, so there would be a bit of a delay. He suggested that instead of waiting for him in the cab that she come back into the bar until he could clear up the trouble. The girl said, "Oh, okay," and took out her own credit card to pay the fare, which was up to $9.80 at that point. She swiped her card, the transaction (including a $1.96 tip) went through, and they left the premises, he with his guitar in hand.<br />
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"Sorry," he called out to me, which I appreciated. I like that in a celebrity, no attitude. He seemed like a nice enough guy.<br />
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Well, there I sat in front of Connolly's Bar. There were still quite a few people inside, so I thought I might as well hang out and see if I can get another fare, or better yet, maybe I could get the girl and this guy The Weeknd again. It would no doubt be a fascinating eavesdropping situation, based on what she'd already told me.<br />
<br />
But no. Ten minutes ticked by and then finally a middle-aged couple, whose destination was the Roosevelt Hotel on Madison Avenue, came out of the bar and got in my cab. As I pulled out from the curb I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the girl and The Weeknd re-emerge from the bar and get into another taxi. I cursed my luck, missing them by just seconds, and drove my new passengers to their destination. It turned out to be my last fare of the evening.<br />
<br />
I was curious about The Weeknd, so the next day I decided to check him out online. I found that he is, indeed, quite the rising star. He's got dozens of videos on YouTube, with many millions of views, and has performed at lots of major events. His latest venture was doing the soundtrack for the movie <i>Fifty Shades Of Grey -- </i>very impressive! I watched one of his videos and found (unusual for me) that I liked the sound of a new recording artist. This guy was good. So I clicked on another one, this time paying more attention to the images than I had before. And then...<br />
<br />
...hey, wait a minute...<br />
<br />
I looked more closely. Whoa, whoa, whoa, just a minute, there!<br />
<br />
I watched the video again. Could it be?<br />
<br />
Oh my God, yes, it was true. <br />
<br />
<i>THE GUY I WAS LOOKING AT IN THE VIDEO WHO CALLS HIMSELF "THE WEEKND" WAS <u>NOT</u> THE GUY WHO'D BEEN IN MY CAB!</i><br />
<br />
On further investigation, I found that there's a fellow called "L.J." in his band who plays the bass! Aha!<br />
<br />
At first my feeling about the attractive young lady in the tight-fitting party dress was one of sympathy. Poor thing, she'd been duped by what may be the oldest band-member's trick in the book. But then I became more critical. I mean, what a disgrace to the good reputation of groupies everywhere.<br />
<br />
Come on, honey.<br />
<br />
If a guy tells you he's Mick Jagger, you've got to do a little vetting. Does he know the words to "I Can't Get No Satisfaction"? Can he at least hum the tune?<br />
<br />
Come ON!<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/waU75jdUnYw" width="480"></iframe><br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-90932134938867407472015-09-16T17:16:00.000-05:002016-02-10T21:23:36.128-05:00The Taxi TV And Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My God, how I hate these things.<br />
<br />
For those who may not know, let me first tell you what the Taxi TV is. It's a television monitor situated in the rear compartment of all yellow and green (outer borough) taxicabs in New York City. It's not, however, a regular TV like you'd have at home. Rather, it consists of pre-programmed information, the majority of it being clips from television talk shows, along with commercials and the occasional public service announcement. The entertainment, the pitches, and the hear-ye-hear-ye's are packaged in continuous loops which the passenger may see and hear twice or even three times during the course of a ride. The driver hears it whenever the meter is turned on, which on the average is 60% of his twelve-hour shift. <br />
<br />
The speakers of the Taxi TV are situated about 24 inches behind the driver's head. Not only does the cabbie have no control over its coming on automatically when the meter is engaged, he has no control over the thing's volume. The passenger can, with a tap-tap-tap of his finger, raise the volume to make it suddenly <i>blasting</i> into the driver's ears. He may also turn it off, and many do just that if they can figure out how to accomplish the task. Most, however, simply ignore it while conversing with their riding companions or the driver, texting, or chatting on their phones. Thus the Taxi TV is, more often than not, just "noise".<br />
<br />
And if all this weren't enough to make you scream, let me add that it was the city itself (Mayor Bloomberg, in particular) which mandated its presence in all cabs in 2008. It is there primarily to raise advertising revenue for medallion owners and the companies which won the contracts for its installation and maintenance. The drivers don't see a dime - <i>of course!</i><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">It is <i>very </i>unpopular with the majority of the taxi-riding public. And needless to say, the drivers universally hate the thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, my dislike for the Taxi TV has been welling up in me for all these years. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it has given me a worthy replacement for my Giuliani rant. (I had my Giuliani rant perfected to such a point that passengers in my cab, who may have made the mistake of saying something positive about former Mayor Giuliani to me, would have been happy by the end of the ride to sign a petition to have the man tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a pole. It was a thing of elocutionary beauty.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">A few weeks ago an acorn dropped on my head and the idea occurred to me to make an offer to passengers in my cab to raise awareness of the outrageousness of the presence of a television monitor in a taxicab, or at least of its continuous noise. I decided to give them a one dollar rebate on the ride if they would just turn off the damned sound. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">It made the New York Post. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Click <a href="http://nypost.com/2015/07/19/cab-driver-pays-customers-to-make-his-cab-less-annoying/" target="_blank">here</a> for the link.</span></div>
Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-3373244646748416552015-06-06T15:21:00.000-05:002015-06-06T15:21:31.439-05:00On The Radio In The U.K. Monday MorningI will be sitting in with Ed and Rachel on their Heart Radio Breakfast Show (www.heart.co.uk/westmids/on-air/breakfast/) this coming Monday morning, June 8th, at 6:00 a.m., U.K. time (1:00 a.m. in NYC).<br />
<br />
The show airs from Birmingham, England's second-largest city, but they'll be broadcasting from right here in New York on Monday. Don't know exactly what we'll be talking about (I'm hoping they'll let me do a traffic report!) but whatever it is, it should be fun. So tune in if you can. I'm told that I'll be on in their first hour, between 6 and 7 a.m., U.K.<br />
<br />
The show can be accessed worldwide on the Internet, but the station doesn't provide archives, so the only way to catch it will be live on Monday. Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-29332203582630509712015-05-05T13:00:00.002-05:002022-03-12T13:06:39.608-05:00Well Worth The Eighteen BucksThere are certain rides which you suspect will be trouble, but then it turns out there is none. For example, the passenger looks drunk, acts drunk, <i>is</i> drunk, and you’ve got a feeling that any second now this son of a bitch is going to puke in the back seat. But he does not. And that is good. <div><br /></div><div>But then there are others for which your suspicion is justified - you could see it coming, and indeed it arrives. But at least you can say, “I saw it coming” and give yourself credit for possessing a certain amount of wisdom, even if your wisdom wasn’t of sufficient quantity to have been able to avoid the damned thing in the first place.<div>
<br />
Such was the case with a ride I had a couple of months ago, on a frigid Wednesday evening in February. I had taken a fare from Manhattan to Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, at 6:20 - not something a cabbie wants to do at that hour because it likely means going back to “the city” (Manhattan) without a passenger and that is money lost. And although the mantra of the veteran New York City cab driver is supposedly “I don’t go to Brooklyn”, I took the guy without even a hint of complaint - a sign that I may be softening up in my old age. <br />
<br />
It was the next ride that was the trouble. Before I could turn around and head back to the Williamsburg Bridge I was hailed at McCarren Park by three teenage boys, dressed in outfits typical of the so-called “inner city”, each about 15, maybe 16 years old. Now here’s a little truism a cabbie learns, usually the hard way, about teenagers and taxicabs in New York City - there are only two situations in which kids between the ages of 13 and 17 ever take taxis without an adult accompanying them. 1) They are “rich kids” from the Park Avenue or 5th Avenue parts of town. 2) It is a Friday or Saturday night and the teenagers are a boy and a girl who are out on a date. The reason: money. Cabs are too expensive for teenagers unless you’re a rich kid or it’s a very special occasion. <br />
<br />
Now, I know this, but as mentioned maybe I’m getting soft in my old age, or maybe it’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve had any teenagers in my cab who didn’t fit into one of those two categories that I’ve let my guard down. Whatever the reason, I stopped and let them in, all three in the back seat. Immediately there was this sinking feeling a cabbie gets when he knows he’d made a mistake. I had gone against my instinct, thinking I was doing the right thing by stopping for whomever wanted my services, as per the rules, but now I had a problem on my hands. As soon as they were in my immediate space, danger signals went off on my taxi driver radar. These were not your normal taxi passenger particles, so to speak. They weren’t passing through the filter. <br />
<br />
What I do in a situation like this, as I’ve described elsewhere in this blog, I call my “<a href="http://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2008/01/three-strikes-and-youre-out-system.html">Three Strikes And You're Out System</a>”. Strike One: from your outward characteristics you look to me like potential trouble of one kind or another. I don’t feel comfortable with you in my cab. Strike Two: I also don’t feel comfortable with where in the city you want me to go and the time of day (like late at night) you want me to go there. Well, these three fellows by appearance, age, and demeanor brought me to Strike Two immediately, and when I asked them where they were going the one directly behind the partition next to the right-side door barked out:<br />
<br />
“Ridgewood, yo.”<br />
<br />
Ouch. <br />
<br />
This was further bad news because not only did they want to take me for a long ride in the opposite direction from Manhattan, but Ridgewood is a low-income, not-gentrified part of the city which I don’t really know very well due to the fact that I get so few fares out there. This ride was going to be something like fifteen to twenty dollars on the meter. Three inner-city teenagers paying that much money for a cab ride when they could have taken the subway? Noooo… this particle was definitely not making it through the filter. Still, the procedure of my system is that when you have a Strike Two, what you do is communicate, or try to. Often what looks like something ominous turns out to be not that way at all upon further observation. So I went at it.<br />
<br />
“So what street do you want in Ridgewood?” I asked. <br />
<br />
“Huh?” the kid on the right-rear grunted.<br />
<br />
“Where are you going? What street?”<br />
<br />
There was a brief conversation among them. And then, “We don’t know yet,” replied the same kid, who seemed to be a spokesman for the group. “Get on Metropolitan.”<br />
<br />
This was a further bad indicator. They’re taking an expensive ride and they’re not sure where they’re going? Two possibilities enter the mind of the taxi driver: maybe they aren’t concerned about spending money on a ride to a vague destination because they have no intention to pay for it. Or, worse, maybe they want to get to a general area and then find a street where it would be a good place to hold you up. I knew I had to determine which possibility it was before we got to Ridgewood - my life could be at stake here. If I decided what they had in mind was just to beat the fare, I would take them. If I was right, all I would lose, really, would be some time. But if I wasn’t sure, I would have to abruptly end the ride in a busy area with lots of people around (hopefully right behind a police car, if I could find one) and through overt or covert means, get them out of the cab. (That’s Strike Three.) So I had a plan. But first I had to continue with my attempt at communication. <br />
<br />
The kid in the middle, who I could easily see in the rear-view mirror, was wearing a Yankee cap. I thought this was a good way to start a conversation, so I looked at him in the mirror and asked him if he was a Yankee fan. He seemed surprised that he was being asked a question. After thinking about it for a few seconds he replied, rather flatly, “Yeah.”<br />
<br />
“How do you think they’re looking for the new season? Think they’ll make the playoffs?”<br />
<br />
The kid pondered this concept - Yankees… playoffs… and finally responded. “Maybe,” was all he said. He wasn’t saying much, but he said something. I took this as a hopeful sign and continued. <br />
<br />
“Hey, you know who I had in my cab last summer? Derek Jeter!”<br />
<br />
Now for any Yankee fan, or even any baseball fan, this statement should result in a “Wow!” of one sort or another. Derek Jeter, the recently retired superstar of the Yankees, has been the most admired sports figure in New York for the last twenty years. But all it got out of the kid was an even-voiced, “That’s cool.” And nothing more. This was not good.<br />
<br />
I was beginning to think I was going to have to get rid of these guys for my own safety when there was an oddly positive development in the ride. They started goofing off with each other. One of them accused another of farting. Then the one who’d been accused yelled up to me, “Hey cab driver, did you fart?” which brought some laughter in the back seat. It was juvenile and disrespectful, but it gave me something with which to calculate their intentions. <br />
<br />
In my understanding of human behavior I could not see three teenagers joking around with each other if what was in the back of their minds was to pull out a weapon and rob me. If that had been their intention, they would have been serious, silent, and mean-spirited. I could see that these kids were basically just wiseass teenagers. Still, something was up and I was pretty sure at this point that what was up was that they were going to try to beat the fare. That suspicion wasn’t enough to kick them out of the cab, however, so we continued on.<br />
<br />
When we’d gone a couple of miles down Metropolitan Avenue some disagreement arose among them as to where they wanted to go. One kid said turn left, the other said no, turn right, and then there was a whispered conference among them - a development I didn’t like one bit. What was it they didn’t want me to hear? It was a little after seven in the evening and although it was dark there were still plenty of cars and people on the streets, so I still didn’t think they intended to hold me up. But now I wasn’t so sure. I decided that if they directed me to turn into an alley or a dead-end street I would quickly close the partition window on them, lock it, and order them out of the cab. The Plexiglas partition is bullet-proof (it had better be!) and as long as I had an open road in front of me I could take off the moment they stepped out of the cab and be safe, hopefully. To hell with the money.<br />
<br />
If, however, they were simply going to try to leave without paying, as I expected, well, I had another plan…<br />
<br />
We took a few lefts and rights and wound up on a one-way, residential street. Halfway down the block the kid in the rear-right says, “Okay, stop here.” As I brought the cab slowly to a halt, I noted that the street in front of me was devoid of other vehicles, a good thing. Stopping the cab, I left it in “Drive” with my foot on the brake. <br />
<br />
“You’re getting out here?” I asked the group, noticing that there was $18.30 on the meter. <br />
<br />
But there was no answer, as such. Instead there was a sudden, loud, rebel yell from both sides of the compartment as the rear doors flew open simultaneously. With grins of joyous complicity on their faces, the two kids who had been sitting next to their own doors jumped out of the cab and began to run away the moment their feet touched ground. Seeing this, I put my own plan into action. Instead of just sitting there and watching them run, I stepped on the gas, hard, while at the same time reaching back, slamming the partition window shut, and locking it. The sudden forward thrust of the cab caused the two rear doors to close on their own. But I wasn’t driving down the street alone. The kid in the Yankee hat who had been sitting between his friends hadn’t been able to get out in time. In an instantaneous reversal of fortune, he was suddenly a prisoner in a moving vehicle.<br />
<br />
“Like I didn’t see <i>that</i> coming,” I called back to him while bringing the speed up to about 25 miles per hour. The look of shock on the kid’s face was priceless. I wish I could have taken a picture of it. <br />
<br />
“So,” I said in sarcastic cheerfulness as we continued down the street, “let’s find a cop.”<br />
<br />
There was panic and confusion in the kid’s eyes. Perhaps he saw his future melting away due to being arrested. Perhaps he could see how he would lose the respect of certain people in his life whom he admired. Or perhaps he could just see himself being picked up at the precinct by his momma, who would give him more than a piece of her mind when she got him home. Whatever it was, he kept it to himself. He didn’t say a word to me.<br />
<br />
For my part, I knew I had to keep the taxi moving while looking for a cop. If I brought it to a stop, the kid would certainly bolt. I continued driving down the street for another block with still no other cars in front of me, but then slowed down a bit to make a left turn at an approaching intersection. As I went into the turn, the speed of the cab going down to about fifteen miles per hour, the kid suddenly pushed open the right-rear door and jumped out, rolling over a couple of times onto the pavement just like in a scene from an action movie. Looking back at him through the mirror, I could see him rising to his feet, apparently uninjured. There was an accumulation of snow on the street which may have cushioned his fall.<br />
<br />
I kept driving, satisfied that I had won the game. Actually, just the look on the kid’s face was worth the eighteen bucks. In these fare-beating scenarios, it’s not really about the money, anyway. It’s about pride, not letting someone make a jackass out of you. Also it’s about teaching the person a lesson, if possible. Hopefully this kid had a realization along the lines of there being consequences to stupid behavior. Of course in this particular instance, he may have had a realization of a different kind...<br />
<br />
...like that he may have a future as a stuntman!</div></div>Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-42038967646623835122015-01-25T01:51:00.000-05:002020-01-20T18:53:05.483-05:00The One Good Thing That Happened To Taxi Drivers After Uber Invaded New York City<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Passengers in my cab are always surprised when I tell them there is no taxi drivers’ union in New York City. It is assumed that with all these cabs everywhere you look there must certainly be a union, but there is not. There is a taxi drivers’ <i>advocacy group</i>, the Taxi Workers Alliance, whose leader, Bhairavi Desai, often appears in the media and at meetings of the Taxi and Limousine Commission to try to present the viewpoint of the drivers, but the Taxi Workers Alliance has no clout. This was painfully evident in September of 2007 when Ms. Desai called for a two-day work stoppage to protest the imposition of the high-tech “system” (GPS monitoring, credit card readers, and back seat television screens) upon the taxi industry in New York City. Her call was widely ignored by the drivers who instead opted to avail themselves of the inducement of Mayor Michael Bloomberg to pay her no mind and instead make a bundle on those days because he was allowing drivers to accept multiple passengers and charge by zones. <br />
<br />
Although I did observe the work stoppage myself, I was not at all surprised that it fell on its face. The template upon which the taxi industry in New York operates was conceived in 1937, a time of enormous labor unrest in the United States. Intentionally or not, it has turned out to be union-proof. The number of yellow cab medallions was fixed at 11,787; about half of them were owned by numerous taxi fleets scattered around the city and the other half by independent owner-drivers, one taxi for each owner-driver. So with dozens of taxi garages and thousands of independent drivers scattered all over the city, there was no central location where drivers would ever congregate and no place to put a picket line. Attempts to unionize failed and, boy, the weakness that was the result of that failure has been evident ever since.<br />
<br />
Just compare the difference in the way taxi drivers and members of the Transit Workers Union (subways and buses) are dealt with by the city when a strike, or even a temporary work stoppage, is threatened. Mayor Bloomberg, as mentioned, simply bribed the taxi drivers to continue working on those two days. In May of 1998 there actually <i>was</i> a one-day work stoppage by taxi drivers, a labor miracle engineered by Ms. Desai, in response to Mayor Guiliani’s sudden imposition of unpopular new rules upon the industry. For that one remarkable day there were virtually no yellow cabs on the streets of the city. The mayor went on television that evening and with a smile on his face said, “The streets were nice and empty today. They should do it more often.” He refused to negotiate and then for the next two years taxi drivers were continuously being pulled over by the police and ticketed for such offenses as wearing sandals or having an entry missing from their trip sheets. Some felt this was not a coincidence. <br />
<br />
But should the president of the Transit Workers Union even be overheard at the gym using the word “deadline” in regard to the expiration of contracts with the city, the attitude from the mayor’s office is along the lines of, “Come on over, we can work it out, let’s do lunch.” Negotiations are conducted and deals are made. Why? Because the TWU is a very strong union - it can call a strike for real and cause great trouble not only for the citizens of the city but for the mayor, who will be blamed for letting it happen. That is clout. That is leverage. That is what taxi drivers have never had.<br />
<br />
As a result they have been taken utterly for granted by owners of taxi fleets and city officials alike. Due to a steady influx of immigrant labor, garage owners have never had to particularly worry about not having enough cabbies to drive their vehicles, regardless of the working conditions these drivers were required to tolerate. And any newly-elected mayor or recently-appointed Taxi and Limousine Commission chairman soon learned that they can impose any rules they want on taxi drivers and there will be no meaningful opposition to their decrees. <br />
<br />
The examples of this could fill a book (hey, there’s an idea!) but I’m going to give you just three, to illustrate the point.<br />
<br />
1) After the recession hit in 2008, taxi garages were overflowing with drivers looking for work. Since it’s more convenient and more profitable for fleet owners to lease their cabs out on a weekly, rather than a daily basis, drivers were told they had no choice but to take the weekly deal. This meant a six-day work week for either a day shift (5 a.m. to 5 p.m.) or a night shift (5 p.m. to 5 a.m.). Should a personal situation or an illness or a Hurricane Sandy come along and you needed a few days off, tough, you still had to pay the full weekly lease if you wanted to continue to drive one of that fleet’s cabs. <br />
<br />
2) The high-tech “system” was mandated by the Bloomberg administration to be in use in all taxis in January of 2008. It consists of three components: credit card readers, GPS tracking, and a television monitor in the back seat. I will leave the pros and cons of the credit card readers and the GPS tracking for another day - let’s just talk about the television monitor. Here is a glittering example, the gold standard, if you will, of just how taken for granted the taxi drivers have been. When you sit down in the back seat of a New York taxicab, a TV monitor is staring you in the face. When the driver turns on the meter it activates the TV and the canned entertainment begins. Of late this consists of clips taken from talk shows, interspersed with commercials and public-service announcements. What this means to the taxi driver is that for approximately sixty-five percent of his twelve-hour shift (the average percentage of time the meter is on) he will be forced to endure listening to the same jokes and babble over and over and over and over again. Was any kind of survey ever done of how the drivers felt about this? Of course not. Are the drivers even given a piece of the advertising revenue the Taxi TV generates? Uh, why even ask? <br />
<br />
Aside from all this, there is a safety issue, as well. The monitor is about twenty-four inches from the driver’s head, so the noise it emits is inescapable. And to make it worse, the volume can be turned up to make it suddenly BLASTING with a quick tap-tap-tap of the passenger’s finger. Now, quite aside from the obvious annoyance this would be to the person who has to put up with it for two-thirds of his or her work day, has it occurred to no one that it is also a distraction to the driver and it therefore makes a ride in a taxi <i>less safe</i> than it would be if the thing simply wasn’t there at all? If anyone would dispute that point, I would invite them to answer this question: how would you like it if that monitor was twenty-four inches behind the head of your airline pilot as he’s bringing your plane in for a landing? Do you think that would be approved by the FAA? Of course not! But in a taxi, it’s okay? <br />
<br />
3) And then there is the Nissan NV200 minivan, the so-called “Taxi of Tomorrow”. Forget about the fact that the car is not a hybrid. Forget about the peculiar and troubling deal that Mayor Bloomberg entered the city into which squelches competition in the marketplace by awarding Nissan an exclusive ten-year contract to be the sole manufacturer of all taxicabs in New York City. Let’s just talk about the feature of this vehicle which makes it so horrible that I told the manager of my garage, after driving it for only two shifts, that if he had no other types of cabs to offer me, I will quit: it comes from the manufacturer with a solid Plexiglas partition which cannot be opened. Why is this so bad? Because, although there is an intercom which permits a sentence or two to come through, it nevertheless reduces the chance of an actual conversation between the passenger and the driver to nearly zero. Like hair salons and bars, the taxicab is a business setting in which there is a potential for real human contact. For a driver like myself, this is the essence of the job, and for many New Yorkers - and for nearly all tourists - contact with taxi drivers is an important part of the “New York experience”. The partition which cannot be opened kills that, and it kills tips, too, as a consequence of the enforced disconnection from the driver. <br />
<br />
So into this environment enters Uber, the new kid in town. After some initial wrangling the dust settles down and Uber creates a foothold in the taxi community. Its popularity with customers grows. The owners of car services are very worried because the Uber business model of getting a taxi via an app is superior to having to call for one on the phone and wait for it to show up, if it shows up at all. But the fleet owners of the yellow cabs are <i>not</i> worried because the business model of going out on the street and waving your hand is still superior, or at least as good as, ordering a cab via an app. So even with Uber in town, business was going along as usual… until last summer. <br />
<br />
That’s when things began to change. And this was the huge, unforeseen consequence which is turning the New York taxi industry upside down: the drivers of the yellow cabs began to defect to Uber. Like weary soldiers who disappear from their units in the middle of the night, the drivers are deserting the fleets, and there is no sign at this point that they will be coming back. At my own garage at least twenty-five percent of the fleet’s two hundred taxis have been standing empty on most days since July. <br />
<br />
This is a disaster scenario for the garage owners. It is quite an expensive operation to keep a fleet of taxis on the streets of New York. The owners' only source of revenue is what they receive from the leasing fees of drivers, so if too many cabs stand empty for too long, the fleet owners will be facing bankruptcy. And to make matters worse, the medallion, which had been trading in the vicinity of a million dollars, is in free-fall. It has lost over twenty percent of its value since the drivers began to shift to Uber, and right now it would be difficult, if not impossible, to sell one because potential buyers as well as lenders are shying away. There is no longer confidence in what the future may hold for the value of the medallion nor does anyone know what the bottom will be. This means that even if a fleet owner wanted to liquidate some of his medallions to help cover expenses while he rides the crisis out, he cannot. And the city, too, has suffered. The sale of 2,000 new medallions, which was included in Mayor Bloomberg’s final budget and was expected to bring in a billion dollars, has been suspended indefinitely.<br />
<br />
What does this all mean for the drivers of the yellow cabs? It means hallelujah, leverage has arrived at last. It has arrived not through feeble threats of strikes or work stoppages, but through competition for the services of drivers. Now, for the first time ever, fleet owners and city officials will have no choice but to give serious consideration to how their actions affect the lives of the drivers. If they are wise, they will realize it’s not only a matter of whether or not a cabbie can make more money driving for Uber, although that is, of course, an important issue. It’s also about the working conditions of the drivers - the twelve-hour shifts, the six-day work week, the Taxi TV, the removal of choice in the vehicles they can drive, and so on.<br />
<br />
Hey, Taxi and Limousine Commission - do you want the drivers to return?<br />
<br />
How about doing some surveys?<br />
<br />
Find out what's really needed and wanted from the drivers.<br />
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And then give them some good reasons to come back. </div>
Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31618082.post-43088754594382513962014-09-21T02:03:00.001-05:002022-03-10T15:25:11.014-05:00Running The Gamut, Number Three<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the great things about driving a taxi in New York City - perhaps the greatest thing - is that on any given day you may run the gamut: that is, you may pick up people who are able representatives of both the top and the bottom of the social spectrum. Your first passenger may be a nun who works for God and your second a street hooker who works for Jake the Snake, her pimp; your third an assistant district attorney and the fourth the guy he’s sending to prison. And so it goes - the parade of humanity enters and exits through your doors. It’s magnificent, really.<br />
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(Note: I’ve written two other posts on this subject, “Running The Gamut”, and “Running the Gamut, Number Two”. If you’d like to read them please click <a href="https://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2007/09/running-gamut.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/2010/08/running-gamut-part-2.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br />
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So, in this episode of Running the Gamut, we’re going to zero in on a specialized zone of activity in New York City, the world of baseball. For those of you who may live in a part of the planet where baseball is not played, let me fill you in on the basics:<br />
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- baseball is the number one sport in the United States. It is played on many levels, but the ultimate goal of any player is to make it to the top level, which is called the Major League. <br />
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- the first Major League game was played in 1871.<br />
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- there are thirty teams in the Major League, spanning across the country in most of our principal cities. The season goes from April until the end of September, with the three-tiered playoff games continuing until the end of October. The regular season consists of 162 games for each team. <br />
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- in New York City there are two baseball teams, the Yankees and the Mets. The Yankees came into existence in 1903 and have long been the premiere team of the sport. Many of baseball’s iconic players (such as Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, and Mickey Mantle) were Yankees. They have won 27 championships, far more than any other franchise. Their home is Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The Mets have been around since 1962. They have won two championships in their 52 years. They play in Citi Field in Queens.<br />
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On August 7th, a Thursday, I started my shift at 5:30 pm, as I normally do. My first passengers were two ladies - one middle-aged, the other a twenty-something - going from Columbus Circle down to Penn Station. They were both wearing the pinstriped jerseys of the Yankees - the familiar, interlocking “NY” on the front and, I noticed, the number 2 on the backs of both of them. The Yankees had played a game that afternoon so I knew without even needing to ask where they were coming from. A conversation began.<br />
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Yes, they told me, they’d been at the game, adding that there was some kind of delay on the subway, which was why they were in my cab - and they had only twenty minutes to catch a train to New Jersey. Could we make it? I told them to relax, I’d get them to Penn Station on time. And we were on our way.<br />
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I soon discovered that they were mother and daughter, both big Yankee fans, that they go to at least one Yankee game together every year (“it’s a tradition”), that the game they’d just attended was the only game for them this year, and that, hooray, the Yankees had won. Still, the mother said, they were “greatly disappointed”.<br />
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“Why?” I asked (of course). I mean, the Yankees won, you’re supposed to be happy.<br />
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<i>“Because Jeter didn’t play!”</i> they both answered, almost in unison.<br />
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“Oh, gee, that’s too bad,” I said, completely understanding their dismay.<br />
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Again, for the benefit of those readers who may not know baseball, allow me to tell you why this fellow named Jeter not playing in that game would be such a letdown to my passengers. Derek Jeter has been a star player - the captain of the team, actually - for the Yankees for the last twenty years. During his tenure the Yankees have won five championships and gone to the playoffs 17 times. On a personal level he has broken so many statistical records that they seem endless. He ranks sixth on the all-time hits list. (That means that, going back to 1871, only five players have had more hits than he.) And off the field he has been the very epitome of what we would hope a star athlete to be. Hard-working, generous, respectful, always upbeat, never involved in a controversy, never a bad word said against him - he is truly a role model not only for America’s youth, but for everybody. All around the country he is regarded as the “face of baseball”. People are naming their children (and their pets) after him. And now, at the age of 40, he has announced that this season will be his last. Fans of opposing teams are crowding into their own stadiums to get one last look at him when the Yankees come to town and are giving him standing ovations when he comes to bat. He is the superstar of the world of baseball.<br />
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So this was why my passengers were so disappointed even though the Yankees won the game. Being devoted Yankee fans and fans of Jeter in particular - the number 2 on their jerseys is his number - they, too, had wanted to see him play one last time. But, alas, he’d been given the day off, something that happens from time to time during the course of the long, long season.<br />
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Nevertheless, my passengers were in good spirits as we approached the entrance to Penn Station at 34th Street and 7th Avenue, despite the presence above us of a gigantic Nike billboard featuring a thirty-foot image of Derek Jeter acknowledging the adoration of his fans. <br />
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“Re2pect” was the only text accompanying the image. <br />
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As mother and daughter left my cab with smiles on their faces and five minutes to spare, my eyes wandered to the shop directly on my right. It was a Modell’s Sporting Goods store, one of many in the city, where they sell mostly apparel for fans. The entire window displayed t-shirts, jerseys, hats, buttons, and every other imaginable form of commemoration featuring, guess who? <br />
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Yes, it has been a Derek Jeter year in New York City, if not the entire country. “We need our heroes,” I thought, as I pulled out into the quagmire of traffic on 7th Avenue. And indeed we do. In this age of super-cynicism, is it not something of importance to have a counterbalance to the liars, the cheats, the pretenders, and the thieves who show up for a free meal at every opportunity? It <i>is</i> important. Let the <i>good</i> guys win every once in a while.<br />
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I slogged along in the evening rush for the next few hours. At 6:50 three out-of-towners went from 77th and York down to the Astor Place Theatre in the East Village to see <i>Blue Man Group</i>, a nice twenty-dollar run on the FDR Drive. Then there was a short ride over to Alphabet City. On my next one, from the Bowery down to the intersection of Allen and Chrystie, I found myself sitting in a bumper to bumper jam-up on 2nd Avenue. Looking around at the environment, I noticed one of those gigantic double-decker tourist buses just to the left of me which was decorated with - well, will you look who’s here again? - fifteen-foot-high Derek Jeter action images on all sides. “Jesus,” I thought, “this guy is <i>everywhere</i>.” <br />
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The next few fares took me to the West Village, up again to the Upper East Side, down to 60th and 5th, and then, at 8:30, to 22nd and 8th in Chelsea. 8:30 is around the time for my ritualistic coffee break, so I parked at 6th Avenue, went into the Starbucks at the corner, got my tall Pike (no room for milk), returned to the cab, dug through my bag to retrieve my carrot muffin sliced into bite-sized pieces the night before, and began munching away in happiness. Ah, that feeling of the hot coffee meeting the muffin… bliss.<br />
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Okay, back to work. My next fare was a chatty fellow going from the popular Eataly restaurant and market on 23rd and 5th all the way up to 157th and St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem - $28.50 on the meter and a $5 tip - a great ride. After that it was 73rd and Columbus down to 15th and 5th, followed by 14th and 4th down to Gold Street in the Financial District. The night was wearing on, and I was doing pretty well, both in spirit and in money. <br />
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At 11:12 a twenty-something woman beat out another twenty-something woman in a rush to get to my cab at 27th and Park - it can get quite busy in certain sections of Manhattan at around that time on a Thursday night - and directed me to drive to LaGuardia Place and Houston Street on the southern boundary of Greenwich Village. When I arrived there eight minutes later I pulled over on Houston at the intersection but had to wait a bit for her to swipe her credit card - it took several swipes to register - and then to gather her stuff together and open the door. As she did so a particularly attractive young lady standing a short distance away noticed that my cab was becoming available and began moving quickly toward me with her hand in the air. Seeing the hail, I remained at the curb instead of pulling out onto the street. She hustled up, opened the door, got in, and said, “Someone else is coming”, with a concerned look on her face. About five seconds went by until the person we were waiting for came jogging toward the cab, being pursued by three or four shouting females who were basically begging him to pose for a picture with them. He stopped at the opened door of my taxi and stood with the girls for a few moments, flashing a very familiar smile while they snapped away and thanked him profusely.<br />
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And then Derek Jeter got into my cab.<br />
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“It’s number 2,” I said, sort of half to myself and half to them, and a bit in shock.<br />
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“Hiya buddy,” said Derek Jeter.<br />
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“I can’t get away from you!” I exclaimed (in jest).<br />
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“I’m following you, buddy!” Derek replied, smiling.<br />
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Their destination was a street in the West Village, so this was to be a short ride, only five minutes or so. Immediately I knew I had a problem, and a sort of panic set in. Derek Jeter has descended upon my cab from outer space and is all mine for five minutes. I knew from his friendliness upon entering that he would be open to conversation - but what should I talk to him about? One thing I’ve learned about major celebrities is that you try not to talk to them about the thing for which they’re famous. When I had Paul Simon in my cab, for instance, did I speak a word to him about his music? No. We had a memorable conversation about baseball, actually. (That story is in my book, by the way.) So here was the Crown Prince of Baseball sitting in my cab. If not baseball, what should the topic be? The answer hit me with the impact of a Randy Johnson fastball.<br />
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I had heard several months ago what Derek plans to do after he retires from baseball and, when I heard it, it really grabbed my attention. It’s not what you would expect. You’d think it would be broadcasting, managing a baseball team, or even becoming the owner of one. Something along those lines. But no. He plans to publish books. Derek Jeter, book publisher - doesn’t that open up a side to him we never knew existed? Amazing. So our five minutes together were spent primarily discussing books.<br />
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Out of respect - or should I say “re2pect” - for the confidentiality of a private conversation, I will not say more than that. But I will say this:<br />
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1. One of the fears some people have upon meeting a celebrity they’ve admired from a distance for many years is that the guy or gal will turn out to be a jerk in person. There should be no such fear regarding Derek Jeter. He wears it well, as was said of Jackie Kennedy. Derek Jeter is a nice guy, a caring person. There’s a kind of goodness that radiates from him.<br />
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2. Many people, when I tell them I had a certain celebrity in my cab, want to know about the tip. “How much did he tip you?” they ask. Well, I won’t say that, either, but I will say that Derek has surpassed Leonardo di Caprio as the best celebrity tipper I’ve ever had in my cab, a mark that had stood for 18 years. (That story’s in my book, too.) So there’s another record broken by Derek Jeter! <br />
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3. He likes to call you “buddy”. Aside from how he greeted me, I’ve heard this as well from a couple of different sources. Apparently everyone is Derek’s buddy. With this in mind, I found a fantasy had elbowed its way into my universe…<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Derek Jeter At The Pearly Gates</span></div>
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There had been much excitement when the word spread around Heaven that Derek Jeter would be arriving the next day. Angels, spirits, and souls of all types left their clouds at the break of dawn to ensure they would be there in time to catch a glimpse of the Face of Baseball and give him a warm, heavenly welcome. At the appointed hour, amid a chorus of trumpets and harps, Derek arrived at the Pearly Gates and was greeted with great joy by none other than Saint Peter himself. After the speeches were over and a choir of children sang “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”, Saint Peter pulled Derek over to the side and said, “Come with me, Derek, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” At once the clouds parted, thunder roared, and Derek found that he was standing alone with his host in some kind of divine baseball field. A bright figure appeared from the dugout and floated toward them. “Derek,” whispered Saint Peter, “I’d like you to meet... <i>God</i>.”<br />
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God: “Derek Jeter! What a pleasure to meet you at last!”<br />
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Derek: “Hiya buddy, how ya doin'?”<br />
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God and Derek exchanged pleasantries for a couple of minutes until an angel suddenly appeared to escort Derek to his next engagement and drove him off in a golf cart. <br />
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“Wow,” Saint Peter said to God as they disappeared from sight, “Derek Jeter!” <br />
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“Look,” said God, beaming - “I got his autograph!”<br />
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And so did I - on my trip sheet…<br />
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Back to work, I must admit I was on Cloud Nine. My Derek Jeter experience had elevated my emotional tone up to a steady flow of enthusiasm which carried over to the rest of the passengers in my cab for the remainder of the shift. Each new arrival soon learned that, “Hey, guess who I had in my cab just a little while ago? Derek Jeter!” What amazed me, however - and this is such a New York City phenomenon - was that of the eight more fares who rode with me until I quit at four in the morning, half of them had never heard of him! <br />
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A pleasant thirtyish woman in Brooklyn, going from Grand Street in Williamsburg to Dean Street in Crown Heights, was happy that I was happy, but she was from Germany - no baseball. A fellow coming from a gay club in Hell’s Kitchen en route to Astoria thought it was interesting, but he was from Indonesia - no baseball. A kid who was actually wearing a Yankee cap took me from 73rd and 5th Avenue down to the Lower East Side and barely grunted in reaction to my Jeter announcement, but he was from the Twilight Zone - no baseball. And then, to top it off, I had a young lady from Japan, where the entire country is addicted to baseball, admit to me that she didn’t know who Jeter was, although she did know who Matsui and Ichiro are, Japanese stars who have both played on the Yankees.<br />
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“I am sorry,” she said, “I’m a street performer and I’m drunk!” <br />
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Well, that’s New York City for you. A city so huge and so diverse - bursting at the seams with all kinds of people from every corner of the world - that such a thing could be possible. If a superstar of baseball had played for twenty years on a team in any other city in the country it would be inconceivable that virtually anyone living in that city would not know him well. But in New York this can be so.<br />
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So I had run the gamut of the world of baseball, from the adoring mother and daughter who were so disappointed because they didn’t get to see Jeter play, to the object of their affection himself. Imagine if they’d stowed away in the rear compartment of the taxi - merely six hours later they could have met him in person! I wish I knew who they were so I could tell them that! But it was my very last passenger who made me realize that I had also run a gamut of another kind.<br />
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I was driving up Amsterdam Avenue just a few minutes before four o’clock, en route to a gas station at Broadway and 130th Street, when I spotted a figure in the shadows about a block ahead at 113th Street who apparently was trying to hail me. As I got closer I could see that he was crouched over a walker, appeared to be in pain or at least in some discomfort, and that the entrance to the emergency room of St. Luke’s Hospital was just down the street. I pulled over and stopped.<br />
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He was a gaunt man, quite small, I think Hispanic, and I judged him to be about 40 years old. He thanked me for stopping - there aren’t many taxis around at this hour - and asked if I could help him get into the cab. He was quite frail, barely able to lift his leg high enough to make it into the rear compartment, and was, in fact, coming from St. Luke’s. Taking care that he didn’t slip and fall, I held his arm and guided him in, then placed his walker in the back. As we drove off he told me about his condition, a spinal injury which had left him crippled. I sensed no self-pity or blame, it was just the way it was and he was carrying on. His destination was a mere seven blocks up the road to a project complex at La Salle Street. When we got there he paid me the $5.50 fare in cash, no tip, and asked for a receipt, so he could be reimbursed. He put the receipt in his pocket and we began the reverse process of extricating him from the taxi. That took a minute and then he thanked me for my help and began moving toward his building in his walker, an inch at a time.<br />
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I was done for the night and drove a few blocks over to Broadway and the gas station. After filling up, I had some time to reflect on the events of the evening, particularly this last ride. That frail man had sat in the same seat where Derek Jeter had been sitting only a few hours earlier. Both were about the same age. Aside from his fame and charisma, Jeter is a physical specimen, taller and more impressive in person than I had realized. If you had no idea who he was and saw him walking down the street, you might well have thought he could be a professional athlete. My last passenger, by contrast, was at the bottom of that scale.<br />
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New York, the City of the Human Condition.<br />
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We carry on.<br />
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Eugene Salomonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05545540363940391483noreply@blogger.com11