A Lab, A Mortician, And A Gorbachev

Some recent "fares of the night"...

Sunday, April 6, 10:20 pm - My long dog-less streak finally ended with the arrival of Jake, a Golden Lab, and Mitchell, his buddy, who traveled from 14th and 8th in Chelsea down to Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan. It had been so long since I'd had a dog in my cab - not one since November - that I was beginning to think my taxi had been entered onto some kind of canine blacklist. Why were the dogs avoiding me? Didn't seem fair, especially considering the great publicity I've been giving them. Maybe it's just that people don't bring their dogs outside as much in the cold weather as they do in the warm - a law of averages thing. But now that it's springtime, c'mon dogs, no excuses - you've got my scent.

Anyway, Mitchell tells me that Jake is 11 years old and is a great companion. He and Jake hooked up when a former girlfriend wanted a dog. But when that relationship ended, Mitchell's bond to Jake was stronger than the girlfriend's, so it's been the two of them ever since.

Monday, April 14, 2:00 am - it sometimes happens in a conversation that person A is just dying to tell person B something that will really impress person B, really create the BIG EFFECT, and the slightest provocation will be reason enough for person A to suddenly detour the conversation in the direction of the shocking revelation. It was like that on a late night ride I had way out to Fresh Meadows in Queens with a 30 year-old woman who, as we headed into the Queens Midtown Tunnel, responded to my comment that the congestion tax was "dead" by saying that she is studying to be a mortician.

Well, you know that when someone says that that the rest of the ride will be spent discussing dead bodies and undertakers. Someone tells you she sells insurance, no big deal. Someone tells you she's a chef, great, that sounds nice. Someone tells you she's a mortician - you've got my full attention. It's like someone telling you she's a hooker. Full attention.

The story from my passenger was that she'd been studying to become a forensic psychologist - that's someone who counsels criminals - but realized as she was nearing the completion of her schooling that the idea of listening to people tell her about the horrible crimes they'd committed was utterly reprehensible to her and she'd be miserable doing it. She decided she preferred to work with dead people (she actually said this) and began a course of education leading her into that field.

So how do you become a mortician? First you have to go to a college that has a mortuary science department and get a bachelor's degree. And then you have to do an internship in real funeral parlors.

"What do you have to do to finish the internship?" I asked.

"You've got to do forty cadavers," my passenger replied.

Looking at her in the rear view mirror - she had shoulder-length, straight black hair and a pale complexion - the squeamish thought crossed my mind that this is the last person to get her hands on you, the last person to touch you, yet this was a person you would never see. I found myself waxing poetic on her, equating her in my mind to an angel who helps prepare the soul for its journey into the next life. But this balloon fizzled when the conversation turned to the business of undertaking.

"What do you think of cremation?" I inquired.

"Not much," she replied with a scowl.

I knew what she meant. I feel the same way about pedestrians.

Tuesday, April 15th, 1:06 am - like the mortician, this passenger was a person who needed only the slightest prompting to suddenly tell me all about who he was. I picked him up on 52nd and 8th and, as we were driving uptown on Central Park West toward his 95th Street apartment, I mentioned that I sometimes see racoons crossing CPW late at night. For some reason this was all he needed to inform me, in a Russian accent, of two vital pieces of information:

a) that he was an accomplished artist, and

b) that he was Mikhail Gorbachev's nephew.

His name was Yuri Gorbachev and with his exuberance in telling me about his art, his uncle, and his affilitation with Absolut vodka, I think it would be fair to say Mr. Gorbachev could be described as the opposite of an introvert. He could also be described as a good sport as he playfully agreed to pose for this photograph:

If you'd like to find out more about him and his art, click here.

And as long as you're in a clicking mood, why not put your index finger to good use by clicking here for Pictures From A Taxi?

The No Sex Zone

I was waiting in the taxi line at Flashdancer's at 4 am recently when a young woman and a guy hurried out of the place and got into my cab. She wasn't one of the strippers - the girls who work there never get into cabs with customers - she was the girlfriend of this particular guy and they had just spent some together-time in the club. Their destination was the West Village, a two-mile trip from our Times Square starting point.

They immediately snuggled up close together and started laughing and were kind of pecking at each other, so I knew that these two were strictly into their own world and that this would be a non-conversational ride. That was all right with me because I'd already been driving for over ten hours and was hitting my post-4-am-wall, that mental/physical barrier which says that this will be the last ride of the night. So I just turned up the radio a bit and put my proverbial eyes on the road.

But before we'd gone ten blocks I noticed in the mirror an unmistakable shift in their positions. The girl had moved down in the seat and the guy was straight out on top of her. There was no question about it - they were about to start fucking. I drove for about another block and then actually surprised myself at my own reaction. I suddenly pulled over to the side of the street, right next to the Hard Rock Cafe, and stopped the taxi.

"I don't have to put up with this," I barked. "Take another cab!"

They had already straightened themselves up, and the guy started to say something in protest. But I cut him off before he could get a syllable out of his mouth.

"Don't give me a hard time," I said, "just get out and take another cab!"

The girl, who had one of those classic shit-eating smiles on her face, gave him a little shove and they both immediately exited the premises without any further words being exchanged.

I drove off a bit in a daze, wondering if I should look for another fare or just call it a night. As I moved down 7th Avenue, I found that my attention was stuck not on the fact that two people were about to have sex right there in the seat behind me - that has happened a number of times - it was on the way I had handled it. That had never happened before.

In the past I must admit I have always found the titillation factor to have outweighed the indignity factor. I have been more interested in voyeuristic aspect of this weird social situation than in keeping my own dignity intact by not allowing ill-mannered people to get away with pretending that I don't exist.

For several days I found myself mentally returning to the incident and wondering what had changed with me. And then it hit me like a slap in the face. Oh my god, I am over 50 years old and have gone through male menopause without even knowing it!

Shit!

I'm getting old!

My fears were confirmed when I remembered what had happened about a week before I had had the two would-be fuckers in my taxi. I had picked up a young guy from this very same strip club and gotten into a lively discussion with him about breasts, something that was not hard to do considering he was coming from the Double D capital of the west side of town.

Why, I had beseeched him, did men almost uniformly have such an obsession with breasts, anyway? A breast is a gland for God's sake, right up there next to the thyroid and the pituitary. In fact, it's not even a part of the reproductive system. It really belongs to the digestive system, if you think about it. I mean, it secretes milk! What's the big deal?

Of course, he looked at me like I was out of my mind and said he didn't care if they belonged to the digestive system or the solar system - he just wanted to get his hands on as many of them as possible.

Now I realize the only reason I could even say such a thing to this perfectly normal guy is that I am on a steep slope that winds up in a nursing home. There I lie in my bed watching The O'Reilly Factor on an overhead television and wondering when the nurse will show up to change my diapers. It's depressing as hell.

So depressing, in fact, that the only way I can think of to cheer myself up is to publish some pictures of dogs that have recently been in my cab. And here they are...

Pictured here is Pippen, a three year-old King Charles Cavalier Spaniel who was named after a character is Lord of the Rings. According to his owners (whose names I didn't get) Pippen is a big eater and can "almost talk".

And this is Phoebe, a four year-old French bulldog, with owners Ruben and Eric. Phoebe barks when she sees an animal on tv; she fetches like crazy; and if someone is being loud or is upset, she will actually climb up on that person and put her paw on his or her mouth or chest.

There you go, it worked... I'm cheered up already!

And you can cheer up, too, by clicking here for Pictures From A Taxi.

One Of Those Great Nights

Last Tuesday I had one of those rare nights that actually live up to the romanticized hype of the glory of being a New York City taxi driver. Now as you know if you've been reading this blog that for me driving a taxi is not just a job but borders on being a calling. It's sort of an ongoing exercise in "what realities am I going to encounter tonight?" The theory is that the more I can confront and understand the better the person I will be.

Or something like that.

Anyway, most nights fall short even though they almost always have something memorable about them. You run into one moron too many and the tendency is to come down emotionally a notch or two from enthusiasm. But then there's a night like Tuesday...

What started things off on the right foot was that I was given a brand new cab to drive at the garage. I mean a cab that had literally never been driven before. I have earned some brownie points at the garage and every once in awhile I am thrown a bone like this.

Look at her, the new 1M42. Isn't she a beauty? You know, driving a car - any car - where everything is new at the same time is quite an aesthetic experience. No wonder people keep buying them even if they can't afford them.

So I knew I would be telling every passenger who got in my cab that night that, "You know, you are riding in the newest taxi in New York City!" This is a special game I love to play whenever I am given the honor of breaking in a new cab. Most people, especially if they are veteran taxi riders, realize this is a rare treat ("Just think - no one has ever puked in this cab!") and are really into the experience. But it is the very first passenger that I really look forward to. Because I have figured out the odds.

The odds against being the very first passenger to ever ride in a New York City taxi are approximately 75,000 to 1. By city law yellow, medallion cabs are allowed to be on the road for only 3 years before they are required to be replaced. A cab will take about 25,000 fares (not people) a year, so it's 3 x 25,000, and there you go. This means that if you live in New York City all your life and take a taxi every day, this is a once in a lifetime occurrence. (Actually, once in every three lifetimes.)

I was hoping to get someone who was worthy of this experience. Someone who had been a loyal taxi rider for, say, 25 years or so. Unfortunately it turned out to be a couple of Japanese tourists who could barely speak English and had no appreciation whatsoever of the inadvertent honor that had been bestowed upon them. In fact they didn't even know that tipping taxi drivers is customary in NYC and stiffed me on a $7.10 fare. Ouch.

But I was not deterred, not even a little. I knew this would be a great tipping night, and my very next passenger - who should have been the first - was a lovely lady who went from 49th Street and 5th Avenue to 60th and Amsterdam, had full appreciation of the magnitude of the event, and tipped me $5.90 on a $9.10 fare.

And the next fare, a group of four - two young guys, a pretty girl, and a furball en route to the 79th Street Boat Basin - brought me the first taxi dog I've had in my cab in several weeks.

Meet Pablo (l) and Alice (r). Pablo, I'm told, is a "Havanese", a breed of dog from Cuba (thus, "Pablo", although "Fidel", "Che", or even "Desi" would have worked, as well). Pablo is a year and a half old and was found online and then bought from a breeder in Woodstock, NY. Alice tells me Pablo is a bit hyper and does the "usual tricks" - sits, gives his paw, etc. But let me tell you, when the camera is on, Pablo is a pro. I think this dog is a born model. You just can't get any cuter than that.

So the night went on in this upbeat way. But, of course, this is New York City so the law of averages says for every 12 people or so that get into a taxi, there will be one that is rather odd. Or maybe "offbeat" is a better word, unless "weird", "strange", "obnoxious", or "off the wall" would be a better fit. Anyway, at 8:30 this person got in the cab at Penn Station. He was a fifty-something man, in good shape, travelling all the way uptown to a restaurant at 133rd Street and 12th Avenue (right on the Hudson River) with a twenty-something guy who I thought was his son.

Right away things got off to a bad start when he lit a cigarette without asking permission. Since in today's world this is rude, I immediately told him to put it out, it was against the law, I could get a ticket, blah, blah, blah. But the guy was persuasive and convinced me that since he'd just come in from a long train ride from Long Island he would die if he didn't have that cigarette, so I let him smoke it as long as he agreed to keep it out of sight.

Well apparently this was enough for him to make us both pals from his point of view and he went on to tell me all kinds of details about a six-year divorce cycle which had just ended favorably for him. It was completely inappropriate conversation to have with a stranger, especially with his son sitting there. But he was, as I said, that one in twelve.

I had entered patronizing mode as we got onto the Henry Hudson Parkway and was just acknowledging anything he said when the conversation between us ended rather suddenly and was replaced by a new activity. It was the two of them making out fervently in the back seat.

Now I am quite accustomed to gay guys being attracted to one another back there, but not with this age difference and with me thinking they were father and son! It really threw me but, always the professional, I gave not the slightest sign that I found anything unusual about their behavior. In fact, as we arrived at their destination, I gave them the news that they were riding in the newest taxicab in New York City just as I had been doing with all my other passengers.

Now you know you are on a roll when even a fare like this turns out to be a winner. The guy gives me a $9 tip on an $11 fare, for some reason tells me he is from the Grucci fireworks family, and then signs a $5 bill with instructions to keep it on the visor of the cab for good luck. I thanked him, drove off, and then, in the immortal words of Harry Chapin, I stuffed the bill in my shirt. Why tell him I get a different cab every night?

So you get the idea. The night just went on and on like this until it appeared to me that all of New York City was celebrating the arrival of its newest family member, a spanking new Ford Crown Vic with extra leg room in the back. What could possibly make the night even better?

Why, driving through Times Square at 2:30 am and suddenly seeing the "Cash Cab" people shooting a scene on the little island that separates Broadway from 7th Avenue at 44th Street! For those who don't know it, "Cash Cab" is a quiz show on the Discovery Channel in which passengers in this one particular taxi (1G12) find themselves suddenly answering general knowledge questions to win money. It's hosted by a guy named Ben Bailey (my hero) who is actually a cab driver. Well, I felt compelled to stop and take some pictures. Of course!

After hanging around for a few minutes taking these shots, I approached one of the crew and asked this all-important question:

"Excuse me, I was just wondering - will you be needing any passengers?"

"Oh, no, sorry," she said with a smile.

Damn!

I returned to my own 1M42 and continued on into the night. At 3:15 I took a fare to Queens and then, driving along on Northern Boulevard, picked up four stranded, well-mannered teenagers in Astoria who'd been at a high school graduation party but had no ride back to the city. This meant I actually got a return ride to Manhattan at 3:37 on a Tuesday night, something unheard of in the history of taxi-driving. When you're hot, you're hot.

Finally, to end off what had become a night of beginnings, I picked up a sixtyish man in the middle of Park Avenue at 63rd Street at 4:36 and drove him up to Lenox Hill Hospital on 77th Street. He was going to the hospital for the best of all reasons: his daughter was giving birth to her first child and his eighth grandchild. When I told him he was in the newest taxicab in the city, he proclaimed with great enthusiasm, "Then two babies are being born in New York tonight!"

Yesss... two babies on what was just one of those really great nights.

Of course clicking here for Pictures From A Taxi might also help make it a great night. Just a thought...

Springtime For Fido

It's springtime in New York and a young dog's fancy turns to thoughts of dragging his owner out into the beautiful weather for a stroll in the street, a sniff in the garbage, and, best of all, a free-for-all romp in one of the city's dog runs. These are fenced-in areas in city parks where dogs can run around with each other unleashed and unrestrained.

I happen to pass by one a couple of days ago in Chelsea and was so taken with the exhilaration of the dogs as they ran around playing with each other that I stopped to take a few shots.

I did a little research and learned that there are 41 dog runs in the five boroughs of New York, 17 of them in Manhattan. Which just goes to show what a dog-friendly place the city is. And which also serves as a segue into my latest taxi dog...

Here is Pebbles, a 5 year-old mixed breed who was traveling with owner Bob from Hell's Kitchen to the Upper East Side. Bob told me that Pebbles was abandoned in the Bronx, rescued by one of the city's animal agencies, and then discovered by him at an adoption fair for dogs that was held in Central Park. It was boy meets dog and they have been together ever since.

Pebbles' special skill is playing a game called "ready, set, go". He will remain in place as Bob moves further and further away from him and will stay there until a signal is given. And then he comes running to Bob at full speed.

Pebbles does have a weakness, however. Perhaps even a shameful weakness, considering that he is a dog. Pebbles is afraid of cats. I would suggest to Bob that maybe, as therapy, he should take Pebbles over to a dog run. A few hours of running around with the guys, no cats allowed, might bolster his self-esteem and cure him of the phobia.

Hey, just a thought.

Another thought would be to click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

Long-Haired Peanut

It's dog time once again.

Traveling with me recently from Hell's Kitchen to the Upper West Side were Peanut, a long-haired chihuahua, and owner Eric (getting kissed), along with Eric's friend (whose name I didn't get - sorry!).


I had not known that there was such a thing as a long-haired chihuahua, so this was that day's "thing you learn every day" for me. Eric said Peanut had been abandoned in Astoria and wound up in the Humane Society's shelter. There were many people wanting to adopt him and the staff were careful to place him with someone who would provide a safe and loving home. And that was Eric.

Peanut turns out to be not just another pretty face who is mellow and doesn't bark much. He does tricks. He will howl, play dead, sit, and roll over on command. Plus he's got great fashion sense - check out that jacket!

Aqua Dog

My first fare of the night last Saturday went from Midtown to the Upper West Side with three passengers in the back seat: a young woman named Doria, a young man named Klery, and a young dog named Scuba.

Scuba is a Pug who's having his second birthday on March 6th. Doria and Klery are planning a big bash for him and all his friends and are hoping it will be as big a hit as last year's party in which not one, but two, doggie birthday cakes were served and then devoured by the furry guests. (No, not the guys with the goatees - the dogs. Apparently there is a place that makes cakes for canines. Who knew?)

As I've said before, it seems that every dog that gets in my cab has, or does, some kind of special thing. Scuba's special thing is that he takes showers with Doria and Klery (now there's a taxicab confession for you!). In fact, he has his own shampoo in the bathtub. He just loves being in the water.

And that's how he got his name.

Happy birthday, Scuba!




Click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

Lady Jane

And now for the year's first dog.

I recently picked up Lady Jane (the Rottweiler-Shepherd mix with the big nose) and Amy (the human with the nice smile) on 42nd Street at 10th Avenue and drove them down to the East Village. As is the case with every dog that gets in my cab, there was a story.

Amy was planning her Christmas vacation, a five-day trip out west, that would include skiing in Colorado. This meant that Lady Jane would have to be left in New York because they don't allow dogs at the ski lodge. So preparations needed to be made. Amy had heard of a woman who dog-sits on the West Side for $50 a day and she had just brought Lady Jane over for a meet and greet at the woman's apartment. Apparently all had gone well. Lady Jane and the woman's two Chihuahuas hit it off splendidly.

Amy adopted her dog at a place called the NYC Animal Care and Control. They told her she had been tied to a tree and then abandoned near the FDR Drive (a highway on the east side of Manhattan). Amy was immediately charmed when she saw her, paid a $100 adoption fee, and brought her back to her apartment and a surprised roommate. The dog was given the title of "Lady" to make up for her humble beginnings with a touch of aristocracy. And the three of them have since been living happily ever after in the East Village.

Lonely for New York? Click here!

One-Eyed Dog

All right, it's time for the next dog.

Riding with me from Tribeca to Greenwich Village one night last week were Gracie, a seven-year-old mixed breed, and her owner, Eric.




I'm finding a lot of the dogs in my cab have interesting biographies, and Gracie was no exception. Before winding up in the care of Eric, she spent the first three years of her life in a basement in Queens, never seeing the light of day. Definitely a cruelty to animals situation.

But she was rescued by Eric and things were fine until it was recently discovered that a bump near her right eye was cancerous, and the eye had to be removed. So Gracie has what looks like a furry patch covering the socket where the eye had been.



Eric said her years in the basement affected her socializing skills with other dogs. But she does well in the socializing with humans department. Her special skill is standing on her hind legs and hugging you for no apparent reason, as if you were a long-lost friend.

I'm considering doing the same thing to increase my tips.

Living With Maurice

Here's a truly amazing observation about New York: I estimate that there are about 800,000 to one million dogs living in the city. This number is reached by figuring that roughly one person in ten has a dog (8 million people = 800,000 dogs). And yet there is virtually no dog shit on the streets. None!

And that is amazing. Hell, that's a miracle.

This was not, however, always the case. Way back when, dodging doo was a part of every New Yorker's day. But the pooper-scooper law (the living legacy of Mayor Koch) made not cleaning up after Rover a social faux pas. Today, every New Yorker walking a dog knows that the eyes of the citizenry are upon him. Fail to bathe for a month, root for the Red Sox, beat your wife, walk around with a Bush/Cheney button on your coat - hey, all right, these things can happen. But fail to clean up after your dog... you just try it, mister!

I actually think the level of civilization of the people of a city can be judged by this alone. Along with their pizza. Take Paris. I'm told that the streets there are a fecal minefield. And that there's no pizza.

All of which brings me to my latest taxi dog.

Maurice, a seven-month-old Boston Terrier, and Eric, his twenty-something owner, jumped in for a short ride from the East Village to Union Square recently. Maurice, like Julian the Maltese whom I wrote about in "Mail-Order Dog", is also a mail-order dog. Eric and his girlfriend found Maurice online and bought him from a breeder in Oklahoma. The price was $400 plus $100 shipping. The pooch was met at LaGuardia Airport, taken to his new home in the city by Eric and girlfriend and they've all been living happily ever after since.

Except for one thing. Although Eric described him as a good companion, he is walked three to four times every day, and he does use the wee-wee pad conscientiously, Maurice is still not completely housebroken. He may leave an occasional surprise in the apartment.

But never on the street!

Mail-Order Dog

Dogs in cabs. It's a genre of its own in the world of taxi-driving. As for me, I love it when someone gets in with a dog. Right away, there's an instant conversation. Anyone who owns a dog in New York City loves to talk about their canine pal. No exceptions. In fact, I read somewhere that the easiest way to meet a girl or a guy is to strike up a conversation with them while they are walking their dog.

But many cabbies, for reasons I don't fully comprehend, will not allow dogs into their cabs. Perhaps it's a cultural thing, a consideration that it would be an insult to their own dignity to give service to an animal. Or maybe there's a fear that the dog would mistake the back seat for a fire hydrant. Or maybe it's that here's a chance to pass someone by legally. (NYC taxi drivers are not required to accept animals in their cabs unless they are service animals, like seeing-eye dogs, or unless they are in a carrying case.)

I have never refused a dog and I've never had a dog piss or puke in my cab. People, yes. But dogs, never. Only twice have I had a problem. Once a guy left his Doberman (named Rambo) with me in my partition-less cab while he jumped into a deli. The dog became agitated and started barking and snarling. That was some serious tension. And another time a couple of girls in the East Village brought in a wet, long-haired mutt they had just found on the street. The lingering odor was so bad, I had to use a can of air freshener to disguise it.

When you consider that hundreds of dogs have passed through my portals without incident, the percentages clearly indicate that dogs make good passengers. Once, in fact, I had a celebrity dog in my cab. It was a black lab who had just done a "stupid pet trick" on the David Letterman show - he was able to hold some large number of tennis balls in his mouth. Think about this: here was a dog who was known to millions of people. He'd had his five minutes of fame. Hey, I haven't had my five minutes of fame. Have you?

This all leads me to tell you that I had a "fare of the night" recently who was a dog.

He was a one-year-old Maltese named Julian traveling from 69th Street and Broadway to 71st Street and 3rd Avenue with his owner, a twenty-four-year-old brunette whose name I neglected to write down on my trip sheet and now am not sure of, but I think it was Jennie. (Correction: not "Jennie"... it was "Jessica". See comment. Thanks, Jessica!)

I was told an interesting story of how these two hooked up. They actually met online. Jessica had been shopping on her computer for a Maltese puppy and located a breeder in Alabama who had one. The transaction then occurred, other than from pictures on the internet, sight unseen. Julian was shipped by air to New York and met at the airport by Jessica. (Kind of like a mail-order bride, except a dog.) The cost was $1,200 plus $200 for shipping. Jessica had recently completed grad school and had received enough money as gifts to pay for her pet. So Julian was really a graduation present.

You know how they say dogs and their owners are supposed to look like each other. Well, obviously these two don't look like each other, but they did seem to fit to each other. They made a charming pair.