J. Fred Coots

Bloomingdale's had the best Christmas windows this year, I thought, because of the originality and delightfulness of their concept. They took a Tony Bennett CD of Christmas standards and created windows for several of the songs, depicting visually what is being suggested by the words and melodies. Then they set up speakers and played the Bennett renditions so passerby on the sidewalk could not only see the scenes in the windows but could also hear the tunes that were their inspiration. It worked well.

One of the windows was of particular interest to me - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - because, amazingly enough, I once had its composer in my taxi. I say "amazingly" because this song was written in 1934 - it's been around forever - and it wouldn't seem possible that a taxi driver in 2008 would have ever had the person who wrote it in his cab.  But it did happen early one evening in July of 1983.

I was cruising down Lexington Avenue looking for a fare and turned right on 69th Street. A doorman from a luxury high-rise hailed me and directed me into the driveway of his building. Waiting at the entrance were an elderly couple. The gentleman was rather frail and was assisted into the cab by the doorman. Their destination was the New York Athletic Club, an old-school establishment on the very exclusive Central Park South, about a seven-minute ride.

I love it when I meet people who are well up in age yet who are still active and enjoying themselves. Here was just such a couple. They had a pleasant air about them and I could easily tell that they were both  conversational types. I had been driving a cab for about six years at that point and that was plenty enough time to be able to perceive the talkers from the leave-me-alone-and-just-drive-ers. So chat we did.

As I recall, our conversation began on the subject of the New York Athletic Club. Since it's called an "athletic" club I naturally assumed that athletic activities of one kind or another would be occurring there. But my passengers, although they were certainly out and about, let's face it, they were well beyond whatever "athletic years" they may have enjoyed. So I said something along the lines of, "The New York Athletic Club? What are you going to do, work out?" This, of course, was meant as a joke and was taken as one. Whereupon I was informed that the NYAC has on its premises an excellent dining room and that was their specific destination.

Nevertheless, the subject of athletics had come up and this led to some talk about tennis, which led to some talk about John McEnroe, the tennis player who at that time was the biggest star of the tennis world. And in conversing about McEnroe I brought up the subject of his infamous temper and then I inadvertently said the "secret word".

And the secret word was "pout".

As in...

You'd better watch out,

You'd better not cry,

You'd better not POUT,

I'm telling you why...

Groucho Marx used to have a quiz show in the '50s called "You Bet Your Life." One of the gimmicks of the show was that if any of the contestants happened to use the "secret word" in conversation with Groucho, they'd automatically win a hundred dollars. And if this happened, a "duck" with a cigar in its beak (Groucho always had a cigar handy) would suddenly descend on a string along with musical fanfare.

Well, it was as if I'd been a contestant on that show. I had said the secret word - his word - and the gentleman in the back seat suddenly told me, in what appeared to be a complete non sequitur, that he was the person who had written the song "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" and that his name was J. Fred Coots.

Santa Claus is coming to town -- in a taxi! -- in this Bloomingdale's window.

I, of course, was fascinated and delighted to be so informed and this led to a brief conversation about the song and about his career. He had been what is known as a "tin pan alley" composer, had written hundreds of songs, and many Broadway shows as well. One of his songs that I was familiar with was a hit for Pat Boone in the '50s called "Love Letters In The Sand".

When we arrived at the New York Athletic Club I got out of the cab and came around to help him out, as he was well into his '80s and needed a little help in the taxi-extrication process. He put his right hand into my own and I hoisted him up a bit so he could get his legs into the proper exiting position. And the thought occurred to me as I did this that the hand which had written this song - so much a part of our culture and something which has brightened the lives of millions of people for decades - was in my own. It was an honor, really.

His wife, who also struck me as a lovely person, came around and gave me some motherly advice as she began walking toward the NYAC entrance. "Don't drive late at night," she said under her breath, as if this was something no one else should hear.

Here's a video I took of one of the Bloomingdale's windows while Tony Bennett's version of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" was playing for the benefit of anyone who happened to be passing by...

I think of that ride every Christmas season.

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And I also think this: why not click right here for Pictures From A Taxi?

What Actually Does Drive Me Crazy

It's quite common for passengers to ask me for how long I've been driving a cab. After I tell them it's 31 years and wait for them to stop gasping, a frequent comment I hear is:

"Doesn't it drive you crazy?"

"Doesn't what drive me crazy?" I reply.

They think about this for a moment. "Well... the traffic, for one thing."

"Let me tell you something about traffic," I say. "What actually drives people crazy about traffic is that they can't get where they want to go and there's probably someone getting pissed off at them for being late. But that stress is with the passenger, not the cab driver. Imagine you were cruising around town with no place to go, just listening to the radio. You might find it relaxing. That's kind of what it's like to be a cab driver."

This seems to make sense. Most people never looked at it that way.

Then, just to have some fun, I will say this: "There are, however, two things that do drive me crazy in this business. But you'll never guess what they are."

Passengers love this because it gives us a game to play. Can they guess what drives the veteran cabbie around the bend?

"Mean people?"

"Nah... what would be stressful would be having to be around a mean person all the time. But when you drive a cab the mean people you do encounter are out of your life in ten minutes. That's one of the perks of the job, actually."

"Bad tippers?"

"Noooo."

By this time there is a long pause. They start to go for the long shot.

"People who bring dogs in the cab?"

"Of course not, I love dogs!"

"People who throw up?"

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't count 'cause it only happens about once a year."

"Trips out of Manhattan?"

"That can be annoying but it doesn't classify as something that drives me crazy. Remember, we're looking for two things that are really stressful here."

"Short rides?"

"No, come on, there's nothing wrong with a short ride."

"People who don't know where they want to go?"

"No, what do I care? The meter is running."

"People talking on their cell phones?"

"No, at most that is merely slightly annoying. Definitely not 'drives-me-crazy' material."

Finally there is a long silence and I can see by the expressions on their faces that they're out of guesses and ready to give up.

"So what is it?"

Drum roll, please. But before I give you the answers, I want to say that I think any cabbie in New York who's been driving for more than a year would agree with me on this. And I think you probably have to be on the inside of any activity in order to be able to correctly say what it is about that activity that most infuriates the people who actually do it. Outsiders aren't usually aware of the subtleties.

Okay, enough suspense. Here they are, the two things that actually are the most stressful about making a living as a New York City taxi driver:

1. Any contact whatsoever with the Taxi and Limousine Commission.

The TLC is the city agency which makes the rules for the industry and administers those rules. Although I admit that there have been some improvements recently, its history in my 31 years has been sordid. Without getting into a diatribe about the shortcomings of this bureaucracy, I'll just say that cab drivers have to accept whatever mindless or mean-spirited dictates come down the line (like televisions in the rear compartment that are under the control of passengers and blast out the same commercialized drivel over and over and over into the ears of the drivers) and that even the routine of renewing one's hack license every year has enough potential stress connected to it to make one dread opening the renewal form which arrives annually (maybe) in the mail. (One year, for example, I had to make seven trips to various city agencies to clear up the TLC's own bureaucratic errors.) I could go on and on, but I'm sparing you the horror.

It's the second cause of stress that is by far the worst, however, and although it seems the most obvious to me, no one has ever guessed what it is.

2. I can't find a passenger.

That's right. I am cruising the streets of the city and I can't find a damned passenger! Nearly everyone who ever takes a cab in New York assumes that cabs are always busy because whenever they want to get one, it seems it is difficult to find one that's available. This is true, but it is true only because the taxi business is a peak-hour business. During the rush hours (7 to 10 a.m. and 4 to 8 p.m.) demand exceeds supply. But that's only 7 hours of the day. There are 17 other hours and during many of them, quite the opposite is the case.

Try getting a cab at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday night, for example. Before your hand goes into a full wave, you will find three or four empty taxis cutting in front of each other in their attempts to get to you first. The 13,187 yellow cabs in New York City derive all their business from street hails. You don't get on a phone and call for a yellow cab. You go out on the street and wave your hand. This means we're all in competition with each other and, when supply of cabs exceeds demand for service, it's a horse race, believe me. Did you ever dream of being a NASCAR driver? Come to New York and drive a cab at night instead.

So how bad can it get? Twice I have gone two hours of desperately cruising the streets without getting a single fare. Being empty for 45 minutes is not all that unusual. And that is stress because you have paid a leasing fee for the use of the cab for a period of 12 hours and therefore time is money (or no money).

It is also a bit humiliating in my case because, if I don't say so myself, I think of myself as the Grand Master of finding fares. So for me to go long periods of time trying every trick I know and still finding another empty cab in front of me wherever I turn, well... it can drive me crazy. I start behaving like the maniac taxi drivers I hear passengers complain to me about. Last week, for example, I was cut off viciously on 7th Avenue South by another cabbie who then beat me to a passenger standing off the sidewalk at W. 4th Street. Instead of shrugging it off and continuing on down the avenue to hopefully find another passenger, I tossed a cup of water through his window as I drove by. Idiotic, certainly, but it shows you how crazy even a non-crazy fellow like myself can get.

I once had a passenger in my cab who was a waiter and we got into a conversation about our professions. He told me about his recurring dream of not being able to keep up with business in his restaurant. He said in his dream the space of the restaurant kept expanding and the tables extended out beyond the entrance right out onto the street. He would run and run from the restaurant out into the street trying to take orders and serve food, but the tables kept multiplying faster than he could cope.

My scary dream is kind of the opposite. I am cruising the streets of New York after midnight making every sage move I've learned over the last 31 years. And yet, everywhere I go I find an empty cab already in front of me. I can't find a passenger no matter what brilliant maneuver I make. This goes on for an hour. Then another hour. Finally, completely exasperated, I find myself driving uptown on Broadway. I decide that all my knowledge of where to find a fare has failed me so I just chuck it all out the window and just drive. I know nothing. Further and further I go on Broadway, up into the Bronx, and then even further up into Westchester County. I am now out of the city limits, but I don't care. I just keep going. Broadway is a continuing road and becomes State Highway 9 up there. I find myself passing through small towns and noticing deer on the sides of the road. I don't care, I just keep going. After two hours I find myself in the town of Kinderhook, not that far from Albany, approaching a red light. It is nearly 4 a.m. and of course the town is completely dark and deserted. I'm thinking I ought to turn around and go back to the city, but then, as I come up to the red light, something catches my eye just beyond the intersection. It's a broken-down limousine with two dressed-up party people at its side waving at me frantically. I realize they want my service! No doubt they had rented the limo, now disabled, and see me as a miracle sent to them to take them back to New York! And I see them as a miracle of my own, a signal from the Almighty that my travail has not been in vain, that my insane journey into the wilderness was actually guided by the Divine. I wave back at them through the windshield, trying to communicate that as soon as my red light turns green, I will be there to rescue them. But just before the light changes...

...another yellow cab from New York City appears from out of nowhere, speeds through the intersection, screeches to a halt beside the limo, and picks up the stranded party people before I can get to them.

And you know when you start having dreams like this that it won't be long before you pick up a couple of husky fellows in white coats who take you for a ride to the funny farm. Although, come to think of it, then at least for awhile there you would have had some passengers!

It has also been rumored that failure to click here for Pictures From A Taxi can also cause one to go crazy. But that is just a rumor, of course.

BBC Breakfast and the Art of the Plug

I got a lesson during the course of a single shift last week that is something any guest on a talk show must learn when he's trying to "sell" something. And that is, when you're being interviewed you've got find a way to get in the plug. It turns out to be something of an art. Here's what happened...

It began with a prearranged meeting at 6 p.m. with a couple of Australian journalists in front of the CBS Broadcast Center on West 57th Street. They had contacted me a few days prior with a request for an interview with a "real New York cabbie" about the election results. It was to be on a radio station known as 3AW in Melbourne with a talk-show host named Neil Mitchell, the most popular talk radio guy in those parts, I was told, with an audience of a million people.

So off I went at the very beginning of my shift to the CBS building and there I met my two Aussie contact fellows, Justin and Sebastian, who climbed into my cab. We chatted for a few minutes and then I was handed a cell phone. On the other end was what might be called a Professional Voice. Do you know how someone sounds who speaks for a living? It's smooth and kind of resonant without the "umms" and "uhhs" that punctuate the sentences of non-professionals. It was Neil Mitchell, and we were on the air in Melbourne.

I was asked a few questions about the election and about taxi driving in New York. I thought I answered them adequately and then, after less than a minute - zip - it was over. I had another five minutes of conversation with Justin and Sebastian and then - zip - they were off to attend to other matters and were gone. I drove down the street, picked up my first fare of the night, and the rest of my shift was underway.

But as I headed toward the East Side with my passenger, something didn't seem quite right. They had told me that I had just communicated to a million people and yet it felt like nothing. There had been no feedback. I mean, when you communicate the idea is that there's someone on the other end to receive it and an effect is created, right? Here there was just a vacuum, and it was unsatisfying. And worse than that, I had intended to mention the name of my blog on the air but the thing went by so quickly that the opportunity had slipped right past me. So I felt a bit frustrated, as well.

However, I took it as a learning experience - practice, really - because I knew there would be an even bigger fish to fry that very night. Just before I'd left my house to drive into Manhattan I had received an email from a contact person from the BBC asking me if I'd be interested in appearing on one of their shows, BBC Breakfast, at 3 a.m. They also were interested in interviewing a real New York cabbie to get a local reaction to the election, and I had called the number they'd given me and accepted the invitation.

Now you have to understand, I am not a movie star nor a head of state. I am merely a New York cab driver. I am not used to receiving one - much less two - invitations to go on the air in the very same night. So my mood was elevated and this helped me to have a better than usual night as a member of my own profession, culminating in a lucrative out-of-town job to Ridgewood, New Jersey, that on any other night would have been the highlight of the evening.

In fact it was during the return ride to the city from Jersey, just as I was crossing the George Washington Bridge, that I received a phone call from Emily, the charming producer of the show, who asked me to bring my cab right up to the site from which the show would be broadcast, the Skylight Diner at the corner of 34th Street and 9th Avenue. The plan was that I would be interviewed while sitting in the taxi. In speaking to Emily, I found out a bit more about BBC Breakfast. It turns out to be Britain's primary early morning show on the "telly". It's on the air every day for three hours and has an audience all over the U.K. of - gasp - FIVE MILLION PEOPLE.



Somehow the concept of five million viewers in the U.K. was much more intimidating than one million listeners in Australia, which I took in stride. I did the math - I get about 50 people a day in my cab. I would have to drive 100,000 shifts to reach five million. And it would take me 274 years to do it if I drove every day of the year.

But it was the next part that really got to me:

IT WAS LIVE.

Suddenly it occurred to me that a live mike equals power. I could say whatever I wanted and it would be heard by all these people, imagine that. I started to think of interesting things to say...

"The Revolution is here. I am your leader."

"REDRUM!"

"Paul is dead."

"All of you children watching, go to Mum's pocketbook right now and send the money to ______ (my address)."

"You have been abducted by aliens but when I say the words 'fidgity-doo' you will remember none of it. Fidgity-doo."

Of course, I said none of these things. What happened was I arrived at the diner at 3 a.m. and was greeted by Emily. It was an interesting sight, actually, to see this 24-hour diner with so much activity going on at that time of night. The streets in that area are quite deserted at 3 in the morning, yet here was this hub of busy-ness with the ability to transmit images and sound to the other side of the planet. I know we take this technology for granted now but, really, that is incredible if you think about it.


Emily briefed me on what was to happen which was that in about half an hour the show's host (or "presenter", as he is called) Bill Turnbull, would come out to the sidewalk, approach me in the cab, and ask me a few questions. That was all the preparation I had. So for the next 30 minutes I hung around the diner watching how the show is done while other guests were interviewed, and then, at the appointed time, I went into my cab. Out came Bill Turnbull - lights, camera, action - and the interview was underway.

He asked me a few questions about the city's reaction to the election, what's on people's minds,

and about being a taxi driver in New York, and was about to wrap up our little chat when I realized the moment of truth was at hand. If I was going to let five million people know the name of my blog I was going to have to act boldly.

So I did it.

Even though he hadn't asked me, I acted as if he had and shamelessly let the plug drop. "The job is so adventurous," said I, "that I started writing an online blog called 'Cabs Are For Kissing'."

And then, bless his heart, Bill Turnbull picked right up on that and repeated the name of the blog for all to hear again.

The result: over 3,000 hits and more than 50 comments and emails from all over Britain. And that is a great, great feeling to know that an individual can create what is essentially a personal magazine from his own home and have that kind of reach around the world. Mind boggling, really.

And so I'd like to thank everyone who took the trouble to find me here. Welcome aboard! Please come by often, and I'll try to keep it interesting for you.

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And if that's not enough and you want even more New York, just click right here for Pictures From A Taxi.

8P28 - An Intimate Biography

A not-well-known fact about New York City taxicabs is that they are allowed by city rules to be on the road for only three years before being retired. This is amazing if you think about it - that every wreck of a cab that you've ever been in was actually less than three years old, an age that would still be considered to be relatively young for a car if it had been living any kind of a normal life. But of course New York cabs lead anything but normal lives. In fact, it might be considered the ultimate test of a vehicle to be driven on the uneven New York streets - constant, 24/7 stop-and-go, doors constantly opening and closing, hard, hard braking - all by cabbies who usually do not own the vehicle and are in cut-throat competition with each other.

It's brutal. 

Whenever I mention this three-year limit to a passenger, which is often, I am invariably asked:

"What happens to the cabs once they're taken off the road?"

It's a logical question. Anyone who's ever been to New York City knows that the omnipresence of yellow taxis is as "New York" as a bagel with a schmear. Taxis are everywhere. The thought that they are all replaced every three years naturally makes one wonder where they all go. Well, there are three possibilities:

1) They are stripped down, usually to the bare chassis, for parts.

Taxi garages use the same vehicle for all their cabs (in recent years it's usually the Ford Crown Victoria). These cars are manufactured to be taxis and do not change significantly from one year to the next. Thus, the parts are interchangeable.

2) They are sold off to taxi companies in other cities or states or even in other countries. I know some of the New York cabs wind up in Mexico.

3) They are sold to individuals for use as private cars. In the taxi industry we have a special name for an individual who would buy a car that has already been used as a New York taxi for three years.

That person is known as a "sucker".

Which brings me to the story of 8P28, or "Sweet P", as she came to be known. Sweet P was a New York City taxicab for three years. She served the riding public with distinction and pride. When her time came to be relieved from service, she was eagerly purchased by a sucker for use as his own car.

That sucker was me.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the beginning to fully appreciate the story of this remarkable automobile.

BIRTH

Sweet P arrived in this world as a 1999 Ford Crown Vic. She came from humble beginnings, a factory near Detroit, and was destined from birth to be a workhorse of a car, specifically designed for use as either a police cruiser or a taxicab. This meant she had certain heavy-duty features that you wouldn't find in a regular Crown Vic, such as larger brake pads, a radiator that is especially for the transmission, and a fully vinyl, liquid-resistant interior, including the floorboards (just think, if you have the stomach for it, of all the kinds of liquids a NYC taxi must be able to resist). And her engine was a full, eight-cylinder dynamo with the muscle to overcome any sissy competition from the starting line at a red light.

She was purchased from a Ford dealer by the owner of a taxi garage in Manhattan in the year 2000 and was given the medallion number "8P28", a designation that is part of the identification system used for New York's 13,187 yellow cabs for legal and administrative purposes. At the garage she was outfitted with spiffy red decals which told one and all that she was available for service, and how much that service would cost. More than one passerby noted her exceptional beauty, and she was said to be the envy of many older cabs who might see her zip by on the street.

EARLY YEARS

Now, when you see the condition that many New York cabs are in, it may be hard to believe that they were once brand new cars. But they were. Just look at this shot of a cab (not Sweet P) about to begin its very first day of use...

Look at the shine and the complete lack of dents and scrapes. Observe the bright yellow coat and the sparkle on the hubcaps. Does it not take your breath away? And so it was with 8P28.

In her early years she was assigned to two steady drivers at the garage. In New York, there are two shifts to each cab - day and night, each for 12 hours. Some drivers lease the cabs by the week and have the same cab each shift. Others lease by the day and are assigned different cabs whenever they come in.  So naturally it's much better for a cab to be driven by weekly drivers as they take better care of the vehicles due to the fact that they always get that same vehicle. A sense of responsibility ensues, and this was a big break for Sweet P. Her oil was changed regularly, her engine was kept tuned, and her filters were cleaned. And, most importantly, she was driven at moderate speeds with care to avoid the minefields of potholes that proliferate the city streets.

MIDDLE AGE

But after two years on the road, with an odometer nearing the 175,000 mile mark, Sweet P was separated from her weekly drivers and given over to the rougher daily guys. Other cabs could soon be heard whispering behind her back that her moldings were coming loose and her undercarriage was rattling. Sweet P may or may not have heard these unkind remarks, but she never lost her sense of professional pride. She continued to keep her drivers cool in the summer and warm in the winter and she once got a passenger to LaGuardia Airport from Midtown Manhattan in fourteen minutes, a record that still stands.

 

THE END?

But when a cab enters her third and final year, the dwindling spiral seems to pick up speed. The mechanics know the end is approaching and they start to pilfer parts for newer cabs. A knob here, a switch there, a seat replaced for one in poorer condition, an oil change missed, and before you know it, a cab that only months before had appeared vibrant and full of life is suddenly old and making drivers who get behind her wheel think she should soon be headed for the junkyard. Passengers, too, begin to take note of bumpy rides and show their displeasure by reducing their tips. It's not a happy time for anyone, least of all the poor taxi who is facing dismantlement and humiliation.

NEW LIFE

But just as it was beginning to look as if there was no hope, the finger of Fate tapped 8P28 on the dashboard. She was scheduled for an inspection by the Taxi and Limousine Commission and, in order to pass this inspection, had a major makeover including the installation of new body bushings, which is the automobile equivalent of a hip replacement. Suddenly she had a new zip in her gait and was seen rounding corners with noticeable ease. The inspection pass would mean an additional four to eight months on the road. Life seemed fun again.

At the same time, some things were changing in my own life. Seven years had elapsed since taxi drivers had been granted a rate increase and I was becoming so desperate in the money department that I had decided to supplement my income by giving tours as a taxidriver. My idea was to get a hold of an old cab, fix it up if necessary, and use it as a vehicle for touring. People would get a "taxi tour" by one of the most veteran cabbies around, a guy who has "more stories than the Empire State Building."

For months I put the word out to mechanics and owners of garages that I was in the market for a cab that was coming off the road. But I know a few things about cars and what's left of them after a life on the streets of New York, so I wasn't looking for just any old cab. I wanted the best. Finally Moe, the top mechanic at my garage, told me he had found the perfect vehicle. It was 8P28, a cab he said had just been overhauled to pass an inspection but was being taken off the road nevertheless. I had her assigned to me for a shift and found her, indeed, to be in excellent shape. Within two weeks I had struck a deal with the owner of my taxi garage. For the sale price of $900, 8P28 was mine.

IMMEDIATE TROUBLE

It took a couple of weeks to get her registered, insured, and outfitted with a bright new coat of yellow, but finally the day arrived when she was ready to roll out of the taxi garage and into a new life with me. But before she could drive out of the place she'd called home for three years, Moe had discovered a problem: the engine was "missing". What was happening was that the timing of the engine was wrong and it wasn't firing on all of its cylinders, making for a very rough idle. This became a chronic issue with 8P28 and the short version of the story is that fixing the problem properly would require replacing the engine - something I wasn't about to do - but it could be kept running by frequently patching up a leaking engine part.

Another way of stating the short version of the story would be to say that I had been deceived by the owner of the taxi garage into buying a car that wasn't what it was made out to be. Nevertheless, I blamed myself because this is what you expect from the owner of a taxi garage. And that's why a person who would buy a used cab is known as a sucker. Still, I was determined to use this cab as my touring car and I proceeded to spend hundreds of dollars getting her through the requirements of the state inspection.

And tour we did, at least for awhile. 

Sweet P adjusted well to her new role and seemed content to be a part of a new activity, albeit a much less active one. But the touring idea had problems of its own. The insurance needed to run such a business legally was much more expensive than I had anticipated. Sweet P continued to show her age by breaking down from time to time as the elderly are apt to do. And then finally the taxi rates went up significantly in 2004 and my need to supplement my income diminished.

THE ALONE YEARS

The truth is my need for her had come to an end. Sadly, she was relegated to occasional use as a back-up car. She sat alone most days in front of my home, no doubt dreaming about the time when she was the toast of 10th Avenue. There were many weeks when the only time she would see me would be when I'd come out to start her engine, and that was only to keep her battery charged. After one long period of inactivity this last summer, I found to my horror that wasps' nests had appeared behind the little door that covers the gas cap and in the driver's side door jam.

Poor Sweet P was becoming decrepit with age. Here is a shot I took when she taking one of her long naps...

I finally reached a point where I realized I was going to have to learn to let go. Aside from the wasps, the repairs, and the inspection that was over a year overdue, I was paying an extra $50 per month in auto insurance premiums that could no longer be justified.

Sweet P was going to have to go. With a heavy heart, I put an ad in Craig's List.

A BLAZE OF GLORY

Amazingly, I received many calls and emails showing an interest in the old girl. But one caller, an adventurous fellow by the name of Buzz Brown, was particularly persistent and wasted no time in showing up at my house to close a deal. His reason for wanting this particular car was unique and turned out to be utterly appropriate for a vehicle that had once been a New York City taxicab, a car that could take a beating under the most stressful of conditions.

What did he want to do with a car that had once been a New York City taxicab?

Use her in a demolition derby.  

A demolition derby is a like the carnival ride of "bumper cars" except the cars are real and the object is to be the last car standing after all the competition has been crashed into heaps.

And there are aesthetics involved. Buzz told me he planned to turn Sweet P into a shark with gray paint, sharp teeth, and a fin on the roof. He told me he'd send me pictures of the big event, which he did. And here they are...

In this last shot, I am told, Sweet P was battered but not down. She continued on valiantly until her poor heart gave out and she expired on the racetrack in a blaze of glory.

I am so proud.

 

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And proud also to invite you to click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

Shea Goodbye

I believe that in America the edifices that have the most meaning to the greatest numbers of people - more so than any other public structures - are our baseball stadiums. First there is the love of the game itself. And what follows right behind that is an attachment to the stadium where the game is played at its highest level.

I grew up on Long Island, about 30 miles east of New York City. Throughout my entire childhood I played baseball in one form or another. There were the organized Little League games and the less organized choose-up games; there was stick ball, wiffle ball, softball, and made-up games like "Catch A Fly, You're Up" and "Running Bases". There were even table games (the forerunners of video games) like Parker Brothers Baseball. And of course there were the endless, solitary hours spent throwing a rubber ball against a wall or the roof of the house and catching it as it came back to you.

What went hand in glove with playing these variations were the sacred trips into the city with my father to see his team, and therefore my team - the New York Giants - play Major League Baseball in the ancient stadium that once stood in Harlem, the Polo Grounds. The Giants abandoned New York for California in 1958 but the Polo Grounds was not torn down. It proudly held its position in space until it was occupied by its new tenants, the New York Mets, in 1962. By that time I was 12 years old and, in those days, that meant you were old enough to get on a train with your friends and ride the rails all the way from Long Island to Harlem. To see the Mets!

Not that I didn't still go to an occasional game with my father. I did. But now I went to lots of games with my pals. Then, in '64, Life dealt me a winning hand: Shea Stadium was completed, the new home of the Mets, and it was much closer to my home on Long Island. I was set. In that summer of '64, I was at Shea so often that it became my home away from home and its address in the landscape of my mind would become the place where so many memories of the final days of boyhood would be stored.

Now, as the last game has been played in Shea and it awaits the executioner's wrecking ball, I find myself inevitably reminiscing about the place. I remember in particular two extraordinary games that I attended that year with my friends. The first was on May 31st. It was the second game of a double-header with the San Francisco Giants which lasted 23 innings. Aside from being the longest baseball game ever played, this game had several notable things happen, each of which was so special in its own right that, if you watched baseball games every day for your whole life, you might never see even once: there was a triple play executed by the Mets; there was a steal of home by a player on the Giants, Orlando Cepeda; Willie Mays played not only his usual center field, but played the shortstop position, as well (yes, I saw Willie Mays play shortstop!); and it was later revealed that a pitcher on the Giants, future Hall-Of-Famer Gaylord Perry, threw his first "spitball" in that game.

Of course, the Mets lost, but who cared? My friends and I were baseball savvy enough to realize we'd seen baseball history, and our appreciation of the game was senior to the game's final score. Also, we had a little code that we were proud to adhere to: we never left a game before it was finished. That day we had arrived at Shea Stadium at 11:30 in the morning and we didn't get home until 1 a.m. - a baseball fan's badge of honor.

Then, on June 21st, we went to another Sunday double-header, this time versus the Phillies. In the first game of the afternoon a pitcher on that team, Jim Bunning, pitched one of the rarest of all baseball events - a perfect game. Not a single Mets player reached first base. It had happened only seven other times in Major League history. That pitcher, Jim Bunning, is today a United States Senator from the state of Kentucky. Another less-than-once-in-a-lifetime, extraordinary baseball masterpiece.

But in looking back at my days with Shea, I can see that the memories I take from it that are the most meaningful to me are not recollections of particular games where I happened to be in attendance. They are the memories of the adolescent adventures my friends and I perpetuated in that arena.

This was a time in our lives - between the ages of 13 and 15 - when we were in the process of stepping away from our childhoods and testing out the world of adults, trying to figure out not only where we would fit in, but also experiencing by trial and error what we could get away with. And Shea fit in perfectly with this rite of passage. It wasn't just a stadium to us - it was a challenge.

One thing we knew was that we didn't like to pay to get into the place. So we discovered there were certain gates which, if we felt daring, we could sneak under and get in for free. But usually we did pay the $1.30 general admission, which gave you a seat in the upper deck. However, we never stayed up there. We always snuck down into the box seats and, more often than not, we wound up sitting right behind one of the dugouts.

As the season went on, and our boldness increased, we found new frontiers to conquer. For example, we'd always wanted to catch a foul ball, but we'd never gotten one. Then at one game during batting practice we noticed an errant ball lying near the stands which no one had retrieved. My friend Billy, a bit more bold than the rest of us, climbed over the fence onto the field to get it, then climbed back into the stands where he belonged. He was soon pounced on by a stadium cop who gave him a choice of either returning the ball or keeping it and getting tossed out of the park. The choice was obvious: Billy kept the ball, was escorted outside, then promptly snuck back in and joined us for the remainder of the afternoon.

As the season wore on it seems, in retrospect, that we were beginning to think of Shea Stadium as being ours. What else could account for this kind of impudence: we discovered that if we hung around in our seats for as long as possible after a game had ended and left only when being ordered to do so by security, we could duck into the men's room on our way out and hide there for about twenty minutes. Why would we want to do this? Because when we finally emerged from the men's room, everyone had gone and we then had the stadium all to ourselves. We would actually go out onto the field and run around the bases and talk to each other on the telephone that connects the bullpen to the dugout. A sign that hung above the top step of the Mets' dugout which said "Watch Your Step" wound up in my friend's bedroom.

We had balls, all right.

But what turned out to be our piece de la resistance occurred on Sept. 7th when the Mets played a game with a team then called the Colt .45s (now the Houston Astros). Billy and I decided to go up to the press box level of the stadium in the 9th inning to watch the end of the game. We discovered that if you carried yourself as if you belonged there, security probably figured you were the sons of some big-shot executive and they wouldn't bother you. So there we sat with the media, as if we ourselves were reporters. Then, just as the game ended, we opened a door we shouldn't have opened and found ourselves standing in the broadcasting booth with Lindsey Nelson, the Mets announcer, who was live on the air! The technicians in the booth froze in horror and begged us in pantomime not to interfere with the show, which we did not. Later, as a souvenir of our good behavior, they gave us the lineup card that had been shown on television prior to the game. It listed the players for the Mets on one side and the players for the Colts on the other. Billy and I later flipped a coin for who would get the Mets half. I won the toss, as you can see. That's Casey Stengel's signature at the bottom.

The success of our impertinence may have had an effect on the psyche of my friend, as he went on to have a career as a broadcaster himself. You may have heard of him. His name is Bill O'Reilly and what you just read is the story of the first time O'Reilly ever set foot in a broadcasting booth.
Ahhh, the good old days... sigh... anyway, that's my own story about a ballpark and what it meant to a kid. Thank you for indulging me in this bit of pure nostalgia that has nothing whatsoever to do with taxi driving.

And goodbye, Big Shea.

Feathers In My Bald Spot

One of the few, although truly great, perks of driving a cab in New York City is this: you are cruising down an avenue in search of your next fare when a silhouetted figure appears from about a block away with his arm in the air. As you approach this person - your next passenger - you think he seems familiar and in fact he looks very much like a certain very famous celebrity. Then you realize it is this celebrity. And he's all yours.

Yes, yes, I know, some people insist on being oh-so-very-nonchalant about celebrities. "They put their pants on one leg at a time like everybody else," they will say. And I would agree that just because a person is famous doesn't make him or her basically any different than anyone else. But come on. There is a big difference.

The difference is what is created by what I call the physics of mass communications. The phenomenon of vast numbers of people knowing who you are and having had the experience of being communicated to by you without having had the experience of communicating to you makes for an exotic category of human existence. It creates a vacuum that makes the recipient of all this communication want to communicate back to its source point if he should run into them and conversely it tends to create a feeling of withdrawal on the part of the celebrity who must go through life having strangers constantly approaching them.

All of this is to tell you that I had a big-time celebrity in my cab last week. This is a person who is so famous that almost everyone who has been to a movie theater in the last 30 years would know him. I don't go "ga-ga" over celebrities, but I won't pretend that it wasn't a big kick having him in my cab, either.

It was Robin Williams.

I was cruising down Columbus Avenue on Sunday evening at 6:30 pm and there he was with his arm up in the air at 62nd Street, all by himself, instantly recognizable. In the endless Wheel Of Fortune that brings passengers and taxi drivers together in New York City, it must have been my turn to get him, and I experienced that quick moment of excitement you get when you realize he's "yours".

I say that because having a celebrity in a taxicab situation is quite different than almost any other situation in which you might find yourself suddenly confronting a very famous person.

It means that you're about to be in a context in which having a conversation with this person would be perfectly normal. If you were to run into some big star while walking down the street, you might say hello to him, but you certainly wouldn't stop him in his tracks and expect to have a chat. And it would be the same in the great number of professional situations in which celebrities and mere mortals may have contact. The only exceptions I can think of off the top of my head, other than with taxi drivers, would be with bartenders or hairdressers.

So there he was, Robin Williams.

The first thing I'm going to say is that I'm happy to report that Robin Williams is capable of having a rational conversation with another human being. If you've ever seen him on a talk show, he usually goes on with his jokes and instant impersonations at such a speed that you'd think the guy had been born without an "off" button.

Actually - and not surprisingly - he was friendly, totally approachable, and quite conversational. His destination was downtown to Tribeca, a 20 minute ride, so we had some time to talk about lots of things  -- from his son, Zak, who had been in my cab 5 years ago, to the damned televisions that are now in the rear of NYC taxicabs, to his days doing stand-up for the people sitting in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  And he even managed to slip in an impersonation of Francis McDormand! 

At one point I told him a joke. It went like this:

Q: What is the difference between Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney?

A: Lipstick.

He hadn't heard it before and he laughed. Now that was a win for me - Robin Williams laughed at my joke!

By the end of the ride the affinity between us was sufficient that I felt it wouldn't be inappropriate to ask him to pose for a picture in the cab. I told him it would be a feather in my cap, being that I had a blog and all. Robin pointed out that I wasn't wearing a cap. I realized he was right and said that well, then, it would be a feather in my bald spot, not bothering to mention that I didn't have a feather, either. Here's the shot:

As he headed out the door, Robin reached forward, shook my hand, and told me he liked my "show" much better than what was on the television in the cab. 

That felt good!

Now here's another feather in my bald spot: I have had a photograph published in this week's edition of Time Out New York, the city's premiere entertainment magazine. Each week in a section called "Photo Finish" they publish a NYC photograph and then have an artist do a cartoon of what might have happened after the picture was taken. It's very funny and quite clever.

 
This is the shot they used (from my other blog, Pictures From A Taxi):

What had happened was a bride and groom had taken my cab from their reception to their hotel. Their friends decorated the cab just before they arrived at the taxi. In the artist's sequence, however, a man hails a cab and asks the driver to take him to the "O'Connor wedding". The cabbie says okay and pops open the trunk, which is where the party is actually taking place.

Cute. 

The magazine is available at any newstand in New York and will be there until Wednesday, Sept. 24th. So grab a copy if you're in the city and see it for yourself. It's on page 4.

You can check out what they do by clicking here, and then typing in "Photo Finish" in the search button at the top of the page. You won't see this week's edition, however, as it seems they wait several months to put  certain things in the magazine online. But this will at least give you an idea of what it's all about.

A Fun Evening With Farebeater

The taxidriver/improv event was a fun evening, as advertised.

I was interviewed onstage by the fellow who organized it, Timothy Cooper, and the Farebeater Players then used some of my material and some of their own to do improv and sketches all based on the situation of riding in a taxicab.

Some pics:

That's me on the left, withTimothy Cooper.

Good one-handed technique.

One of the perks for a male cabbie is being able to eavesdrop on female conversation.

Very important to keep the mirror properly adjusted at all times.

Farebeater is a monthly event. To get info on upcoming shows, send an email to timothy.cooper@aya.yale.edu.

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And while you're at your keypad, don't forget to click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Here's an announcement on very little notice, I know.

On this coming Saturday night, Aug. 30th, at 10:30 pm, I will be appearing with the famous Upright Citizens Brigade in the East Village for a short evening of improv. It's the latest installment of an ongoing, monthly series called "Farebeater" about NYC cab drivers. Previous guests of the show have been fellow taxi bloggers Melissa Plaut and John McDonagh.

I will be interviewed on stage for 10 minutes or so about my taxi-driving stories, then the players will do improv based on the material I give them. It should be a lot of fun. I am told it will be about an hour of impromptu performance by some of the most talented people in this arena.

Where Is It? In a theater called Under St. Mark's, 94 St. Mark's Place (that's another name for "8th Street"), between 1st Avenue and Avenue A in the East Village, Manhattan.

How Do I Get There? In studying the NYC subway map, it looks like there are 3 possibilities: take the N train to the 8th Street station, or take the Lexington Avenue line 4, 5, or 6 (whichever train is a local) to the Astor Place station, or connect to the L line on 14th Street and take it to the 1st Avenue station. Or just take a cab, for chrissake!

What Does It Cost? A paltry $6, the same amount you would pay to go 3 blocks in a cab... if you're a big tipper.

So if you are in the city this Saturday night, come on by and say hello. Should be fun.

The Power of Communication

To the experienced eye of a veteran cabbie, the mere appearance of certain people in the back seat translates immediately into misery. You know instantly that this ride is going to be an exercise in suffering, anxiety, and endurance.

That's how it was a couple of days ago at 6:30 pm at 30th and 5th. A pair of perfectly pleasant passengers were replaced before the door could be closed upon her by a middle-aged woman who said these dreaded words as she settled in:

"Will you take me to Brooklyn?"

She might as well have reached forward and twisted my ear or tweaked my nose. A ride to Brooklyn at this time of the evening to a cabbie is money lost. It means he will have to trek it back to Manhattan through rush hour traffic without a passenger. And that is dead time when he would have been making money during this same time if this damned passenger had not gotten in.

Of course a cabbie can just refuse the ride, even though it is illegal to do so. But then he runs the risk of having a problem with the passenger who may decide to bring the matter up with the Taxi and Limousine Commission which will no doubt fine him hundreds of dollars or even suspend his license for the offense. With this in mind, plus having within me a sense of fair play, I long ago stopped refusing rides. And so, with a tone in my voice that conveyed the emotion of apathy if you listened carefully, I said to her these words of my own:

"Uh, yeah, it's okay."

"Take the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel to the Prospect Expressway, then take Ocean Parkway to Foster Avenue and make a left."

"Okay, got it."

It had gotten worse. Not only did she want to go to Brooklyn, she wanted to go to the Kensington section of Brooklyn, which is relatively deep into the borough. Not as deep as Canarsie or Sheepshead Bay, but it was no quick trip over the bridge, either. It would mean 20 to 30 minutes of dead time, the equivalent of throwing twenty dollars out the window.

I pulled out into the traffic of 5th Avenue with a scowl on my face and took a look at her in the mirror as I headed downtown. Oh, god, no. She looked like the John Travolta character in Hairspray. Chubby, bouffant hairdo, like she'd gotten on a bus in 1963 and never gotten off. Here was a person who, in my judgement, surely spent the bulk of her time eating chocolates and watching the soaps and would also turn out to be self-indulgent and mean. I waited for the sniping to begin.

It didn't take long.

"Do you think the Brooklyn Bridge would be as good as the tunnel at this time?" she asked.

I told her since it was rush hour I thought the tunnel was a better choice because it usually has less traffic than the bridge and brought us out further into Brooklyn, thus enabling us to avoid a section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway which is normally a mess at this time of day. I also mentioned that although there is a $4.15 toll for the tunnel, I thought it was worth it. But that, of course, was up to her.

No reply.

I continued driving south on 5th Avenue and hit a red light at the end of the avenue where Washington Square Park is located. I was feeling some tension in the air so I decided to try to lighten the mood by pointing out a flaw in the statue of George Washington which stands with grand authority at the base of the Washington Square Arch.

"Do you see the statue of Washington over there?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Do you think his head is too small?"

She leaned forward to get a better view. "No, it looks right to me."

I now knew for sure that trouble was coming. I have pointed out Washington's undersized head to a couple of hundred people over the years and with only one exception has anyone failed to agree with me that, indeed, the head is too small. And that one exception confessed a minute later that his own head was too small, so his opinion was jaded. So this woman was actually the first person of all time to disagree. God help me.

I drove on without continuing the conversation. I went west on Waverly Place and hit a red light as we approached 7th Avenue South. And then, her whiny voice:

"Why are you driving west? The tunnel is on the east side."

"No, it's on the west side. You enter it on West Street. Maybe you're thinking of the Queens Midtown Tunnel."

"No, the Brooklyn tunnel."

"It's on the west side, believe me."

"This isn't how the other drivers go."

"How do they go?"

"They take the highway on the east side and then they go into the tunnel."

"If you go that way you have to go all the way around the tip of the island and then come up north again on the west side. It's one way to go but I think this way is shorter and faster. Anyway, the tunnel is on the west side, not the east side."

The silence returned, and this was a bad thing. It was a silence that nevertheless spoke the words, "I don't believe you. You're trying to rip me off." The hostility was now palpable, but I did what any cabbie would do in this situation - I suppressed my own resentment and drove on. I made a right on Leroy Street, following a brilliant route that takes you around the Holland Tunnel traffic by wending through a few curvy streets in Greenwich Village before landing you out on West Street. But my passenger did not appreciate the efficiency of the ride she was getting. She had morphed into a type of passenger I refer to as the evil jockey and was becoming more bold in the saddle.

"Why are we way over here?" she moaned. "We should be on the east side."

I had reached my personal tipping point. "Look," I replied firmly, "you can see for yourself on the map on the tv screen. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel entrance is on West Street. And that's on the west side of Manhattan. You don't even have to take my word for it. " (All NYC taxis now have a GPS tracking map on a television monitor that's in the rear compartment.)

My comment was enough to initiate a new period of stony silence which lasted about a minute. And then, in a voice just loud enough for me to hear it:

"Well, this sure is the long way..."

It turned out to be the breaking point. I made eye contact with her through the mirror and laid down the law: "Look," I said, "I'm taking you on the best route I know. If you keep implying that I'm trying to rip you off I'm going to take it as intentional harrassment and I'm going to end the ride. Do you understand?"

There was a pause much akin to the reaction a boxer might have if he'd just received a direct hit. Her reply was a bit odd. "Yes, sir," she said, "I understand."

We continued down West Street toward the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Not surprisingly, the atmosphere in the cab had gone from stormy weather to an Arctic freeze. After an exchange like that, in the close quarters of a taxicab, the drawbridges over the moats are drawn up and the hostile parties retreat into their own castles. I knew this would happen, but I'd decided I'd rather endure the rest of the ride in that kind of unexpressed resentment than to put up with all these covert little shots. So be it.

Now, the one thing you hope for in a situation like this is that the ride comes to its conclusion as quickly as possible. The worst thing would be that you'd be sitting still in a traffic jam. So, of course, that's exactly what happened next. There was a jam-up as we approached the Ground Zero area and the traffic was reduced to a crawl. I looked out my window. She looked out her window. A couple of minutes ticked by.

And then the most remarkable thing happened.

"Did you see the convention last night?" she asked, meaning the Democratic National Convention which had begun the previous evening.

Her initiating a normal conversation under the circumstances was completely against the rules of Hostile People Not Speaking To Each Other. I was stunned.

"I saw the highlights on the news," I replied.

"Did you see Teddy Kennedy?" she asked.

"Yes, that was amazing," I said, "what a dramatic moment."

"Yes, he was wonderful," she replied.

The conversation continued into a lively and friendly back and forth about the Democratic Convention, city politics, Obama, Giuliani, McCain, and the way the taxi industry is governed. I couldn't help but notice that the more we spoke to each other, the more we liked each other's company and the mental ridges that had seemed so solid just minutes earlier had evaporated. This change of tone was against all the odds.

The discussion went on, and by the time we got to Foster Avenue it had become one of those rides that I was enjoying so much I didn't want it to end. We even continued the chat for a minute after we got to her destination to make sure all points of the conversation had been adequately finalized. She then handed me the fare with an above-average tip.

I offered her the usual comment I make when an enjoyable ride reaches its conclusion: "Take care, it's been nice talking with you," I said.

"It was nice talking to you, too," she said as she opened the door, "once we made up."

We both laughed at her observation, and she was on her way.

I couldn't help reflecting about this ride as I made my way back to Manhattan. This woman had gone in my reality from an unfortunate stereotype that was living up to its expectation to a likable and enjoyable traveling companion, all because she had decided to change hostility into affinity by communicating.

It shows us how quickly and easily relationships can change for the better. This could be said not only of personal relationships but of relationships between groups and nations as well.

And that is the power of communication.

Taxi Driver Cop, Part Two

If you've been reading this blog for awhile you know that I'm big on the karma vs. coincidence thing. I'm not an extremist - I do think there's such a thing as coincidence. Let's say an asteroid has been on a collision course with Earth for a billion years and it comes down on YOU. That's a coincidence. But if you've been playing a favorite song in your head for an half an hour and then the person who sings that song from out of nowhere suddenly gets in your cab, that's karma. It's a your universe being senior to the physical universe or the universes of others thing. There's an energy involved.

So what happened merely 30 minutes after my pathetic attempt to be a taxi driver cop with the fake cab (see my last post) cannot be written off as coincidence. Karma, baby!

It was a bit after 4 in the morning, the time of night when I'm looking for "one more fare" (the shift ends at 5 a.m.). I was cruising up 6th Avenue, approaching 15th Street, when something caught my eye on the right side of the avenue. There was a yellow, medallion taxi stopped in what should be a moving lane and a twenty-something guy standing there with a bicycle on the cab's right side, opposite the driver. I pulled up a bit behind them and stopped, thinking maybe the guy wanted to put his bike in the trunk and for some reason the driver didn't want to do that and maybe I would get the fare for myself. I have no problem putting bicycles in trunks.

But what was happening was actually the beginning of some kind of a confrontation. The guy with the bicycle started screaming at the driver. I couldn't hear what he was saying nor could I even see the driver of the cab. But I could see that for some reason this guy with the bicycle was extremely angry. Right away I decided that I wanted no part of him and locked my doors. I was about to pull away and continue up 6th, but before I could do that, the situation escalated. He started whacking at the taxi's windows with his arm, perhaps trying to break them.

For me - and this is one of the things I like about driving a cab - it was one of those little instantaneous moments of truth. I could drive away. Or I could stay there.

I stayed there.

I had no idea what this guy was so pissed off about, but now it didn't matter to me. He was attacking a taxi and that zone of human activity is mine, so I was on the side of the taxi and its driver. Even so, I had no intention of getting out of my cab and confronting the guy. I just thought that the presence of another yellow cab might act as a deterrent to him.

To the contrary.

He then lifted his bicycle in the air and slammed it against the side of the taxi, breaking the side view mirror off. I'm not sure what category of crime this would fit into - assault with a deadly bicycle? - but it was felony stuff, no doubt. I expected him to then take off, but instead he just stood there and removed his bicycle chain from its prior location, around his neck, and held it in his hand in anticipation of the driver coming out of his cab to attack him, which would have been the all-too-common response to the stimulus. The "thinking" here is that sufficient motivation has been given to warrant a violent reaction, so what he really wants to do, pummel the driver into a paste, could be justified as "self-defense". Psycho.

But, amazingly, the driver did not get out - he just stayed in his cab. The two-wheeled assailant stood there for a quarter of a minute or so and then, deciding that the game was over, walked his bike across 6th Avenue and turned south toward 14th Street when he set foot on the sidewalk. I backed my cab up to the intersection of 14th Street and saw him pick up his bike and begin to walk down the stairs of the subway station there.

The need for justice runs deep in the human psyche. In the relative scale of criminal activity what I had just witnessed was not that big a deal, although it wasn't nothing. Yet I felt something stir deep within that demanded the situation be rectified. Even so, in this society, one is entering a minefield when action is taken. Considerations of physical danger, retribution, lawsuits, lawyers, legal fees, and enormous stress set in the moment one decides to take it upon oneself to do something about it. But there is one thing you can always do, although in these situations it never seems to work.

You can call the cops.

That's what you're supposed to do, right?

So I got out my cell phone and called 911. Inevitably, whenever you dial 911 with a need for immediate assistance, the person on the other end seems to be in no rush at all. I believe it's a game they play. As I tried to communicate the urgency of the situation, the driver of the cab, an Indian fellow, finally emerged from his vehicle, also speaking into a cell phone, and walked toward me. As I explained to him that his assailant had gone down into the subway and that I was calling the cops, the guy suddenly reappeared on the street, bicycle in hand, and began nonchalantly walking down 14th Street toward 7th Avenue. The window of opportunity for having this guy arrested was rapidly disappearing.

What happened next could be described by some as a modern urban miracle. There is an axiom of life in the city that is as unshakable as "you can't fight city hall" and "shit happens". It is this: "you can never find a cop when you need one".

What happened was that, perhaps for the first time in recorded history, I found a cop when I needed one. A cruiser was coming along on 14th Street. I flagged it down, explained the situation to the officers, and they took the Indian driver in their back seat to go hunt for the guy with the bicycle while I kept an eye on his taxi (which he left with the engine running). Within a minute three or four more cruisers arrived on the scene and the guy and his bicycle were under arrest. An officer returned to me to take my name and a statement, thanked me, and said they had all they would need. I wished the Indian driver good luck and was on my way.

The whole incident took about 10 minutes.

And I'm thinking as I zipped up 6th Avenue, still looking for one more fare, wait a minute, this never happens. Some anger management clown with a sense of entitlement in the area of taxi drivers bashes in a cab and then gets arrested?

This never happens!

But it did.

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It kind of makes you want to click here for Pictures From A Taxi, does it not?

Taxi Driver Cop, Part One

Somewhere along the line, many years ago, for some reason I decided that the taxi industry in New York City was "mine". There was enough about it that was a right fit for me to make me not look at its problems as being somebody else's problems. I developed a willingness to be at cause in this particular sector of human activitiy. You could call it a sense of responsibility.

And that's how I became a taxi driver cop.

I find that if I happen to see something very wrong that involves a taxicab on the street, my impulse is to do something about it if I can, within limits. You don't want to put yourself in danger, of course. But if possible, I will act.

And that's what happened last Tuesday night at 3:30 a.m. I was taking a twenty-something female, who'd been working late, to her home in Brooklyn from Midtown. As I glided down Broadway without traffic something caught my eye a couple of blocks north of Houston Street. It was a fake taxi cruising down the avenue just in front of us.

There are a few of these guys out there. They buy themselves a Ford Crown Vic, the vehicle that is the most used as a taxicab in New York, paint it yellow, put a rooflight on top, and do their best to make it look like a legitimate cab. These vehicles may actually be a legal cabs in some other part of New York State, such as Westchester County, but it is totally illegal for them to be used to pick up passengers from the street in the city. That is strictly the province of the New York medallion taxis. (Click here to see my related post, Interview With The Vampire.)

I can tell at a glance when I see one of these guys. Some of the little things that most people wouldn't recognize as outpoints, such as the medallion number or various markings on the cab, are obvious to me.

I pointed the taxi out to my passenger. This would be a good topic of conversation.

"Do you see that cab in front of us?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Would you get into that cab if it stopped for you on the street?"

"Yeah, I guess so, why?"

"That's a fake cab!" I exclaimed with a bit of dramatic emphasis.

"It is?" How can you tell?"

"Well, for one thing, it's a '97 Crown Vic. Cars that old aren't on the streets as taxis anymore. Also, the medallion identification letter is wrong. See how he's got the letter "I" between the other three numbers? We don't use that letter in the medallion identification system."

"Oh, wow!"

She was impressed, but I thought I could do more. We had stopped for a red light and were able to pull right up next to the fake cab. I looked into the compartment and saw that the driver was a white man in his forties. I had never seen this guy before and decided to let him know that I knew what he was up to. Yeah, let him know that he might think he's clever in stealing business from legitimate taxi drivers, but we know what he's doing and he won't get away with it forever. It was Taxi Driver Cop time.

I called over to him through our opened windows.

"Hey!"

He looked over at me, a bit sheepishly I thought, probably wondering if in fact I was an undercover cop. My passenger was taking it all in with great interest and I have to admit that it did cross my mind that this little macho display might be the kind of thing that turned her on, you never know about women.

"I see what you're doing," I barked in accusation. "You'd better not pick anyone up. I'm watching you!"

I don't see the point in making an attempt to be courteous to a person like this. Here's someone who's blatantly stealing business away from cabbies who are playing by the rules. And, what, we don't have enough competition amongst ourselves wihout him? Fuck him.

He looked at me with a kind of blank expression on his face. This was odd, because I'd expect his reaction to be one of either hostility or fear, but if anything he just looked a little confused. And then he spoke.

"We're making a movie!" he said. And he pointed down Broadway to the next block.

I looked down the street. Parked along the curb were several huge movie trailers and some heavy equipment that are used in big-budget productions. This "fake taxicab" was a movie prop!

I looked back at the driver. He looked back at me with an expression on his face that I believe could be interpeted as meaning, "What are you? An idiot?"

I exhibited one of those shit-eating smiles that people are known to put on their faces when they have just made complete jackasses out of themselves.

"Oh," I said... "never mind!"

It took another fifteen minutes to get the passenger to her house in Brooklyn. But somehow it seemed like an hour to me. You know that expression about how time flies when you're having fun? Well, it turns out time crawls when you're having humiliation.

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However, time really flies if you click here for Pictures From A Taxi. Or so I've heard.

I'm A Free Agent

Baseball is king in New York City and has been for over a hundred years. So when the Mets fired their manager, Willie Randolph, this week it wasn't surprising that I had a few fares in which this was the topic of conversation. One fan, who happened to live in the building where Babe Ruth died on West 29th Street (the French Building, formerly the French Hospital), was particularly passionate about the turn of events. On and on he railed about the injustice of it all, the enormity of the incompetence of the owners, and the complicity of the players.

It was as if he was a member of the team himself.

When he finally calmed down, he noticed that someone was actually in the cab with him (me) and asked the question I love to hear from baseball fans: "So who do you root for, the Mets or the Yankees?"

The reason I love being asked this is because it gives me an opportunity to expound on my philosophy as a fan to the passenger, and hopefully create a convert. My answer is this: "I'm a free agent." It always brings a smile.

What is a fan who's a free agent? It's a fan who has thrown off the shackles of loyalty and set down conditions of his own by which he may choose to root or not root for a particular team. Yes, I know this kind of fan will be accused by some of not being a "true" fan or of being a "fair-weather" fan. Phooey. That's just manure that's been fed to you by propagandists. Let me tell you something. As a fan, you have a right to get your money's worth and you have a right to your own dignity. Listen here...

My history as a baseball fan has been a torturous one. I began life with the New York Giants in the 1950s for the very good reason that most people have when they become fans of teams: it was the team my father rooted for. Everything was fine until 1958 when I noticed that the first of many knives that were eventually to be found sticking in my back had been planted there by one Horace Stoneham, the owner of the team. He had moved my Giants, and my Willie Mays, to San Francisco.

Think for a moment, if you will, of the enormity of the betrayal involved here. Millions of little kids being told by their fathers that the heroes whose pictures they worship on their baseball cards were no longer around, they didn't play for "us" anymore. Little kids who had spent so many hours memorizing the most trivial details about these men - these Giants - were now being told it was all for nothing. Willie Mays, Don Mueller, Whitey Lockman, Johnny Antonelli - it was just a hoax. They don't really give a damn about you. Beat it, kid.

Nevertheless, when the Mets were created in 1962, I was first in line. Throughout all my teenage years I was devoted to the team, never deviating in my loyalty, never considering switching over to the Yankees even though they had great teams and the Mets were pathetic. And then they let Tom Seaver go because of a contract dispute. And then they painted Shea Stadium a garish blue and put five-story high neon stick figures of baseball players up as decorations. And then they installed a gigantic apple that comes out of a gigantic hat whenever a Met hits a home run.

I was developing issues with this team that were still unclear to me due to the blindness of my devotion. But in 1985, just before that season was about to begin, fate put a player of the Mets in my cab and a process of clarification began. His name was Rusty Staub, a veteran outfielder and slugger, who had been around the Major Leagues for over twenty years and was about to begin his final season as a player. Rusty was a popular figure in New York. He owned a restaurant on the Upper East Side and was reknown as a chef, even doing commercials for American Express in a chef's outfit.

Well, I of course was excited when "Le Grand Orange" (as he was dubbed when he played in Montreal due to his red hair) and the pretty blonde who was with him plopped themselves down on my back seat. As we set off for his destination (his own restaurant) I asked Rusty how it was looking for the Mets in the upcoming season. And I was pleased to see that he was quite willing to talk baseball. There was nothing aloof about the guy, and he went into quite a bit of detail about what had been going on with the Mets over the winter.

But there was something in the way he talked about the team that caught my attention. Whenever he spoke about the Mets, he always referred to them in the third person. He used the pronoun "they". Not "we" - "they". "They" signed this guy. "They" are going to give a certain pitcher a chance to make the team.

After dropping off Le Grand and the blonde, my attention fixed on this observation. The thought occurred to me that whenever I listen to a sports talk show on the radio, the callers invariably speak about the team they root for in the first person. We need pitching. We need to make a trade. As if they're on the team themselves. And yet here was a guy who was actually ON the team who didn't think of himself as a "Met". To Rusty the "Mets" were the people who acquire and release players and sign the paychecks. But he correctly knew who he was: he was a perpetual free agent who was currently leasing his services to an organization known as the New York Mets.

The psychology of this is fascinating. Apparently if you can get the potential fan to make an emotional attachment to your franchise you can lure him into forever living vicariously through the exploits of your players. Obviously, this is true. I had made that emotional attachment. But I couldn't get the thought out of my mind that if a guy who's actually on the team does not have it, then why should I?

I had reached an epiphany of sorts. My understanding had exceeded my emotion. I had become a free agent.

I started looking at baseball differently. I was appreciating the game itself more than I had before. And I looked at the Mets differently. Was this team worthy of my time? If I was going to pick out one organization to know thoroughly and to care about, should this be the one? After carefully evaluating my options, I decided that in fact the Mets and I were a good match. I continued to buy newspapers in order to read about them, to spend precious hours watching them on television, and to keep their station locked in on the radio dial in my cab.

But that changed in 1989. After assembling a championship team with a great cast of characters in the previous five years, the Mets inexplicably started to disembowel themselves, culminating in a bone-headed trade of star players Lenny Dykstra and Roger McDowell to the Phillies for an infielder named Juan Samuel. I exercised the option in my contract and traded myself to the Yankees.

Eventually I sat back and took a good, long look at what it is I expect of a team with which I was willing to enter into a committed relationship. Here are my four little rules:

1. Be competitive. You don't have to win. You don't even have to make the playoffs. But you need to come close. When September rolls around, you should have at least an outside shot at the wild card.

2. Assemble an interesting cast of characters and keep them. One of the great charms of baseball is that over time you can get to know some of the players extremely well. Good teams cultivate a core group of star players who are the backbone of the team. You don't trade these guys. If you lose them to free agency, okay. But you don't send them away.

3. Don't insult my intelligence. I don't come to a game to hear loud rock music, see fireworks, or watch a cartoon-character roll around on the infield. I come to see a game and to learn more about the game.

4. Don't allow criminals or cheats to be on the team. Somebody can throw a ball 98 miles per hour but enjoys torturing dogs in his free time? Pass on that guy.
Four little rules. If you own a baseball team and want to keep me on your roster, you'd better follow them. Otherwise, I'll walk. And it's always my walk year.

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And when I walk, I usually wind up here (at Pictures From A Taxi).

How To Get A Taxi Driver To Slow Down

Being that I am perceived by so many to be the last English-speaking, American white guy to be driving a cab in New York City, I have often found myself serving as the default complaint department for the entire taxi industry. And the complaint I hear most often is about a ride from hell in which a cabbie drove 90 miles per hour on a highway, zigzagged between huge trucks, tailgated every vehicle on the road, and yet somehow arrived at the destination without an accident.

Interestingly, whenever I hear this story it is told by the survivor with a big smile on his face. Apparently danger is great fun if you come out alive. Nevertheless, I always ask these two questions:

1) Did you put on your seat belt?

2) Did you ask the driver to slow down?

Invariably the answers I get to both questions are, "Uhhh... noooo... ha-ha-ha-ha."

Now as far as the seat belts are concerned, what can I say, obviously anyone should have put them on when being transported by a maniac, and there's no point in belaboring the point. But it's this other question that intrigues me. What is it that stops a person who clearly feels his life is in danger (which it is) from speaking up?

Well, from what I can best perceive, it's fear. Fear that the comment will further anger the driver and that will make him drive even faster, and then there will be an accident for sure. So people just say a silent prayer and hold on tight to their rosary beads and the hand straps.

These passengers, however, do understand, even if it's just on an instinctive level, that asking a driver to slow down is entering a minefield of taxicab etiquette. The truth is that, although a cabbie routinely receives substandard wages and a lower social status than his job deserves, one thing he always feels he has is his professional pride. Like being insulted by a passenger who gives directions to simple destinations (see my last post), being asked to slow down clearly implies that the driver is deficient in the one thing at which he knows he has superhuman powers: the ability to drive an automobile.

And for the most part, this is true. In New York City, anyone who has been driving a cab for two years or more is very likely to have mastered the craft of controlling a car to a level that is not understood by the average driver. It's an ability not only to be at cause over his own vehicle, but to be able to predict the motion of all other particles in the playing field - cars, buses, police cars, trucks, fire engines, ambulances, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, maniacs on roller blades, pigeons, and dogs - and make adjustments to his own motion without even thinking about it. It can be compared to a pianist whose fingers can play concertos while what he's actually thinking about it is just how much emphasis he should give to a note that is still two minutes away.

Indeed, one of the most treasured compliments ever given to me as a driver was from a passenger in my cab who turned out to be an instructor of racing car drivers. He was aware of the nuances in my driving and commented to me about it. Music to my ears!

But what can you do when the driver you are stuck with appears to be not a maestro but a madman? Aside from calling your family to tell them that you love them, here's the solution:

1) Compliment the driver on his driving skill. I mean, heap it on. Say something like, "You know, I've been watching the way you've been moving through traffic and I gotta tell you, you have awesome driving ability. It's like you're an acrobat in the circus or something. Really amazing."

2) And then say this: "But, listen, I think I ate something a little while ago that's not agreeing with me. I'm feeling like I may get sick. Would it be possible for you to drive a little slower please? "

It will work, I guarantee it. You've removed the pride button and you've given him his own personal reason for cooperating with you. The three most feared things in the life of a taxi driver are death, paralysis, and somebody throwing up in your cab.

The funny thing is, I've been giving this advice to passengers for years and then recently I had a passenger ask me to slow down because she was feeling a little nauseous!

Irony!

But that's what life is like, isn't it?

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And life is also like this: clicking here for Pictures From A Taxi.