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.

Chinese Call Girl

Isn't it amazing what can happen when you put your attention on something? Within 24 hours of writing in my last post that I sometimes suspect, but rarely find out, that certain female passengers are call girls, I had this ride:

I was cruising up 6th Avenue shortly after 3 am and picked up a woman at 54th Street. She was in the middle of a cell phone conversation as she entered the cab and, like many passengers who regard the phone call as being more important than the taxi ride, she merely told me the general direction in which she wanted to go (Queens via the upper level of the 59th Street Bridge) and then went back to the phone.

I made the right on 57th Street and headed toward the bridge. Since she hadn't told me exactly where we were going, I had a bit more attention on her than I normally would have had. I checked her out in the mirror. She was a tall Asian with a rather thin, long face and straight, black hair extending below her shoulders, about 35 years old. She had a rather exotic look to her, and it occurred to me that she could have been cast in an old movie as the wife of Dr. Fu Manchu.

Not that there was anything evil about her. In fact, she was quite nice.

It wasn't until we were over the bridge and driving down an empty street in Long Island City that her cell phone conversation finally ended. As she resumed giving me directions ("make a left on Borden Avenue"), she said, half to me and half to herself, "what a night!"

"Had a rough one?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"You don't want to know."

Now whenever someone says, "You don't want to know", you do want to know. And I did.

"I do want to know, but I don't think you want to tell me," I said.

Apparently that was all I had to say for her to feel safe telling me what she really did want to tell me anyway. And this was her story...

She said she was Chinese and she and two other Chinese girls had gone to a hotel in Midtown to give "massages" to three gentlemen. But when they got to the hotel room, there weren't three gentlemen - there were six. And they weren't really "gentlemen" after all. This, to these professionals, was a dangerous situation. She told me that girls in her group have been beaten and raped in scenarios such as this one, especially if they go to a private residence. So now they only work in hotels. And even though this was a hotel, the unexpected additional men made her feel they had to get out of there. But how? Two of them were blocking the exit.

What she did, she said, was to take a big chance. She excused herself to the bathroom, locked the door, and called the police on her cell phone. The reason it was a big chance was that she couldn't be sure how the cops would react. She and the other two girls might be arrested for prostitution. But she felt so uneasy with the situation they were in that she did it anyway.

Luckily for her, the cops arrived quickly and were cool. She was the only one who spoke English, she said, so she did the talking. She said the cop interviewing her looked her in the eye and told her to tell him the truth. She told him they had come to give a "bachelor party" (a bit of a spin but pretty close to the truth) and were frightened by the additional men. Then the cop asked her if they had stolen anything and she truthfully replied that they had not. He believed her and sent them on their way.

A few minutes later she is getting into my taxi and heading back to Queens. And I am reminded once again of the "things you learn driving a taxicab".



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Contact

Contact - some would say it's the most basic of human needs, perhaps even more important than food. As a taxi driver I am often witness to the permutations that arise from the attempt to obtain it...

Saturday, April 14th, 4:35 am - my last fare of a long, busy night is a 40ish white male with some kind of a European accent which I could not decipher. He enters my cab at 77th Street and Columbus Avenue with a plastic bag and a newspaper in his hands and tells me to drive him to 39th and 9th. I am immediately put off by his brusque manner and decide this is not someone I want to have a conversation with and, in fact, I want to be rid of as quickly as possible.

So when we get to his destination and he tells me to pull over while he finishes a conversation on his cell phone, I am not pleased. Several minutes go by and, after a couple of nudges from me - "excuse me, are you getting out here?" - he tells me to drive him to an ATM on 38th and 6th. It is late, I am tired, and I have become annoyed with the guy as his behavior has crossed the line into peculiar.

We drive to the ATM. He exits the cab but brings his plastic bag with him. I keep my eye on him all the while as he has been deemed a flight risk in my mind. But he returns and, in the same abrupt manner, orders me to drive to 33rd and 2nd without any explanation of what's going on. He gets back on his cell phone and, now that I am suspicious of the guy, I try to listen to his conversation and am able to pick up only pieces of it. With great seriousness he is describing his physical characteristics to someone on the other end. "I am white, I am thin... yes... yes..."

When we arrive at 33rd and 2nd he once again does not pay me and get out, but instead continues a conversation on his phone. This time he's getting an address and an apartment number from the person on the other end. He says this aloud a few times, the sound of his voice creating a memory of it in his mind. Then, finally, he decides to end the ride. The fare is $15.40. He gives me an additional 60 cent tip. I am so happy to be rid of him and the anxiety he carried with him that I'm not even upset about the cheapskate gratuity. In fact, I expected it.

My night is over, so I drive to the gas station to fill the tank for the next driver. As I clean up the cab, I find that The Village Voice has been left on the back seat and is opened to a large section they have at the end which is a listing ("body work") for prostitutes.

Now I understand.


Tuesday, April 17th, 11:37 pm - a 30ish guy, white skin, about 6 feet tall, jumps in at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 34th Street. Our destination is DeGraw Street in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. As the ride begins I overhear him say to someone on his cell phone that he just punched someone on a subway platform. A minute later that conversation is over and, unable to resist asking him about it, I do. (Which turned out to be a good thing for him, as he needed to talk to someone.) He told me this story...

He'd been at Yankee Stadium and was on a subway filled with people coming from the game. The Yankees had just played the Indians. He grew up in Cleveland and, although he's lived in New York for ten years, he was wearing an Indians hat. A group of "white, suburban gangster wannabes", all teenagers, decided to harass him due to his hat as they exited the subway car and stepped out onto the platform. This led to an angry exchange of words and one of these kids in particular, showing off to his friends, got in his face.

And that's when my passenger slugged him.

He said they were all in shock and just stood there as he hastily went up the stairs and left the station. He then jogged a couple of blocks and jumped in my cab, thinking about stupid, teenaged punks and lawsuits. So actually it turned out I was his getaway driver.

Interestingly, as he told me about the incident, he was filled with regret and chided himself for losing his cool and hoped maybe it will have taught the kid a lesson. It reminded me of the time another person used my cab as a getaway car after being in a bar fight and thinking he may have just killed someone. (See "The Wrong Guy". )

But this one wasn't as serious. "Worst case scenario, the guy's got a broken nose."


2:42 am - two girls, both in their twenties, one a platinum blond and both of them wearing skimpy clothes, get in at 87th and York. Their appearance translates immediately to the male eye as a neon light flashing "sex" - not quite as obvious it would be if they were street hookers, but it's close. That they are standing on a street in a residential neighborhood where there are no bars around adds an element of curiosity about them to my expert eye.

Their destination is 7th Avenue around 24th Street, but they are not sure of the exact address. When they get on a cell phone and are then told the number of the building, added to the fact that they speak in strong Russian accents, I have no doubt that these are call girls en route to a client. It's something I sometimes suspect with certain female passengers, but it's not often I am so sure about it.

Well, they seem pleasant enough and the way they jabber away to each other in Russian is rather melodic to my ear, so I am thinking whoever is paying for them may be getting his money's worth. But halfway into the ride their phone rings and after a short conversation I am told to please turn around and take them back to where I picked them up. Which I do.

I am thinking about asking them why their customer cancelled out on them but decide that would be pushing it and I just keep my mouth shut. We return to 87th and York, they pay the fare, and disappear into a deli.

4:11 am - my final fare of the night is a dancer/stripper from Flashdancer's. The girls all leave the club at 4:00 and I'm told there are as many as 50 of them working each shift in the joint, so it's a good spot to get one last ride.

Since I work the place often, I've had many conversations with these girls. I find the ratio of conversational to non-conversational to be about 50 per cent. In other words, about half of them do not want to speak with their cab driver. This in itself is interesting to me because, if you think about it, here's someone who has just spent several hours dancing almost naked around a pole and then trying to lure guys into a back room so they can do twenty-dollar "lap dances" for them. It's a come-on dressed up in a heightened degree of "friendliness" (pardon my pun). But then, just minutes later, they are often quite out of communication.

This last passenger fell into that category. It was a long ride out to Queens during which she stared blankly out the window. She seemed to me to be a lonely and unhappy person. And if that's true there's some irony there considering the type of work she does.

One of the permutations of the attempt to make contact, if you will.

Traffic Jam Connoisseur

I was traveling south on Broadway a few days ago with a passenger in the cab when I unexpectedly hit bumper-to-bumper traffic at around 83rd Street. Traffic flows and stops flowing in predictable patterns in New York City and this was not a place, nor a time (9 pm), where I would expect to be suddenly at a crawl. I told my passenger it was probably just a double-parked truck and we should be moving along at normal speed within a minute or two.

But two, three, four minutes went by and we'd only moved three blocks. I was about to suggest that we detour over to Columbus Avenue, when the traffic began to pick up just a bit and I could see some flashing lights not too far in the distance. Since these lights were yellow and not red, I thought it was some kind of road work or utility work in progress and figured it made more sense to stick to Broadway rather than make a detour as the source of our delay had been identified and wasn't too far away. My passenger agreed. And then the traffic started moving a little quicker and in another minute I could see what was actually screwing things up.

It was a house!

A pre-assembled house on a flatbed truck and a couple of cars with "oversized load" signs on them were taking up two of Broadway's three moving lanes, causing all other vehicles to squeeze into one lane to pass them. Who in the world would ever have guessed that that was actually the cause of the problem! As I waited my turn to merge into a single file and then was finally released onto an unobstructed Broadway, I was reminded of something that has happened to me after all these years of taxi driving.

I have become a connoisseur of traffic jams. Some people are connoisseurs of fine wines. Some are connoisseurs of cigars. French cuisine, Chinese vases, antique cars, shoes, Barbie dolls, Civil War memorabilia, ladies' undergarments - they all have their connoisseurs. But I, the New York taxi driver, I am a connoisseur of traffic jams.

One of the great topics of conversation in a taxi is, "What the hell is causing the traffic to slow down?" (Or stop completely.) Usually it's the mundane - the expected delay as you approach the 59th Street Bridge; the inescapable backup as you head toward the Theater District around showtime; the agony you feel as you realize the Lincoln Tunnel traffic is backed up on 11th Avenue all the way to 55th Street.

Most traffic jams are quite predictable and can be taken in stride. Or avoided altogether if you're a savvy driver. It's the unpredictable ones that are the province of the connoisseur. There are two types: a) the jams where you never know what caused them. They're just there and no explantion is ever found. b) the jams that, when you do learn what caused them, you say to yourself (like with the house going down Broadway), "Who in fucking hell would ever - ever! - have possibly guessed that this was what was causing me to sit on my unmoving ass for the last half an hour?"

Here's one of my favorites of all time. It happened in 1997.

I had a fare to Forest Hills in Queens at about 7:30 pm. It was a lousy ride because it means a twenty-minute trip back to Manhattan, most likely without a passenger, at a time of day when it's very busy there. So it's a money-loser. But I never refuse a fare so off we went. When we were about five minutes away from my passenger's destination we hit a mother of a traffic jam on Queens Boulevard. It just suddenly came to a dead halt at a time and in a place where the traffic should have been moving along with no problem.

After trudging along for ten minutes I could see a multitude of red lights flashing in the distance and thought it was most likely a serious accident so, after a conference with my passenger, I took a detour and did some zig-zagging in order to get him to his apartment building. It was a great move which saved us both some wasted time.

After dropping him off, I found myself quite near to whatever was happening, but fortunately I was on the opposite side of Queens Boulevard and the traffic was moving along pretty well on that side of the street. I naturally tried to see what was going on but all I could see were police cars with their lights flashing. I was ready to forget about it and just get back to Manhattan as quickly as possible when a minor miracle happened. I got a fare going back to the city, a middle-aged woman en route to Midtown.

After getting over my shock and joy of getting this lucky ride, I of course asked her if she knew what was going on. And, miracle number two, she did! I was certainly expecting to hear a story about a gruesome accident or a disturbing crime - but no. Here's what she told me...

It seems a woman who was an amputee went into a hair salon to get a new haircut. She was so displeased with the result that, as a protest against the morons who had done this to her hair, she decided to take off all her clothes and just sit there. The salon people called the police and when it went out on the police radio that a nude, female amputee was refusing to put her clothes back on, every patrol car within ten miles showed up. The traffic jam was caused by all the police cars which had nowhere else to park, so they just blocked up the boulevard.

Well, of course. That's what was causing the traffic jam. Why didn't I think of that in the first place?




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Karma Vs. Coincidence

I recently drove a woman to Brooklyn who was quite interested in knowing which celebrities I've had as passengers in my cab over the years. I wound up telling her my Leonardo di Caprio story. Just as we were arriving at her destination and I had finished telling her the story, her cell phone rang. "You're not going to believe this!" she cried out. "This person calling me is a personal friend of Leonardo di Caprio!" And with that statement she handed me her phone and the voice on the other end verified that it was true, Leo is indeed a friend of hers.

Now I ask you: what are the odds of that happening? What are the odds that just as I finish telling this story - at the exact moment I finish telling it, actually - her phone rings and this person, of all persons who could possibly call at that exact moment - should be a personal contact of the person I was just speaking about? A million to one? A billion to one?

Was that karma?

Or was that coincidence?

Or how about this one? One night, after I'd been driving a cab for about ten years, something happened that had never happened before. A blind woman got in and when I got her to her desination, an apartment building in Gramercy Park, she asked me if I would come with her into the lobby and ring the buzzer of the person she was going to see. Since she was blind, she could not read the names. Of course I was happy to help her and did as she requested. The next night, another blind woman got in my cab and asked me to do the same thing! And in the 19 years since then it has never happened again.

Karma?

Or coincidence?

It turns out that the topic of "what are the odds?" has a special little niche among veteran New Yorkers when it comes to taxicabs. Particularly when it comes to having had the same driver more than once. Since there are 13,187 taxis randomly cruising the streets, about 40,000 licensed drivers, two and a half million residents in Manhattan alone, and a street grid system on an island that uses numbers and very few names, it would seem possible to calculate the odds. So the argument could be made that getting the same driver, or for that matter the same passenger, more than once was just a coincidence.

This, for example, could be said by many to be strictly a matter of chance: one night I picked up a young man and a young woman going from 2nd Avenue and 26th Street to Greenwich Village. About 30 seconds into the ride, the guy says to me that he thinks he was in my cab a few days ago. He described the conversation he'd had with the driver (the phenomenon of blind loyalty by fans to their baseball teams) and I said that yes, that was me, all right, as that is one of my frequent topics of discussion. He then mentions to the lady, who turned out to be his sister, that this was the driver he had told her about! Well, we all thought this was a remarkable occurrence. Not only did I get this guy twice in the same week, but I was not just any driver to him, I was a special driver who had made an impression on him. And now his sister gets to meet the driver she'd been told about. We had a pleasant conversation about the odds of this happening before I dropped them off at a restaurant.

And then, about two hours later, I picked them up again!

Karma?

Or coincidence?

Well, as you may have guessed, I side with those who say karma. I am not one to say that there is no such thing as random chance. But I have observed this phenomenon of freaky coincidences occurring too many times in the context of taxi driving not to conclude that something is going on here. I can't say for sure what it is, but I do know that it has to do with one's attention being stuck on something or someone. And it also has to do with one's own "universe", if you will, being senior to the physical universe.

Don't believe it? Try this one on for size: way back in 1981, I had finished writing my first stage play. I was quite interested in getting the script into the hands of professionals so I could get it critiqued and make contacts that could possibly lead to a production. One person I knew of, a friend of a friend, had just won an Academy Award for a short film. His name was Bert Salzman. I got his address from my friend and wrote him a letter, asking if he would be kind enough to take a look at my script. Three or four weeks went by, and I hadn't hear back from him. Then one night I was cruising down 2nd Avenue, looking for a fare, and Mr. Salzman and his wife appeared from the street out of nowhere and got into my cab! They told me their destination on the Upper West Side and made themselves comfortable in the back seat. They, of course, had no idea who I was.

"You're Bert Salzman, isn't that right?" I said. (I recognized him from having seen his picture a number of times.)

"Yes, I am," he replied, a bit startled.

"So, Bert," I said, "did you get my letter? I haven't heard back from you!"

Well, of course he nearly jumped out of his skin. To make a long story short, Mr. Salzman did read the script and he did give me some helpful advice. Nothing came of it, but that doesn't matter. The point is, what are the odds of, out of the millions of people in New York City wandering the streets at that particular time, this one particular person whom I had my attention on getting into not one of the thousands of other taxicabs wandering the streets in New York, but into my taxicab?

Karma?

Or coincidence?

********

Click here for Pictures From A Taxi. I've heard it's good karma!

An April Fool's Day Story

Here's a story from the vault - April 1, 2003, 8:30 pm. The war in Iraq had just begun.

A young guy and his girlfriend, both about 19 years old, jumped in at 79th Street and York Avenue and told me to drive them to DeKalb and Vanderbuilt in Brooklyn. This was bad news in itself as any cabbie in New York hates to leave Manhattan when it's busy on the streets. It means he most likely has to drive back without a passenger and that is money lost.

But to make matters worse, these two kids saw the upcoming journey as not merely a way to get from point A to point B, but as an opportunity for a heavy make-out session. My attempts at chit-chat fell on deaf ears and within 30 seconds they were kissing passionately and doing God knows what with their hands.

As I entered the FDR Drive and headed south, I realized I was in no mood for this. A money-losing, half-hour ride to Brooklyn with two juveniles who have no regard for how their behavior affects other people, jumping all over each other the whole way to Brooklyn. And by pretending that I wasn't right there, three feet in front of them, reducing me to a non-human object that drives a taxicab.

Ugh.

This wasn't going to be merely a bad ride to Brooklyn. This was going to be an assault on my dignity and an endurance test of my tolerance. I gritted my teeth and started the process of suffering through it. But then, as I passed the 53rd Street exit of the parkway, I had a thought.

It was April Fool's Day... hmmm...

"Hey, have you guys heard the news?" I called back to them with a tone in my voice that demanded attention. Through the mirror I could see their heads, which had been joined together at the lips, come apart and their eyes stare blankly at the back of my head.

"President Bush has signed an executive order reinstituting the draft."

They both moved forward simultaneously and a slight space opened up between their shoulders. The guy wasn't sure he'd heard that right and asked me to repeat it.

"There's gonna be a draft, just like in the Viet Nam war. All men over the age of 18 are going to have to go into the army."

"What? Oh, my god!"

"Are you over 18?"

"Yes!"

"Oh, man, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this."

"But I'm in college. They don't take students into the army... do they?"

"What I heard on the radio was that there wouldn't be any exceptions. Unless you were like physically disabled or something, you know?"

"Oh my fucking god!"

Other than asking for some directions as we approached DeKalb Street 25 minutes later, I don't remember saying another word to them until the cab stopped in front of their building. I didn't have to say anything because the rest of the ride consisted of a lively conversation between the two of them about the pros and cons of the Iraq war, the armed forces in general, whether or not he should maybe go into the navy, why shouldn't the volunteer army be good enough to handle the conflict, what are we paying our taxes for, anyway, is Bush really deciding anything or is it just Cheney, why shouldn't females be drafted, too, and whether his father, who knows a lot of people, could possibly get him out of this mess.

Needless to say, this dilemma proved to be the antidote for youthful lust. And aside from the deep satisfaction I took in successfully diverting their attention, I drove across the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn without any introspection as to why it should be my fate to be reduced to role of servitude to a couple of disrespectful teenagers.

They stepped out of my cab after paying the fare and giving me a below-average tip and took a few steps in the direction of their place. I called out to them from my opened window.

"Hey, you know that thing I told you about the draft?" I said.

They stopped walking and turned to look back at me. "Yeah?" the guy replied.

"April Fool!" I shouted back with big smile on my face.

They looked at each other with expressions on their faces as if to say they couldn't believe they had swallowed the gag hook, line, and sinker. Then they broke out laughing.

And I drove off on DeKalb Street back toward the Manhattan Bridge in what might be called a state of ecstasy, thinking they really ought to make April Fool's Day an official national holiday.



Click here for Pictures From A Taxi. No joke!

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!

Characters

Some recent ones...

Sunday night, 3:48 am, 49th and Broadway. A twenty-something, good-looking female comes out of the Playwrights Tavern, gets in the cab, and we are headed for 79th between West End and Riverside. She has a nice, friendly space about her and it would be easy to have a conversation with her, but, as is the case so often these days, she is preoccupied with a cell phone conversation that was already in progress before she got in the taxi. Some kind of a late-night emergency is underway and she asks me in a polite way to get her there as quickly as possible.

There is virtually no traffic at this time of the night and I know where the green lights are, so within four minutes we have shot up the Henry Hudson Parkway to the 79th Street exit and have arrived at her desintation. But she directs me not to turn off the meter - another passenger is going to join us and then we will be proceeding to 88th Street between Columbus and Central Park West. Within a minute her friend, another twenty-something female, comes running out of an apartment building, crosses 79th Street, and jumps in the taxi.

Of course my curiosity has been aroused and I am wondering what the emergency is all about. I'm thinking it's most likely a romantic problem. The second girl is probably having boyfriend troubles and needs a shoulder to cry on. Or maybe it's a family crisis. Maybe she just got a phone call from her mother in San Diego and learned that her brother was in a car accident. Or maybe her dog is sick and she needs to get him to a vet. No, that couldn't be it - she doesn't have a dog with her. Maybe she realized she doesn't have any decent clothes to wear to work the next day and she wants to borrow something from her friend. No, who the hell would do that at 3:48 in the morning?

I find myself in full fly-on-the-wall mode with the radio off and my ears straining to hear what they're talking about (also known as "eavesdropping"). I have a feeling this is going to be a good one. And it is. The second girl, it turns out, was awakened from a deep sleep by something moving under her pillow and now is afraid to stay in her own apartment. So she's going over to her friend's place to spend the rest of the night. What was under her pillow?

A mouse!

She goes on to say that she's not sure if there's one mouse or more than one mouse but her attempts to kill it, or them, with mouse traps coated with peanut butter and chocolate syrup have failed. And now she's too freaked out to stay there.

When we arrive at 88th Street I tell them I couldn't help overhearing their conversation (which was fine with them) and I make the obvious suggestion: get a cat! The second girl says that, in fact, she is planning on "borrowing" the cat of another friend of hers. Which gets me thinking this could be a brilliant business idea - "Rent-A-Cat". Hmmm....


Monday night, 11:15 pm, Empire State Building. two young guys come out of the Empire State Building on 33rd and 5th, jump in the cab, and we are off to Greenwich Village. They turn out to be from Sweden and are in search of a bar I had never heard of, The Spotted Pig, at Greenwich Avenue and 11th Street. They tell me it was recommended to them by a customs agent at the airport which sounded like a weird source of information to me so I joke that it's probably a set-up for a drug bust. They wonder if I'm familiar with a band that's supposed to be playing there but I tell them my usual answer to the subject of popular music which is that I haven't been aware of anything new since the Beatles broke up. And, in fact, I'm still waiting for the Beatles to get back together again.

Well, I said the magic words. They are Beatles fans, big time. One of them is actually wearing a Beatles t-shirt and the other has a very cool Beatles belt on. AND they are members of a rock band called Like A John Needs A Yoko! I am blown away. How refreshing it is to meet a couple of guys who are about 30 years younger than I am and who know more about Beatles music than I do!


Their names are Jon (on the left) and Andy. You can hear some of their music if you click onto their link, above. I tell them my John Lennon stories (click on the "John Lennon" label below to read it) and a May Pang story I happen to have and they are truly a receptive audience.

It's too bad these guys are over twenty-one. I want to adopt them.


Tuesday night, 9:35 pm, 52nd and Broadway. Two thirty-something fellows and a sixty-ish woman, all from the U.K., squeeze into the back seat and are en route to the Marriott hotel in Brooklyn Heights. One of the gentlemen is the stage manager of a Shakespeare company that is performing The Taming of the Shrew at B.A.M. (the Brooklyn Academy of Music). We engage in a lively conversation about the show, his job, and the Bard, but it is something that the lady says that amazes me.

She mentions that she is from Wales but has never been to London.

I have been to London. Twice. And she has been to New York. But never to London. I didn't delve into how that could be - it seems incredible to me - but I found it to be fascinating. And it reminded me of another fare I had many years ago.

In 1986 I picked up a woman who was in her thirties who was accompanied by her mother, who was probably close to seventy. The daughter lived and worked in the city and was playing tour guide hostess for her mom, who was seeing New York for the very first time. What amazed me was that Mom was from New Hampshire, only a five or six hour drive away.

How could someone live their entire life so close to the greatest American city, the center of the universe, so to speak, and never think it worthwhile enough to come see it? I asked her why she had decided to come now.

"To see Liberace!" she said.

Indeed, the great showman was playing at Radio City Music Hall at the time. And it turned out to be his last appearance in New York, as he died a year later.

Timing is everything.

Click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

Television Interview

Well, I had my two and a half minutes of fame last week (I don't get the full fifteen). I did an interview for a television show called blogtv.sg that's produced in Singapore. It's a program about blog topics and bloggers which both goes out on the airwaves in Singapore and is also available online. You can see it yourself by clicking on the link at the bottom of this post.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from one of the shows staff, the friendly and efficient Jessica Yeo, which informed me what the show is all about. They were planning to do an episode about taxi drivers and, in doing their research, they found me.

I corresponded via emails with Jessica, who told me in advance what the questions they would be asking me would be and set up a time for an online conference using webcams. Now, pardon me if I don't yet take this in stride. It may have become business as usual for many of us to be able to see and hear people on the other side of the world, but I still think it's a miracle. Or some kind of black magic voodoo.

But unfortunately the voodoo wasn't working quite right that day as we ran into some transmission problems. First there was trouble getting a video connection and then, once that was straigtened out, the audio wasn't good enough for use in a tv broadcast. So what they did was take some video footage of me from which they later used a still image when they taped the show. Then they did the interview on the telephone and used the tape of my voice, after it was edited, on the program.

Overall the whole process was fun and really quite flattering. That they would find me and my blog worthy of being spotlighted did serve as a nice validation for what I do and I appreciated that very much.

Click here to watch the show. My interview is in Segment 3. The other two segments are about taxi drivers and taxi passengers in Singapore, and I think they're worth watching, too. It may take a minute or so to download. Click here to hear the unedited version of my conversation. (And to see my less-than-flattering picture.)

Hope you enjoy it!





And don't forget to click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

Sketches

Usually when I write a post I'm trying to make some kind of a point - choosing certain people or incidents which illustrate a theme - but I'm falling short of points to make right now, so here are some notes about some of the more memorable passengers who were in my cab last Saturday night, on March 10th.

Just some sketches, not complete portraits.

6:30 pm, from Grand Central Station to Hope Street in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn: a 40-something man tells me the address he's going to in Brooklyn is a house his father bought in 1952 and that he's lived in all his life. I immediately think how wonderful it must be to never have to worry about paying rent or a mortgage because about a third of the money I make goes to that cause, but I don't mention this to him. He tells me he is soon going to have the house, an old three-story building, demolished and a new structure with 2.4 times as much square footage built in its place. (2.4 times whatever the square footage is that already exists is the formula the city codes permit for tearing down one building and putting up another one, he told me, an interesting fact about the city that I didn't know.) He's going to put in one-bedroom apartments and rent them at the going rate ($1,500 per month) when it's done. Is he going to live in the building himself when it's rebuilt? He doesn't know. Where will he live while the construction is under way? Again, he doesn't know. He goes on to tell me that there are pitfalls involved in this project, particularly in the area of the funding. That if you're not careful and savy you can really be screwed. I see clearly that my passenger is not one of the sharks that normally swim in these waters - he's a straighforward and unpretentious man - and suggest that he should follow the advice of someone he already knows who may have some experience in this game. A nice guy, I wish him success.

7:04 pm, from Houston and 1st Street to Bleecker and LaGuardia Place: a couple in their 50s, en route to Kenny's Castaways, a honky-tonk bar in the Village. Through conversation I learn that the man is a retired fireman. He left the department in 2002 and was one of the heroic people who spent the month following Sept. 11 digging through the rubble in hope of finding survivors. And now he is paying the price. Polyps were found on his larynx and spots on his lungs. He discusses the treatments he is receiving for his condition and I ask if by any chance he knows a friend of mine who is also a retired fireman, John McCole. And he does! Small world! But he didn't know that John wrote a book, THE SECOND TOWER'S DOWN, about his own experiences at Ground Zero and his path to recovery from the ordeal. So I am able to recommend the book to him. He offers me has hand to shake, a gesture of kindness I find just a bit humbling because I have so much respect for this individual.

8:02 pm, from 43rd and 2nd to 23rd and 7th: a young couple en route to a comedy club. They can't figure it out themselves, so they ask me this question... what does it mean when they advertize the comedy club as having a "no drink minimum"? They are baffled by this. I tell them that a lot of clubs have a one or two drink minimum added on to the price of admission but this place doesn't. Thus, it's a "no drink minimum". Case closed. Smiles return to their faces.

8:54 pm, from 16th and Park to 157th and Riverside Drive. A married couple with their infant daughter. It takes a minute or two to buckle up the baby's car seat (smart move on their part) and we are on our way. They tell me the route they want to take: the FDR Drive to the 155th Street exit! My attention immediately goes onto the humiliation I described in my last post (I needed help from a man from Mexico to navigate the streets at this exit) and, as we head up the Drive, I explain to them what I had written, including the part about how either I was an idiot or the city was unfathomably huge. The young mother, who turns out to be a wiseass and completely on my wavelength, suggests that perhaps it's not a matter of either/or. Perhaps the city is, indeed, unfathomably huge and I am an idiot. To make matters worse, I have forgotten the route that the Mexican showed me and once again I need directions from my passengers. This time, however, I am taking notes. (If you want to see what the route actually is, look at the "comments" section of the last post.) As we approach their destination, I divert their attention from my incompetence by telling them I know the slogans on the license plates of all the states in the union. (Florida - "The Sunshine State", etc.) It's one of the few perks of this job, obtained from year after year of staring at license plates in traffic jams. They test me out with a few tough states and I pass with flying colors. They are delighted and have forgotten about the 155th Street thing. Even the baby seems happy.

10:35 pm, Perry Street and Hudson. I am hailed by a frat boy who then opens the back door and starts talking to his frat boy friends on the sidewalk. I sit there for over a minute before they decide they do not want a cab after all and then close the door without so much as saying a word of apology. I am infuriated and step out of the cab (a no-no) and announce to the group that they need to work on their manners. There is a moment where they were wondering if I was going to take a swing at one of them, but I just get back in the cab and drive away thinking how bad can it get to be my age and still having to put up with this shit.

12:51 am, from 58th and Madison to Van Dam and Varick. How bad can it get? My question is answered as three semi-drunk frat girls get in and demand that I turn my radio to 97.1 (hip-hop) and blast the volume. We get into a disagreement about it that starts to turn nasty before one of them suggests a compromise: turn the radio to one of the stations I like and blast the volume to that. I go along with that idea but still find the seventeen minute ride feels like an hour and a half.

12:57 am, from Van Dam and Varick to Union, New Jersey. My spirits pick up again as two perfectly nice girls jump in and negotiate a price for a ride to Union, NJ. I suggest $40.00 plus the Holland Tunnel toll to which they readily agree and we are off. As we we get through the tunnel, however, I realize why they were so agreeable about the price. I had thought they meant Union City, a much closer destination. Nevertheless, we ironed out what could have been a tense situation very easily, and they agreed to pay $65 for the ride. I am back in the city in just over an hour, so that was good money. I begin to think life ain't so bad after all.

3:05 am, from 6th Avenue and Bleecker to 48th Avenue and Vernon in Long Island City. Four thirty-somethings in the cab, with one of them sitting up front with me. I learn through a circuitous conversation that my front-seat companion and I went to the same high school! (Clarke High School in Westbury, N.Y.) I ask him to tell me the names of some of his teachers, as I'm wondering if any of the ones I had (twenty years earlier) could still have been there during his time. Oddly, though, he could only remember the names of two teachers, neither of whom I had myself. I find this strange because I could easily name twenty or more. Nevertheless, I think this is a wild coincidence.

But it gets me thinking. Earlier in the evening I had a passenger who knows my friend John McCole. And then I got another fare to that 155th Street exit, a destination I had been to a few days earlier and still had my attention on, but before that I hadn't used that exit in, what? -- five or six years. And finally there's this guy who went to my high school. It raises an age-old question: is it coincidence or is it karma?

Could be the subject of a new post...




Click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

The Monster City of the World

I suffered through two humiliations recently, both of them occurring in the same shift.

The first was at the hands of a 14-year-old boy who got in my taxi in the West Village and wanted to go to Montgomery Street in the Lower East Side and then gave me directions for how to get there. The audacity of a teenager assuming that his driver, who's been behind the wheel of a cab for twice as long as he's been alive, doesn't know how to get to his destination!

The second, a few hours later, was from a man from Mexico who instructed me on how to get to where he wanted to go, 155th Street and Lenox Avenue, from the 155th Street exit of the FDR Drive! Where does someone who's probably not even in this country legally find the gall to think that I, a native New Yorker, would not know such a thing?

Let me tell you something. What was humiliating was not that these two individuals would try to give me directions. That would be merely annoying. What was humiliating was that in both cases they were right! I didn't know Montgomery Street and the route from the 155th Street exit of the FDR to 155th and Lenox is quite tricky and I've never mastered it.

How could such a thing happen? How could someone who's been driving a cab for 29 years not know every single street in his own city? There are two possibilities:

1) I am an idiot.

2) New York is so huge it defies comprehension.

For the sake of my own self-esteem, we're going to go with number two.

New York is known by several nicknames - "The Big Apple", "The Melting Pot of the World", "The City That Never Sleeps" (but it does take cat naps, trust me). In a recent post I referred to it as the "City of Infinite Realities". I've got another one for you. It's a title I attach to the city in my own mind whenever I get a ride to the far reaches of one of the boroughs and find myself temporarily lost, as if I'd been swallowed by a whale and was now trying to navigate my way out of its intestinal tract. I call it "The Monster City of the World".

New York is a place that is unfathomably huge. It is so difficult to convey to a visitor the seriousness of this immensity that I usually find myself rattling off my favorite statistics:

- Over 6,000 miles of paved roads. That's the distance from New York to Los Angeles. And back.

- 770 miles of subway tracks. (Now there's a place you can get lost.)

- More than 100 miles of steam pipes under the streets.

- The "Over 200 Club": over 200 hotels, over 200 Starbucks, and over 200 McDonald's in the five boroughs.

- In excess of 17,000 restaurants overall.

- 13,087 yellow taxis. And more than double that number of other types of car service vehicles (limos, community car services, and corporate car services).

- If you took Brooklyn by itself it would be the 4th largest city in the United States. Brooklyn is bigger than Philadelphia.

- The population of New York is over 8 million. Add to that about another million visitors on any given day. The population of Ireland is 4 million. So the population of the city is twice the population of that country. Although I grant you that half the population of Ireland is already in New York, so that stat may be a bit misleading.

You get the idea. New York is huge, massive, gigantic, humungus, immense, enormous, and just staggeringly large. And that's not to mention big, big, BIG! The Monster City of the World. And I admit to taking some pride in knowing as much of it as I do. But do I know every street? No way - not even close. Hell, there are entire sections of the Bronx that I barely know at all. And Staten Island? Forget-abowt-it.

Which is why I will continue to feel a twinge of humility when some kid or a guy from another country assumes correctly that I need help in getting to his destination. Ouch!



Click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

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.

Undercover Taxi

Take a look at this picture. What do you see?

Good guess, but you're wrong! It's actually a police car.

I mentioned in my last post that the police activity I found myself in the middle of had vehicles of all types rushing to the scene, and that some of those vehicles were cars that look like taxicabs. This is one of them.

These "taxis" are used as undercover cars in general police work. You may see them cruising the streets as you would a regular patrol car or perhaps pulling over a motorist (they're equipped with flashing lights and sirens) who ran a red light or something. The cops are in plain clothes, not uniforms. I would guess there are about 20 of these cars in the city. I see them every day.

How can I tell? A very experienced eye can see certain differences at a glance. First off, there's the medallion number. (These are the four digits in the rooflight that are used to identify one cab from another.) If the first two digits are 6Y, it's always a police car. If the first two digits are 2W, it might be one. (Some are, some aren't.) Then there's the license plate. Real cabs have the four-digit medallion number there, too. As you can see in this picture, this car has a different set of numbers. Another thing is the black molding strip running across the doors. The Ford Crown Vic taxis that are in service today all have a yellow strip, not black.

The cops (there are always at least two in a car, sometimes more) who drive these vehicles never pick up passengers. They have meters, but they're always running. So another way of identifying them is to look inside, if you can, and see what the meter's total is. Very likely it reads some ridiculously high amount.

Seven hundred, twenty-five dollars and seventy cents. Plus the fifty-cents night charge. It's like a picture from taxi driver heaven. This is what we dream about!

Cops And Casting Directors

It's often been said that New York is a city of infinite variety but, to be more accurate, I prefer to say it's a city of infinite realities - infinite realities all jammed together in such a tight space that you are in a constant state of exposure to them. It can be amazing how quickly you may find yourself in an utterly different reality than the one you were in just moments ago.

No one knows this better than a taxi driver...

Last Monday night just before midnight I sat in front of Nobu's on 57th Street waiting for a fare. Two middle-aged women came out of the trendy, expensive Japanese restaurant and climbed in. One was going to Gramercy Park and the other on to the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. In overhearing some of their ebullient chatter I ascertained that there had been a party at Nobu's to celebrate the opening of the movie MUSIC AND LYRICS, a romantic comedy which premiered at the Zeigfield Theater in midtown earlier in the evening.

"Did you see Drew?" one asked the other.

"Not at the restaurant," replied her friend, "but she was sitting right in front of me in the theater."

After the first one was dropped off at 21st Street and 3rd Avenue, I kind of continued the conversation as if I'd been involved in it all along. I learned that my passenger was the casting director of the movie - she had made the decisions as to which actors would play which roles, including Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. I asked her various questions about casting and about this film in particular, and she was quite conversational, but I saved my big question until the end of the ride.

"So," I asked, "if you were casting me in a movie, what kind of role could you see me playing?"

"I don't know," she said, "I can't see your face."

I turned around and moved a bit to my right so she could see me clearly through the opening in the partition.

"A leading man!" she exclaimed.

I laughed out loud a bit past the time normally allotted for laughing out loud because this was a JOKE. I may be vain, but I'm not vain enough to imagine that with my oversized nose, bald spot, and baggy eyes I could ever be cast as a leading man in this lifetime. (Although, then again, there is Woody Allen. Hmmm....)

"No, come on, seriously," I said with a smile.

She took a better look. "I could see you as a teacher," she said. "You're an intellectual."

Well, I was happy with that! My feeling of self-esteem had been upped a notch and she left me with a big smile on my face (and a nice tip in my pocket) as she exited the cab and ascended the steps of her brownstone. I headed back to Manhattan on Atlantic Avenue and in eight or nine minutes I was gliding off the exit ramp of the Brooklyn Bridge, ready to find my next passenger, wherever that may be.

And then, in the blink of an eye, that city of infinite realities thing kicked in, big time.

It was a cop thing. As I headed west on one of my downtown routes (Worth Street), I noticed something only the experienced eye can perceive at a glance. There was police activity suddenly occurring, but it wasn't just any police activity - it was something big. Police vehicles - patrol cars, detectives' cars, even a few taxis that are actually undercover police cars - were appearing from all directions and they were moving faster and more erratically than they would under normal circumstances. There were sirens blaring north of me, south of me, east of me and west of me. Whatever was going on, it was big and I was in the middle of it.

I crossed through West Broadway on Worth Street just moments after a police car slammed to a halt on the north side of the intersection. The doors of the cruiser opened simultaneously and coming out of the vehicle was something I'd seen only three times in 29 years of taxi driving: cops with guns drawn.

You might think otherwise if you'd never been to New York City and the only thing you really knew about it were the things you'd seen in movies, but a cop with a gun drawn is an extremely rare sight here. I'm told most cops go through a twenty-year career without ever having drawn a weapon. It's not something that is done lightly.

I stopped the cab on the west side of West Broadway and tried to decide what to do. It was a safety versus curiosity dilemma. An officer holding a pistol in both hands was crossing the avenue and moving very carefully on foot toward a parking lot to my right, his body shifting from left to right as he tried to extend his range of vision. Oh, yes - I was in a dangerous place.

My digital camera, which I carry by my side at all times, has a video function which I've just lately been starting to play around with. A moment of truth was at hand: do I get the hell out of there or do I stay and take pictures? I knew it was a photo op that might never come again, but on the other hand there was the thought that I could be a paragraph in tomorrow's newspaper.

I went with some kind of journalist's instinct. I reached into my backpack on the seat next to me, pulled out my camera, and started fumbling with it.

I adjusted the control knob to "video" and tried to push the right buttons to get it going. It was one of those moments-seem-like-minutes time expansions: the cop with the gun was crouching down and pointing his gun at an SUV that was parked in the lot - I finally got my camera rolling and started pointing it at this cop and other cops with guns drawn - it occurred to me that this might not be such a great idea after all - the cop turned away from the SUV and looked at me - I put the camera down, thinking he might think I was pointing a gun at him - the cop shook his head at me (I realized a couple of minutes later that he thought I was a cop in an undercover taxi and the shake of his head meant there was nobody in the SUV) - I decided to get the hell out of there - I drove to Hudson Street and made a right.

That all took place in a span of about 20 seconds. Sorry to say, the video showed only blurred images, which is too bad because I would have loved to have been able to post it here. (I did learn one thing: you've got to be ready and you've got to be fast.)

My next passenger was waiting for me as soon as I turned onto Hudson. I drove him to Astoria in Queens and we had an interesting conversation about cops and photography.

Later in the night I looked at all this in retrospect. The shift in realities could be compared to changing channels on television. In the blink of an eye I had gone from romantic comedy (the casting director) to action flick (the cops). It was like YOU'VE GOT MAIL meets THE FRENCH CONNECTION.

New York City.



After reading all those words, what you need now is a picture. So click here!

The Ding

Bad karma is like bad weather. You're doing nothing out of the ordinary, or at least that's how it seems, and then suddenly out of nowhere - you're in it. One bad thing after another happens.

I had a shift like that recently.

First there was a woman who gave me a ten-cent tip on a $7.90 fare. She probably thought she was giving me a $1.10 tip but didn't notice that there is a one dollar surcharge added to the total on the meter during the evening rush hours (in this case, $6.90 + $1.00 = $7.90). That was no big deal but it annoyed me and most likely set me up mentally for the next bad thing.

Which was getting the finger from a pedicab driver. Pedicabs have multiplied like cockroaches in the city, even in the winter, and, although I admire drivers who provide their own horsepower, they are becoming a traffic nuisance. This one particular person was pedaling up 6th Avenue in a moving lane, apparently suffering from the delusion that he was a Chevrolet. So I tapped my horn. The guy, who had a face that looked like it belonged in a penitentiary, flipped me the bird and threatened to fuck me up but good. That was a first. So much for the thought that the pedicab drivers were just a bunch of swell, good-natured college kids.

But these incidents were merely preludes to the ding.

The ding. The dreaded ding. It's an occupational hazard for a cab driver and a big-city quality of life item for anyone who dares to drive a car into Manhattan.

The ding is when the door of one vehicle opens too widely and knocks into the door or fender of another vehicle.

They come in two varieties. One is the ding that happens when the owner of the dinged vehicle is not anywhere around. The other is when he is. In the first instance the handling is to say to yourself, "Oh, damn, that's terrible, gee, I'm sorry that happened". And then drive away. In the second instance you must actually confront and handle an angry human being.

Since I was having a bad taxi karma day it meant, of course, that the owner of the other vehicle was right there. Here's what happened...

I was waiting at a red light on 68th Street, facing Columbus Avenue, with no passengers in the cab. On my right was a black, expensive-looking SUV. A sixty-ish woman appeared from the sidewalk and walked toward me. Like when you can see an accident coming but are helpless to prevent it, I surmised immediately that a spatial problem was at hand. I was too close to the SUV and there was no room to move forward. Unless this woman opened the door of my taxi very carefully the potential existed here for a ding.

As she came closer my apprehension grew. Because I could now see, simply from her facial expression and demeanor, that she was not the open-the-door-very-carefully type. To the contrary, she appeared to be an old-fashioned, quintessential battleaxe. If Oscar the Grouch had a 65 year-old sister, this would be her.

And to add to the tension - considerably - I then noticed that a middle-aged man was sitting in the driver's seat of the SUV and he was watching this woman with the same apprehension that was impinging on me. Like a meteor that has been on a journey of a hundred million miles and is finally turning into a firey ball as it hits the atmosphere, a moment of truth was suddenly at hand.

The woman put her fingers on the handle of the right rear door... she pulled the handle up... the door began to open...

DING!

True to her character, she then climbed into the back seat and pretended that nothing had happened. The driver of the SUV - of course - jumped out in great alarm to inspect the damage. But then, acting on an instinct that I didn't really know that I had, I did something that turned out to be a karma-crusher.

I grimaced. And my grimace was noticed by the other driver. It was a facial expression that said, "I could see this coming but there was nothing I could do about it. Nevertheless, even though I have been victimized by the actions of a careless person, it is my responsibility."

My expression of pain actually made him sypathetic to my own plight and gave us both a common enemy. So when he noticed a smudge of yellow paint on his black door - although he could have made an issue of it - he dismissed it as no big deal and let me go on my way. But not before shaking his head and rolling his eyes as if to say, "Too bad you and I both have to live on the same planet with the moron sitting in your back seat."

I could feel the jaws of fate release me, no doubt to go off seeking fresher meat somewhere else. But I still had to deal with the black mass sitting in my back seat.

"What does he expect? I have to get into the taxi!" she barked.

"He expects the person opening the door to be careful not to put a dent in his car," I said with an edge in my voice.

"There was hardly any room!" she protested.

"It's one of the skills," I replied. The implication being as a veteran New Yorker she should know better.

"I have a bad leg! I need room!"

"Okay!"

The light turned green and we headed to Central Park West and then uptown toward her destination, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A minute of stony silence was suddenly interrupted by her angry voice propelling itself toward me from the rear.

"Well, why do these people insist on driving their cars into Manhattan? There's no room for their damned cars and they think they're too good to ride the trains!"

I realized by this time that there would be no point in arguing with her (since she was incapable of admitting that she'd done anything even slightly wrong), so I employed the same technique that is used on drunks who go on a rant about politics: I patronized her by agreeing with everything she said. You may say it was the coward's way out, but it was quite effective in getting us to the museum in peace.

I pulled up in front of the Met, where tourists were waiting at the taxi stand for a cab to arrive. She paid the fare and gave me a surprisingly decent tip and then swung the door open to its full length, very nearly knocking down my next passenger.

As I watched her make her way to the stairs that lead into the museum's entrance, it seemed that a storm system had left my cab and was headed into the building where so many of the world's art treasures are stored. I listened to the news the next day to learn how many Van Goghs and Cezannes had been destroyed, but, oddly enough, there wasn't any mention of it at all.

Click here for Pictures From A Taxi.

Art Buchwald Made Good Copy

A few days ago Art Buchwald, the American polical satirist, died at the age of 81. I had him in my cab once and, in recalling that ride, I realized there are two things I have taken from him and made my own.

His gloves and his umbrella.

Just kidding. The first was something he said to me in my cab. This ride occurred in December, 1980, and the reason I can remember its exact date is Ronald Reagan had been elected but had not yet been inaugurated. The conversation went something like this...

Me: What are you doing here [in New York City]? Aren't you supposed to be in Washington?

Buchwald: Nah, Washington's dead. Nobody's around 'til the inauguration.

Me: So what do you think of Reagan? Do you think he'll be a good president?

Buchwald: He'll make good copy.

"He'll make good copy." I've been using that phrase to describe anyone or anything that seems promising ever since he said that to me. I know it's a newspaper term that didn't originate with Buchwald, but that's how it got into my mind. I think we usually don't remember how something like this enters our consiousness, but in this case I do. It came from him.

The second thing was a writing thing. After having had this honor of transporting his butt from point A to point B, I started paying more attention to his columns and, in reading them, I came to recognize the basic form that the newspaper essay takes. First, a premise is stated. ("People act strangely when the moon is full.") Second, data is supplied to back up the premise. ("I saw old Jed flying a kite in the middle of the night and he was wearing Spock ears.") And third, the premise is re-stated, perhaps with a humorous twist, to end the essay. ("Yup, people sure do act strange when the moon is full. Excuse me - I've gotta go get my Spock ears back from Jed.")

A well-written essay in a blog uses this same format. It's how a point is made as opposed to wandering off in all directions.

I don't know if he invented this form - he probably didn't - but nevertheless I did gain my understanding of it from him. So that's two things I got from this guy.

And, you know, I do have a collection of gloves and umbrellas that people have left in my cab... hmmmm... does anyone know what size glove Art Buchwald wore?

The Wisdom of the Carrot

Every night one or two passengers, on the average, will tell me they're in a BIG rush. The implication (or direct message) being that I need to get them there FAST! Nothing wrong with that. I don't fault anyone for telling me what the situation is. 

But there's just one problem - it doesn't motivate me to do anything extraordinary to help them solve something that is their problem. I will just acknowledge what they said and drive them to their destination in the same way I would have driven if they hadn't said anything at all. But I won't run red lights, make illegal turns, or drive ten or fifteen or twenty miles per hour faster than I would normally drive. What they have failed to do is to tell me specifically what's in it for me. 

Now, some passengers will make the infamous statement that they will "take care of me" or will "make it worth my while". This promise is most often heard when five people are trying to squeeze into the cab (the rules say we can only take four and the driver could get a ticket if it's seen by a particularly mean-spirited cop). Experience shows conclusively that what follows this ride is an average or even a below-average tip. Thus a seasoned cabbie translates "I will take care of you" as "Hey, stupid fuck-head, I want you to go ahead and risk a fine and in exchange you will get nothing special." It's an insult. 

All of which leads me into what was last night's "fare of the night". It was the rare - and I do mean rare - person who understands that the best way for me to solve his problem is to tell me why it's in my own best interest to make it my problem. Here's what happened... 

 A twenty-something guy jumped in the cab at Grove Street and 7th Avenue South in Greenwich Village at exactly 11:51 PM. His destination was Fulton and Gold in the Financial District, a short ride that required knowledge of lower Manhattan's geography. I pulled out onto 7th Avenue South, quickly figured out the route in my mind, and told him how I intended to go. This was meant as a passing comment, not really requiring discussion, but it turned out my passenger was quite concerned about getting there as soon as possible and wondered if another route might be better. I told him the way I wanted to go was the best way (which it was), and then he said the magic words... 

 "My fiancee's birthday is at midnight and if you can get me there before then, I'll give you ten dollars over the meter." 

 Bingo! 

His problem became my problem. I immediately turned into a NASCAR racer, zig-zagging my way around the Holland Tunnel traffic, making the difficult and crucial green light at Canal Street, flying down West Broadway to Duane Street, catching the greens on Church and Broadway, circling around City Hall Park and somehow making the light at Beekman, and finally delivering my passenger to Gold and Fulton at 11:58. 

The fare was $7.80. He gave me a twenty and happily told me to keep it. But before he jumped out I acknowledged his brilliance by sharing with him this bit of information which I will share with you now...  

It took me nine years of taxi driving before I noticed how rare it was for someone to offer me a specific reward for doing something special for them. Once I became aware of this, I started to count the number of times it would happen and have kept this tally in my mind. That was twenty years ago. Counting last night, the number of times this has happened is... (drum roll, please)... EIGHT! That is correct. Eight times. Thousands and thousands of people have told me they are in a big rush and eight have had the wisdom to offer me a specific reward if I can solve their dilemma for them. 

I believe there is a huge life lesson to be learned here. 

Let's call it the wisdom of the carrot.

The Case of the Twisted Testicle

Are you a people-watcher? Do you ever look at people walking by on the street and wonder what they've been doing all day? In New York, with its endless stream of humanity shuffling by, this is a popular activity. Most people appear to be pretty much the same as each other, but what do they actually DO?

One of the great things about taxi-driving is that people plop themselves in your car and you have a chance of turning this idle daydream into a tour of someone's reality. And sometimes, once you know it, you think, "Who in the world could ever have guessed THAT?"

I had one of these the other day.

I was cruising up 1st Avenue, looking for my next fare, when I saw two people, a man and a woman, hailing me in front of New York University Hospital at 32nd Street. At first I thought they were together but as I approached them I could see that they were standing a bit of a distance apart and were actually in competition with each other for possession of my taxi. In these situations I will try to position the cab so that the rear door is an equal distance between them when I stop and then let them settle it (or fight for it) between themselves. I don't know who's been standing there the longest and I don't want to appear to be favoring one over the other.

Anyway, the man, a thirty-something, got in. And right away he had something to say about the woman he'd left behind. "Man, I hate that. She thinks because she's a woman that she has some kind of a right to the cab. She knew damn well I was out there first and she walked right in front of me."

"Oh, you were out there first? I couldn't tell."

"Bitch!"

This outburst led to a conversation about the etiquette of taxi hailing, which is basically an uncodified sector of human conduct. You can often see what someone's made of when he or she is trying to catch a cab because there are no social consequences involved. The assumption is that the other person is someone you will never see again. It's a situation that can bring out the worst in people.

My passenger was a veteran taxi-hailer and understood but didn't excuse the every-man-(or woman)-for-himself attitude that some New Yorkers display in the catching a cab crunch time. "Everybody's in a rush," he said, "but after being in surgery for six hours I'm not gonna stand there a let someone shove me aside."

"Oh, you're a surgeon?"

"Yeah."

"What's your specialty?"

"Urology."

Well, that was interesting, so I delved. I asked him some questions about what kind of surgery he'd been doing for six hours, thinking he'd probably tell me he'd been removing kidney stones or something. Instead, he told me this story...

My passenger had operated on a young man who'd had a twisted testicle. I immediately thought of some joke which I won't embarrass myself by repeating here, but my passenger would have none of it. He explained what the situation had been in a straightforward, professional manner.

The testicle had become twisted around itself in the scrotum and, because its supply of blood had been cut off, was in danger of dying unless corrected within a matter of hours. So this was actually an emergency. To make matters worse, the (female) anaesthesiologist, although aware of the situation, had decided to take a meal break, thus delaying the surgery and adding considerable tension to the matter. When she finally did show up, my passenger had words with her and told me he intended to report her. (Looks like he was having a bad female-karma day.)

The surgery, which consisted of untwisting the testicle and sewing it to the inner wall of the scrotum, was performed successfully. And my concern that here was yet another thing I needed to worry about was pacified by learning that the poor guy's runaway testicle was an unusual, genetic disorder.

Now I imagine myself sitting in a sidewalk cafe with a friend, watching the people who are strolling by. We amuse ourselves by guessing what these people may have been doing all day.

A muscular, young man wearing a hard hat walks by.

"Oh, he must have been working at a construction site," we say.

A woman with two small children at her side walks by.

"Oh, she must have been caring for the children," we say.

My passenger walks by.

"Oh, he must have been untwisting someone's testicle," we say.

The things you learn driving a taxicab.

More Fun With Street Signs

Here's a street in Tribeca that always asks a question...




This street, also in Tribeca, is for people who can't get to it on time...

When the married former mayor of New York, Rudy Guiliani, was having an affair with a woman on his staff, he ordered the street where she lived renamed in her honor...




Oh, all right, I lied. It's actually "Essex Street" in the Lower East Side.

A Pedestrian Thing

Last night I had a "thing on the street" that involved a pedestrian. I'll tell you about that in a moment, but first a few words about this group of people as a whole.

Pedestrians - I have no use for them. Really, what good are pedestrians to a taxi driver? If I don't already have a passenger in my cab, I see them as people who should be giving me some business. And whether I have a passenger in my cab or not, here is a whole segment of the population that slows me down when I'm trying to make a turn. A pox on them, I say.

The truth is, pedestrians in New York should be looked upon as tourist attractions. Many of them are daredevil lunatics, right up there on a level with people who jump off cliffs with an elastic cord tied around their leg. Admission could be charged for the privilege of seeing these people risk their lives for nothing.

An avenue with cars, buses, and trucks zipping by? Hey, man, I ain't gonna waste twenty seconds of my life waitin' for no light to change. I'm goin' NOW! And I'm gonna eat my fries while I do it.

Have you ever actually witnessed someone being hit by a car? Most people haven't, but I have, four times. It's a gruesome thing to see, even if it happens at a slow speed. But it gives you a healthy respect for the physics involved after you see a human body bouncing across the street like a rubber ball.

But most pedestrians here do not have that reality. The walk/don't walk signs are universally ignored. The majority of people will wait for the moving vehicles to pass by, but there is a growing contingent of fools who will just walk in front of cars on the assumption that they are seen and the car will stop.

I ran into one last night. Not literally, but almost. Here's what happened...

I picked up a fare, a middle-aged man headed for Penn Station, at 60th Street and 5th Avenue at 10:40 PM. I drove down 5th to 37th and made a right turn with the intention of catching the green at 6th Avenue and then proceeding through Broadway to 7th Avenue, making a left, and driving to Penn Station at 34th Street.

There were no cars in front of me on 37th Street, so making the light, which had just changed to green as I turned onto the street from 5th, was definitely possible. I picked up my speed to about 30 mph (the speed limit in NYC) and I could see as I got about three quarters of the way to 6th that pedestrians were crossing through their "don't walk" sign at the corner. Nothing unusual about that. So I sounded my horn as I approached to warn them that I was coming.

Everyone stopped - except one woman.

What happened, quite quickly, was a "this is my turf" confrontation. Like animals with territorial instincts, some people just won't give ground on the notion that this is sacred soil and it is mine. So she stopped in the middle of the crosswalk and stood there, daring me to run her over.

Now most people would say that was insane, even if she had the right of way, which she didn't. But it was worse than insane, it was criminal. Because she was holding in her hand the hand of a small child! She wasn't just sacrificing herself to the cause, she was taking her kid with her.

So, of course, I stopped. And then we had "words", since I had missed the green light and was now waiting on the red. What exactly those words were I could not say, not because I don't want to repeat expletives, but because we were shouting at each other at the same time and neither of us could hear what the other one was saying. Not that it would have mattered. This was not a person who was going to admit that there was even the slightest thing wrong about what she had done. And yet my passenger and I agreed that she should have been arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a minor.

God, sometimes I wish I was a cop.

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!

A Moderate Muslim

Tonight's fare of the night was a man in his 30s who approached my cab at 3 AM while I was waiting at one of my "strategic spots" in Greenwich Village. (A "strategic spot" is a certain place where I may just sit in my cab in order to "fish" for a fare when it is slow on the streets.) He came up to my window and asked me if I knew where a certain club was located (I think he called it the "Orchid Club".) I had never heard of it, so he elaborated by telling me it was a club for transsexuals.

I knew there was such a place just a couple of blocks north of where I was sitting, so I told him its location and, when I mentioned that there was always a "trannie" sitting on a stool out in front of the joint, it rang a bell with him and he was sure that was, indeed, the place he was looking for. I thought he would just walk off but instead, perhaps feeling guilty that I wasn't going to profit by being honest and helpful, he asked if I could drive him there. That was fine with me so he jumped in and we went for what amounted to merely a ride around the block.

Now what was interesting about this guy was that he mentioned that he was from Turkey. I know that Turkey is a Muslim country so right away the idea that a Muslim man would be going to a transsexual club struck me as fascinating. I had already gained his confidence by not invalidating him due to his choice of night clubs, so we could speak frankly. And we did.

He told me that he was, in fact, a Muslim, but (obviously) a moderate one. And this led to a discussion of which Muslim countries in the world would tolerate the presence of transsexuals. He said only in his own country, Lebanon, and Indonesia could such a thing be found. Morocco, he said, was liberal but not that liberal. Everywhere else - Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc, etc - forget about it. He went on to say that Turkey was by far the most moderate Muslim country in the world and that is why it is one of America's most important allies. An interesting thought.

With so much attention in the news these days about fanatical Muslims it was encouraging to me to meet someone who can consider himself to be of that religion but not feel compelled by it. Obviously this was a person who thinks for himself. In his own way, a breath of fresh air, in my opinion.

New Year's Eve

Driving on New Year's Eve is not like driving on any other night. It's in a category of its own. It's the night that every other busy night is compared to. New York, the city of people in motion, is in its highest gear. Anything can happen.

It went like this for me...

I started the shift at 5 PM at the garage on W. 44th Street. I was given 3G71, an old cab in good condition. The radio had good reception and the cup holder wasn't broken, as they so often are, so I was happy. After cleaning up the car and getting my trip sheet in order, I was ready to pull out and was struck by a feeling I get only on New Year's Eve. It's the feeling of being the pilot of a jet fighter that is heading out for battle. Not that I've ever been a jet pilot. But it must be the same.

There are three things to be careful about on this night. One, the traffic in the Midtown zone where Times Square is located. Two, drunks vomiting in the cab. And three, getting stuck in a the middle of an unruly crowd. (Sometimes known as "a riot".) Happily, I successfully avoided all of them and had a great night.

But I want to brag a bit and tell you this is not a matter of luck. It's a matter of experience. Where to avoid being. Who to avoid taking. And when to leave your meter on so the roof light stays off so people will think there's still a passenger in the cab and thus leave you alone, so you can get on a highway and get the hell out of the badass part of town you didn't want to be in in the first place. That all comes from experience.

In New York City New Year's Eve goes all the way to 5 AM and beyond. And the night can be divided into two distinct parts: before midnight, and after. Before twelve, no one is drunk and everyone is heading out to their party. Interestingly, there is a lull from 11:45 to 12:15 during which time it is impossible to find a fare. Everyone has gotten to their destination and no one is leaving, of course, until after "the ball drops". So instead of roaming the streets without a customer, I took a break and went over to Central Park West, parked the cab and watched the fireworks.


Not a bad way to bring in the year.

Then at 12:15 it starts again and gets busier and wilder as the night presses on. Soon everyone who gets in the cab is somewhat plastered and a cabbie finds himself in taxi driver heaven: dozens of people on every block desperately trying to get his services. It warms the heart, it does.

But, as I said, my night went smoothly. No one was too drunk. No one was particularly obnoxious, and thank God no one threw up. Most of my fares were just cheerful people having a good time. Three of them kind of stood out for me, all of them females.

The first, an elderly black woman, was going on a short ride early in the evening from 118th Street to 116th Street in Harlem to sing in the choir of her Baptist church. She said she does this every year and always has a great time. Her church is one of churches in Harlem where tourists come to hear gospel music and she told me they are sometimes so crowded they have to turn people away. This woman was so wholesome and connected to her community that it made an impression on me.

The second was my last fare of 2006. A young lady, probably not even 30 years old, coming from New York Hospital on the Upper East Side to 79th Street on the West Side just before midnight. She told me she was a doctor who'd been on call at the hospital for the last 15 hours. What kind of a doctor? A psychiatrist, she said. Well, I don't want to offend anyone, but ever since I saw my cousin's life destroyed at the hands of psychiatrists, I am not a fan of the profession. Nevertheless, we had a polite conversation and I asked her the question I always ask psychiatrists who get in my cab. "What's your definition of 'the mind'?" I asked. (I once had a psychiatrist tell me, as if it was a secret just between him and me, that "no one knows what the mind is". Ever since then, my question persists.) She struggled with this for a bit, saying "that's a good question". Finally, she answered. "It's where the intellect resides," she said. Oh, okay, that clears that up. (P.S. Find me one cardiologist anywhere in the world who has difficulty telling you what "the heart" is.)

The third memorable ride of the night was a blonde in her thirties going straight up 1st Avenue from 34th Street to 60th Street at around 1 AM. She said she was feeling ill with a congested nose and other symptoms but had to go to a friend's house for her traditional black-eyed pea soup which she has every year on New Year's Eve for good luck. And now she just wanted to go back home to sleep it off because she has to be in L.A. tomorrow for work. "What kind of work do you do?" I asked. I noticed a sly smile appear on her face in my mirror and I knew this would be good. "I'm an adult film performer," she said. Her name was Houston and she specializes as the middle-aged mother the teenage boys get their hands on. "I can't give blow jobs with my nose stuffed up," she said. "You've got to be able to breathe through your nose!"

Who knew?

When I finally called it a night close to 6 AM I had grossed my highest ever and, just as important since I'm always on the lookout for omens, I had a good feeling about 2007. I'm predicting a good year.