tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-159140282024-03-13T14:17:58.402-04:00New York HackPictures from a New York City cab driver.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-12653261394331395972008-06-24T12:24:00.005-04:002008-06-24T13:11:55.237-04:00Anyone there?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/SGEmI4k5UGI/AAAAAAAAAGY/tnUdTiC-B4U/s1600-h/IMG_3812.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/SGEmI4k5UGI/AAAAAAAAAGY/tnUdTiC-B4U/s400/IMG_3812.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215491777539690594" /></a><br />I don't know if anyone still reads this blog -- and I'm sure some people will be pissed because all I do on it now is promote my book or whatever -- but it would be a shame if I didn't come here to announce that the paperback of HACK was released today. There's even a picture of my face on the cover (not my idea, but I didn't have too much of a choice). Anyway, I'm pretty proud of it, and I hope you will all enjoy it if you never got around to getting the hardcover.<br /><br />I guess while I'm here, I'll give a little update. If you're reading this, you're aware that I don't really write on this blog anymore. And there's a reason for that. Or a lot of reasons, actually. One is that I don't drive the cab as much anymore -- I'm burned out. There are so many things I love about being a cabbie -- primarily the people and the adventure, the unpredictability of each shift, and the endlessly fun game of discovering unusual places in New York -- but there are also a few things I could never come to terms with, like traffic and accidents and all the abuse that is so regularly heaped on New York's cabbies. This is why I stay away when I'm not desperate for cash. <br /><br />But that's the other beauty of cab-driving: you can pick up a shift when you need some fast money, and chances are, you'll make a few dollars. Which is why I drive every now and then, but not very often.<br /><br />The thing is, I never thought about any of this as a forever sort of deal. I knew when I started this adventure that I would drive the cab until I didn't want to anymore, and the same goes for the blog. <br /><br />I keep my hack license current for the same reasons I keep the blog online, because who the fuck knows what will happen? Maybe one day I'll need to go back to driving as my main source of income. And maybe one day I'll again have something I want to put out there via blogspot -- and hopefully when that happens, like now, there will be someone left somewhere that gives a shit.<br /><br />That all being said, I can still bring one small dispatch from the taxi world, via my old-time cabbie buddy Bob. I was walking down Bushwick Avenue Friday night (because, didn't I mention? I'm a hooker now)(just kidding), when I heard my name being called from across the street. It was Bob, sitting in the front seat of his cab, having just dropped off somewhere in the neighborhood and on his way back to where the hipsters are.<br /><br />He went off-duty and we talked for over an hour. He told me that the gas prices are killing everyone -- taking away another $15 to $20 a night, bringing the fees up to near $200. He also told me that business is dead-slow now too, so everyone's doubly fucked. But he's still hustling, sometimes taking breaks to do some Yoga mid-shift (smart guy -- I need to learn from him) and doing his best to stay healthy. Another friend of ours isn't doing so well -- he got cancer and can't make it back to work. Also, Billy, the guy who used to pee himself, is apparently off the streets for good. Some sad shit, right there. <br /><br />While sitting in his cab, he pointed out some relatively new apartment buildings on Bushwick Ave and said, "See those buildings there? Back in the '80s this used to be a giant abandoned lot filled with homeless people. It was like a tent city. And around the corner, on Johnson and Morgan, there's a traffic island there that used to be the biggest open-air drug market in the city."<br /><br />These areas, for those who don't live in the city, have been deeply gentrified and are now brimming with artists, hipsters, post-grads, and nouveau yuppies. <br /><br />Bob continued, a little mystified, "It's crazy how this neighborhood has changed."<br /><br />I love seeing the city through Bob's eyes, along with some of the other old-time drivers. <br /><br />Another buddy of mine from the garage -- who shall not be named to protect his marriage -- sends me picture messages practically every day of girls showing him their tits in the back, and sometimes the front, of his cab. What the fuck man? Why didn't that shit ever happen to ME?<br /><br />Anyway, that's about it. I hope you're all doing great.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/SGEmIrqOTJI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/Hjsz5gPRCf4/s1600-h/HACKpbcover.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/SGEmIrqOTJI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/Hjsz5gPRCf4/s400/HACKpbcover.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215491774072376466" /></a>M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com207tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-78002896181213627502007-10-23T11:07:00.000-04:002007-10-23T11:12:01.558-04:00Strike TwoFrom today's <i>New York Times</i>:<br /><blockquote><br />October 23, 2007<br />NYC<br />Something Money Can’t Buy<br />By CLYDE HABERMAN<br /><br />Like all labor disputes, the one-day strike by taxi drivers yesterday turned on tangible matters, in this case credit card machines, global positioning systems and the like. But it was also about an intangible, something that cabbies often feel they are denied. It is called respect. It is called dignity.<br /><br />“It’s 100 percent about respect,” said Jahangir Alam, one of a couple of hundred drivers who rallied in protest yesterday outside the Lower Manhattan offices of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission. “There’s no respect for cab drivers. As a driver, you have no control. It’s like I’m a slave.”<br /><br />Mr. Alam’s feelings were shared by others at the afternoon rally. Again and again, the two words — dignity and respect — came up in conversations and in labor leaders’ speeches.<br /><br />“They never go to the drivers to ask what we want,” John McDonagh said of city officials. Mr. McDonagh said that he has driven a cab on and off since 1977. He gives the job a rest now and again, he said, “to reclaim my humanity.”<br /><br />It will be left to others to decide whether the strike was the unqualified success claimed by its organizers or the dismal bust preferred by City Hall. Either way, New York’s technophilic mayor seems unlikely to change his mind about the new gizmos that he wants in taxis.<br /><br />It was hard to see how effective any work stoppage of preset length could be; most New Yorkers can survive without taxis for 24 hours and not break into cold sweats. The drivers were also not helped by the de facto strikebreaker role that City Hall played.<br /><br />To help maximize taxi availability, it allowed drivers who worked yesterday to charge special rates that gave them more money than usual. Those rates amounted to “a bribe” for scabs, said Graham Hodges, a history professor at Colgate University who was once a cabby himself and recently wrote “Taxi! A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver” (Johns Hopkins University Press).<br /><br />“The people who do this job are desperate,” Professor Hodges said. When an incentive like yesterday’s special fares comes along, “you don’t have to be a Marxist to understand that that will breed strikebreakers.”<br /><br />Obscured by the to-ing and fro-ing over the new machines is a more basic point, namely that many drivers feel like serfs, and maligned serfs at that.<br /><br />Recent immigrants for the most part, they perform a tough, lonely duty that few native Americans want to do anymore — even those Americans who are perpetually out of work. “These people work like sharecroppers,” said Edward G. Rogoff, a Baruch College professor who has studied the taxi industry. “They take the risk. They do all the worst work, and relatively speaking, they don’t get much reward for it.”<br /><br />What they get instead is a steady diet of being portrayed in corners of the press as nothing but fare gougers. They are the butt of lame David Letterman jokes. They run into the borderline racism of a tabloid column that referred contemptuously last week to a generic “crazed, Tagalog-speaking cabbie.” They put up with slanderous labels like one slapped on them in 1998 by the Giuliani administration, which called them “taxi terrorists” for daring to assert their right to protest city policies.<br /><br />They endure brain-numbing innovations that only City Hall suits can devise, like those maddening Elmo messages of a few years ago, the ones that screamed at passengers to buckle up and take their belongings.<br /><br />Now we have a new requirement that drivers accept a credit card system that forces them to pay an unheard-of 5 percent fee on each transaction.<br /><br />They must also install, at considerable expense, G.P.S. technology that is in no way designed to help them navigate city streets. What it can do, in the spirit of Elmo, is blare enough commercials all day long to make anyone batty. If these devices malfunction, as some inevitably will, drivers must get them fixed fast or find themselves effectively forced off the road.<br /><br />Granted, some cabbies are their own worst enemies. They could win a lot of friends by paying more attention to passengers and ditching their cellphones, which far too many of them use while driving, in violation of city rules.<br /><br />But a more fundamental concern yesterday was those two little words. They kept surfacing, as they did in a speech at the rally by Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council. “This is never about money,” he said. For the drivers, he said, “we demand dignity and respect.” </blockquote><br />I couldn't have said it better myself.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com78tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-30560506324662804072007-10-16T10:23:00.000-04:002007-10-16T11:48:51.976-04:00Hi! How've you been?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RxTdJuWrN8I/AAAAAAAAAGA/jSIQZ7Rbpxs/s1600-h/IMG_3041.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RxTdJuWrN8I/AAAAAAAAAGA/jSIQZ7Rbpxs/s400/IMG_3041.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5121961835358795714" /></a><br />I've been hesitant to post here lately, mainly because I've been too busy for the past two months promoting the book (which is, of course, available for purchase using the handy little Amazon link to the right, hardy har har). And I certainly don't want to let anyone down, but I have to say, if blogging paid the bills, I'd probably do it a lot more. Writing this blog has indeed given me so much, but the truth is that for the past year or so, the book advance and some overdue settlement money from a long-ago accident are what's helped me get by, with some supplemented income from driving a cab. Call me selfish, but this is the way it is. I live in <i>New York</i>, for fuck's sake.<br /><br />Still, I've been extremely lucky. For the past two months, I've been doing non-stop interviews to get the word out about my book. I was really happy that people were so interested, but it was weird and exhausting running around like that, answering the same questions over and over and over. Eventually, I got used to it. Plus, it was easier than driving a taxi! In fact, it wasn't totally unlike those long shifts when every single passenger that got in my backseat quizzed the shit out of me with the same exact list of questions ("How'd you get into this? Where'd you grow up? How old are you? What's it like to drive a taxi? What's next?").<br /><br />What's funny is that I was being asked about driving a taxi so much that I had no time to <i>actually</i> drive a taxi. The side-effect of all this, however, was that after a little while, I needed a little break from thinking about, talking about, and -- yes -- writing about the damn taxi business. Which is another part of why I neglected this blog so badly.<br /><br />Of course, I still find the job fascinating, and I find myself always coming back to it, no matter how hard I might try to get away. In fact, I just finished reading a great book about the history of the taxi industry in New York. I highly recommend it -- it's called "Taxi! A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver" by Graham Russell Gao Hodges. It really put me in my place, in a good way.<br /><br />But, despite my obvious addiction to all things taxi, I'm finally working up the nerve to move on to other things. This whole thing, driving a cab in New York, started in the spirit of seeking out adventure. There was no intention to start a blog or write a book or do a hundred interviews and somehow become the spokesperson for an industry I only entered three years ago. And there was never any intention to make a career out of it and do it forever. I want to hang on to that original mindset for the next thing I do and not worry about all the other stuff, because then it feels like a trap.<br /><br />Of course, I'm still working on deciding exactly <i>what</i> my next step will be, but I'm so excited by the idea of embarking on a brand new adventure. I've got a few ideas that I'm kicking around, but I'm not ready to talk about anything just yet.<br /><br />And lastly, I haven't <i>totally</i> quit driving a cab. I don't think I ever will, to be perfectly honest. Now that the journalists are bored of me, I can pull a normal shift again if I need the cash. Which will be soon. And <i>then</i> there will be something to blog about.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-89151379513834804432007-09-13T14:12:00.000-04:002007-09-13T14:46:00.080-04:00The best night ever<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/Rul-Kj2x8cI/AAAAAAAAAFs/pxXmLcSbJIU/s1600-h/bnwindow.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/Rul-Kj2x8cI/AAAAAAAAAFs/pxXmLcSbJIU/s400/bnwindow.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109753972117336514" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/Rul-KT2x8bI/AAAAAAAAAFk/u6KhjRbKAp0/s1600-h/IMG_1260.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/Rul-KT2x8bI/AAAAAAAAAFk/u6KhjRbKAp0/s400/IMG_1260.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5109753967822369202" /></a><br />I had an amazing night on Tuesday. So many people came out and the store sold out of my book! The whole thing was pretty damn special. A few cabbies came out, one regular passenger was in attendance, lots of friends and family, and even a bunch of people I didn't know showed up. The room was packed, all the chairs were filled, and there were crowds of people standing in the aisles! It was probably one of the best nights of my life so far.<br /><br />And I get to do it again next week! If you missed this event, or liked it so much that you want more, come see me read a whole different section of the book next Tuesday, September 18th, at 7:30 at the Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn (267 7th Avenue). Brooklyn people: Come out and represent!<br /><br />In the meantime, something else amazing happened on Tuesday: I had the honor of reading an essay of mine on NPR's "All Things Considered." You can read it -- and listen to it -- <b><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14323800" target="_blank">by clicking here</a></b>.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com48tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-82908967866027599862007-09-10T11:23:00.000-04:002007-09-10T11:58:05.269-04:00Come celebrate with me!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RuVlhcxbw-I/AAAAAAAAAFc/LuLnKagb-kg/s1600-h/hack_invite.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RuVlhcxbw-I/AAAAAAAAAFc/LuLnKagb-kg/s400/hack_invite.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5108600977655317474" /></a><br />Please come celebrate with me tomorrow night! I'll be reading from the book at Barnes & Noble in Greenwich Village, located directly across the street from my favorite late-night cabbie hot dog place, Gray's Papaya. <br /><br />There will be a party immediately following, from 8 to 10, at a place appropriately called Happy Ending. It's at 302 Broome Street, between Forsyth and Eldridge, near the Delancey F and Essex J/M/Z trains. There will be drink specials. <br /><br />I'll also be reading again next Tuesday, September 18th at the B&N in Park Slope, Brooklyn (7th Ave). It'll be all different material, so it'll be worth it to come to both if you can. <br /><br />I hope you can all make it!M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-58978070714406056952007-09-06T08:56:00.000-04:002007-09-06T09:52:50.777-04:00Strike!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RuAFh8xbw3I/AAAAAAAAAEk/_H9YYEiJNYc/s1600-h/IMG_2878.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RuAFh8xbw3I/AAAAAAAAAEk/_H9YYEiJNYc/s400/IMG_2878.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5107088058245432178" /></a><br />There's a taxi strike going on in New York right now. Some cabbies are indeed working, but there are plenty who are off the streets until tomorrow at 5:00 AM. I hope, at the very least, that all the media attention helps our cause a tiny bit.<br /><br />I'm reprinting here the op-ed I wrote that was published in the City section of last Sunday's <i>New York Times</i>.<br /><blockquote><br />September 2, 2007<br />Op-Ed Contributor<br /><br /><b>An Unwanted Passenger</b><br />By Melissa Plaut<br /><br />DRIVING a taxi in New York City can be a grueling, thankless job. It is also a unionless job. But on Wednesday, many of the city’s 44,000 licensed cabdrivers are planning to go on strike for 48 hours to protest the new global positioning systems being installed in the city’s 13,000 yellow cabs.<br /><br />While the Taxi and Limousine Commission supports these devices and has mandated that they be up and running in the city’s entire fleet by January, many cabdrivers — myself included — see this new technology as one big expensive headache. Perhaps the commission should listen to cabdrivers before pushing a device that we’d be better off without.<br /><br />The device has no navigational abilities. The monitor, which is set into the partition separating the driver from the passenger, cannot be seen or accessed from the front of the cab. It does not give directions or plot routes. All it does is keep track of where you are — both on- and off-duty — and this information is then stored in the commission’s databases.<br /><br />Officials at the commission say the primary purpose of the devices is to track lost property and make sure cabbies aren’t taking passengers from point A to point B by way of point Z. Sadly, there are some bad cabdrivers out there who take visitors for a “ride,” but in reality, we have much more to fear from our passengers than they have to fear from us.<br /><br />However, for me and many of my fellow drivers, privacy issues aside, it’s all about money. With prices ranging from around $3,250 to $4,000 to lease and install each unit, the initial costs alone are enough to drive some cabbies out of business. For private owner/operators, this could kill their year.<br /><br />The costs continue to pile up after the devices are installed. The test drivers who already have the touch-screens have reported finding the monitors covered in spray paint, stickers, soda and scratches.<br /><br />Even without vandalism, the technology is likely to break down. New computers are often plagued with bugs, and sometimes, as every cellphone user knows, satellites can lose their signals. Because these G.P.S. devices will be linked to the taximeters, when the screen is vandalized, the computer breaks down or the satellite connection is unavailable, the meter won’t work. The driver will be forced to go off-duty and bring the car in for repairs. In a business where lost time equals lost pay, this is unacceptable.<br /><br />One fleet already using the system recently lost its satellite signal, putting about 250 cabs out of commission for nearly three hours until the problem was resolved. This translated not only into fewer available cabs on the streets, but also lower incomes for those already beleaguered cabbies.<br /><br />For drivers like me who lease our cabs from privately owned fleets, there isn’t the burden of paying for installation or repairs upfront, but the costs may still be passed on to us in the form of “surcharges” or “tax fees.” However the extra costs will be labeled, it boils down to the same thing: our expenses go up; our income goes down.<br /><br />The only potential benefit for passengers I can see in these machines is the credit card slide. Matthew Daus, chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, is happy to tell anyone who will listen that our tips are better as a result of this, but I beg to differ. Drivers have to pay a hefty 5 percent transaction fee while most stores and restaurants are charged an average base rate of about 2 percent. So those “bigger tips,” if they exist at all, simply don’t cover the costs. And since most cabs already have the ability to take credit cards, what’s the point of installing a whole new system?<br /><br />The bottom line is, once we’ve installed the G.P.S. device, paid for its maintenance, ponied up for repairs and shelled out the transaction fees, what most cabbies will be left with is, in effect, a pay cut. The fare increase in 2004 just barely caught our incomes up with inflation, bringing us to just this side of a livable wage. We should not have to pay that back now.<br /><br />By turning a deaf ear to the opinions and expertise of taxi drivers, the commission has approved a design for an impractical and costly device that ultimately does not provide any useful “service enhancements” to the public. So when cabdrivers go on strike this week, we can only hope that New Yorkers will stand with us in solidarity.<br /></blockquote><br />There are plenty of other reasons and arguments that I didn't have the room to include. Yesterday's Metro NY newspaper was one of only a few to hint at the relationship between the companies providing the systems and the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC):<br /><blockquote>One of the firms providing the devices is owned by Ron Sherman, president of an association of garage owners. That firm’s vice president is Jed Appelbaum, a former TLC commissioner.</blockquote>Hmph. Interesting.<br /><br />Another NYC cabbie blogger, G.S. over at <a href="http://cabsareforkissing.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Cabs Are For Kissing</a>, has this to say, among other things:<br /><blockquote>I think it was in 1979 that a city ordinance turned all taxi drivers into "independent contractors". This meant that if you worked out of a fleet garage you were no longer an employee, you were "self-employed" (and the fleets were no longer responsible for any benefits). Instead of paying drivers by percentages of the money they booked plus tips, the drivers now had to pay the garage a leasing fee for the use of the taxi for 12 hours, plus pay for the gas. There was no cap set on what the garages could charge (until recently, which is a good thing), so the only limit the garage owners had on their fees was by attrition of drivers. Busy nights when there were more drivers available meant higher leasing fees. And a cab driver found himself working six hours before breaking even.<br /><br />Now here is the part that I consider to be a fundamental injustice: although the city made all taxi drivers "independent contractors" it retained the right to tell us what we can charge for our services. This is a blatant hypocrisy. How can anyone be an independent contractor when he can't charge what the market will bear for his services? How "independent" is that?<br /><br />So it's phony. Taxi drivers are not independent contractors at all. We are actually employees who get no benefits.<br /><br />But wait. It gets worse.<br /><br />One would think that if the city government is going to create a taxi system that is unorganizable and then is going to mandate what we can charge for our services, a sense of fair play would ensure that the drivers are able to make a decent living. And be very diligent in increasing the rate of fare at timely intervals to keep up with inflation.<br /><br />But the history over the last 29 years shows that the opposite is the case. We went from 1980 to 1987 (7 years) without a rate increase. We went from 1990 to 1996 (six years) without a rate increase. We went from 1996 to 2004 (8 years) without a rate increase. And during those years I was told very frequently by passengers in my cab that taxis in New York are much cheaper than in any other city they travelled to, reports that were verified repeatedly through all these years by industry journals and the NY Times.</blockquote><br />What the city keeps saying is that we have to pay the 2004 rate increase back now. Apparently they only gave it to us to pay for these stupid, useless machines that we don't want.<br /><br />This new technology could've been really cool, but it is being implemented in the worst and most expensive way. A good navigational GPS device costs about $500. Why do we have to pay $4000 for a system that doesn't even help us find our way when we're lost?<br /><br />The taxi industry in New York is so fucked up, it's depressing. But the saddest thing of all, in my opinion, is discovering just how much the city disdains its cab drivers. Mayor Bloomberg talks about us with the utmost condescension, like we're all simple fools who know not what we do. It's offensive. <br /><br />Rather than paying attention to what we have to say, he's been painting this work stoppage as our effort to "hurt" the city and its residents. We are <i>not</i> terrorists -- though sometimes we may drive like we are! No, rather, we are people who work under third-world sweatshop conditions in one of the richest, most sophisticated cities on the planet. But our billionaire mayor has always held a low opinion of New York's working people, so why should we expect any support from him now?<br /><br />If the city displayed any faith in us at all and actually tried to improve our working conditions, our morale -- and our driving -- would also improve, and then there would be no need for such derision and no need for a strike.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-42126258016665294082007-08-29T15:20:00.000-04:002007-08-31T09:24:46.716-04:00"Hack" + a shitty gold sedan<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RtXHSsKg7FI/AAAAAAAAAEU/xYd1U2-Eryk/s1600-h/IMG_2884.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RtXHSsKg7FI/AAAAAAAAAEU/xYd1U2-Eryk/s400/IMG_2884.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5104204876601158738" /></a><br />The book finally went on sale yesterday!!! Of course, I went to the store and bought myself a copy for good luck. I'm so psyched.<br /><br />In the meantime, there was a big USA Today story about me and the book. It can be read <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2007-08-27-literary-cabbie-cover_N.htm"_blank>here</a>. <br /><br />You can buy the book by clicking the Amazon link on the right of this page, or go to your local bookstore. <br /><br />Thank you everybody! The past few days have been amazing, and it wouldn't have happened without the readers of this blog.<br /><br /><br />In other news, I pulled a shift Monday night (yes, I worked the night before my book went on sale) and this asshole in a shitty gold sedan (seen in the pic below) cut off all of Second Avenue, from right to left, so he could turn east, forcing about six drivers to stop short and almost causing a series of accidents. I figured I'd post his pic for old time's sake. Enjoy!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RtXK1sKg7GI/AAAAAAAAAEc/txnPunNbhLQ/s1600-h/IMG_2871.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RtXK1sKg7GI/AAAAAAAAAEc/txnPunNbhLQ/s400/IMG_2871.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5104208776431463522" /></a>M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com50tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-14933676937807394172007-08-22T17:09:00.000-04:002007-08-22T17:13:30.896-04:00The Human Computer<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RrNE2huiz0I/AAAAAAAAAD0/iXdrOkeRpOc/s1600-h/humancomputer.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RrNE2huiz0I/AAAAAAAAAD0/iXdrOkeRpOc/s400/humancomputer.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5094491307043376962" /></a><br />As part of maintaining a hack license, every three years cabbies have to attend a 6-hour defensive driving course. With September 11th being -- among other things -- the third anniversary of me becoming a cabbie, I recently took the class at my old taxi school, LaGuardia Community College's Taxi and For-Hire Vehicle Driver Institute. <br /><br />Of course, six hours is a long time to sit in a classroom and I wasn't looking forward to it, but when I got there at 9:00 AM, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I knew the teacher. His name was Jim and he briefly had a great taxi blog of his own a while back but he took it offline for reasons unknown. Jim was a good, lively teacher, but that didn't make the day of traffic questionnaires and outdated videos go by any quicker. The boringness was only made worse by the fact that the classroom they had assigned us on this hot day in August was too small and the 20 or so guys (plus me) had to pack in there like sardines. Needless to say, the room smelled pretty ripe by 4:00 PM.<br /><br />Over the course of the day we discussed such topics as the speed limit and why it matters, the effects alcohol has on the reflexes, and whether or not we thought of ourselves as good drivers. We also watched a couple of movies about road rage. <br /><br />But really, the shining moment of the day was meeting a big Russian cabbie who called himself "The Human Computer." This guy had been driving a cab for ten years and his unique gift was that, if you told him your date of birth, he could instantly calculate which day of the week you were born on.<br /><br />On one of the breaks, he took the opportunity to show us all a laminated <i>New York Times</i> article about himself that he'd brought along, and then he demonstrated his talent on each person in the room. When he got to me, he said in his thick Russian accent, "September 1st, 1975? --Have a happy Monday!" <br /><br />Then he continued, "Now you tell me the birthday of your first, second, and third husbands, and I tell you which day they have." When I answered that I wasn't married, he said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I have very bad news for you: All good things must come to an end!"<br /><br />Eventually, the million hour class came to its own end and I drove home with the knowledge that cars are dangerous weapons and I was born on a Monday.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-69077762861246083682007-07-26T12:19:00.000-04:002007-07-27T12:23:05.235-04:00Perfectly legal<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RqjDehuizvI/AAAAAAAAADM/vMBRdf-1inE/s1600-h/IMG_2605.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RqjDehuizvI/AAAAAAAAADM/vMBRdf-1inE/s400/IMG_2605.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5091534307959426802" /></a><br />I was in LA for a few days last week meeting my seven week old niece and playing with my two and a half year old nephew. I didn't do too much, but when I did go out, I drove my sister's minivan -- a big-ass Honda Odyssey complete with two baby seats and a great navigation system. <br /><br />Every time I drove this thing, I had to go very very slow so that I could pay attention to the navigation system and figure out where the hell I was going. This, I'm sure, annoyed the shit of many a native LA driver. I most certainly slowed a lot of people down, and generally, when in New York and stuck behind someone like that, I myself have no sympathy. <br /><br />But the most amazing thing -- and I never cease to be surprised by this no matter how much time I spend out there -- is that <i>no one honked</i>. Not one single person. Not even when the light was green for well over thirty seconds and I still didn't move, or when I was going 20 in a 40 trying to find the right street to turn on. Nobody got out and punched my window, no one gave me the finger. I didn't even get so much as a dirty look. It almost makes me want to move there.<br /><br />Of course, the minute I got back to New York trouble found me. I landed at Kennedy Airport late Friday night and had to take a car service home. I over-thought the idea of taking a yellow cab, weighing which route would be better for me and which route would be better for the driver (basically, cheaper and more direct versus faster and more expensive) and decided I'd just use a car service based out of my neighborhood so I wouldn't have to direct him. I often find it very uncomfortable to ride in the back of a yellow cab ever since I started driving one myself.<br /><br />As I waited outside the Delta terminal, there were about five or six car service drivers parked there, standing in front of the doors and soliciting people for rides to Manhattan. This, you should know, is totally illegal. It is basically poaching rides from the yellow cabs who have been waiting in the big holding lot for who knows how long, and who, when finally dispatched to the terminal, line up and wait for people to get on a line and get inside them. And the whole time, they are being monitored and controlled by a taxi dispatcher who keeps them all from cheating, competing, or otherwise causing chaos at the terminal.<br /><br />These car service guys, on the other hand, are straight off the black market, completely unregulated and working hard only to hustle the unwitting out of their hard-earned bills. Car service drivers are, by law, allowed to respond only to radio calls. That's it. Picking up street hails or waiting curbside at the airport without a prior appointment is the sole domain of the yellow cab. That's what those little metal medallions -- the ones that cost about $600k last time I checked -- give us the right to do. And every time a car service driver breaks these rules, he not only breaks into our business (and therefore our incomes), he also depreciates the value of each and every medallion, making it a waste of money to buy or lease one. <br /><br />Anyway, this big burly car service driver in a pink button-down shirt kept offering me a ride, saying, "Taxi? Taxi?" while I kept denying. I stood there waiting as he offered a ride to everyone who walked out the doors until, finally, I turned to him and said, "Isn't that illegal? Offering rides like that?" <br /><br />He looked around at all the other gypsy drivers there and grinned, saying, "Illegal? No! It's perfectly legal." <br /><br />I said, "Doesn't the TLC have rules about that? You're not supposed to solicit rides like this. You might want to check your rule book."<br /><br />"TLC? Look at my license plate! It says TLC."<br /><br />I replied, "I'm pretty sure you're wrong on this."<br /><br />He smirked and said, "Why? You TLC?"<br /><br />At this point, it was around 1:30 in the morning. I was exhausted and annoyed by this dude, and all of sudden I remembered all the times a fare that would have been mine got poached by one of these guys. They all stacked up and accumulated in my mind, and I got pissed. Don't ask me why, and I know I'll probably end up in Bellevue for this, but as I looked over at the long line of empty yellow cabs with all these tired, bored drivers inside, I decided that it made sense somehow -- that it was practically my <i>duty</i> to those cabbies -- to pretend that I actually <i>did</i> work for the Taxi & Limousine Commission.<br /><br />I said, "Yes, I am. And you're lucky I'm not working right now."<br /><br />Of course, he didn't take me seriously at all. And why would he? The TLC certainly doesn't do much except ticket cabbies and cash in on corporate contracts (seen a TV screen in a taxi lately?). They don't give two shits if we lose money to these guys.<br /><br />He let out a huge bellow and still persisted, saying, "It's totally legal. You can't do anything!" Then he gestured to the other gypsy drivers there and said, "There's a lot of people here. What can you do? ...Nothing!" Then they all started grinning and chuckling, clearly entertained by me, and with good reason, I suppose. I did indeed look a little ridiculous , standing there in worn-out jeans and a backpack, all of five-foot-four, acting like I was some figure of authority. <br /><br />But, of course, I couldn't back out of it now. I took out my phone and pretended to call some other imaginary figure from the TLC, presumably someone who could come give these guys a ticket. In reality, I called Diego.<br /><br />"Hey Diego, let me ask you something: It's illegal for car services to solicit rides at the airport right?"<br /><br />"Hell yeah it is. Why? What's up?"<br /><br />"Okay, can you send someone over to the Delta terminal?"<br /><br />"Huh?"<br /><br />I walked a few feet away and whispered, "I'm pretending to be from the TLC. I want to scare these guys away so they don't steal rides from the cabs waiting here."<br /><br />Diego wasn't the slightest bit fazed. "Oh. Okay. Yeah. Those guys are such assholes." He continued, "Just last night I picked up a guy in Manhattan who got totally ripped off by a car service driver from the airport. The guy wanted to go to Weehawken [in New Jersey] from JFK and the car service driver tried to charge him $240! So the guy decided to go to the ferry terminal in Manhattan instead so he could take the boat over to Jersey. But then the driver tried to charge him $180 -- to go to the west side of Manhattan! Finally, the guy bargained him down to $80. But can you believe that shit? Eighty dollars! To go to Manhattan! You should totally call the cops on those guys for real."<br /><br />In a yellow cab, a ride to Weehawken, New Jersey, from Kennedy Airport would cost about $80, plus tolls and tip. A ride to anywhere in Manhattan is a flat rate of $45, plus a $4 toll and tip. <br /><br />I remembered a story Elliott told me once about a Japanese man who got totally swindled by another car service driver at the airport. He got conned into one of these gypsy's cars and told him he wanted to go to Staten Island. The driver charged him $250 and dropped him off not in Staten Island, but in the middle of midtown Manhattan. He hailed Elliott and told him what happened and was clearly very confused. Elliott took him down to the Staten Island Ferry because it was the cheapest option for him at that point, and I don't even think Elliott charged him for the ride, he felt so bad for the guy.<br /><br />Anyway, I stayed on the phone chatting for a while as the car service drivers wandered around the terminal doors offering more people "taxi" rides. The line of yellow cabs remained sitting across the median unused. <br /><br />Miraculously, not five minutes after I called Diego, a cop car pulled into the terminal with its lights flashing, making all the waiting cars move out. I was delighted with this lucky coincidence. It was almost as if I <i>had</i> actually called them, and my insane impersonation of a TLC bureaucrat was validated. Diego, too, was psyched. He said, "You should tell the cops that they were offering rides to Manhattan for $250!"<br /><br />At that point, however, I didn't really feel like getting into it. I just stood there and watched as all the "perfectly legal" drivers fled from the airport doors and dove into their respective cars, like a bunch of cockroaches taking cover when the bathroom light is turned on. <br /><br />I did, admittedly, have a moment of gloating as I waved at the driver in the pink shirt and called out, "It's totally legal, huh? Why don't you stick around and tell that to the cops?" He waved at me and then gave me the finger as he jumped into his Lincoln Town Car and flew out of the terminal.<br /><br />I waited a few more minutes for my car service to show up and watched as a line of travelers slowly formed in front of the yellow cabs that were still sitting there. One by one, they too pulled out of the terminal, each, thankfully, with a passenger.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-39297055620338458612007-07-20T11:06:00.000-04:002007-07-24T22:15:55.231-04:00Amazon is being difficultI'm getting a bunch of emails today about how my book has been delayed for a year according to Amazon. This is NOT true. The book is still coming out this fall, on <b>August 28, 2007</b>. <br /><br />But, for whatever reason, Amazon has <i>two</i> pages up for my book, and one of them has all sorts of incorrect information, including a June 2008 release date. Unfortunately this is the page everyone pre-ordered from. <br /><br />I've been trying to get Amazon to get rid of that stupid wrong page for weeks now, to no avail. They certainly don't make it easy to get in touch with them, and I've also asked my publisher to try and fix the problem. <br /><br />So, for now, if it's not too much of a hassle, please just cancel that order and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hack-Stopped-Worrying-Started-Driving/dp/1400066042/ref=ed_oe_h/104-0973115-6158335?ie=UTF8&qid=1182265822&sr=8-1" target="_blank">re-order it here</a> or from the link at the right (same difference). This goes to the correct, good, not fucked up Amazon page. You could also get to it from the link on the myspace page if that strikes your fancy. <br /><br />Sorry about all this. I hope you'll find the book worth it!M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-47457847167748685372007-07-11T02:31:00.000-04:002007-07-11T10:17:44.383-04:00Fun times<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RpR4FEw9URI/AAAAAAAAADE/pbOlBbOANRg/s1600-h/IMG_2563.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RpR4FEw9URI/AAAAAAAAADE/pbOlBbOANRg/s400/IMG_2563.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5085821907781898514" /></a><br />I had a good night.<br /><br />I realized just now, as I wrote those words, that I don't think I've ever written them before. If so, I certainly don't remember it. <br /><br />But tonight was great, actually. I had perfect luck and a stable mindset throughout the whole shift. And the biggest shocker? Traffic didn't totally suck.<br /><br />All night long, each good ride led to the next. It started out early, when I got over the bridge and someone took me to Union Square. From there, I picked up a woman who wanted to go way up to 125th and Amsterdam. I overheard from her cell phone conversation that she'd been going on auditions all day. We made it up to her building in record time. <br /><br />As I passed Columbia on my way back downtown, I got flagged by a very pregnant, thirty-something lady dressed in hospital scrubs and a stethoscope. She had a phone to her ear and, when she got in, said, "59th and Amsterdam." But then a second later, she said, "Actually 59th and 3rd." And then another second later, "Let's make that 59th and Lex." <br /><br />Finally she hung up the phone and said, "I'm sorry. My husband was barking orders at me on the phone."<br /><br />We didn't talk for the rest of the ride.<br /><br />Downtown, a very young, probably late teen or early twenty-something blonde girl got in. She had one of those blue boots on one foot, the kind you wear on a broken part of your body instead of a cast. On our way over to 5th Avenue and 10th Street, I got to listen in to her end of a phone conversation. It went something like this:<br /><br />"Yes, he was coming to propose .... Are you still at Burberry? .... Oh, for your therapist? .... Fun times, Fun times."<br /><br />Then she launched into a whole tirade about how her friend Aaron got into an argument with the promoters at the club Marquee and how he had to be kept separate from Jordan. It was just starting to get juicy when I dropped her off. Sadly, I'll never know what finally happened with them. Damn.<br /><br />Moving on, I took some girls from the Upper East Side to dinner in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. As we got close to the restaurant, one of them said to the other, "Oh wow, there actually <i>are</i> nice parts of Brooklyn."<br /><br />On my way back from that, as I was approaching the Brooklyn Bridge, Diego called and said, "Laguardia's stripped," meaning the airport was empty of cabs. He went on, "All these flights were canceled, so tons of people are dying for cabs. Someone actually offered me $800 to take them to Toronto! Can you believe that?"<br /><br />Apparently the intense heat and haze had caused problems with visibility or something and it grounded most of the planes in the New York area, so the airport was lucrative chaos. <br /><br />I said, "Don't tell me you're on your way to Toronto right now."<br /><br />"Hell no! You kidding me? That's a two-thousand dollar job. No, I got someone to midtown and then I'm racing right back. You should go."<br /><br />I hopped on the BQE and sped over there. It was still stripped and I got someone going back to the city. He was coming from Atlanta and had been sitting in his plane on the runway for four hours before they finally took off for their hour-and-a-half flight. I remarked on his mood, saying, "You seem pretty happy for someone who just sat on a plane for that long."<br /><br />He replied, "I've had a few drinks."<br /><br />Later on, I ended up getting extra lucky when I got a job to Edison, New Jersey. It's always good money when you take someone out of town. The guy was from California and got screwed over on his hotel so he was staying at the Hilton out there. <br /><br />When I dropped him off, I got out of the cab to help him with his bags. As he left and went inside, some fat middle-aged dude with a cane came up to me. He'd been standing outside the hotel, and as he approached me, he said, "Are you the driver?" I said "Yes," and then he looked around, leaned in real close, exhaled his cigarette smoke, and said, "I'm looking for a strip club around here." <br /><br />Apparently <i>he'd</i> had a few drinks too. Sorry to disappoint, I told him I was a <i>New York</i> cab driver and couldn't help him in this area. He hobbled back to the sliding glass doors as I got back in my cab and hauled ass back to the civilized world.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-44141814480978296192007-07-09T10:56:00.000-04:002007-07-09T11:53:58.004-04:00Book update<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RpJUxUw9UNI/AAAAAAAAACk/EDQvX7JoWyQ/s1600-h/IMG_2118.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RpJUxUw9UNI/AAAAAAAAACk/EDQvX7JoWyQ/s400/IMG_2118.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5085220135619088594" /></a><br /><br />This is a just a quick update about the book, because that's what's been consuming me and my time lately. But, as a side note, I don't really want this space to be used too much for book stuff, so I've crossed over to the dark side and created a MySpace page. This is where I will post updates, information, reviews (only if they're good, of course), and any other crap that relates to the book. Go and befriend me! The page is at <a href="http://www.myspace.com/melissaplaut" target="_blank">www.myspace.com/melissaplaut</a>.<br /><br />But for now I need to share something here because it's kind of big news: The book is going to be published as a hardcover after all! Fucking awesome, no? And it will still be out on August 28th so I'm getting pretty damn excited. <br /><br />Anyway, now the thing will cost $21.95, which is still not too out of control and I hope you will all still consider picking up a copy. I'm not sure how this change affects the Amazon pre-orders that have already been put in, but I imagine -- and this is just a guess -- that they'll probably send out an email giving those people the option to buy the book at the new price (that is, when Amazon figures out that there <i>is</i> a new price). As far as I know, they don't charge your credit card until the book ships anyway, so you won't be screwed over. <br /><br />Also, a few New York readings and signings will be happening in September. The first is at the Barnes & Noble in Greenwich Village, on 8th Street and 6th Avenue, right across the street from Gray's Papaya, where I've eaten many a late-night cabbie dinner of hot dogs and papaya juice with my buddy Diego. It's also across the avenue from the McDonald's in which I've peed on many desperate occasions. Plus, there's a "taxi relief" stand just up the next block. So it's a pretty good spot for my first official book reading. <br /><br />The event will take place on September 11th at 7:30 PM. Definitely not the happiest day in the world, but it was what the store had available, and who am I to be picky? Plus, in a way it almost makes sense since it will be the third anniversary of my very first shift in the cab back in 2004. (I got my license a week and a half earlier but I was too chicken-shit to start right away.) So this B&N reading will be a cool confluence of events that relate to my career as a cab driver. <br /><br />There will be another reading the following Tuesday, September 18th, also at 7:30. That one will be at the Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn. It's my home borough so hopefully all the Brooklynites will show up and represent!<br /><br />Meanwhile, I plan to work tomorrow night if Richard has a cab for me, so I should be back to bitching about traffic and jaywalkers and gas prices by Wednesday.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-46121259606869929462007-06-04T11:09:00.000-04:002007-06-04T11:09:08.867-04:00Thanks Oprah<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RmQdhXolfzI/AAAAAAAAAB8/GigRNt6-owc/s1600-h/IMG_2508.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RmQdhXolfzI/AAAAAAAAAB8/GigRNt6-owc/s400/IMG_2508.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5072211539443154738" /></a><br />When I got to the garage last Thursday afternoon, my old friend Gary (seen above in deep concentration) was back from Vietnam, where he's been living and teaching English for the past five months. We caught up for a bit and then he went into the waiting room to play a game of chess.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RmQdhnolf0I/AAAAAAAAACE/GjMzWWNG370/s1600-h/IMG_2510.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RmQdhnolf0I/AAAAAAAAACE/GjMzWWNG370/s400/IMG_2510.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5072211543738122050" /></a><br />I got out after an hour and a half of waiting, but spent another half an hour sitting in traffic on the 59th Street Bridge. I tried to think of Gary and his new Zen approach to driving and traffic. It actually helped a little.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RmQdiHolf1I/AAAAAAAAACM/kUB2kNSWf5M/s1600-h/IMG_2528.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RmQdiHolf1I/AAAAAAAAACM/kUB2kNSWf5M/s400/IMG_2528.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5072211552328056658" /></a><br />Business was pretty steady all night, but I had a long lull when I made a few back-to-back trips to Brooklyn. The first was to Midwood, a suburban-ish neighborhood largely occupied by Orthodox Jews. It was a decent job but it took forever to get there for some reason, so I hustled back to Manhattan as fast as I could. When I finally got over the Brooklyn Bridge, I turned south down Broadway and was immediately hailed by a Hasidic man. <br /><br />When he got in, he said, "I'm going to Brooklyn, take the tunnel." He was, of course, going to Borough Park, just a few neighborhoods west of Midwood.<br /><br />Later on, when I talked to my fellow cabbie Allen about this turn of events, he said, "What? You picked up a Hasid?" Allen himself is an Orthodox Jew. "And he went to Borough Park?" When I said yes, he laughed and said, "Well, what did you expect?!"<br /><br />Again, it took me forever to get back. The BQE was backed up so I decided to take the surface streets instead. Nearly 60 blocks later, in Park Slope, I picked up a passenger. I felt lucky for a second, thinking he was going to the city, but as it turned out, he was only going a short distance, out toward the Brooklyn Museum, a six dollar ride.<br /><br />He was a young guy, good looking and a little drunk. When I asked what he'd been up to that night, he said, "Oh there's a group of us that started a gay volleyball league. We had a game and then went to the bar."<br /><br />Then he launched into the very astute observation that I am a female cab driver, and asked if it was harder for me in terms of having to pee. I said, "It's not the easiest thing in the world, mainly because it's hard to park."<br /><br />He said, "You know it's funny, because I was just now talking about this with my friend and it was the last conversation I had before I left." He gave me some backstory. "Okay, so apparently Oprah has this word for her crotch -- she calls it her <i>vajayjay</i>. Have you heard that?" <br /><br />I said no, and he went on, "Well my friend made up a parallel term for guys and so before I was leaving tonight, he was telling me about his <i>majeejee</i>." <br /><br />O-kayyy. I figured he was talking about the penis, and having not much to say on the matter at the moment, I just nodded and watched the street.<br /><br />He continued, "Yeah, because he was about to go on a date with some guy he'd never hung out with before and the conversation centered around whether or not he should clean out his <i>majeejee</i>."<br /><br />It took a second to sink in, and I said, "Oh! Wait-- You mean?-- Ohhh...I thought you meant like the front. But I guess you're talking about the back. Huh. Okay." I wasn't quite sure what to say from there, but he was eager, seemingly happy to be communicating, and continued, "Yes! It's our 'mangina.' Hence, <i>majeejee</i>." <br /><br />Then he stopped for a second, looked around the cab, and said, "Wait, I'm not on 'Taxicab Confessions' right now or anything, am I?"<br /><br />I said, "No. But you <i>should</i> be."<br /><br />I dropped him off, raced back to the city, and didn't have a ride back to Brooklyn for the rest of the shift.<br /><br />Thanks Oprah.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-45113242369869346662007-05-09T02:33:00.000-04:002007-05-09T02:36:57.799-04:00One block<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RkFigeDSEpI/AAAAAAAAABc/7HmJSJA3rqs/s1600-h/IMG_2114.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RkFigeDSEpI/AAAAAAAAABc/7HmJSJA3rqs/s400/IMG_2114.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062435766103315090" /></a><br />Sometimes crossing the Brooklyn Bridge isn't all that bad.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RkFiguDSEqI/AAAAAAAAABk/4nGiEttZU4A/s1600-h/IMG_2110.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RkFiguDSEqI/AAAAAAAAABk/4nGiEttZU4A/s400/IMG_2110.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062435770398282402" /></a><br />There are many ways to get through the long 12-hour shift. Reading a book while stopped in traffic is only one of them.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RkFig-DSErI/AAAAAAAAABs/TfdCsw6IEag/s1600-h/IMG_2136.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RkFig-DSErI/AAAAAAAAABs/TfdCsw6IEag/s400/IMG_2136.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5062435774693249714" /></a><br />Tonight was pretty good overall. I mean, it wasn't perfect. I did indeed get my window punched by some stupid angry road raging bitch in Williamsburg (because I wouldn't let her cut me off, mind you), but that's so annoyingly typical, it barely merits mention at this point. <br /><br />Otherwise, business was steady and people were in good spirits. My favorite fare of the night originated in the theater district. A somewhat elderly couple flagged me down in the middle of 45th Street just as the area began spilling over with the post-theater crowd. They instructed me to go to 79th and Lex and then began an animated conversation with each other about how much they hated the play they'd just seen.<br /><br />He said, "Well, I didn't think the acting was too bad."<br /><br />She disputed this. "It was dismal! How could it be any good when they had such terrible material to work with?"<br /><br />They carried on trashing the play the whole ride uptown and then, as we crossed east on 79th, they told me they were actually going to make two stops. The man would be getting out at Park Avenue and the lady would get out a block away at Lexington. No problem.<br /><br />When the man closed the cab door behind him, the lady addressed me and said, "Oh goodie, this way he makes sure <i>I</i> get to pay." <br /><br />I responded with something vague yet polite like, "That's not so nice of him."<br /><br />She said, "No, actually it's okay. We used to be married and we see each other practically every night so we just switch off paying."<br /><br />I asked the obvious: "You see each other every night but you're not married anymore?" <br /><br />"Yeah," she said, "after 42 years, we realized that we get along much better when we live apart." I guess they only needed one city block to make their relationship work.<br /><br />She continued, "Our kids think we're bizarre." I agreed with her kids and then, as her doorman approached to let her out of the cab, I said, "Just out of curiousity, what play did you guys see tonight?"<br /><br />"'Deuce.' The one about tennis. It was lousy!" And with that, she got out and the doorman closed the door behind her.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-71342545695624908642007-04-27T18:03:00.000-04:002007-04-27T19:56:56.915-04:00I hate Second Avenue, but I still love New York<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjKC7-DSElI/AAAAAAAAAA8/szQTC1nbmRo/s1600-h/IMG_1976.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjKC7-DSElI/AAAAAAAAAA8/szQTC1nbmRo/s400/IMG_1976.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5058249298271146578" /></a><br />So, I finally drove a cab again after all this time.<br /><br />When I showed up at the garage for my first shift back yesterday afternoon, my buddy Sam updated me on the situation on the streets these days. This is what cabbies do at my garage. They tell each other where the cops are waiting to give tickets, where there's construction, where they found good fares, and so on. But yesterday, knowing I hadn't driven in a while, Sam warned me about the recent surge in traffic, saying, "When you get out there, you'll find it a lot harder to move than the last time you worked." <br /><br />I caught my first passenger right away, at the bottom of the 59th Street Bridge. He was a young, hipsterish-looking guy with long bleached blond hair. He was going to Central Park West and 73rd and when he got in, he politely asked me if he could eat his sandwich there in the backseat. I said, "Sure, as long as you don't get it everywhere." He promised to eat it over his bag, and I felt lucky that my first passenger in all these months was a nice guy with good manners. Though I was trying to keep my expectations low, it made me almost hopeful for the rest of the shift.<br /><br />Of course, things took a turn slightly for the worse an hour later when I had my first near-accident/near-death experience of the shift. I was on Third Avenue and 23rd Street and there was a shitty Hyundai on my left that was running into a construction area and decided it wanted to be in my lane. It looked like they were about to rail right into my door but I had no room to get out of the way, so I just slowed down, leaned on the horn, and braced myself for the hit. <br /><br />Luckily, at the last second, they skidded to a stop in front of the orange cones and waited for the flow of traffic to break so they could get in. It's a totally regular occurence on the streets of New York but still, I hadn't driven a cab in so long, I wasn't used to the aggression other drivers direct towards cabbies and I found myself a little shaken up. <br /><br />Then around 5:30, I decided that I despised Second Avenue. It was the third time in less than two hours that I got caught in a bad jam there and I realized Sam wasn't kidding about the traffic. The only saving grace was the increase in the waiting time/traffic time on the meter that happened back in December. It made a significant difference and allowed me to relax a tiny bit despite sitting in hellish traffic. Without that increase, we would all be screwed and I don't think there would be many cabbies left in New York.<br /><br />But things perked up again a little later. I was taking a guy to a screening at the Tribeca Film Festival downtown on Chambers Street and along the way we realized we both grew up in Rockland County, New York, about an hour north of the city. He was fifteen years older than me, but we had both gone to the same junior high and high schools and chatted about that for awhile. He was running late and we were trying to figure out the best way to the theater from SoHo and we agreed we absolutely must avoid Canal Street. It was just past 6:00 PM and Canal is <i>always</i> backed up because it lead in to the Holland Tunnel. It's seriously like a recurring nightmare for any cabbie. <br /><br />So we went down Mott with the idea we would cross west at Worth, but Mott, of course, was backed up so we were like, fuck it, and turned down Canal anyway. And -- will wonders never cease -- Canal was clear! We were psyched, and we laughed about how sometimes New York can really suprise you. But, seriously, how pathetic is it that the big gift New York offered us last night was merely no traffic on Canal Street at 6:00 PM?<br /><br />At 7:00 I passed another female cab driver as we were inching down Broadway, but she looked miserable and so I did not say hi.<br /><br />At 7:45, I was turning past a couple standing on the median on West Street and overheard them say, "She's kinda young to be driving a cab." <br /><br />At 9:30, I dropped off a passenger in Elmhurst, Queens. I called Diego to chat on the way back since I was empty but, turned out, he was dropping off just a few blocks away from me in the same neighborhood. We decided to race down to JFK since the hotline said they needed cabs there and it would give us a chance to hang outside of our cabs.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjKC8eDSEmI/AAAAAAAAABE/mRSmS7DfnX4/s1600-h/IMG_1990.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjKC8eDSEmI/AAAAAAAAABE/mRSmS7DfnX4/s400/IMG_1990.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5058249306861081186" /></a><br />When we got there, it was like a big family reunion. I ran into Joy (pictured above), a female (obviously) cabbie I met three years ago, right after I got my hack license. We used to call each other every now and then but then lost touch. She seemed to be doing well and it was nice to see her again after all this time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjKC8uDSEnI/AAAAAAAAABM/SxJr6GSE0F0/s1600-h/IMG_1991.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjKC8uDSEnI/AAAAAAAAABM/SxJr6GSE0F0/s400/IMG_1991.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5058249311156048498" /></a><br />Then Diego and I went inside to get some food in the cafeteria and it was a madhouse as usual. Being in there is sort of like being a Moroccan souk or something, with the Greek guys behind the counter calling out prices and food items as fast as auctioneers and a motley crew of drivers mobbing the coffee urns and registers. I managed to skip most of the line since I only got a bottle of water and a bag of pretzels. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjKC8-DSEoI/AAAAAAAAABU/jlu320wJziU/s1600-h/IMG_1996.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjKC8-DSEoI/AAAAAAAAABU/jlu320wJziU/s400/IMG_1996.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5058249315451015810" /></a><br />Outside again, I ran into another cabbie I knew. He does a Reggae radio show late night on 93.5 and I met him through another cabbie buddy John who does a radio show on WBAI. We all stood around talking shop and bitching about the TLC -- the usual. It's moments like that when I realize that I didn't so much miss driving the cab itself these past few months, but I missed the <i>drivers</i>, I missed the culture and ultimately, I missed the city.<br /><br />Anyway, I got a good job out of the airport after only about a half hour and the night ultimately ended without any real mishaps or shake-ups. I considered it a good welcome back.<br /><br />This makes me remember something else Sam said yesterday afternoon at the garage: "This job is like being a drug addict. You have one great night and you're hooked and keep coming back for more. But when you have those bad nights, you just wish you could quit."<br /><br />I had a decent night. I'll be coming back for more.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-76550359055610880462007-04-26T12:25:00.001-04:002007-04-26T12:25:36.261-04:00The Cover!!!!!!!!!<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjDO_eDSEkI/AAAAAAAAAA0/3PhHNCu8IAA/s1600-h/9780812977394.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RjDO_eDSEkI/AAAAAAAAAA0/3PhHNCu8IAA/s400/9780812977394.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5057769971330978370" /></a><br />How fucking exciting! Of course, the actual book is not out yet. Plans for a hardcover edition have been scrapped so it will be a paperback original, which means it'll be more affordable. And it looks like August 28th is the big date, but you can pre-order it from the Random House website by clicking <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780812977394" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br />I seriously can't wait. <br /><br />In the meantime, I'm off to the garage for my first shift in a good long while, so there will hopefully be a story or two here tomorrow, but for now I just needed to say HOLY SHIT I WROTE A BOOK.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com60tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-23354670223379162262007-04-19T16:40:00.000-04:002007-04-19T17:40:57.276-04:00Not happening<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RifU77mwJxI/AAAAAAAAAAs/IguQ4ebCz2I/s1600-h/IMG_1920.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RifU77mwJxI/AAAAAAAAAAs/IguQ4ebCz2I/s400/IMG_1920.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5055243232824272658" /></a><br />I went back to the garage today. It had been the first time in months and I was all geared up to work the shift. When I arrived, it was busy and bustling like always and all my old buddies were there. We stood around and caught up for a while as the day drivers trickled in and Richard dispatched the night guys out. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RifUermwJvI/AAAAAAAAAAc/c4i5P5tP_wI/s1600-h/IMG_1921.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RifUermwJvI/AAAAAAAAAAc/c4i5P5tP_wI/s400/IMG_1921.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5055242730313098994" /></a><br />I found myself actually feeling a little nervousness, since I hadn't driven a yellow in so long. I knew I was rusty and wasn't totally confident I could find my way around as easily and naturally as I used to. Luckily the garage has this sign (shown above) posted on the wall outside, just in case.<br /> <br />Not too much else was new around the old garage. The only exception was the sign shown below. I guess the level of general retardation has risen pretty drastically, along with the gas prices.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RifUILmwJtI/AAAAAAAAAAM/lgP-bsfaeRI/s1600-h/IMG_1919.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RifUILmwJtI/AAAAAAAAAAM/lgP-bsfaeRI/s400/IMG_1919.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5055242343766042322" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RifUe7mwJwI/AAAAAAAAAAk/XXc5CekIuQU/s1600-h/IMG_1922.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_iGoMgMWci3Q/RifUe7mwJwI/AAAAAAAAAAk/XXc5CekIuQU/s400/IMG_1922.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5055242734608066306" /></a><br />After about an hour, Diego got his cab and took off. Here he is, trying to look mean but not really accomplishing it. I hung around a little while longer until I heard my name over the loudspeaker. I went inside, but it was a false alarm. Turns out Richard wasn't gonna have a cab for me today after all. He was overloaded with too many guys and not enough cars and had, in fact, already sent a few other drivers home. I couldn't really be upset about this since I did just sort of show up at the garage unannounced.<br /><br />Oh well, it wasn't a huge deal. I'll work next week and it'll be fine. Plus it was great to catch up with everybody and see their faces again. I do kind of love just hanging out at that garage sometimes. Really the only shitty part was that, as much as I've been dreading and procrastinating getting back in the cab, I was actually pretty disappointed to not work tonight. I mean, I wasn't fucking <i>heartbroken</i> or anything, but I had gotten myself all psyched up to get behind that stupid wheel and make some money. Oh well. So now my big prodigal return to cabbing will have to be postponed for one more week. I better enjoy it.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-91300082161182140512007-03-08T11:25:00.000-05:002007-03-09T10:35:23.097-05:00Civic dutySo shit is finally slowing down, thank goodness. The book has finally been sent to the printer to be made into bound galleys. After much back and forth (and stressing out on my part), it is officially titled HACK. There is also a subtitle, which is: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do with my Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab. I think it's coming out on August 28th but I'm not totally sure about that. <br /><br />The past few months were pretty hectic. In the midst of finishing up the last edits of the book and dealing with the whole confusing "publishing process," I got called to jury duty. The last time I had been called was about six years ago when I lived in Manhattan. I was dismissed after two days and all I really remember of my time there is that the chairs were comfortable, the lunches were long, and there was a guy sitting near me whose name was Jack Russel. Also, no one had cell phones really, and only a handful had toted along their clunky laptops.<br /><br />This time, I arrived at the Kings County Supreme Court Building at 8:30 in the morning and waited in a great long line to get through the security metal detectors with a few hundred of my fellow unlucky Brooklynites. Then I proceeded to the Central Jury Assembly Room which, according to the sign on the wall, has a maximum capacity of about 600 people. I'd say, by the time everyone had filed in, there were about 400 of us. We watched a low-budget instructional movie starring Diane Sawyer and a perfectly diverse cast of characters. I think it was supposed to get us all excited about performing our civic duty, but I got distracted because Diane was so obviously reading her cue cards, it was disconcerting. But I guess it was a good thing because, with the lights all dim, it was the only aspect of the movie that kept me from falling straight to sleep. <br /><br />When the movie was over, a large man with a white goatee sat down behind a grand table at the front of the room and slowly read through the categories that would qualify one for exemption from jury duty. He would call out each category over the microphone and then would wait for the people from that category to get up and file out through some doors to his side. He started by saying, "Are there any jurors in this assembly room who no longer live in Brooklyn? Please come forward."<br /><br />At this, one lone guy got up in the middle of the giant room and made his way to the front. As he was walking, the guy with the microphone joked, "When you go through the doors, you're gonna have to write an essay on why you left Brooklyn." Everyone in the room gave a tired little chuckle as we watched the poor guy leave. Then he moved on to the other categories, which included non-citizens, caregivers, felons (about 40 people got up), people who've performed jury duty less than four years ago, and people who had a medical reason to not perform their duty. <br /><br />The last category was apparently his favorite because he kept referring to it the entire time and telling us it would have the largest response: "If anyone in this assembly room has difficulty understanding English -- or understanding <i>me</i> -- please go through the double doors." A hundred people got up and went through the double doors. How they knew to go through the double doors was a mystery to me, but it didn't phase the guy in charge. When they were all gone, he smiled and said, "I told you that category would clear the room. But don't move over to their seats just yet -- the majority of them will be back." And then with a little wink, "They're just giving it a shot."<br /><br />An hour later, I got called with 70 other people to go up to a courtroom. When we were out of the big room, our attendance was retaken and I thought it was funny how almost all 70 of us responded to our names by simply saying, "Here," except for the two people who felt it was important to distinguish themselves by saying "Present," and the one jolly old man who said "Good morning." <br /><br />Up in court, we were told we were gonna be interviewed to see if we could sit on a murder trial. Of all the questions they asked, and all the answers given, I was surprised by how many people answered yes to the one about "Have you ever been the victim of a crime?" More than half of us had been, with the crimes mainly being burglaries and muggings, though one person had been held up at gunpoint, and another woman had the misfortune to witness her godson get murdered right in front of her. It was all pretty depressing. They also asked if the police got involved and how we felt about how they handled it, and it was even more depressing that almost all of us were less than thrilled with the NYPD's actions regarding each of our cases.<br /><br />At one point in the selection process, the judge instructed us on what "prejudice" means. Naturally, he used cabbies in his example, saying, "Suppose you hold the belief that all cab drivers are terrible drivers." At this, there were a few nods of the head and even one "amen" muttered in the galleys. Ignoring this, the judge continued, "If there is an accident between a cab and another car, you might automatically blame the cab driver, right?" More nods. He went on, "We don't want you to do that here. You need to see the man in front of you as an individual human being and look at the facts of the case. Do not judge him based on what you think him to be beforehand -- that is what prejudice is -- when you <i>pre</i> judge someone based on your beliefs."<br /><br />The day ended up running long and the lawyers hadn't been able to agree on twelve people so they made those of us who hadn't been interviewed yet (which included me) come back for a second day. The next morning, when the lawyers finally got to me and asked what my occupation was, I said "writer and cab driver." The judge did a double-take, then smiled and said, "Sorry about my cab driver example yesterday." I just said, "It happens all the time." <br /><br />Around 2:00, the lawyers decided that most of us were not what they wanted on this particular jury and I was, much to my relief, dismissed.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-1169150172240928282007-01-18T14:55:00.000-05:002007-02-24T10:25:25.190-05:00Stars fell on Alabama<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/6726/1490/1600/21345/IMG_1635.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/6726/1490/400/809273/IMG_1635.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />It's getting down to the wire with the book. I'm almost there. Just a few more tweaks to the last chapter and then I only have to spend the next few months plagued with self-doubt and insecure thoughts about how much it probably truly sucks. Oh, and it turns out Villard doesn't love "New York Hack" as the title... Don't really know what to do about that for now since I haven't been able to think of a non-suckass alternative.<br /><br />In the meantime, while I continue to procrastinate getting back in the cab, I've found myself driving around the city here and there in a friend's car. (I got rid of my Buick a month ago. Junked it and even made $25 off the transaction!) But, what I've realized is that, even though people hate you and drive against you when you're behind the wheel of a yellow cab, you still at least get a little bit of respect. The car I've been driving lately is quite possibly the least respected car on the road: a white Volvo station wagon with motherfucking ALABAMA license plates. Shit, I don't even respect <i>myself</i> when I'm driving that thing. It's just embarrassing. <br /><br />The worst part is, my sensibilities and ego are so offended by the other dickhead drivers, mainly because I know they think I'm some hick driver from down south. I have never been cut off more in my life than I have been in this goddamn car. And now I understand why out-of-towners say New York drivers are assholes. Because it's true, WE ARE ASSHOLES. I would probably even cut myself off if I was behind me in this car. If that makes any sense.<br /><br />But aside from the unfortunate vehicle, for the past few days I've had zero tolerance for being in a car at all, regardless of whether I'm driving or passengering. This is because I have finally gone ahead and quit smoking. It's been fairly easy so far and, surprisingly enough, I've actually been feeling pretty mellow and spaced out...except when I'm in a car. Then, all of sudden, it feels like I'm at war with the world, everyone is an enemy -- or just frustratingly stupid -- and I lose my shit entirely. It's a pretty ugly scene. So my plan for now is to just take the subway everywhere until the war ends and hope that I'll be able to eventually get back to work without feeling tempted to smoke my stupid brains out.<br /><br />Or maybe I should just give up the cab for good and drive down to Alabama where I clearly belong.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com112tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-1166203375658528892006-12-15T11:19:00.000-05:002007-02-01T18:07:51.126-05:00The Five-NineThe 59th Street Bridge was a wreck yesterday. I know this not because I was behind the wheel of a cab sitting in the traffic myself, but because I caught up with a bunch of my old taxi buddies yesterday while <i>they</i> were driving, so I got to hear all about it.<br /><br />First I called Gary back. We hadn't spoken in maybe six or seven months, ever since he left the garage to do alternating 24-hour shifts with a private taxi owner for a cheap price. Gary is an actor and a playwright, in his mid-to-late fifties, completely bald, and totally sharp and edgy. We became very good friends when we drove out of the same garage but sometimes when people leave a place and you don't see them regularly, it becomes hard to keep in touch, no matter how much you like each other.<br /><br />Apparently, since the last time we talked, he'd been traveling around, and had settled into teaching English at a Buddhist temple in Thailand. He left me a message telling me he was back, and when I got him on the phone last night he was sitting in a back-up on Crescent Avenue, leading in to the lower level of the bridge, and telling me about how he was saving up to go to Vietnam for four months starting in mid-January. <br /><br />The entire time we were catching up, he was stuck in this traffic. At one point he said, "I can't believe this. It's so bad, cars are starting to drive on the sidewalk to get up to the front of the line." <br /><br />I said, "You must be going nuts, huh?"<br /><br />But Gary replied, "Actually I'm not. If I learned one thing from the monks in Thailand it was this: 'See clearly and you will always act morally.' It sounds a little simple, but I've found it really works. So like right now, I figure, I'll get in to New York when I get there, and I'll make the money I'll make, and the night will be what it is."<br /><br />So Gary's doing well, getting all Zen and shit, and enjoying his life. <br /><br />After talking for nearly half an hour, we hung up as he finally made it onto the bridge.<br /><br />Next I called Elliott back. He picked up on the last ring, right before his voice mail got it, and said, "Hello! Good to hear from you! But I'm driving and the city's a mess. I'll call you later."<br /><br />When I woke up this morning, there was a message from Elliott at 5:00 am, just getting off his shift, apologizing for not calling me back sooner. <br /><br />After that, I reached Allen. Allen has a funny, childlike way about him. He's also in his fifties, is an orthodox Jew, and lives with his mother and his brother in Williamsburg. He picked up and we just said "Hello?" back and forth to each other a few times until he realized it was me. Then he said, "Melissa? It's Allen!" <br /><br />"Hi Allen. I knew it was you -- <i>I</i> called <i>you</i>... How're you doing?"<br /><br />Allen simply launched in and said, "Yeah, so I was thinking about your book yesterday. I got an idea for you."<br /><br />"Oh yeah? What were you thinking?" I knew it was gonna be weird, whatever it was.<br /><br />"You should make some of your characters into cartoons!" He said this with glee in his voice, clearly thinking it a brilliant and clever idea, but also knowing I would never do such a thing. <br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"CARTOONS!"<br /><br />"Uh, yeah, okay, but I don't think that would work so well with the rest of the story. You always have the weirdest ideas."<br /><br />Allen didn't say anything because he was laughing too hard at his own bizarre joke.<br /><br />I changed the subject. "Where are you?"<br /><br />"Brooklyn. The five-nine is all screwed up. You can't get into the city. I got some jobs and then got taken back out here. Now I'm trying to get back in."<br /><br />"Traffic's bad, huh?"<br /><br />"It's terrible."<br /><br />We talked for a few more minutes and, as we started wrapping up the conversation, Allen assured me that he would come up with some more ideas for the book. I thanked him and wished him a happy Hanukkah.<br /><br />I had been off this marathon phone session for about two minutes when Diego called. Me and Diego still talk regularly, so it's much more casual with us. <br /><br />"What's up Diego."<br /><br />"Nothing. I'm pulling in to LaGuardia. The 59th Street Bridge is all fucked up so I took the tunnel and the second I got through, right across the street at that corner, a woman gets in and takes me to the butt-end of Astoria. I didn't even call the hotline, I just came straight here."<br /><br />"Yeah, I heard the bridge was bad. Is the airport full?"<br /><br />"Nah, it's not that bad." He must've parked already because I heard him going up to the coffee shop in the taxi lot and buying a pack of cigarettes. Then he said, "Yo, you ever coming back to work or what?"<br /><br />"I hope I won't have to, but I might. If I don't find something else, I'll probably come back in February."<br /><br />Diego said, "Well I miss you, buddy. I wanna see you soon." <br /><br />We hung up while he was still at the airport.<br /><br />It's true. I've been working hard on this book (almost done with Draft 2) and I really don't want to go back to the cab, at least until it's finished. If I can avoid it for a while longer, I will. But if my bank account and bills demand it, which may be sooner than I'd like, I'll have to get back behind that wheel. <br /><br />In the meantime, I'm much happier keeping in touch with the streets vicariously through my cabbie pals.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com81tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-1163103860462191072006-11-09T15:25:00.000-05:002007-01-29T10:18:19.366-05:00HiI'm still here. But I am not driving the cab these days, which is why I haven't been writing online. Instead, I'm hauling ass on Draft 2 of The Book. And so after each day of work on this, I'm too burned out to write something even marginally interesting here. I feel bad about it, but more than that, I feel bad about not driving the cab. It has been such a huge part of my life and identity for the past few years, it's just weird to not be doing it. I keep saying I'm simply on hiatus, but who the fuck knows? Maybe I've actually quit and I just don't know it yet.<br /><br />Strangely, my life has never been more insular and sheltered than it is now, which is the total opposite of what it was when I was driving. But each day I'm reliving my experiences in the cab and writing (and rewriting) them all down. It's not the easiest thing in the world, but it's a lot more fun than actually driving. My body has never felt better either, so that's another thing that's keeping me from going back. I never fully realized how sitting in a cab for 12 hours at a time was destroying my muscles and my kidneys and my mental health.<br /><br />Anyway, this is just to check in and say hello. A lot of people have written with questions for me and I've been really bad at writing back. So I'll address two of the most common questions here:<br /><br />1. The book is tentatively titled "New York Hack." Very original, I know. It is slated to be published in the fall of 2007.<br /><br />2. Seems a lot of people want to become cab drivers and want advice on how to go about getting their hack licenses. I can only recommend you do what I did and go to the <a href="http://nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/licenses/licenses_main.shtml" target="_blank"><u>TLC website</u></a> and follow their instructions. But make sure you follow them very carefully, because if you make one little mistake, they will make you start the whole damn process over again. Good luck with that.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com76tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-1161012004136775802006-10-16T11:13:00.000-04:002006-11-18T22:33:57.250-05:00This blog totally sucks nowBut that's because I'm writing a book, which I'll be reading from tomorrow night. You should come!<br /><br />It's part of a reading series called "Writers at the Alliance" and there are two other readers, both much more accomplished than me, so it shouldn't suck.<br /><br />Anyway, it's FREE, so come out if you can.<br /><br />Tuesday, October 17th, 7:00 pm<br />at the Educational Alliance, in the Mazer Theater<br />197 East Broadway<br />(F train to East Broadway, walk two blocks to Jefferson)<br /><br /><br /><br />Here's the official info:<br /><br />HERE IS NEW YORK: THEN AND NOW<br />Tuesday, October 17<br />7:00 pm<br />In his foreword to "Here is New York," written in 1948, E.B. White asserted that "it is the reader's, not the author's, duty to bring New York down to date." The Alliance has enlisted three very different writers with that task, beginning with Caleb Crain who chronicles the extravagances and vanities of New York's upper class in the nineteenth century. Next, Brandon Stosuy delves into the downtown music scene of the 1970s and continues through to 2006, noting outerborough shifts along the way. Finally, Melissa Plaut, a blogging cab driver, keeps us "down to date" with her present-day account of life behind the wheel in New York City.<br /><br />CALEB CRAIN has written essays and criticism for The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. He is the author of American Sympathy: Men, Friendship, and Literature in the New Nation (Yale, 2001), and is at work on a history of the divorce of the nineteenth-century theatrical couple Edwin and Catharine Forrest.<br />See http://steamthing.com.<br /><br />MELISSA PLAUT was born in 1975 and grew up in the suburbs of New York City. After college, she held a series of office jobs until, at the age of 29, she began driving a yellow cab. A year later she started writing "New York Hack," a blog about her experiences behind the wheel. Within a few months, the blog was receiving several thousand hits a day. She is currently working on a book based on "New York Hack" to be published in 2007 by Villard. See http://newyorkhack.blogspot.com/<br /><br />BRANDON STOSUY, a staff writer and columnist at Pitchfork, contributes regularly to The Believer and The Village Voice and has written for Arthur, BlackBook, Bookforum, LA Weekly, Seattle Weekly, and Slate, among other publications. His Danzig-heavy meditation on Sue de Beer appears in her EMERGE monograph (Downtown Arts Projects, 2005) and an essay he co-authored with Lawrence Brose is collected in Enter at Your Own Risk: The Dangerous Art of Dennis Cooper (FDU Press, 2006). He's currently curating The Believer's 2007 Music Issue Compilation CD while finishing a discussion with Matthew Barney and essays on Wayne Koestenbaum and Gordon Lish, also for The Believer. Up Is Up, But So Is Down, his anthology of Downtown New York literature, will be published in October by NYU Press. See<br />http://www.amazon.com/but-So-Down-Literary-1974-1992/dp/0814740111/sr=8-1/qid=1158554986/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2161039-3765661?ie=UTF8&s=books<br /><br />Writers at the Alliance, the Educational Alliance's reading series, brings together established and emerging novelists, poets and essayists whose work, in both form and content, reflects the energy, diversity, and history of dissent which have always characterized the Lower East Side.<br /><br />For more details, visit http://www.killfee.net/alliance.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com87tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-1160552802181119332006-10-11T03:41:00.000-04:002007-01-30T20:17:37.330-05:002007<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6726/1490/1600/IMG_1784.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6726/1490/400/IMG_1784.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />When I got to work today, I was assigned a brand-new 2007 model taxi. It only had about 6400 miles on it, which probably makes it about six weeks old. It was clean and pristine and it still smelled new, and as I was pulling out of the lot, one of my fellow drivers joked and said, "Don't scratch it!"<br /><br />Of course, within an hour, the bus seen above nearly took my right side mirror off. Luckily, I was able to avoid it, even though I was still a bit rusty from having not driven any kind of vehicle in a month. <br /><br />It took me that first hour to warm up and get my rhythm and confidence back. But after that, everything was back to normal. The only real problem for the rest of the night was that I was constantly distracted by some gum on the sole of my shoe that kept sticking to the pedals. <br /><br />Things could definitely have been worse.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-1159936857967827022006-10-04T00:25:00.000-04:002006-12-03T12:47:52.226-05:00Guess who's still not working?I'm back, but it seems I've got a low level case of whatever this plague is that's been going around, the one with the incessant coughing and foggy head. It seems I caught it a few weeks ago, gave it to a few friends, got better, went away, came back, and then caught it again. So I'm avoiding the cab until next week. I wonder if those Canadian cigarettes had something to do with it.<br /><br />And, on top of not feeling 100% health-wise, I'm having trouble finding the enthusiasm to get back into the swing of cab driving. Have I ever mentioned that I hate not only driving a cab, but also just driving at all? Or even being a passenger in a car? I much prefer the subway, even with all the pushing and positioning that goes on down there. It's just so much less stress. Even when I'm stuck in a tunnel in a crowded train, I'm still much more at ease than when aboveground, stuck in traffic. <br /><br />My tolerance for the street was never this low until I started driving a cab. And now it appears I have some sort of visceral aversion to being strapped in to any kind of road vehicle. I've also become the worst back-seat driver that ever existed. If you knew me and owned a car, you would not want to take me anywhere at all, ever, because not only would I tell you <i>how</i> to drive, I would also tell you exactly which route to take and why you should take it. I would not only aggravate the shit out of you, I would bore you to tears describing traffic patterns, light times, bad intersections (and why they're bad), bridge & tunnel approaches, red-light cameras, and so on.<br /><br />So, yeah, I hate to drive, but I'm real good at driving other people crazy.<br /><br />Perhaps this means my next adventure should be some sort of job with the MTA or the Department of Transportation. <br /><br />Or not.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com57tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15914028.post-1159370819450256562006-09-28T12:49:00.000-04:002006-10-08T10:46:16.570-04:00Vancouver<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6726/1490/1600/IMG_1729.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6726/1490/400/IMG_1729.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6726/1490/1600/IMG_1728small.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6726/1490/400/IMG_1728small.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />[Updated to include photos]<br /><br />So I'm in Vancouver. "On vacation," as they say. I haven't driven a cab in a few weeks. Instead, I spent that time completing the first draft of the book. Which I accomplished. And when I get back home next week, I will probably have my editor's notes for the second draft and get back to work on it. But I also plan to get back in the cab, even if it's on a minimal level.<br /><br />Anyway, I arrived here in Canada yesterday and, of course, I'm experiencing a tiny bit of culture shock. It's been a little while since I left New York last, and everytime I do, there's a small transition. It's really quite beautiful here, and also incredibly quiet, to the point that it's creepy. I'm not used to it, but I can see the appeal.<br /><br />So, of course, the first thing I did after leaving the airport was get into a taxi. The one we got was green and white, though there are plenty of yellow cabs around. I was a little skeptical at first that our ride would be slow and boring because this city seems so clean and pristine, but it turned out to be okay. Our driver had on flip-up shades under the brim of a tan Vancouver baseball hat. In the taxi, he sat up so completely straight that the top of his head was in constant contact with the ceiling of the car. He also had on spotless white gloves and drove with his arms at the strangest angle. <br /><br />At the end of the ride, I decided I totally approved of his moves. I mean, he didn't do anything particularly special or out of the ordinary, but he definitely had that quick, efficient, get-you-there-in-one-piece-but-fast style that I have tried to perfect in my own driving.<br /><br />The only other thing of note was that when I tried to buy cigarettes, they didn't have my brand. I didn't recognize most of the others either, so I resorted to treating the girl at the 7-11 like a salesperson who works on commission, asking her, "Can you recommend a good light cigarette?"<br /><br />She handed me a pack of "Canadian Classics Lights" and said they were "popular." I bought them. They're alright.M.P.http://www.blogger.com/profile/08367560859705244696noreply@blogger.com49