This is just to say...

...I'm back.

On my trip I noticed two things:

1. No one in Florida uses their turn signal. Seriously. NO ONE.

Oh, wait, except for the old people. But they put their signal on three miles in advance, so it doesn't really count.

and

2. Florida Turnpike tollbooth operators are extremely nice. To the point that it's utterly disconcerting.

Yesterday

I didn't work last night for blizzard reasons. I initially considered trying to pull off at least part of a shift, but when I realized I had no way of getting to the garage since my car was completely buried, I said forget it. Besides, this is what part of my street looked like from my kitchen window before the storm was even over:



In other news, I'm going away this week to visit my 95-year-old grandmother. New York Hack will have to be neglected while I'm gone as I don't think I'll have easy access to the internet around there. I am turning this "Comment Moderation" thing on for while I'm gone, just so you know, so your comments will appear on the site eventually, just not right away. I'll be back to work Sunday night so check back after that if you want.

Scores

It was another night of relatively well-behaved passengers. My favorite ride of the evening was when I picked up two teenage girls who gabbed about boys the whole way home. After they got settled in the back, one turned to the other and said, "Okay, so who do you like more -- Simon or Andrew?" The other girl replied, "Well, Simon's cuter, but... I don't know... Andrew's cooler." Then she continued, "Oh, fuckin' Gabe! I found out he does like me. He is SO annoying." They continued discussing the ever-important boy situation until I dropped them off at their Upper East Side apartment building. By the end of the trip, it sounded like Simon was coming out the winner.

Later, a 20-something-year-old woman got in and, after a minute or two, said "I don't think he likes me." I turned around and was about to say, "Excuse me?" when I realized she had made a call and wasn't actually talking to me. Apparently she was just coming from a first date that didn't work out the way she had hoped. From what I could hear of her conversation, the guy had given her the old unenthusiastic "I'll be in touch" line at the end of the date and didn't kiss her when she gave him the opportunity. The moment sounded utterly cringe-worthy. When she got out, it occurred to me that I should've offered to set her up with Andrew. I hear he's cool and I think he's still available, even if he is all of fourteen years old.

And the most annoying ride of the night (which, luckily, wasn't even too annoying compared to other nights) was when three people got in at the Meat Packing District (of course) and wanted to go to Scores West. When I told them I didn't know exactly where it was, they stared at me blankly and just kept repeating "Scores West, Scores West" over and over again, as if that was gonna make me suddenly know the address. After saying it a few more times, they added, "It's a strip club." I replied, "That still doesn't help me." I could've taken them to any number of strip clubs, quite a few of which I'm very familiar with (from bringing passengers there, of course), including the Scores on the east side (60th between 1st and 2nd), but they were set on Scores goddamn West. Finally they figured out they could call 411. They got the address and I was able to deliver them to their fill of tits and ass. Now I know: Scores West is on 28th St between 10th and 11th Aves. Make a note of it.

Status quo

So I finally felt well enough to get back to work tonight. Most people seemed to be in a generous mood tip-wise, but not all. And I know this is a gross generalization, but I'm really starting to believe there is something wrong with French people. Most cabbies know that the second they hear a French accent, it means there will be no tip. Tonight, the French lived up to their reputation yet again when the ones I was transporting kindly let me keep the 30 cents change from the $9 they gave on an $8.70 fare. Granted, tipping is not customary in France, but still, isn't it spelled out in all the New York visitor's guidebooks? What the hell? Sometimes it's hard to resist the urge to say something to these people, to try and educate them on this city's customs, or even to be simple and snarky with something along the lines of, "Thanks, now I can buy that pack of gum I've been saving up for." But they probably wouldn't get it, so why bother? Fucking French people. Luckily the New Yorkers I picked up tonight were extra kind and made up for the few idiots I had to deal with.

Other than that, the night was pretty much status quo. Of course, the French not tipping is also status quo. So, yeah, a typical night.

Television

I just got home and I'm exhausted. It was a weird shift, but it turned out okay. My second fare of the day was the guy pictured above, named Teddy Geiger, who is some up-and-coming 17-year-old musician, and who also was on that new tv show called "Love Monkey" recently. He's opening for Brandi Carlile at Mercury Lounge next month.

After dropping him off, I ended up back uptown on Central Park West when I got stuck behind some Nissan that was driving like a zombie. They kept stopping at green lights and swerving into the other traffic lanes and just generally driving like fucking idiots. When I finally pulled up next to them, I saw what the problem was. The occupants of the car were leisurely smoking a joint. I tried to get a picture, but when the light turned green, they were actually paying attention and started driving again.

Later on, one of my passengers got in, took a second look at me, and said, "Wait, weren't you on tv tonight?" I said, "I believe so, though I haven't seen it yet." So he proceeded to describe the entire ABC News segment for me in detail. It was so weird having a passenger tell me stuff about myself, but I have to admit, I kind of liked it. It was certainly better than having to answer the same tired old questions over and over again.

15 minutes and counting down

So the Associated Press did an article about me, and the result has been a whirlwind of attention. To be honest, it's all a little overwhelming, but I figure I'll just enjoy it while it lasts. So this morning I agreed to be interviewed by Kemberly Richardson (pictured above) for ABC News, and, though I was nervous, it turned out to be a lot of fun. The segment should appear on either Wednesday or Thursday during the 5:00 p.m. broadcast. I'm only now beginning to wrap my brain around all this, it's just so utterly surreal, but it has certainly made the past few days interesting, to say the least.

UPDATE: Supposedly the segment is gonna run tonight (Thursday) during the 6:00 pm broadcast. I won't be able to watch because I'll be in the cab by then, but I'll be taping it.

Prizzy R.I.P.

It was another slow shift tonight. And though there weren't many people taking cabs, there were more than enough asshole drivers on the streets. Seen above is yet another Jersey fuck who doesn't know how to drive. This guy decided that, rather than pulling off to the side, he needed to stop dead in the middle of Bleecker St to ask a parked cab driver for directions. When I honked at him so that maybe he would make enough room for other cars to pass, he refused to move, despite the fact that about 10 cars were now stuck behind him. Only when he finally did start driving again did he decide to pull off to the side, but only for a second because apparently he wanted to get behind me so he could honk back at me. So not only was I stuck behind this idiot for five minutes, but now I was stuck in front of him with him leaning on the horn non-stop. A lady standing on the sidewalk finally got so annoyed with him, she yelled, "Shut the fuck up and go back to Jersey!" Too bad she wasn't looking for a cab because I would've given her a free ride.


Meanwhile, anyone know Prizzy is? Or, I mean, was? There were four cars painted with this message driving west on Houston, and they were speeding like maniacs and weaving in and out of traffic. When I commented on this to my passengers at the time, they said, "Whoever he was, if they don't stop driving like that, they'll be joining him soon."

The police

I got to see the sunset tonight from underneath the FDR, facing the Brooklyn Bridge.


Later, while on the FDR going towards the Brooklyn Bridge, I got stuck in this fucked up traffic. What annoys me most about this is it's a totally unecessary backup. For whatever reason, the NYPD seems to think that placing two cop cars in the left lane at the beginning of the bridge will act as a deterrent to terrorism, when in fact all it does is create a long slow-moving stream of tired and angry drivers that reaches all the way up to the Williamsburg Bridge. I don't really see the point. It's not like they ever pull anyone over to make sure they're not terrorists, and besides, how could they possibly know? Meanwhile, anyone who has to go to Brooklyn at night is completely terrorized by the traffic.

My passengers at this time were two drunk ladies who needed to go to Coney Island Ave and Ave H. When they saw the traffic, they told me to take the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel instead. Of course, there was construction work on the tunnel, so that ended up creating even more aggravation, with everyone merging into one little lane. So, basically, the message the city's sending is, if you live in Brooklyn and need to get home at night, sucks for you.


Speaking of cops, earlier in the evening, about 30 or 40 cops, all with lights flashing, lined up on both sides of 1st Ave above 34th St. I have no idea what they were doing, but I'm assuming it was some sort of exercise. Still, with news on the radio that Osama Bin Laden has resurfaced and has renewed his pledge to fuck with the U.S., it was slightly alarming to see this many cops in one place. And yet, despite their great number, all these cops still managed to cause less traffic than those two that sit on the goddamn Brooklyn Bridge.

And one more related item: Tonight I saw a new form of undercover cop car. As you may know, many precincts have taxis that are used as undercover vehicles, which is pretty smart as it is. But tonight, for the first time ever, I saw a church van with tinted windows blow its cover by flashing its police lights to get through a particularly bad traffic snarl. Most drivers were so surprised that they didn't take it seriously enough to pull over and make room until the van made the sirens blare. Who knew?

The finger

The usual. I have no idea what I did that pissed this woman off so much, but she told me I could kiss her ass, gave me the finger, and even held it for me when I pulled out the camera.


Not so usual was seeing a roll of toilet paper hanging off the back of a parked cab. It's like the cab walked out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to its shoe. How embarrassing.


Later on, I took these two guys, named John and Steve, to a hotel in Livingston, New Jersey. They were extremely friendly and curious about me and, somewhere along the way, the blog came up. After that, they were desperate to be mentioned on it. I told them they had to do something interesting for me to write about it, so the whole rest of the ride they said things like, "Okay, there's a bank over there. Pull over and we'll rob it. Will that get us on the blog?" Ultimately, nothing out of the ordinary happened on the trip except that they were very nice to me and tipped generously. So, though they didn't give me the finger and tell me to kiss their asses, I'm happy to fulfill their wish here.

A publicist, an actor, and a porn star

These are the rules posted in the taxi hold lot at JFK, where I spent some time tonight, as usual. I think my favorite is "Do not prepare any types of food."

The most annoying thing that happened today was when some lady tried to stop another lady from getting in my cab in front of Bed, Bath & Beyond on 6 Ave and 18th St. I was dropping off a passenger there and the first woman was hailing a cab. I pulled up right next to her because that's where my passengers wanted to get out. The meter was off, which means that the roof light was on (the two are connected: when the meter is on, the roof light is off, and vice versa), and the people were paying me. The lady on the street scowled at me and walked back to the cab behind me. Then, when another woman started getting in my cab, she walked back up and told the woman getting in that she shouldn't take my cab. Then she turned to me and through the window said, "It's really tacky to do that." I was completely confused, so I asked, "Do what?" She replied, ""Your light was on but you still had people in your cab, and you were trying to get me to take you. It's not right. There are other cabs behind you that are free." The lady getting in looked at me to see what I was gonna say, so I was just like, "I have no idea what you're talking about. They were paying me. That means the meter was off, which makes the light go on. I don't have any control over that." But she just walked away in a self-righteous huff and the other lady ultimately got in, but what the fuck? I am so utterly sick of people thinking every cabbie is out to rip them off or do some shady shit. Has this woman never taken a cab before? We drop people off, and other people get in after the first people have paid. That's how it works. And besides, it's the nature of the game that we cabbies have to play with each other. We try to get the next passenger we see, at the expense of the cabs behind us. It was a minor event, but it was annoying. And since I went to work in a bad mood to begin with, this ignorant bitch only made it worse.

But eventually the night got better, especially when I picked up three people in the Meat Packing district going to the Waldorf Astoria. One was a publicist and the other two, a man and a woman, were her clients. The guy said he was "on MTV." I didn't recognize him though, since I don't have cable, and who watches MTV anymore anyway? The other woman said she was a porn star. Apparently these two had been married for a little while until the guy came out as gay. When I asked to take their picture, the guy said no because he couldn't be seen in a picture with the porn star. Then they tried to guess my age and I half-jokingly proposed a wager. We decided that if they guessed correctly, their ride would be free. If they guessed wrong, they said they would give me triple the fare. I look much younger than my age, so I was pretty confident they would guess wrong, which they did. When we got to the hotel, the fare was $9.40. They gave me $11 total. I wonder if they would've insisted on the free ride if they had guessed correctly.

Later on, a young guy and girl got in on the Lower East Side wanting to go to Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. Immediately the guy said, "Do you do a blog? I think I recognize you." He had read the blog! I was pretty excited and told them how Diego had a passenger last night who recognized him from the picture I posted a month or two ago. (And it appears this passenger has left a comment under the previous post, by the way.) We had a pleasant chat and, at the end of the trip, he gave me $20 on an $11 fare. Funny how that works: nice regular people from Brooklyn tip much more generously than porn stars and publicists who stay at the Waldorf.

In the meantime, though I may only be able to make money from doing this blog in the form of generous tips from the few passengers who've happened upon it, someone else appears to be capitalizing off of it. I recently noted one commenter on this site has created New York Hack t-shirts (albeit with the image of a London taxi on it, not a Crown Vic). Whoever you are, can I by any chance get one of them? For free?

You're hot

I got out early from the garage this afternoon and it turned out to be a pretty good night, even though I thought it would be dead with everyone at home recovering from the holiday weekend. And luckily, there wasn't too much drama in the cab tonight either.

The only marginally interesting moment was when three young drunk girls got into the cab around 10:30. They were all revved up and talking at the same time so that I couldn't hear them tell me where they wanted to go. I had to act like a parent for a minute and say, "Okay, one at a time. One of you has to tell me where to go." When this was finally accomplished, they peppered me with all sorts of questions about being a cab driver. One of the girls got really excited and told some story about her dad's friend named Sam who was a cab driver and who was the smartest man her dad ever met. She was like, "Yeah, and my dad went to Oxford and Columbia. Class of '66. But he thinks this guy Sam is the most brilliant man ever. He recommended all these books to him, like Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Have you heard of it?" I responded, "Yeah, didn't you read that in high school?" And she said, "No! I'm in high school now and we haven't read it! I'm a junior!" They couldn't believe I had actually read Siddhartha, and all of a sudden, I felt sort of old. I read that book maybe 15 years ago, when I was 15. It's odd to think that way. Thirty isn't really that old, but when you're driving a gaggle of drunk giggling teenage girls home, it sure feels like it.

Anyway, as they were paying and getting out, one of the girls goes, "You're really hot. I'm sure it's annoying because you probably get hit on all the time, but I just have to tell you, I think you're totally hot!" Then they got out and waved as I drove away.

I actually don't get hit on in the cab too often, which I consider to be a good thing, but it does happen from time to time. And when it does, it's usually pretty uncomfortable for me. I've been asked for my number and I've been offered drinks, food, and massages. I've also had one woman jokingly (I hope) offer to pay me in sex instead of cash while she had her girlfriend (who was in Portugal) connected on the cell phone. For some reason, however, the girls tonight didn't really bother me. It was almost cute how energetic and excited they were, and the girl who told me she thought I was hot had major balls, and that needs to be respected.

On a related note, I once drove a woman home who told me she had married her cab driver. He picked her up and they made a connection. Numbers were exchanged, dates went on, and eventually a marriage was had. At the time of our conversation, they had been married for nine years.

18-wheeler

I watched a cab get hit by an 18-wheeler tonight. It was around 7:00 p.m. down 2nd Ave in the 60s somewhere and the street was all clogged. This cabbie pulled what would normally be a relatively harmless move when he tried to get over into the next lane. However, the 18-wheeler that was already in that lane didn't stop in time and hit him. I'm assuming the cabbie wasn't too injured because the truck driver jumped out and started screaming at him, and usually you don't scream at dead people, or even at people who are bleeding much. Of course, there's a chance he was hurt, but the trucker was so angry, he didn't really give a shit. He was saying, "How the fuck do you expect me to see you from up there? What the fuck is wrong with you? You fucking idiot!" I kinda felt bad for the cabbie, since it must suck to get chewed out two seconds after almost getting killed by a big fucking truck. Unfortunately I was in the flow of traffic, so I couldn't stick around to see what happened next.


Meanwhile, Times Square was a nightmare tonight. They've already begun setting up for New Year's Eve (part of which is shown above), and then they closed it off entirely so they could seal manholes and remove mailboxes, or whatever it is they have to do there. New Year's is the biggest money night of the year for driving a cab, but I don't even bother with it. It's too crazy, with too much traffic and too many drunk people puking in the cab. I'd much rather get drunk myself and puke in someone else's cab.

Monday night

I never did update about the strike, but it's over now, so it doesn't really matter anymore. But in case you didn't see enough of it, here's a picture of some of the treacherous traffic. This was taken on the Pulaski Bridge, on my way back to the garage at the end of that one day shift I worked last Thursday. I'm happy to be back to nights and back on the meter.


Tonight's shift was pretty boring though. It was the post-Christmas shopping frenzy, and the city mainly consisted of tourists (shown above in, where else, Times Square). I had one girl in my cab who was crying hysterically into her boyfriend's shoulder, but that was pretty much the only thing out of the ordinary. She was talking too low, so I couldn't hear what the problem was. But it reminded me of some passengers I picked up last year just after the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the World Series. A man and a woman got in, and the woman sounded like she was crying, saying, "Oh my god. I can't believe it. I just can't believe it." I was concerned because she really sounded upset, so I asked, "Is everything okay?" She tearfully, yet cheerfully replied, "Oh, yes! We're Red Sox fans."

Sightseeing

Sometimes it seems like part of these sightseeing tours include an attraction called "Dead Cabbie." I imagine the tour guide saying something like, "Now, if you'll look to your right, you'll see what happens to a yellow cab when our bus cuts it off and tries to flatten it and kill the driver."

Luckily I swerved and hit my brakes in time when this particular bus got to that part of the tour.

Despite murderous sightseeing buses, the night was uneventful.

195 miles

I drove 195 miles tonight and my fingernails are, as usual, black with dirt from touching all that grubby money. With the snow (shown above in Central Park) came good luck for me. Or, as Diego calls it, "the Diego luck." I got a job to Newark Airport early in the evening, and found no traffic there and back. I'm assuming most people opted against driving into the city tonight because of the weather, even though the worst of it was over by this morning. I heard on the radio that New Jersey registered nearly 600 accidents today alone. Figures.

Later in the night, when business had already gotten slow, I found a fare going to Westchester. Two stops. This pretty much made my night, since out of town fares are the most lucrative. Money-wise, I think this was actually my best shift ever driving a cab.

Sanitation

So the tree was lit Wednesday, as was the big snowflake that hangs over the intersection of 57th and 5th. And with these events came the crowds, which will continue to increase until the end of the year. I have been trying to brace myself for this. So, yeah, traffic was bad tonight, but I actually expected worse. I was able to maintain a relatively calm mental state, until about 7:45, when I got stuck behind the garbage truck you see below.



I was on 22nd Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues, when it happened. The truck stopped and two sanitation guys got out and began to leisurely haul a huge heap of garbage bags into the back. I had a passenger with me, so we chatted, waiting for them to be done as the meter ticked away it's shitty 40 cents every two minutes. After about 10 minutes, the truck moved up three car lengths and stopped again, this time to collect another 20 or so bags of trash from the other side of the street. But near this pile of bags was a huge empty space in between the parked cars. After continuing to sit there for what seemed like forever, I started to lose it. I got out and asked the guys if it would be possible to pull into this space on the side so me and the 15 cars behind me could pass. They simply smirked at me and said, "Nope," and continued to ever so slowly throw the trash in the truck. Ten more minutes passed, and the truck kept moving a few car lengths and stopping for more trash. The whole ordeal lasted about 30 minutes, and by that time, my cool had evaporated and I was completely drained.

The thing about driving a cab is, I can make it through a 12 hour shift without feeling too tired or sleepy as long as I'm busy and moving. Once I get stuck in a really bad traffic jam, or behind an asshole garbage truck, as the case may be, my energy depletes. It's not driving the cab that exhausts me, it's the sitting still that does it.

Anyway, I finally got the woman home, and she was sweet and gave me a nice tip, despite the extra time and money it took to get her there.


Meanwhile, at one point in the night, I found myself behind a car with this curious license plate. I had some tourists in the back, so I made a little joke and said, "Look! We're behind the mayor of New Jersey!" I think they thought I was serious, though, because, after a pause, they politely corrected me, saying, "Well, it would have to be the mayor of a town in New Jersey. There can't be a mayor of a whole state."

Trips

Since I'm not working tonight, I figured I'd post a brief list of some memorable passengers from recent months:

1. The young suburban couple who were "waiting for the mushrooms to kick in." They offered me $20 to let them smoke weed in the cab, but I wouldn't. Instead I showed them a relatively dark street near Grand Central, where I let them off, so they could smoke up before getting on their train.

2. The British manager of a bunch of bands, including the Pet Shop Boys and Tears for Fears. I took him to the Beacon theater, where Tears for Fears were playing later that night. He had lost his cell phone earlier that day in a taxi, but had managed to retrieve it in time for the show. He ended the trip by offering me free tickets and passes. Unfortunately, I had to decline.

3. The young well-mannered black guys who wanted me to take them on a long round trip, saying they were just meeting a friend for a second and there would be no waiting. Five minutes before we got there, one of the guys made a call from his cell telling their "friend" to be on the corner. When we pulled up, a preppy white guy walked up to the window of the cab. One of my passengers said, "Yeah, you wanted two tickets?" The guy said, "Huh? Oh, yeah." A discreet exchange was made through the window of the cab, and then I took the guys back to where I picked them up.

4. One of my very favorites, as you may have read in the Gothamist thing, was the oddly-mannered late-middle-aged lady who told me she only watched shopping channels on TV. She rattled off all the different shopping networks (QVC, ShopNBC, HSN, etc.) and described the merits and drawbacks of each one. When I asked her how much money she spent on home shopping, she said, “Oh no, I don’t buy anything anymore, I just watch. I used to buy from them. Ten years ago I drained a bank account, and a good bank account, too, but I don’t do that anymore. Now I just watch them.” I guess they warded off loneliness or something. Her husband, after all, was a Bush-voting, NRA-card-carrying Republican.

5. The rich young gay guy who voted for Bush and was dating the son of Decker, of the Black & Decker fortune. I took him to the Four Seasons while he told me all sorts of stories about his boyfriend. He gave me an $8 tip on a $12 fare.

6. Jim and Mim Herr, owners of Herr’s Potato Chips. They were on their way back to Pennsylvania and, since it was right before Christmas, they wanted to see the holiday lights on the ride to Penn Station. Traffic was pretty bad though, so I told them they couldn’t see the tree from the street and just took them through Times Square instead, since it was on the way. They were sweet and gave me a nice tip. Later, passing Rockefeller Center, I felt a twinge of guilt as I caught a spectacular view of the tree and listened to the blasting Christmas music while sitting in a traffic deadlock.

7. The 23-year-old gay guy who had lost his virginity the day before to a much older, self-proclaimed spiritual guru.

8. The middle-aged woman who got in at Lincoln Center and told me she used to be a cab driver in the early '80s. She quit driving because she went back to school and became a doctor.

9. The deaf girl who signaled for me to give her a pen and paper so she could write down her destination.

10. The woman who had just had dental work and was still numb from the novocaine. She got in saying, "Hheventy-Hhhiff and Hhirst," which I finally realized meant, "Seventy-fifth and First."

11. The psychic who didn't read my mind about what kind of tip she was gonna give me.

12. The guy who claimed he produced three Beyonce songs. I took him to Howard Beach and the whole time he was flirting with some girl on the phone. Then he hung up and called his mom and asked her to cook "platanos y huevos" for him.

13. The Japanese diplomat who was working at the UN to try to get Japan into the UN Security Council.

14. The young woman who worked as an oncology nurse, administering chemotherapy to rich people's pets.

15. The two gay guys from Brooklyn Heights, one of whom was planning on coming out to his entire family by way of a note.

Reading it over now, this list seems kind of tame. I suppose one reason for that is because I'm saving some of my better passenger stories for full posts of their own when I get around to it. And another reason is because there are just so many bankers and lawyers taking cabs in New York, and all of them are relatively sane and well-behaved. As one old-time driver from my garage told me once, "Manhattan's so boring these days, the cab drivers are more interesting than the passengers. It's just a jerk store out there."

Quarter back

Apparently I'm not the only one this happens to. I was amused to read this in today's New York Times Metropolitan Diary:

Dear Diary:

As a longtime taxi driver and avid opera buff, I always enjoy driving customers to Lincoln Center. On a recent rainy evening, a fashionably dressed Upper East Side woman hailed my cab and asked to be taken to the Metropolitan Opera. I asked her what opera she was going to see, and we began a lively discussion. This well-heeled passenger asked me if I attended the Met regularly. I informed her that I rarely go any more because the tickets are too pricey on a taxi driver's salary. She replied: "Well, I agree with you about how expensive the tickets have become. Even though I can afford it, I am very discerning about which performances I attend. My box seat is costing me around $300, and a Champagne dinner at the Grand Tier Restaurant will be close to $100."

When we arrived at Lincoln Center, she told me how much she enjoyed the ride and that I was a great cabdriver. The meter read $6.70 and she handed me $8. I thanked her profusely, thinking she intended for me to keep the change.

She then said, "I'd like a quarter back, please."

As I drove away, I wondered if that quarter was going to help pay for that $300 opera ticket!

Davidson Garrett

I always wonder what these people are gonna do with that quarter, make a fucking phone call? I've been considering carrying around pennies and giving them out in 25-cent batches when these rich cheapskates want their precious little quarters back. And it's weird, because it really only ever seems to be people with money who do this. No regular working person would ever be so petty about some change. And if they were, it'd be excusable, because they're NOT RICH. The problem is that rich people probably don't even remember what a penny looks like. I guess it's up to me to remind them.

Marathon

This is a picture of the trash left behind on McGuiness Blvd in Brooklyn after the big NYC Marathon today. I went to work late in order to miss most of the traffic caused by all the street closures, and I got lucky and was able to stay away from what was left of it after 4:00 p.m. I had no accidents or middle fingers tonight, so I guess it was a pretty uneventful shift.


But back to the aggravation. Sorry the picture's so shitty. I'm a little freaked out about taking pictures of cops because cops are scary. But come on, do they need to be blocking the entire fucking street just so they can chat while sitting in the comfort of their cruisers? What the fuck? This picture is from 14th Street, facing east, just past Broadway. And, in case you can't tell from the photo (try clicking on it to make it bigger), there are two cop cars blocking both lanes of the street, and one is facing the wrong direction, so their driver's sides were closer, making for a better conversation, I'm sure. All eastbound traffic basically had to swerve halfway into the oncoming traffic lane to get around them.

I see cops breaking the law all the time in a variety of ways (and I'm sure everybody has seen the one where a cop abuses his lights and siren by turning them on to get through a red light, just to shut it off again once he's through), but it infuriates me when they needlessly put everyone in danger like this. They clearly think they are above the law. And, you know what? They are. Who's gonna give these guys a fucking ticket? Themselves? Their dangerous, bad behavior has effectively caused me to have zero respect for them. And it sucks, because, as with people's opinions about cab drivers, I realize I am judging the many by the behavior of a few. But still. So if you, or anyone you know is a cop, you can make it all up to me by giving me a PBA card. Thanks.

Ramadan

I got screwed at the airport not once, but twice tonight. It was extra busy in the city with a slight shortage of cabs due to it being the last night of Ramadan, but I was not to benefit from this. At 4:30 p.m., a half hour into my shift, two guys got in and wanted to go to the airport shuttle bus by Grand Central Station. When they realized they missed their bus, they asked if I would take them to JFK. Sucker that I am, I said okay. Traffic, as usual, was a nightmare. I arrived at the airport at 6:00 (not good) and pulled into the taxi lot. At 7:00, I was sent up to the Delta terminal and got a "shorty," which means it's a short-haul ride to anywhere in Queens or Brooklyn from JFK (from Laguardia, it's just Queens). The taxi dispatcher gives out little tickets that allow you to get on a shorter line if you return to the lot within 90 minutes. I was back in 15. My next passengers, luckily, were going to Manhattan, and I was back in business by 8:30, four hours after I left the city.

I had steady fares for the next few hours until I got taken out to deep Bay Ridge around midnight. I was close enough to JFK, so I called the airport taxi hotline to see what was going on in the lot. The message had just been updated to say the lot was at zero percent, so I jumped on the Belt and raced over, figuring I'd get lucky, that JFK owed me something good tonight. When I pulled in, there was one main line in front of me, and two shorty lines. The picture above is of the rest of the lot, gloriously empty.

After about twenty minutes and no movement, all the cabs behind me started leaving. I asked another driver what was going on and he said, "There's only one more flight, we're not gonna make it." I called the hotline and found out the last flight was landing at 1:30 a.m. I didn't know how heavy the flight was, but by then there were three full shorty lines, and more coming in. All the shorties would get out before me. That's about 45 cabs, plus the 15 in the main line in front of me. I said fuck it, and left. Fucked again. But, actually, I found out later, I fucked myself, because when I got back to the garage at the end of my shift, an old-time driver told me that the last flight to JFK is a 300-person Jet Blue plane from California. With 60 cabs in front of me, chances are I still would've gotten a passenger. Oh fucking well.


Meanwhile, this picture is just a continuation of the pissing theme. Some lockers were removed from the parking lot at the garage, and this is what was written on the wall behind them. I wonder if Billy had anything to do with this.