Somewhat Interesting
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Drive a taxi. It's fun. Really.
June 12, 2003
Last night was extraordinary. No, not because I made a million dollars. That always happens.
What was interesting about last night was the fact that 8 out of my 13 jobs were to destinations outside Manhattan. That's right, I know how to get to Brooklyn. And Queens. Quit it with the snickering.
So I'd like to give a big ol' shout out to the following neighborhoods (they're a motley bunch): Kensington, Sunset Park, Brooklyn Heights, Corona, Rego Park, Woodside, Sunset Park (again!), and, of course, Bushwick. This is definitely a record both in number and percentage of trips leaving Manhattan on a single shift. And I did it on an 8-hour to boot.
The other 5 were the Sheraton NY ('...and Spielberg was walking down the street...'), the Grand Hyatt ('my husband is a great guy'), 11th and Grnwch ('I'm watching you, kid, don't screw this trip up'), 83rd and 3rd ('my, that dinner party was an awkward dreadful bore'), and Bleecker @ Bway.
Congratulations to all the lucky winners!
What was interesting about last night was the fact that 8 out of my 13 jobs were to destinations outside Manhattan. That's right, I know how to get to Brooklyn. And Queens. Quit it with the snickering.
So I'd like to give a big ol' shout out to the following neighborhoods (they're a motley bunch): Kensington, Sunset Park, Brooklyn Heights, Corona, Rego Park, Woodside, Sunset Park (again!), and, of course, Bushwick. This is definitely a record both in number and percentage of trips leaving Manhattan on a single shift. And I did it on an 8-hour to boot.
The other 5 were the Sheraton NY ('...and Spielberg was walking down the street...'), the Grand Hyatt ('my husband is a great guy'), 11th and Grnwch ('I'm watching you, kid, don't screw this trip up'), 83rd and 3rd ('my, that dinner party was an awkward dreadful bore'), and Bleecker @ Bway.
Congratulations to all the lucky winners!
June 11, 2003
The owner has procured a CD player for the taxi. It plays plain-jane CDs & MP3 discs. Also WMA, but I hardly have a clue as to what the benefit of that is. Also, a speaker upgrade was in order. Pleasant.
After a few days of this music setup, it feels like driving a taxi, with a bit of acceptable distraction. Initially, I had the idea that the music would come and take my worries away forever. After the novelty of the device has worn off, however, the idea of playing the same acoustic Neil Young CDs 500 times seems like torture in itself. Eventually, I'll be blasting Physical Graffiti at an unacceptable volume just to piss off the cool Willy B kids, not to mention EVERYBODY ELSE.
And that is how it goes for me. My verbal agreement with my roommate taxi owner has me on this cab 7 days a week, 10pm to 6 am. The hours remove some factors that I find terribly annoying, like crushing levels of traffic and the much higher likelihood of arrogant S.O.B.s that are absolutely sure that I do not know where 68th and Madison is. Also, what I've found is that the price I've paying him is probably on the low side. Especially if things go wrong with the taxi. I'd pay a wee bit more just to ease my mind (read: absolve myself of any responsibility for the care and maintenance of the cab beyond keeping the interior & exterior clean).
All that aside, even with the reduced hours per day and the free-flowing nature of the shift, I'd have to say that already I'm showing signs of paranoia. Last night I operated most of the shift under the assumption that the next customer would the One that would wreak havoc on all levels.
Too many days straight destroys what little social skills I have. Maybe I should consider eating Friday and Saturday (i.e. work for a coupla hours only on those nights.) Taking a loss is generally unacceptable. I did it last Friday night for extenuating circumstances. But generally, I'm here to serve NYC nightlife. Being an actual participant has become an alien concept, for the most part.
And that is the news.
After a few days of this music setup, it feels like driving a taxi, with a bit of acceptable distraction. Initially, I had the idea that the music would come and take my worries away forever. After the novelty of the device has worn off, however, the idea of playing the same acoustic Neil Young CDs 500 times seems like torture in itself. Eventually, I'll be blasting Physical Graffiti at an unacceptable volume just to piss off the cool Willy B kids, not to mention EVERYBODY ELSE.
And that is how it goes for me. My verbal agreement with my roommate taxi owner has me on this cab 7 days a week, 10pm to 6 am. The hours remove some factors that I find terribly annoying, like crushing levels of traffic and the much higher likelihood of arrogant S.O.B.s that are absolutely sure that I do not know where 68th and Madison is. Also, what I've found is that the price I've paying him is probably on the low side. Especially if things go wrong with the taxi. I'd pay a wee bit more just to ease my mind (read: absolve myself of any responsibility for the care and maintenance of the cab beyond keeping the interior & exterior clean).
All that aside, even with the reduced hours per day and the free-flowing nature of the shift, I'd have to say that already I'm showing signs of paranoia. Last night I operated most of the shift under the assumption that the next customer would the One that would wreak havoc on all levels.
Too many days straight destroys what little social skills I have. Maybe I should consider eating Friday and Saturday (i.e. work for a coupla hours only on those nights.) Taking a loss is generally unacceptable. I did it last Friday night for extenuating circumstances. But generally, I'm here to serve NYC nightlife. Being an actual participant has become an alien concept, for the most part.
And that is the news.
June 07, 2003
So I finally left my taxi garage after 8+ years of rather feckless pretension to making a straight-world go of it. It's basically marginal hours for marginal cash from here on out. Unless, of course, I get tired of that, and want to return to the garage. Yes, my taxi-man roomie has bought a NEW TAXI. The negotiated price I'm paying him is minimal, for I am/will be working strange hours: 10pm to 6am.
Everything's cool, until the idea of inevitable disaster invades, whether it's a shock wave of screaming pulverized metal, or a particularly effective verbal assault by an evil person (yes, they exist, and live in NYC, too). It is especially important to use any means available to escape this paranoia. It comes like a bitter tide, drowning everything in futility.
Hum, sing, play the radio. Think happy thoughts. Kittens! Smooth roads! Hell, empty streets. I like it quiet.
So far, (in this new taxi) nobody's offered me much resistance to my taxi-driving excellence. Rationality from my customers is as important as a decent tip. No, more important.
This is a point I can't stress too much: Evil people bent on tearing your ass up over some imagined transgression end up poisoning the well, so to speak. Those folks, as rare as they are, that abuse the customer/driver dynamic will, over time, erode the driver's ability to approach each new customer neutrally. I had to learn to be paranoid, to put it plainly. I am openly blaming a few miserable-excuses-for-human-beings for my overly conservative approach to the job. Nowadays I leave as few edges (& such) as possible for anybody to hook onto.
But then, I am thin-skinned. Wrong job, I guess.
For now, though, I'll try to meditate on the formalization of the concept of taxi-driving as a suicide solution. That'll help me leave the job, because I want to live. I only realized recently that I wrecked a lot of shit under the assumption that I'd wouldn't survive to age 30. Well, I'm 31 now. I want to live, there isn't any other way to survive anymore.
Everything's cool, until the idea of inevitable disaster invades, whether it's a shock wave of screaming pulverized metal, or a particularly effective verbal assault by an evil person (yes, they exist, and live in NYC, too). It is especially important to use any means available to escape this paranoia. It comes like a bitter tide, drowning everything in futility.
Hum, sing, play the radio. Think happy thoughts. Kittens! Smooth roads! Hell, empty streets. I like it quiet.
So far, (in this new taxi) nobody's offered me much resistance to my taxi-driving excellence. Rationality from my customers is as important as a decent tip. No, more important.
This is a point I can't stress too much: Evil people bent on tearing your ass up over some imagined transgression end up poisoning the well, so to speak. Those folks, as rare as they are, that abuse the customer/driver dynamic will, over time, erode the driver's ability to approach each new customer neutrally. I had to learn to be paranoid, to put it plainly. I am openly blaming a few miserable-excuses-for-human-beings for my overly conservative approach to the job. Nowadays I leave as few edges (& such) as possible for anybody to hook onto.
But then, I am thin-skinned. Wrong job, I guess.
For now, though, I'll try to meditate on the formalization of the concept of taxi-driving as a suicide solution. That'll help me leave the job, because I want to live. I only realized recently that I wrecked a lot of shit under the assumption that I'd wouldn't survive to age 30. Well, I'm 31 now. I want to live, there isn't any other way to survive anymore.
