Vignette: A Girl’s Little Necessities

Posted: 11th August 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
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In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting, and sometimes an object. -Wikipedia

I was sitting outside a bar last Thursday nite, diagonally parked next to another taxi from a different company. It is a really slow night, but I have the advantageous position; anyone walking directly out of the bar will be heading straight to the passenger door of my car. Two very drunk and very slutty looking girls stagger out the door, and inexplicably veer left and walk right past my car towards my competitor. I heard one of the slutty girls ask the other driver through his passenger window if he can take them to a beach hotel that is about a $45 ride, and I thought to myself, “Well, that sucks… That should be my ride…”

I then hear the girl ask if he can accept a credit card. I am not above trying to swipe a fare, especially on a night this slow, so I said, “I can take a card”, but she apparently didn’t hear me. She opens the rear door and they get in, and the other hack starts his car.

But before he can back out, two douchey, muscle-bound, gelled-haired guys walk up to the rear door… one of them is wearing an “Affliction” tee shirt, a certain sign of severe douchebaggery. He bends down to the window and says something to the slutty girls, and starts walking away from the car. He turns back and says, “Yeah, we’re leaving right now… Are you coming with?”, and the two girls get out of the taxi.

“Well, I guess neither of us are getting that sweet ride”, I thought to myself. Twenty or thirty seconds later, one of the girls runs back to the taxi, opens the rear door, retrieves the cell phone she left behind, and runs back to join the two douchebags as they walk down the sidewalk with her friend.

The other taxi driver opens his door and gets out, and walks around to the passenger side of his car. I said to him, “Dolphin Shores Hotel… that woulda been a great ride… that sucks…”

He does not look pleased… in fact, he looks very pissed off. He opens the back door and retrieves a couple of small foil/paper packets from the back seat… they look like powdered cocoa packets. He looks at them for a moment, then turns and starts walking after the two slutty girls and yells, “Miss? Oh, Miss? You forgot your Luvena Anti-Itch Medicated Feminine Wipes! You forgot your vaginal wipes! If you aren’t going back to your hotel, you will probably need your medicated vaginal wipes! Hey! Can you hear me? I’m talking to you! How are you going to clean up that nasty vagina without your medicated vaginal wipes?”

I am laughing my ass off, and the other driver walks back to his car, chucking the wipes into the street. He sees me laughing and says, “Fucking bitches…”

And I said, “Dude, you just made my blog…”

Stop Being Black

Posted: 31st July 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
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I am so pissed off about this Trayvon Martin bullshit… Nevermind that an innocent man has been hounded, threatened, and vilified by the media and the low-information idiots that believe this deceitful nonsense they spew, our government personnel and our tax dollars were used in collusion with the biggest racists in the country like Al Sharpton and the Black Panthers, to whip up outrage in the black community, and it is all based on a lie… the lie that somehow, even though the local police and the FBI found zero evidence of racial bias, that George Zimmerman is a rabid racist that executed an angelic and innocent child.

Anyone with an internet connection and the reading skills we used to insist upon from the average eighth grader can learn in a matter of minutes a number of facts that show that Trayvon Martin was a troubled teenager that was already on his way to gladiator academy, he just had not taken an adult charge yet. The reason he was in Sanford that night is because his mother sent him away for getting in trouble at school, where he was caught with drug residue, burglary tools, and stolen women’s jewelry. The school resource officer listed the jewelry as “found” property rather than “stolen” property in an effort to keep his crime stats low. Trayvon assaulted a bus driver, and his cell phone was full of photos of drugs, guns, and fighting videos. The now famous Skittles and juice are mixed with a bottle of cough syrup to make a ghetto drink called “lean”, a cheap high that produces psychosis, aggression, and paranoia, and in his autopsy, it was revealed that this fit, athletic, and muscular teenager had serious liver damage, an indicator of heavy “lean” usage. His social media reinforces this picture of a violent, drug-using gangsta wannabe, and he apparently had nude photos of minor girls on his phone as well.

Someone with a Twitter handle of NO_LIMIT_NIGGA probably isn’t on the way to a medical degree at FSU or nights and weekends management at Best Buy.

Yet a huge percentage of black people seem to be able to overlook all these facts and make the gigantic leap that this violent, drug using, tattooed, and criminally inclined minor child was innocently walking to Dad’s place with candy and a large juice when a crazed racist gunned him down for no reason whatsoever. Rachel Jeantel has said that Trayvon was almost home, but for some reason doubled back to confront a man he was supposedly afraid of, and she says that Trayvon threw the first punch.

Still, they somehow believe that Trayvon was defending himself against an aggressor when he himself had no injuries, other than a 9mm hole in his chest. Even though Zimmerman’s nose looked like a bloody sweet potato and the back of his head was gashed and bleeding, and a witness placed Trayvon straddling Zimmerman, pounding his face and head, they cannot accept the simple fact that ALL the evidence supports Zimmerman’s account of the incident. This is not about race, it is about facts and evidence, and if the races were reversed and a black man shot a criminal Hispanic teen, the legal outcome would have been and should have been the same.

Al Sharpton picked another loser, just like Tawana Brawley and the Duke lacrosse whore. Why does anybody ever listen to this racist douchebag? Hasn’t he been exposed as a complete fraud over and over again? And yet, this shameless hoaxster has a national TV show. But now, after all this racial shit has been slung for months, race hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson are married to it and can not let it go, because that would mean admitting that they perpetrated a hoax. They can’t say they ginned all this up to stoke racial strife, knowing it was all a lie. But that is the truth.

Of course, I will entertain the possibility that I could be wrong about Trayvon; I never met the kid. Maybe a we lost a brilliant surgeon or a scientist or a concert pianist that night, but I highly doubt it. You’ll never see a civil suit or a civil rights case against Zimmerman; the rules of evidence are much different, and all Trayvon’s social media and cell phone pictures will be exhibits A through Z, to be compared against the character of a multi-racial man that tutored black kids, fought the local police for justice in the case of a black homeless man, took a black girl to prom, and has already been completely exonerated in this matter. The racist shit is completely unsupported by any evidence; indeed, all the available evidence impugns the character of Trayvon Martin, not George Zimmerman.

On the night the case went to the jury, I started casually asking what people in my car thought about the case, taking a little informal poll. Most thought he was not guilty, a few seemed to believe the “murdered little kid” meme. I picked up four guys, three white and one black, heading to a business class hotel. I asked them what they thought about the case, and the black guy said, “Oh, man, don’t get me started…!”

My first thought was that I had a black guy that would reflexively side with Trayvon, but my prejudicial attitude proved incorrect. He said, “Damn, man…. Did you see that guy’s face? Shiiiit… I’da shot that little nigga myself!”

I used to drive a guy named Dante with some regularity… He was a black guy around 28 or 30 years old that looked a little “ghetto”, with baggy pants and neck tattoos, but he had a family and worked some long hours as a cook to provide for them. I remember mentioning once that so many girls downtown looked like they were on their way to a porn audition, and he replied that he had a young daughter and hoped she wouldn’t turn out the same. He told me about going to a cookout at his cousin’s house, and her eleven and twelve year old girls were listening to Young Jeezy and shaking their asses, what is called “twerking” in the hood. Look up Jeezy on YouTube if you like, but trust me, he is part of the problem.

I told Dante that this happens as you mature and try to raise kids, and I reminded him that I have a daughter, too. Suddenly you realize that all those ho’s in the clubs probably had a Daddy that cared about them at one time, if they don’t now, and he would probably be mortified to see his baby behaving like this. Dante told me that he picks up extra shifts and works doubles to provide for his kids and make sure that the bills are paid, and I told him that is precisely what a real man does. He then told me that his cousin had three kids from two fathers, neither of which was around, and she was on Section 8, SNAP, and the whole spread of benefits that single black mothers can get. But she still does hair and nails in her garage for cash under the table, and she is in the clubs blowing money every weekend. He complained that he works more in a week than his cousin does in a month, and she gets all these government checks when she could have a job at a salon and get mostly or completely off welfare. But there he was, grilling up steaks she bought with food stamps.

I asked if he thought she was gaming the system, and he said that she obviously was. I said, “You think people should take care of their families, not rely on the government”, and he said yes. I said, “You think a man should provide for his family, even if it means busting his ass and sometimes going without?”, and Dante said damn right. I said, “You think a man has a duty to raise his kids right, to see them educated well and to give them a better life than his, and make sure they are not be polluted by nasty rap and a porn culture?”, and he said yes. I said, “You believe a man should pay his bills, pay his taxes, and not overspend, to live within his means?”, and he said yes again. I said, “Do you think the government should do the same?”, and he said hell yes.

I grinned at him and said, “You know what you are Dante?”, and he looked at me quizzically.

I said, “You are a conservative. You should vote Republican.”

Dante laughed and said, “Oh, man, I don’t know about that…”

I grinned at him and said if he talked to me for thirty more minutes, he’d be a Tea Partier and start listening to Rush Limbaugh, which he thought was hilarious, but he admitted that I gave him some things to think about.

Another night I was driving Dante home again, talking politics and current events, and somehow race got injected into the discussion, though I don’t recall the context. Dante said to me, “What are you, man?”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, and I said, “A taxi driver?”

“No, man… what are you?”

I still wasn’t following him. “A conservative?”

“No, man, what ARE you?”

I thought for a moment and I said, “An American? A father? A husband? A taxpayer? An artist?” Dante was shaking his head. “I dunno what you are asking. What are you?”

Dante said, “I’m a black man.”

I was a little taken aback… Dante seemed truly surprised that I didn’t self-identify by race. I said, “So fucking what? We are both men… we are both Americans… why would you lock yourself in a prison of skin? Why do you view the world through the prism of skin color? Why would you let something that superficial stand in the way of making a better life for you and your babies? You talk like you have some physical disability, like you were born without legs or something. Black men have risen to the top of every field in America… why not you? Does your black skin somehow prevent you from being Head Chef, or even owning your own restaurant, if you work for it? Tell me you don’t really believe that bullshit, Dante…”

Dante just said something like, “I don’t know, man…” but he seemed very thoughtful as he got out of the car. I don’t think a white man had ever spoken to him like that before. I regret that I haven’t seen Dante since… I hope he landed a better job, and that’s why I don’t see him anymore.

After he got out of the car, I asked myself, Why don’t you self-identify as a white man?

And the response came to me almost instantaneously: Because I wasn’t raised that way.

Racism is a learned behavior.

So I was reading about the Zimmerman trial and the racial uproar over it a few nights ago, and I stumbled upon a series of tweets from MSNBC’s Toure’, one of the most sanctimonious race-hustlers and grievance mongers in America today. Toure’ puts forth the theory of “white privilege”, which is apparently some invisible energy field that surrounds white people and protects them from harm and misfortune. It is apparently particularly useful in job interviews, police interactions, hailing a taxi, and dealing cocaine. Toure’ compares white people to a fish in the ocean that is completely unaware of the water that surrounds it, but like that water, “white privilege” encompasses, supports, and protects white people, to the detriment of non-whites. The fact that white people are unaware of any such “white privilege” doesn’t negate the fact that it is there, and even though he offers no empirical evidence for its’ existence, the fact that you don’t recognize it is simply proof that you are indeed a racist. Nice little circular argument he’s got there.

I don’t really know anything about Toure’, other than his “national” TV show has fewer viewers than the population of Orlando, so he isn’t really reaching any real audience besides liberal ninnies and racists predisposed to agree with him anyway. But hey… maybe he has some street cred… maybe he grew up on the mean streets of Oakland or LA or Chicago or Miami and knows what he is talking about. So I Googled up Toure’, and the Wikipedia entry for him reveals that he is a graduate of the prestigious Milton Academy, an elite private boarding school in Massachusetts.

You gotta be shitting me… This smug, effete douchenozzle went to the same private school as Teddy Kennedy and Buckminster Fuller? Toure’ is “down for da hood”? Toure’ understands “the struggle”? Toure’ speaks for the downtrodden blacks in this country, still held in bondage by racist whites? Toure’ has the gall to lecture us on “white privilege”?

What an astounding crock of shit. While Toure’ was being fitted for his 9th grade navy blazers and short pants, my 9th grade year was spent in Sears jeans, throwing newspapers and loading trucks at the newspaper plant to help pay for my clothes and lunches, growing up in a lower middle class neighborhood that was roughly 40% white, 40% black, and 20% Cuban/Mexican. I know more about the plight of poor blacks than this well-heeled liberal poser. Keysha and Tyrone on the corner do not even know what a boarding school is, you race-mongering dipshit. Methinks Mr. Toure’ is confusing “white privilege” with “rich privilege”, which has apparently served him very well.

Nonetheless, Toure’ and his despicable ilk are now fully invested in the “racist” narrative, and that is problematic, because a thorough investigation by the Sanford police and the FBI that interviewed dozens of people revealed that George Zimmerman is not a racist; indeed, all the interviews indicate just the opposite. So, they have started a new meme; that is, while Zimmerman is not a racist per se, he still “profiled” Trayvon as a black criminal, and killed him for no reason other than a latent racial prejudice. I’m not sure I understand that, but I have to admit that I don’t understand most of the bullshit liberals and race pimps talk about. I guess that means that Zimmerman is racist-light… you know, like Whoopi Goldberg saying Roman Polanski didn’t commit “rape-rape”… Zimmerman isn’t a racist, he just acted like one, and the magic word here is “profiling”, since they can’t say “racist”.

“Profiling” is an ancient evolutionary survival mechanism, and human beings would be long-extinct without it. When encountering a stranger, one involuntarily makes an evaluation as to whether or not this person is a danger to themselves, their family, and their community. Everyone profiles every day, and a taxi driver that does not profile will be robbed in a month, if not killed. I make the decision as to whether or not you are getting in my car within two or four seconds of seeing you. I profile by attire, by grooming, by demeanor, by sobriety, by destination, and by behavior. Race doesn’t enter the picture. A black man in a coat and tie will get in my car before a sketchy looking white guy wearing a hoodie, every damned time.

The older I get, the more I profile by dress and appearance. How you present yourself tells the world who and what you are, and I for one tend to believe you. If you dress like a businessman, I will believe you are a businessman. If you dress like a whore, I will believe you are a whore. And if you dress like a gangsta, don’t be surprised that you can’t catch a taxi. You made a deliberate, conscious decision to dress and look like a criminal; what did you expect? I once had a cop tell me that he doesn’t worry about guys with their pants below their ass, because they can’t run. Sorry, but I am more discriminating, and I do not apologize for “profiling”.

But Toure’ and all the other shameless race hustlers on TV keep whipping this dead horse, screeching about racism, profiling, and “social justice”, when real institutional racism has been gone for decades. When an actual racial event occurs, it’s newsworthy only because such events are exceedingly rare, or at least they used to be. But now, there has been a rash of assaults and beatings of whites and Hispanics perpetrated by blacks, screaming “justice for Trayvon”, and these attacks have been completely ignored by the arsonist media that started this fire. Thank you, President Obama, thank you, Eric Holder, thank you, Al Sharpton, and thank you, NBC and CNN. You have successfully set back race relations by two or three decades.

I grew up in a mixed neighborhood. I had the most painful ninth grade crush on a beautiful black cheerleader/honors student named Melanie… I can still see her smiling face in my mind in glamour-shot soft focus. I graduated from a predominantly black high school, I mean like 80 or 85 percent black, two blocks off MLK Boulevard. I dated a black girl for a while in the 90’s. I owned a home for ten years in a predominantly black neighborhood. And I was NEVER accused of being a racist until Barack Obama started running for President.

Being a politics junkie, I remember watching Obama’s impressive “red states and blue states” speech at the 2004 DNC, and I said to my wife that this man could be President one day. I remember Jesse Jackson crying on TV and people saying they couldn’t believe a black man had been elected President in their lifetime, and I thought, “Why not?” Blacks had reached the pinnacles of business, academia, sports, science, medicine, arts… Obama’s election didn’t surprise me one bit.

But I always wanted America’s first black President to be great… at least Top Ten. Sadly, Barack Obama has been the most abject failure, and history will paint him as one of the worst Presidents ever. He had a chance to be in the pantheon of the greats, but he has been the most incompetent executive in decades, and the most racially divisive President since Woodrow Wilson. I will never forgive him for the damage he has done to race relations in this country.

I was working on this piece on my iPad last Sunday when Tyler popped up in my window. He is a young black guy about 22 years old, a sous chef at one of the nicer restaurants downtown, and you only have to talk to Tyler for two or three minutes to know he is one whip-smart young man. I really like this guy. Every time I drive Tyler home, we talk about something political that he didn’t know and doesn’t believe, which he then goes online to look up when he gets home, and he is always thunderstruck that he didn’t know it. Just doing my part, educating the electorate, one voter at a time.

So Tyler has had a few beers already, and wants me to take him and a coworker to another bar. They get in, and I ask Tyler if he knows what tonight’s topic is, and he says, “The Zimmerman trial?” I told ya he is smart….

So I ask him what he thinks, but his friend blurts out that the Zimmerman trial was bullshit and that he should have never been put on trial. I ask Tyler what he thinks, and he says, “I just don’t know how he can get away with killing a little kid. Trayvon was just walking home, and he got shot. Didn’t the cops tell him not to get out of the car? You shouldn’t be able to shoot a kid for no reason…”

I said, “C’mon, Tyler… You are smarter than that…”

Tyler’s friend interrupts me and says, “See? See? I told ya… this whole trial was total bullshit…”

Tyler says, “Shut up! Shut the fuck up! I want to hear what this guy has to say… He’s like some philosopher taxi driver or something… he fucks up my shit every time I talk to him…”

I laughed and said, “I’m no philosopher, Tyler… I just tell you the truth. That’s something that is exceedingly rare these days. Your problem is that everything you know about the Zimmerman trial you know from watching the news on TV.”

Tyler says, “Oh, man, I don’t have time to watch the news… I just know what I hear people talking about.”

I said, “Well, no wonder you are so misinformed… You are getting your bullshit second-hand. You are listening to stupid people regurgitate the professional lies they heard on TV. You aren’t even getting first-rate bullshit.” And I spent the next seven or ten minutes of the drive explaining to Tyler who Trayvon was, who Zimmerman was, and what happened that night. I said, “So you got a jury of six women, most of them probably Moms that can’t imagine losing a child, and most them probably don’t carry a gun and might even be scared of guns, and yet they couldn’t find one single reason to convict Zimmerman of anything? That sounds really, really, really not guilty, doesn’t it?”

“Let’s suppose that this wasn’t a jury trial, and it is Judge Tyler presiding and deciding this case… who do you think you would believe? The violent, drug using, tattooed, criminally-inclined gangsta wannabe suspended from school in possession of stolen property and burglary tools, or the tax paying, civic-minded, multiracial man that took black kids into his home and taught them to read and made himself a giant pain in the ass for the Sanford PD in defense of a black homeless man? Which story sounds more likely to you, that a feral teenager into MMA fighting and drugs attacked a citizen, or a crazed racist decided to hunt down and kill an innocent black boy, and called the cops right before he did it?”

Tyler just shook his head and said, “Man, you mess with my head every damn time I talk to you.”

It was a slow night, so I decided to get out of my car and stretch my legs and have a smoke with Tyler in the parking lot of the bar. Tyler got a sly smile on his face, like he had busted the flaw in my logic, and he said, “OK, if what you say is true, then why are all these people lying? Why would everybody lie about all this shit?”

I said, “That’s simple… money and politics. ObamaCare is becoming more toxic every day, Obama seems to have a new scandal erupting every other week, and the Democrats are looking at some serious losses in the 2014 election, maybe even losing the Senate. Every minute the media spends talking about Trayvon and racism is a minute not spent talking about the economy and the rest of Obama’s failures. So they are gonna beat this dead horse for months and they are going to use phony racism to try to get out the black vote and try to minimize their losses. They want to say that they are the alternative to racist white Republicans, so vote for them, FOR TRAYVON.”

Tyler said, “But where is the money in lying about Trayvon?”

I said, “Are you kidding? Money is pouring into Al’s and Jesse’s front groups… they know this is all bullshit, but this is how they get paid. And Trayvon’s parents are making tons of money, too. They are millionaires now, Tyler. They got one or two million in a settlement from Zimmerman’s home owners association, no doubt after threatening them with protests or worse, and now they have started some bogus “foundation” in Trayvon’s name, and the money is rolling in. You know Trayvon’s mom trademarked his name within days of finding out he was dead, right?”

Tyler shook his head and said, “What? What kind of mother does that?”

I replied, “That’s a good question, Tyler.”

I told Tyler that Obama and Holder and Sharpton and the other race baiters in this country always seem to call for a “national discussion on race”, but when you bring up black crime rates or the disintegration of the family or abortion or out-of-wedlock births, they start screeching that you are a racist, and shut down the discussion they assert to want to have. And when asked what they do want to talk about, they have nothing besides meaningless, politically-correct platitudes… bullshit like “embracing diversity” and “developing greater sensitivity”.

Well what the fuck is that? I have been “embracing diversity” for my entire life. I’m not the problem here. And why do I need to be more “sensitive” about the Trayvons of this world? I am a taxpaying, law abiding citizen. I don’t need “greater sensitivity” for the Trayvons in this world, I need heightened awareness and need to watch my back for them. I don’t speak in meaningless platitudes; I deal in reality, and twenty years in an OFA reeducation camp would fail in teaching me political correctness, because that is the language of liars.

I was standing right in front of Tyler, chest to chest, two feet apart, and I said, “You know who I am, right, Tyler? Do you think I am a racist?”

“Naw, man…”

I said, “So, you and me standing here, face to face… we are just two men, just two Americans, completely equal, and I can talk to you straight up, say anything I really think?”

“Yeah, man… Anytime…”

So I started riffing to Tyler about what I thought would solve most of the racial problems in this country… it was kind of a improv jazz, stream-of-consciousness verbal riff… bullet point, concrete things that would help poor blacks and help end the constant racist drumbeat that has been going strong since Obama started running for President. The so-called black leaders in this country say they want a “national conversation on race”, so let’s open a dialogue.

What would I advise black Americans do to improve their circumstances?

Stop being black. Stop being niggas. Stop being homeboys and gangstas and ballers and pimps and yo’s and OG’s and playas and mack daddies and rappers and bruthas. Stop being bitches and ho’s and twerkers and babymamas and welfare queens.

Stop self-identifying by your skin color. Stop being African-Americans, and start being AMERICANS.

Stop buying thumping stereo systems and spinning rims and gold grills and flatscreens and 22k chains, and start buying classes at your local vocational school. If you wish to improve your condition, you must prioritize spending.

Speak proper English. This isn’t being a sellout, this is just smart. Have you noticed that most successful black people don’t talk “black”? There’s a reason for that. If you speak like a hood rat, what chance do you have to get a good job? Leave ebonics and ghetto slang behind. Practice. Your goal should be that when someone speaks with you on the phone, they don’t know what color your skin is. That isn’t to say that you can’t drop a “nigga” among friends, but deal with the world on the world’s terms. This isn’t racist; if you talk like an illiterate white hillbilly, the odds are stacked against you, too. Be a realist. Play to win.

“You know what the most dangerous thing in America is, right? A nigga with a library card.”

Actor Michael Potts as Brother Mouzone in the HBO series “The Wire “

This is a fictional line from a cable show, but there is searing truth in it. Learn to read, and read as much as you can. Not trash novels and rap music magazines, read things that improve your mind and advance your career goals. This is even more important today than it was twenty years ago. In the computer age, if you cannot read and write and speak with clarity, your job prospects are dim. Look at Rachel Jeantel. She sounds like an idiot, but I don’t think she really is stupid, I think she has been failed by her family and her school system. She barely speaks English and she can’t read cursive? What? Every single teacher that gave her a passing grade in her educational life should be fired immediately. They have utterly failed at their most basic task: to prepare Rachel for her adult life. Rachel Jeantel cannot even work the drive thru window at Burger King… The people in their car won’t be able to understand her on the speaker. Don’t be Rachel.

Get a job. Get a shit job, if that is where you have to start. There is no shame in honest work. Bust your ass. Do things that are “not your job” without being told. Help others do their job. Work extra hours. Pick up extra shifts when you can. Impress your employer. Learn every facet of the business you work for. Make yourself indispensable. Ask for the raise. Earn the promotion. Move up. Always be on the lookout for a better job. Leave your last job with a glowing recommendation. Impress your next employer even more.

You might be saying, “Well, I’ve tried to get a job, but no one will hire me.” Bullshit. If you can’t find a job, then CREATE one for yourself. Don’t take no for an answer. Obama hasn’t completely gutted this country yet; this is still America, and nowhere on the planet do you have a better opportunity to be a success. You CAN do it, if you really work at it. Almost everyone has a marketable skill, even if it is only a strong back and a willingness to work. Everything else can be learned. Let me give you two examples from my own life.

I was a freelance photographer in the 80’s and 90’s, and freelance means you have to go out and hunt down work. When I didn’t have a paying gig to shoot, I would put on a tie and a nice shirt and go to some art gallery opening or some other event and just take photos of people, hand them my card, and tell them to call me if they would like to see the photo. I would go to a park and take a photo of a kid and introduce myself to their parent, and hand them a card. I could usually sell a photo or two for 25 or 50 bucks, but more importantly, I got my card in their hand, and many times they would call me later to photograph their wedding or do a family portrait. I actively sought out the work, I didn’t wait for the phone to ring. And remember, this was in the days before digital cameras; I had to develop the film and get prints, then set up an appointment to see people. Today, you can show someone the image on a digital camera, charge their credit card on your smartphone, and email the image! I would have done really well with that technology 25 years ago.

I just moved to a new home a few months ago, and my grass was getting tall because I was just too busy to mow it. A young guy named Chris knocked on my door one day and asked if I would like him to cut my grass… ten bucks, front and back. He got right on it, he did a good job, and when he was finished, I said, “You said ten bucks, right, Chris?” He nodded. “I say twenty. I like to encourage this kind of entrepreneurial spirit,” and handed him a Jackson, and a cold beer, too. Four months later, I still pay him double (and encourage him to raise his rates), and Chris is now cutting the lawns for at least ten or twelve of my neighbors. He just cut my grass the other day with a brand new lawnmower he just bought. He is on the brink of building a real business, and he did it by asking for the work.

What is the lesson here? Get off your ass. Go make work for yourself. Don’t ask yourself if you want to cut lawns, ask yourself if you want to own a successful business that you built with your own sweat and your own hands. Ask yourself what it is worth to better yourself.

Now would a good time to ask yourself what you want to do with your life. Be realistic; being a millionaire rapper or Beyonce’s bra fitter seems like a long shot. What would be a dream job for you, one that matches your skills and interests? Do you want to cook? Do you want to own a plumbing business? Do you want to build houses? Do you want to go into medicine? Do you want to be a web designer? Do you want to build fly custom whips? All of these things are possible, but you have to have a solid goal. But more important than a goal is a plan. Are you willing to cut lawns and sweat in the day so you can go to school at night? Are you willing to work a shit job for a year or two to save the money it will take to launch your own business? What will you do to make it happen? What will you give up to achieve that goal?

In the age of the internet, you have even fewer excuses. You can learn about damned near everything online now, for free. Let me repeat that, EDUCATION IS FREE. In the 80’s, I taught myself photography by practice, buying books, and studying the work of others. In the 90’s, I taught myself about marketing and advertising the same way. In the 2000’s, I taught myself web design, HTML, and PHP programming from books and reading online. You don’t even need the library card Brother Mouzone was talking about… The library is in your iPhone. Why aren’t you soaking up every drop of information on it that pertains to something you can use to better your life?

Now that you have a goal and a plan, stop listening to friends and family and anyone else that says you can’t do it. Ignore them. Rise above them. Work harder. Focus on the goal. Do something every day that brings you closer to that goal. Definitely stop listening to race hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and Toure’ and Michael Eric Dyson and Tavis Smiley and Ben Jealous and Cornell West… they have nothing to sell you other than a bullshit excuse for failure. When you see them on TV, change the channel. They won’t help you; they want you to fail, and then to blame others, particularly whites. This is how they make their living.

Don’t listen to Jay-Z and Kanye and Young Jeezy and all these other rappers that are selling the gangsta life. They are the ones glorifying the shit that will put you in prison or shot dead in the gutter. Jay-Z may have 99 problems, but money and security ain’t one, and he doesn’t give a fuck about you, your family, or your success.

Be a man. Respect yourself, and respect others. Don’t demand the respect of others, earn and command their respect by your actions and manner. Respect women. Put on a fucking rubber. Don’t bang some girl you know you won’t marry and leave her with the choice of aborting the child or raising it in poverty and government dependence. 70% of black kids are born out of wedlock. Without the discipline of a father and the structure and security of a family, kids naturally gravitate to dropping out of school, crime, and gangs. White people can’t fix black families, and neither can any government program or TV race hustler or liberal politician lying to you to get your vote. Only black men stepping up and doing what is right can fix that. Black men must lead by example. So if you care about the condition of “your people”, be a man.

Black women, you have a great deal of power to help fix these problems. If a man does not live up to these ideals, shun them. Do not give them your phone number, do not give them a good night kiss, do not give them the time of day, and definitely do not give up the pussy. Raise your standards. Insist that they respect you. You are not a sex toy that has to shake your ass for some phony VIP in the club. Demand that they have a plan to better themselves, and do not allow them to derail your plan to better yourself. Do not accept excuses. Be selfish. Do not apologize for insisting on the respect you are due.

When you do start your family, go all in. This is the most important thing you will likely ever do. Instill discipline in your children. Insist on respect for others and themselves. “Yes, sir” and “no, ma’am”. Demand excellence. Go over their homework. Go to the PTA meetings. Ask their teachers questions about what they are teaching your children, and insist on results from those teachers. Know their friends, and steer them away from kids you know are bad for them. Do not let them dress like gangstas and whores. Be a dick. Do not accept excuses, racial or otherwise.

Buy a gun. Seriously, tool up. If you aren’t a felon or have some other disqualifier, legally purchase a firearm. Get some training. Jump through whatever hoops your state makes you jump through to get a concealed carry permit. Go to the range. Know what you are doing. Be proficient. Two reasons: First, you are statistically more likely to encounter a violent criminal, and you have a family to protect. That isn’t racist, that’s statistics, and math isn’t racist. Second, contrary to what you probably have been told, carrying a gun doesn’t make you macho or act like a cowboy, it makes you a more responsible individual and citizen. White people don’t have a problem with armed citizens, they have a problem with armed criminals. Join us. We need you.

Last week Tavis Smiley was on Bill O’Reilly’s show beating his racist drum yet again, railing about the death of Trayvon, using that magic word “profiling”, whining that black life has less value than white life, and somehow, the NRA must be to blame. He said, “I’m waiting to hear the NRA say that if Trayvon Martin had a gun, he might still be alive today.”

Well, Trayvon’s cell phone photos seem to indicate that he already had a gun, and I am pretty sure that the NRA does not support arming teenage criminals. Then, he ended the interview with this little nugget of genius: “Arm every black person in America, and then let’s see what the NRA has to say!”

Well, I have to say that I agree completely with Mr. Smiley in this particular instance. Let’s conduct an experiment in “social justice”, shall we, Tavis? Let’s arm every single law-abiding black citizen in Chicago with a handgun and two boxes of ammo, institute a robust Stand Your Ground law in Illinois, and watch violent street crime plummet 80% in six months. Care to take that bet, Mr. Smiley?

Next, can we agree to a two generation statute of limitations on grievances about racial shit that happened to your ancestors? Sorry, but I do not suffer from “white guilt”. I never owned a slave, neither did my father, my grandfather, or my great-grandfather. I never discriminated against anyone, I never denied anyone their rights, and I certainly never lynched anyone. I bear no responsibility for the actions of any other caucasians, living or dead, aside from myself. So I hope you will understand when I say that it is hard for me to feel really sorry for something that happened before I was born, something I had nothing to do with, and something that has little or no bearing on your current situation. I am not saying that there aren’t still some racists or that racism wasn’t bad, but I’m focused on the present and on the future, as you should be. Giving me shit about slavery is like giving me shit for the Holocaust or the Tudor conquest of Ireland… I wasn’t there, I don’t know anyone that was involved, and I had nothing to do with it. Stop telling me that “my people” are responsible for your problems.

And lose the double standards… If Fiddy Cent gets to say “nigga”, so does Paula Deen. No person should be hounded out business for saying nigga or nigger or niggardly when Jay-Z is getting rich and being downloaded thousands of times a day saying the same damn thing. Phony outrage is really getting old, and it does nothing to advance the cause of black Americans. It is the despicable default tactic of the race hustlers like Sharpton and Jackson and Toure’. Be above it.

Now you may be saying, “Well, what the fuck does this dumbass white taxi driver know about the problems of the black community? Who is this asshole to think he can lecture me about a black man’s problems?”

Well, you might have a point. I don’t have a TV show like Toure’, or a college degree like Michael Eric Dyson, or know anything about what it is like to live in segregation. So let’s ask a man that knows all about those things… a man that has been a hero of mine since I was eight years old… a man that grew up in the mean streets of segregated Philly in the 30’s and 40’s, and knows what real racism is…

They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: Why you ain’t, Where you is, What he drive, Where he stay, Where he work, Who you be… And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we’ve got these knuckleheads walking around. The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids. $500 sneakers for what? And they won’t spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn’t know that he had a pistol? And where is the father? Or who is his father?

People putting their clothes on backward: Isn’t that a sign of something gone wrong? People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn’t that a sign of something? Or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up? Isn’t it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

What part of Africa did this come from? We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don’t know a thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different ‘husbands’ — or men or whatever you call them now. We have millionaire football players who cannot read. We have million-dollar basketball players who can’t write two paragraphs. We as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us. We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.

We cannot blame the white people any longer”

– Dr. William Henry ‘Bill’ Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.

Mr. Cosby is so much more succinct than I, and in spite of all the race hustlers on TV today that tell me how horribly, horribly racist America is, I’m pretty sure I’m on the right team here. I don’t listen to the people that peddle grievance and imaginary injustice for political ends. Neither should you.

Shame and Disgrace

Make no mistake, this is the most fucked up thing I have seen on a long, long time, courtesy of Van Jones, not only a racist, but a communist to boot. These despicable douchebags actually have the temerity to invoke King and equate him with Trayvon? Many black people in America have lost the right to speak Dr. King’s name, in my view. This was a man of dignity, of conscience, of law, of faith, of education, of equality, and of non-violence, who got fists and rocks and dogs and firehoses turned on him and never raised his hand, and you have the gall to suggest that Martin Luther King would in any way approve of Trayvon’s drug use, criminal behavior, and violence? You think MLK would be down for da NO_LIMIT_NIGGA?

Go fuck yourself. Martin Luther King is spinning in his grave. This man fought for, and was eventually shot for, just a fair chance, just simple equality for black Americans, and fifty years later, so many of them have squandered his legacy, just pissed it away. Rachel Jeantel would have a better education from a segregated black Mississippi high school in 1950 than the education she has today… she would at least be able to speak proper English and read cursive. You can thank liberal democrats, professional race hustlers, and teachers unions for that, Rachel. Martin Luther King would not approve of black gangs and illiteracy and rap culture and criminality and the disintegration of the black family and failing schools and rampant out-of-wedlock birth rates and the black holocaust that is abortion today. To suggest for a moment that Dr. King would support Trayvon Martin in any way borders on the sacrilegious.

Let me repeat: Go fuck yourself. You don’t have the right to invoke his name.

I have been writing this piece for seven or ten days, in little snatches between passengers, and it has officially spun out of control. Maybe a better writer could lash all this together in a more concise fashion, but writing is my therapy, not my occupation. It just seems that every time I open this piece, I have another thread I want to weave in to it. But it has to end somewhere, so let me close by saying that at the root of all the problems in the black community, you will find Democrat politicians, the teachers unions, and the grievance and victimization industry, locking people into poverty and dependence, while attacking and attempting to silence any black voice that speaks out against their racist orthodoxy, like Herman Cain, Deneen Borelli, Ben Carson, Allen West, and Crystal Wright. But worst of all are the Sharptons of this world, the race hustlers that have no other job, no other purpose, the ones who are all too willing to intentionally see an innocent man convicted or even killed, based on a lie, so long as it serves to enrich and aggrandize themselves, and advances their evil political ends. Shun them.

The sooner we can put people like Sharpton and Jackson and Toure’ behind us, stop participating in purchased phony outrage bankrolled for political ends, stop listening to news programming designed to divide Americans by race, and stop imagining racial injustice where none exists, the quicker we can all get back to building our families, just being parents, just being Americans, just being equals, just being men… grilling burgers in the back yard, having a cold beer, letting you brag over your new M&P .40 cal, laughing about comparative penis proportions, my painfully awkward dance moves, and why niggas can not shut the fuck up in a movie theater…

And watching our beautiful kids run around screaming and playing and blowing bubbles and chasing each other across the grass.

You know, the shit that is important… the shit that Martin Luther King dreamed about.

Official Lost Cell Phone Return Policy

Posted: 21st July 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags:

As I have mentioned previously, wasted people forget shit in taxis all the time, and now that I am with my new company, this is becoming an enormous pain in the ass for me. No longer can I just leave this crap at the dispatch desk and forget about it, now this bullshit is my problem, and it is already wearing thin. Phones are the most common item left behind, and even though I always tell everyone to check around their seat and make sure that they have everything like a damned Delta stewardess reciting her “Arrivals” script by rote, I have still turned up three phones in the last two months.

Now please understand, I’m an honest guy, and I really want to see people get their stuff back, as long as it isn’t giant imposition on me. Perfect example: I picked up a really drunk guy at a sports bar once and drove him home, and after I dropped him off, I stopped at a traffic light less than a mile from his house. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw a wallet on the floor. Sure enough, it belonged to the guy I had just dropped off, and thumbing through the cash compartment revealed there was roughly three hundred bucks inside.

So what happens to a wasted guy that gets shithammered watching football in a bar and loses his wallet containing $300, and may not even remember where he lost it? Well, if he was lucky enough to be driven home by me, he gets it back. I turned around and took it back, and I don’t even remember if the guy tipped me, maybe he gave me ten bucks, but it wasn’t enough to be memorable if he did. But the tip is not the point; my point is that I’m always happy to get someone’s property back to them, as long as it doesn’t cost me inordinate amount of time or money.

The last straw was a few nites ago, when after working an eleven hour shift, I got a call from a guy I dropped off an hour earlier who left his wallet in my car. So instead of going home after a really long night, I had to backtrack and go fifteen miles out of my way to return his wallet, and the guy who was staying in a $250 a nite hotel couldn’t bring himself to scrape together three bucks to cover my gas, and acted like I had inconvenienced him by making him wait out here while I was driving to the opposite side of town at 4 in the morning.

So, I’m over it… I’m done. Clearly what is needed here is a concise, concrete policy regarding the return of personal effects left in my car through passenger negligence. You wouldn’t know it from reading my blog, but I am very capable of writing letter-perfect, corporate-sounding text with impeccable grammar and sentence structure. But that makes for very dry reading, so on this blog, I tend to write like I speak, with runons and sentence fragments and questionable use of punctuation… just seems to help preserve the flavor of these moments. But in my previous occupation, I was responsible for writing text for product labels, brochures, flyers, websites, national print ads, and other materials that had to meet stringent USDA and FDA regulations, and oftentimes state-level agricultural regulations as well, and things got even trickier when the company expanded into Canada and I had to deal with foreign regulations. It was originally my intent to create just such a dreary and austere sort of document for my Official Lost Cell Phone Return Policy, but I kinda like the raw and plain-spoken style of my first draft.

So with that said, the next time some drunken jackass calls me about another fucking lost cell phone, I am going to request an email address, and here is the email I am sending out from now on.

Your comments and critiques are welcome.

* * * * * * * * * *

So, you forgot your phone in my taxi… that really sucks, for you and me both. Even though I always tell people to make sure they have all their belongings, I still get phones and other items left in my car. And while I want to see everyone get their possessions back, there are few options to return them that don’t cost me significant time and/or money. My company utilizes smart phones, call routing software, apps, and GPS positioning for our dispatch system and I don’t have a company dispatch office with a “lost and found” basket, so returning your lost items falls to me personally. Reuniting you with your forgotten possessions is a giant pain in the ass for me, and it is not fair that I have to pick up the tab for your carelessness.

So with that in mind, here is my official policy for returning lost cell phones, which also applies to wallets, cameras, sunglasses, and any other items. All personal items misplaced in my car that you want returned will be cheerfully shipped to you via the US Postal Service. There is a $40 fee for this service. Reply to this email with a description of your items, where I picked you up and dropped you off, the make/model of your phone and any identifying markings, case, wallpaper, or features.

Also include a valid credit or debit card number, the exact name on the card, the expiration date, billing ZIP code, billing phone number, and the 3 digit security code from the back of the card. I will charge your card $40 and send a receipt to this email. This fee covers shipping, my time, and my gas to return your item. I am an honest businessman, duly licensed and permitted by the city, so this should not be a problem for you; there is a strong probability that you paid your taxi fare with a card in the first place. The next business day, I will ship out your phone or other items and provide you a tracking number by email, and your phone will be delivered to you in 2-3 days.

If you do not send me all the required information listed above or the card you give me is not approved, I will assume that you are pulling my dick, and I will dispose of your items as I see fit. No further communication shall be forthcoming.

This policy is not flexible, nor am I. Bitter experience has taught me that this policy is the only workable, honest, and fair practice. But before you object and offer an alternative suggestion on how best to reunite you with your phone, allow me to address some of the most commonly heard counterproposals in advance:

I’ll gladly give you fifty bucks to deliver it to me.

I get that a lot. Sometimes people mean it when they say this, but far too often, I’ve been met with hostility, aggression, and foul language, as though it is somehow my fault that you misplaced your phone while in a Jose Cuervo-induced stupor. And sometimes, people aren’t honest about paying me for my time and gas to deliver their phone. On one memorable occasion, I drove 40 miles, well into the next county, to deliver a phone to a man that desperately needed it for work and told me he would happily pay me $100 for my trouble. But upon arrival, I found myself surrounded by three menacing steroid goons that snatched the phone out of my hand and sent me on my way without a dime, or even a thank you. Four or five gallons of gas and nearly two hours wasted, for nothing. Sorry, but after that experience, my only delivery method is USPS. Period.

No problem, I’ll happily drive to your place.

No, you won’t. Some creepy hipster douchebag already blew that option for you several months ago. After making arrangements to deliver his phone the following evening for $20 while I was out working, this jackass took it upon himself to track his phone to my front door early the next afternoon, waking me up, disturbing my dogs, and freaking out my wife. That’s not going to happen again. All items are shipped USPS.

No problem, I’ll just meet you somewhere.

No, you won’t. I am not able to predict where I might be at any given time on any given night, and as I stated previously, USPS is my only delivery method. No exceptions. I am not carrying around your phone and meeting you in a dark parking lot somewhere.

What if I call you for a ride and you give it to me when you pick me up?

I am not carrying your phone around in my car, risking loss or damage to your property. USPS is my only return option. Is this sinking in yet?

This policy is unacceptable. I do not accept these terms.

That’s cool. If a phone is not claimed via the process detailed above within 14 days, I will destroy the SIM card to protect your privacy and noodie photos, donate the phone to a battered women’s shelter or the Cellphones For Soldiers project or some other worthy cause, and deduct it from my taxes as a charitable donation.

I’ll take this up with the owner of your company.

You already did. I own the car, I pay the bills, I determine the schedule, and I set the policy. There is no one up the chain of command to escalate this matter to or to make an appeal regarding this policy.

I’m calling the cops.

Good luck with that. I have no legal obligation to return anything I find in my car, nor do I even have to acknowledge finding anything, if I found anything in the first place. And if I did find items forgotten in my car, I could simply dispose of them in a gas station trash can and be done with them. I don’t need this shit. This is a courtesy and a service, provided only because you had the good fortune to be driven by an honest guy that truly would like to see people reunited with their possessions, without costing me undue time and money in the process. But if you do somehow manage to get the police interested enough to hassle me, I positively guarantee that I never saw your phone.

Fine. I’ll just pay your fee and reverse the charge after I get my phone back.

You are at liberty to try that, but I have already cleared this procedure with my credit card processor, and it is extremely unlikely that you will get a chargeback. Not only have I been an excellent customer for more than two years, but the steps I take to document the return of your property preclude the possibility of a chargeback. Besides, I’m the sober businessman, and you are the wasted and negligent bonehead that lost your phone in the first place. In more than two years of accepting cards through my processor, they have never approved a chargeback against me.

You’re an asshole.

Could be… opinions vary. Some people think I am painfully cool. But that’s really beside the point, is it not? You carelessly lost your phone, and I want to get it back to you. Who is the asshole here?

I’m looking forward to your response email with all the aforementioned information so I can get your phone back to you in a timely and expeditious manner.

Gay Pride Week: Take One For The Team

Posted: 12th July 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags: ,

Gay Pride week was really good to me, as always… I do love me some gay people. Almost always fun, hands-down the most reliably generous tippers, and I have only had a couple of problem passengers that were gay in the entire time I’ve been driving a taxi. Some drivers are a little phobic about gay people, afraid they are going to get propositioned or have some other awkward situation, but I am not one of them. I understand gay people, and something about my demeanor just tells them that I am friendly but hopelessly heterosexual, and the guys almost never hit on me, at least not seriously…

So I picked up six passengers at a gay bar going to another gay bar, two very effeminate gay guys and four lesbians. They ask how much it will cost to go there, and I tell them about ten or eleven bucks. A big butch lesbian that kinda looks like Simon Cowell more than anyone else I can think of yells, “Ten bucks??? That’s outrageous! That’s robbery, you bandit! These pirate taxi drivers always take advantage of fucked up gay people!” They all laugh and pile in, and we are on the way.

They are all pretty drunk already, and we’ve got six-way crosstalk and loud yelling and laughter for the first half of the ride. Then, one of the gay guys says, “Hey, Mr. Taxi Driver… how many men have wanted to have sex with you in your taxi?”

I said, “Besides you, stud?” Everybody in the car burst out laughing. The other gay guy said that they all had to put their heads together and figure out a way to reduce this outrageously high taxi fare, and again we have six-way jabbering and more yelling and laughing about what perverse acts performed by whom might sway this taxi driver into giving them this ride for free.

I replied, “Well, I’m gay-friendly, but I’m thoroughly hetero, so if we are going to discuss reducing this ‘outrageous’ taxi fare somehow, one of you girls is gonna have to ‘take one for the team‘…”

They are all laughing hysterically and talking simultaneously as I pulled up to a traffic light. The girl in the front seat is a really cute oriental girl, about 25 or 28 years old, wearing a rainbow-striped bikini top and cut-off jean shorts, long dark hair and beautiful eyes. The talking comes to a lull, and I looked dramatically over my shoulder at my passengers, and then I looked at the girl in the front seat and said loudly (but playfully)

Well…???

The oriental girl laughed and smiled coyly and sweetly at me, absently twirling a lock of her hair in her fingers, and she said, “I don’t know… You aren’t bad… in an older, daddy sorta way… I might… maybe… I dunno… maybe…”

An electric hush has fallen over the car, and glancing out of the corner of my eye, I see the rest of my passengers leaning forward slightly, silent and transfixed by the scene in the front of the taxi. A dramatic, pregnant pause ensues, like eight or ten seconds long, while my eyes are locked with the eyes of the girl in the front seat as we sit at the traffic light. She’s still smiling seductively and playing with her hair… It was a very cute and kinda sexy moment.

And then, the 240 pound Simon Cowell lesbian in the tank top with the big floppy tits seated directly behind me bellows out, “Oh, all right! I’ll fuck him…! But you can only fuck me from behind, and no mouth-kissing!”

The next half mile to the bar was quite possibly the most dangerous half mile that I have ever driven, because I was crying and laughing and holding my ribs the entire way. Definitely not safe to drive… I should have pulled over. The rest of my passengers were similarly choking and gasping with laughter, and when we arrived at the bar, they gave me a 15 dollar tip on a 10 dollar fare.

When I take out-of-towners to a bar or a restaurant, I always give them a business card… they obviously will need a ride back to their hotel at the end of the night, and that way, I can get two or sometimes even three or four fares out of the same passenger, especially if they like me. So I gave them some cards as they are standing in the parking lot next to my car and said, “OK, you guys are going to call me later and settle up, right?”

They all started laughing again, and the big lesbian says, “Oh, we’ll be calling you… and if you like fucking me, maybe I can fuck you from behind, too… you know… return the favor?”

I put a very exaggerated and bug-eyed “shocked and scared” expression on my face, and said, “Ooooooo-kay… I gotta go!” and I pulled away, leaving them all laughing hysterically in the parking lot. As I took off one of the gay guys yelled, “And the rest of us get to watch!”

They never did call me later… that’s a shame. They were fun…

The Perils Of Taxi Pussy II: Amber

Posted: 14th June 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags: ,

I had a passenger the other nite I wanted to document while she is still fresh in my mind. As I told you in my previous post The Perils Of Taxi Pussy, it just seems to be my karma to get unhinged psychobitches that are out of their minds on drugs and alcohol, and they often indicate that they are amenable to a little extracurricular hanky-panky, if I am also so inclined. I can’t explain why that is; I know another driver that seems to get an extraordinary number of distraught, crying girls, I mean like two or three a week sometimes. By way of comparison, I get one every three or six months. But it is a safe bet that if a girl breaks up with her boyfriend tonight, Jim will almost certainly be driving her home. That’s just his karma. But as for me, I seem destined to get the insane, the intoxicated, and the horny, and I had a passenger the other night that is a textbook case study in why banging your patrons is a really bad idea.

I was sitting outside a bar downtown talking on the phone with my hunnee, when a bartender came out and said he had a fare for me. A few minutes later, he escorts out a girl about 23 years old, wearing a loose spaghetti-strap sundress and sandals. She is obviously wasted, her long brunette hair is tossled and messy… she might have looked pretty good 5 or 6 hours ago. But now she looks surly and “unpleasant”… like any ride with her in the car will seem much longer than it really was. The bartender points at me, and another guy is gently holding her elbow, trying to steer her to my car. But she gets an angry expression on her face and pulls away, intent on heading up the street in the direction of another bar, and she staggers off on her own. The guy shrugs, and heads in the opposite direction, while the girl lurches down the street. But before she has gone ten yards, she careens into a wall, bounces off, stumbles back into the wall, and falls flat on her ass on the sidewalk.

I am describing this scene to my wife who is giggling at my play-by-play on the phone of the wasted girl staggering into brick walls when I said, “Ho Down! Ho Down! We have a ho down in the 200 block of Main Street, and I’m not talking about a square dance.” My wife is laughing and asking if she needs paramedics, but the girl got up, slung her giant leather purse back over her shoulder, and headed off west, ostensibly in search of more booze. I saw her again about an hour later, apparently getting shown the door at another bar downtown about a block away… She’s swilling a giant 24 ounce plastic cup half full of beer and talking intensely to a staffer who seems to be blocking her re-entry at the door, and she’s looking surlier and more wasted than before.

Then another hour and a half later, I am driving by yet another bar when a cop flags me down and asks me if I can take a passenger several towns away in the next county and in the next telephone area code. Sounds like a great ride, so I pull over, and a couple of cops walk over the wasted girl I first saw bouncing off brick walls more than two hours ago. The cop shows me her ID for the address, which is a somewhat pricey gated community in Fox Glen, and he says she has two credit cards, and payment won’t be a problem.

“Amber” assures me that she does indeed have the money for this drive, and thanks the officers sweetly and profusely for helping her get a taxi, and then she sweetly and profusely thanked me for picking her up and driving her home safely. She looks a mess, but she is behaving OK, so I head out for Fox Glen and what should be a really good fare.

Maybe I misjudged Amber… She seems alright, polite and amiable, but she’s just got way too many beers in her 110 pound frame. Her speech is slurred and her head is lolled back on the seat while she thanked me again and again for taking her home. I asked her what brought her so far away from home, and she said, “Well, I came here to see a nice guy I met on Facebook, but he turned out to be an asshole… I just wanted to have some drinks with someone nice. But this guy is an asshole, then other guys at the bar were assholes, then all the bitches in the bar were assholes, then the bartenders were assholes, then the cops were assholes… There’s nobody nice downtown… they are all assholes…”

I said, “Well, the cops were nice enough to send you home with me… You could be in one of their cars right now…”

“Assholes…” she mutters. “Why can’t they just be nice?” She gets quiet for a few moments and then she says, “You seem nice…”

I said, “Well, I always try to be nice… I make better tips that way.”

Another long pause… “Do you think I’m nice?”

I replied, “Well, we have only been together for a few minutes, but you seem nice enough…”

“I like people to be nice…” she says, her voice trailing off… she seemed to be using the adjective “nice” a little too frequently, and it was starting to seem a little weird. But maybe she was just wasted and kinda stuck on this verbal loop… drunks do that sometimes, saying the same thing over and over. She muttered about assholes and nice people for a little bit, and then she said, “All I wanted to do was meet a nice guy, have a nice time, and get some nice dick. All I really wanted was some nice dick.”

OK, that was an attention-getter. I looked back at her and I was a little puzzled by what I saw. She was slumped in the seat, head still lolled back, feet wide apart, and her knees clenched tightly together. Her right hand was balled into a fist, and her left hand was on top of it, pushing and grinding her fist into the top of her pubic mound. I kept looking back over my shoulder while trying to guide my car safely down the road, and she was just grinding the bottom of her fist into her pubic bone and making groaning sounds.

I really wasn’t sure what I was witnessing… was she masturbating? If so, it certainly was an unconventional technique, knees and thighs locked tightly together and avoiding the “business end” more toward the front, just grinding her fist on the top. She never looked at me or even opened her eyes, she just kept kneading her lap and making little groaning and whimpering sounds, and I honestly couldn’t determine if they were sounds of a sexual nature, or just the involuntary whines, grunts, and groans caused by way too much booze.

Now, I can completely understand how a less experienced, less wise, and less married taxi driver might have contemplated finding a dark alley or a deserted parking lot and hopping in the back seat with her to see if he could be “nice” for her… she was a lean, athletic, nubile 23 year old girl, half my age, and out of her mind drunk. But that would have been a very poor decision, as I would later find out.

After a couple minutes of this, she nods out, and she is quiet for the last twenty minutes of the drive. We arrive at the entrance to her gated community and I tell Amber that we are home and I need her gate code to get in her subdivision. She doesn’t respond, so I yelled at her a little to rouse her, trying to avoid reaching back and shaking her… I really do not feel comfortable with the idea of touching her in any way. She comes to and says, “Where are we? Please take me home… 4321 Fox Glen Boulevard…”

I told her we were at her home, we just need the gate code to get in. She’s really hammered and she keeps repeating, “4321 Fox Glen Boulevard…. 4321 Fox Glen Boulevard…” I am having difficulty making her understand that we need the gate code, and all she can do is repeat her address over and over.

Finally I say, “OK, You can get out here if you like and you can walk home, but I always like to see a girl get safely inside her house when I drop her off. Is that what you want me to do? Do you want to get out here?” She looks around out the windows for a few moments in drunken confusion, and then she rambles off a series of numbers that are too long to be her four digit gate code. But after several tries, the gate slowly swings open and I pull up in front of the townhouses where she lives.

“Here we go, Amber… 4321 Fox Glen Boulevard…. Home safe and sound. Your fare is $85.”

“Thank God” she mutters and starts fumbling around with her purse. She finds her keys and starts looking for the door handle, but the door is locked and she can’t find the lock button.

I said, “Aren’t you going to pay me, Amber? I brought you home, and you promised both me and the police officers that payment wasn’t a problem…”

She says, “Thank you for bringing me home… You call whoever you need to call… But I’m going inside…” She finds the lock knob itself and pulls it up, but before she can get back to the door handle, I hit the power locks again.

(Thunk)

I said, “Amber, the only person I am going to call is the County Sheriff… You have to pay your fare before I let you out.”

She says, “No, I’m not paying you… You take care of it… I gotta go…”

(Thunk)

She yells, “What are you doing? Let me out!” She pulls the knob again and reaches for the door handle.

(Thunk)

“Amber, I need sixty seconds with your credit card, and then you can go inside…”

“Open this door!” she yells.

(Thunk)

This is getting tiresome quick… I said, “OK, Amber, if that’s the way you want to do this, that’s fine, let’s just go talk to a Deputy about this…” And with that, I put the car in drive, pulled into a driveway, and turned the car around toward the gate again.

Amber screeches, “What are you doing? Let me out of this car!” She is now half-standing with one foot on the floor and one knee on the seat, trying to get the back door open, and I stopped rather abruptly, bouncing her off the back side of the front seat and back into a seated position. “Where are you taking me?”, she screams.

(Thunk)

“I’m taking you to the nearest police station unless you pay me my money.” This was actually an empty threat; I am not familiar with this area and don’t have a clue where the nearest cop shop is, but I hoped that turning the car around would snap her back to her senses and make her realize that the smart thing to do here is to give me her Visa card. As it turns out, I was wrong.

Amber gets an insane look in her eyes and clumsily swings her large purse at my head, then starts beating on the window with her fist and shrieking, “HELP! HELP! KIDNAPPING! I’M BEING KIDNAPPED! HELP! RAPE! RAPE! HELP!”

I blocked her purse and several items flew out of it. She is shrieking and screaming at the top of her lungs and throwing her hairbrush and her makeup compact and her lip gloss at me, and frantically trying to get out of the car.

(Thunk)

I’m not certain that I possess the writing skills to adequately describe how insane Amber was behaving. The nice little twenty-three year old girl that just twenty minutes ago was grinding her nice little fist into her nice little cooch and making nice little cooing and mewling noises to the nice taxi driver about just wanting to get a little nice dick has now suddenly transformed into a crazed alcoholic wildcat, flinging things at me, beating the window, swinging her purse, and shrieking at the top of her lungs. Normally, this would be a scene I would want to resolve quickly and quietly, but at this point, I’m really OK with someone calling the cops… maybe we can settle for a Wackenhut security guard on a golf cart… whatever works.

But Amber manages to get the door open and half-runs, half-staggers away toward her building, screaming all the way. She stumbles over a squat little bush and faceplants into the grass, but gets up and runs to the door. I calmly followed her up her driveway, looking around to see if any lights are coming on in the neighboring units over this incredibly unseemly tableau happening at 2 o’clock in the morning in one of the nicer gated communities. Amber gets to the door and starts pounding on it with her fist and jamming the doorbell….

DingDingDingDingDingDing!

She seems unwilling to turn her back on me though, and she is continually screaming, “HELP! HELP! THIS PSYCHO IS TRYING TO RAPE ME! HELP! KIDNAPPING! THIS PSYCHO FREAK IS KIDNAPPING ME! HELP! HELP! HELP!”

BangBangBangBangBangDingDingDingDingDing!

Amber pauses for a moment, looks at the door, then looks around the porch area, and then she is struck with the realization that this is not her door. I can’t really fault her there; she may be really fucked up, but these units all look alike. Amber suddenly looks like a cornered animal… she is wide-eyed and snarling at me, her hair hanging in loose locks and messy strands in her face with leaves and other vegetative matter clinging to it… a nasty, feral child, raised by badgers with whiskey and meth. She swings her giant purse at my head again, then darts past me and stumbles over the same little bush again. She gets up, staggers to the next door with leaves and grass sticking to her knees and her sundress, and starts pounding on that door.

I deftly and adroitly stepped over the little bush and casually followed Amber across the lawn and over to the next door. She’s still screaming and pounding on the door and feverishly ringing the doorbell, and I was thinking to myself, Is everyone in this neighborhood deaf? How can people not hear this spectacle out here? I’m keeping a four or five yard space between myself and Amber, but she keeps lunging at me and swinging her giant purse at me…

“HELP! HELP! THIS PSYCHO IS TRYING TO RAPE ME! HELP! KIDNAPPING! THIS PSYCHO FREAK IS KIDNAPPING ME! HELP! HELP!”

BangBangBangBangBangDingDingDingDingDing!

A few moments later, a light inside comes on and the door opens. It is Amber’s Mom, a petite but stoutly built woman that looks like she is from the back cover of a cookbook. She is wearing a bathrobe and looks bewildered and confused, and her short blonde hair is sticking up at odd angles all over her head. She looks at me standing a few yards away with my hands in my pockets, and then she sees the taxi behind me, still running with the doors open and the lights all on.

Amber’s shrieking continues unabated… “OH MY GOD THIS PSYCHO FREAK IS A KIDNAPPER THAT TRIED TO RAPE ME! HE TRIED TO KIDNAP ME! CALL THE COPS! HE’S A FUCKING PYSCHO! HE’S OUT OF HIS MIND! HE LOCKED ME IN A TAXI AND KIDNAPPED ME! HE’S A PSYCHO FUCKING FREAK!”

Amber’s Mom looks at me, and at the purported kidnapping vehicle with a prominent phone number on the side in five-inch orange lettering, and says, “Does she owe you money?”

I calmly and politely said, “Yes, Ma’am, 85 dollars…”

She tells me to wait just a moment, and she takes Amber inside, and I got the distinct feeling that this sorta shit has happened before. Amber is still screaming at the top of her lungs on the other side of the door…

“DON’T YOU GIVE HIM ANY FUCKING MONEY! HE’S A PSYCHO RAPIST! HE TRIED TO KIDNAP ME! I FUCKING HATE YOU! YOU NEVER TAKE MY SIDE! YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ANYTHING I SAY AND IT’S OK WITH YOU IF SOME PSYCHO FREAK RAPES AND MURDERS ME IN A FUCKING TAXI! (CRASH) I FUCKING HATE YOUR GUTS! (THUD) WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME? WHY AM I NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO LISTEN TO? (SMASH) THAT PSYCHO TAXI DRIVER KIDNAPPED ME! WHY DON’T YOU CARE IF SOME PSYCHO RAPES ME? I HATE YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

I listened to this screaming and the sounds of things being thrown and broken for at least two or three minutes. It would not have surprised me to have heard a gunshot, or even a McCulloch chainsaw firing up, for that matter. I was thinking that maybe I should go get my phone out of my car in case I needed to call 911 for Amber’s Mom… the neighbors sure as shit do not seem to be noticing this spectacle.

Mom comes back out and hands me a hundred dollar bill, and thanks me for bringing Amber home safely. I ask her if she needs some help or if I can call anyone for her, but she says everything is OK and asks me to leave. So I turn back to my car, and the floor is strewn with Amber’s possessions… makeup, a hairbrush, tampons, keys, a little 5×7 notepad, Chap-Stick, birth control pills, gum, assorted trash, all sorts of shit… so I scoop it all up and start carrying it up to the door with the intent of just leaving all this shit on the doorstep and getting out of here. Just then, the door flies open and Amber is storming out, still screaming and hurling “FUCK YOU’S” at her mother. Amber’s Mom follows her out and says to me, “What are you still doing here?” I replied that I just wanted to give her daughter back all the shit that she threw at me, and I piled it all in Mom’s arms, and I got the hell outta Dodge by the shortest route possible.

Now then, let’s debrief and examine the After Action Report. I occasionally get guys in my car that I tell how often these wasted hosebags proposition me, and they usually start talking and laughing about how they should start driving taxis and start pulling all this surplus pink that is obviously wasted on this guy, and they always seem to think that I am just plain crazy to not avail myself of these opportunities. But therein lies my point:

I’m not crazy, THEY ARE.

Nevermind that I love my wife and have little to no interest in destroying my family over a random piece of ass… can you imagine being nuts-deep in that wasted little trollop, only to have her suddenly decide mid-stroke that she was being raped and start screeching at the top of her lungs? Then maybe she starts scratching your face and hitting you in the head with her six pound purse and poking you in the eye with her hairbrush… and when the cops roll up, you are standing there with half a hardon, a swollen and scratched face, and a girl shrieking about psycho kidnapping taxi rapists, sitting right there in the back seat of your car, with an ample supply of your DNA all over her…

After careful and deliberate consideration, that’s some pussy you can keep. I think the nice guy from FaceBook was lucky that his nice date with nice Amber didn’t work out nicely.

Here endeth the lesson…

Vignette: Career Counseling

Posted: 10th June 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags: ,

In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting, and sometimes an object. -Wikipedia

I roll up to a red light downtown on a Friday night, and there is a couple in their early twenties standing on the corner, and their facial expressions and body language clearly indicate that they are in a heated argument. I’m not sure if I want this shit in my car, but the guy screams, “Fuck off!” and runs toward me.

He jumps in the front set and slams the door, and the girl screeches, “FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!!!” and flings her drink at my car. I idle past her and leave her screaming on the corner.

The guy yells, “Gawddamm! I can’t stand dumbass wasted bitches!”

I turned on my wipers and slapped the ice and Margarita off my windshield, turned on the meter, and then I looked at him and said, “You have no future as a taxi driver. Where are we going…?”

I haven’t posted in a while because I have been tremendously busy… I moved at the end of April and been unpacking and relocating hearth and home, and I joined a new taxi company recently, which has kept me busier than ever. Actually, the new taxi company is the main reason I am posting now. But before I get to the meat of this post, let me tell you a little about the taxi business and how taxi companies operate.

Most people I talk to are surprised to learn that in my area, most taxi companies are not in the taxi business at all; they are actually in the car leasing business. They lease the car to the driver for a rate that ranges from 60 to 125 per day, and quite honestly, they really don’t give a rat’s ass if you are late to your doctor’s appointment or if you wait an hour to be picked up, or even if you are picked up at all. All they really care about is that the driver pays his daily or weekly lease, and if he doesn’t, he’ll be replaced soon enough.

The company I previously worked for had a different approach; instead of a daily or weekly lease, the driver gives the company a percentage of the meter. That way, if the driver has a slow night, so does the company. In a sense, that is more fair, but it sucks on a night like New Years Eve, when a skilled hack can make five or six hundred dollars in a shift and then has to give a large portion of his take to the company.

I have nothing but good things to say about my old company… They treated me a little shabbily on the way out, but I don’t hold that against them; I think they were just pissed about losing a good driver to a new, upstart taxi company that has already impacted their business. But while I was there, they treated me well, and I frequently told my passengers that if I quit this job tonight in a stuttering rage (a very distinct possibility on any given night), Jack’s Taxi would be the company I would call if I needed a cab. They are a family business, they hire good people, they keep the cars up, and they have the best dispatch system I am aware of, so they give really prompt service. Two or three times a week, I would have passengers tell me, “Wow, we called Acme Cab and waited an hour, then we called Jack’s and you were here in ten minutes.” And coming from a marketing background, I always marveled at the customer loyalty that Jack’s Taxi has built over the years.

The new company I work for was started by a few drivers from a variety of companies that were tired of being fucked over by the mercenary taxi leasing companies in this area. Their concept was to create a “drivers’ co-op” where good drivers can make a good living without working twelve or fourteen hour days and busting their humps just to pay their lease, only to go home with 100 bucks or less. We pay a modest weekly fee to cover our insurance and sundry administrative costs and operating expenses, and we work when we want, where we want, and we are truly independent businessmen. The downside is that we don’t have the traditional dispatch office and garage, and as owner-operators, we have to cover all the repairs and maintenance of our cars. Pros and cons….

I was recruited by a guy that used to work for Jack’s Taxi as well. Mike is a great guy… He worked for Jack’s for a few years before I did, then had to leave to attend to family business up north before I was hired by Jack’s. When he got back to Florida, I met him in the dispatch office on his first night back with the company. I said to one of the dispatchers, “We got a noobie, huh…? A new fish in the yard…?” They both chuckled, and the dispatcher told me that Mike was a three or four year veteran at Jack’s Taxi, just back from an extended personal leave. At the end of the night, I saw Mike in the office again turning in his paperwork and said, “How did it go, noob…?” Everybody laughed, and I told him if he needed any help or advice on how to deal with these surly whores and blackout binge drinkers, just come to me…

One night, a group of people flagged me down, and a pretty blonde with a good buzz and a loose, plunging top came up to the passenger window and asked me to take them a mile or two up the road. The problem was that they had one too many people for me to carry. The law in Florida is very clear; you can not carry more people than seatbelts. If you get in an accident while overloaded, it is a gigantic liability issue, for you and the company. And I spent a solid two or three minutes trying to explain this to her, while she bent over at the waist and her braless breasts were on full display. After several minutes of begging and cajoling me, she finally said, “What if I showed you my tits?”

I said, “You have been showing me your tits for the last three minutes. But your tits and your seven dollar fare are not worth my job. If you wait right here, I’ll send you another taxi within five minutes.” I took off and saw another one of our cars just two blocks away from where I left her, and driving the bigger car was Mike the Noob. I told him to go back two blocks and get the blonde and her group, and I added that if he asks, she’ll probably whip out the sweater puppies for him. After that ride, I think Mike liked me…

So anyway, Mike the Noob recruited me to join my new company, and I am really glad that I decided to make the jump. We got my wife a new car, I took her Nissan minivan (heretofore her work office, baby taxi, and family grocery-getter) to the paint shop for paint and lettering, got a meter installed, and in the span of a week, I am out on my own, working without any support system other than a few calls per night from the new company’s phone system, just some freshly printed business cards and my hack skills and instincts to survive upon. It kinda has a mercenary or pirate feel to it… Looking for targets of opportunity, hunting down passengers, beating other companies to their pickups and swiping their customers. But so many things that I hated about this job went away immediately once I took the leap and came on board. No more drug runs, no more going to the hood for sketchy passengers, no more getting shorted on gas or cleaning up cheese fries from the day driver, no more being forced to work slow Tuesdays when no one is out and fares are scarce. But as I said previously, there are pros and cons to working without a net.

On Saturday, April 13th, I dropped off two nice ladies in an older, moneyed neighborhood. I did my paperwork, noting that I cleared my passengers at 11:54 PM. I drove to the corner, took a right, and I saw bouncing headlights shining down a rough, potholed alley on my left. And instantly, a metallic orange Jeep Wrangler shot out of the alley at no less than 30 miles per hour… Not even time to think, “Oh, shit!”. The Jeep T-boned my car in the driver’s side passenger door, shattering windows and snapping my head into the window. The impact spun my car 90 degrees so we were facing each other, front wheel to front wheel.

The driver of the Jeep was a pretty blonde girl in her twenties, who looked positively stunned that a car might be passing in front of the alley she was charging down. A male passenger jumped out and said, “Hang on, dude, we are calling the insurance company.” The impact knocked my phone on the floor, and as I bent down to retrieve it, the guy got back in the Jeep and the blonde hit the gas and bolted down the alley. I hit the gas and tried to follow, but my car didn’t move. I stuck my head out of the window and saw that she had knocked my rear tire off my car. She was gone in seconds, without so much as a partial plate number.

So, best case scenario, she cost me a $7000 taxi, and a $8000 replacement. At this point, it looks like she got away with a felony hit-and-run. It is difficult to describe here, but given the geography of that particular neighborhood, she almost certainly lives right there, within a mile at most. No one that isn’t really local would use that alley, because it leads only to rough, narrow streets in an older, moneyed part of town, with no quick ways to go anywhere else. A guy in the neighborhood told me he knows that Jeep and has seen it many times before, but he hasn’t seen it since. But in spite of my entire fleet looking for this orange Jeep in that neighborhood for more than a month, we haven’t found her yet… She either got it fixed and painted immediately, or she has it garaged.

Pros and cons… but I guess I signed up for this shit. If I was still working with Jack’s Taxi, they would have put me in a new car immediately, without missing a beat. But as an owner-operator, this giant pile of bullshit lands squarely on my desk, and I get to pick up the tab for some stupid bitch’s irresponsible and thoughtless actions. She didn’t care if I was injured, didn’t care that I am trying to feed a baby, she didn’t care that she cost me thousands of dollars, she only cared about saving her own ass and (probably) failing a breathalyzer. Had the roles been reversed and I had been at fault, I know myself well enough to know that I would have sat right there and called the cops, and let my insurance company make it right for the girl… That’s what I pay for. I guess I am a vanishing breed… people of average to above-average integrity.

Still, I am glad to have made the jump to this new company. Let’s be clear: This job sucks. It sucks less when you are making good money. And since I came onboard, I’ve been making really good money, but now a considerable portion of that money goes to a car payment I shouldn’t have to pay.

Utter Brilliance

Posted: 16th March 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags:

HotAir.com is my daily, go-to site for political news and opinion… I’ve been a habitual reader there for at least 6 or 7 years, and an occasional commenter for a year or two… I’m just too busy to be a frequent commenter, but I highly recommend this website. Not only are the contributing bloggers outstanding, but many of my fellow commenters are amazingly insightful thinkers as well. Several of these commenters have their own blogs, and there is a rich vein of brilliant thinking and provocative writing to be mined in the comments sections of HotAir’s articles.

So I came home from work tonight and was unwinding with a cold beer and skimming HotAir, and I read a comment that struck me as one of the most insightful things I have read in a very long time. Short. Crisp. Succinct. Conceptual bedrock. A razor-sharp analysis of the way the left and the right think, and what they think about their fellow man.

Utter brilliance.

In a post regarding the recent verbal shootout between Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Dianne Feinstein over her pending assault weapon ban legislation, a commenter named Rogerb made a post that I won’t forget for a long, long time. I don’t know this guy, other than I have read his posts in the past and generally agreed with his commentary. If he had a blog, I’m pretty sure I would read it.

[EDIT] Damn… did I really just use the metaphor “shootout”…? Jeeeeeez… I’m sure that a sensitive, liberal, democrat-voting, $200 per hour shrink could explain that to me in eight or ten sessions… [/EDIT]

Anyway, here is Rogerb’s comment, slightly edited for clarity here in this context of right and left, or gun control nuts and people that value liberty. You can view the entire thread and original context here

By the way, dear readers, we rarely get a thread that manages to sum up the differences in how the two sides think of you (not the general “you”, but you specifically as an individual) any better than this one has.

People believe other people are like themselves.

A cruise missile, if I could afford one, would be no more dangerous in my hands than the paring knife in my kitchen drawer. I don’t lose my temper easily, and I have no desire to harm other people when I do. I assume you, like me, are moral, considerate, level-headed, and have an overwhelming aversion to violence, and I have no reason to believe it would be inherently dangerous in your possession, either.

In other words, I think you’re basically just like me until you show me otherwise.

The progressives believe that you obviously have a tendency to violence and lack the desire or self control to keep yourself from inflicting knee-jerk harm on others to get what you want, and, in order to keep you from being a danger to yourself or others, people who are smarter than you should be allowed to decide what is best for you.

In other words, they think you’re basically just like them until you show them otherwise.

― Rogerb, Commenter at HotAir.com, March 15, 2013 at 2:09 PM

Beautiful… just fucking beautiful… and what struck me about this comment is how it dovetails so nicely into another quote that I have loved for years…

“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”

― Robert A. Heinlein

Yes, Rogerb, I just lumped you in with the likes of Heinlein… hope you are cool with that.

But consider that analogy of yours stolen. I think I will be using that a lot in the future…

Stolen, but attributed…

Flashback: The Bridesmaids

Posted: 9th March 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

Ahhh, springtime in Florida… wedding season. Every girl wants that picture-perfect May or June dream wedding on the beach at sunset, and people come from all over the country to have a wedding on the beach. And so where I work, it is quite common to see a gaggle of 5 or 6 girls in smeared makeup and ghastly lavender dresses staggering down the sidewalk late at night, led by a group of guys wearing vomit and grass-stained rented tuxedos, lurching into the street to flag down a taxi.

So back when I had only been on the job for just a few months, I get a call at around midnight to a beach resort to pick up “Jennifer”, and sitting out front on a bench are two really wasted girls wearing identical fuscia bridesmaids dresses. One is about 30 or 32 and looks kinda like Janet from the 70’s sitcom Three’s Company, a cute, petite brunette with a bobbed hairstyle. The other girl is a really pretty black girl about 25 years old, 5-9ish, thin and willowy, and long curly hair.

How did I know they were wasted? Well, you drive a taxi for just a few months, and you become a human breathalyzer… I can spot a .221 drunk with surprising accuracy today. I noticed that these girls were sitting about eighteen inches apart, but leaning on each other shoulder-to-shoulder in an inverted V shape, intuitively utilizing the inherent physics and stability of this form in order to keep from falling off the bench.

I pull up in front of them and the short brunette begs me to take them back to their resort hotel, less than a mile up the road. They are entirely too wasted to walk this five dollar fare, and their matching clunky white heels aren’t helping. They might be a puke risk, but they are only going a mile or so… so I chance it and tell them to get in. The white girl helps the black girl to her feet, and leaning on each other, they stagger to the car. I’m wondering if I made a mistake, because they suddenly look A LOT more wasted now that they are on their feet. As they get in, I say, “Nobody is gonna get sick, right?” They assure me that they are both OK, but I am not completely convinced.

So I hit the road quickly with the intent of getting them out of my car ASAP… and I’m perfectly OK with the notion of “screw the tip, just gimme 5 bucks and get the hell outta my car before somebody heaves and kills my night…” I can hear them talking softly in the back seat, but can’t make out what they are saying. I get just a few blocks away from their hotel, when I hear low, guturral groan from the back seat…

Uuuuuhhhhnnnnnngggggggg!!!

And I thought, “Shit! One of them is puking! Dammit!” I snatched the wheel hard right and zipped into the parking lot of a strip mall, slammed it in park, flipped on the interior light, and looked into the back seat.

The black girl is sitting back there with her head lolled back and her 34C breasts out of her dress, panties down below her calves, and the dress itself pulled up around her waist. The brunette is feverishly biting and sucking the closer of the black girl’s nipples, with three fingers buried knuckles-deep in her cooch, and she is rooting around in there like she has lost her car keys. This scene goes on for no less than 90 seconds, the black girl moaning and groaning the entire time, eyes closed, before the brunette notices that the interior light is on, we have been stopped for close to two minutes, and the taxi driver is staring at them.

She makes eye contact with me, and she looks like she is about to say something, but then returns her attention to the black girl. And over the next two or three minutes, I watched her positively yank an orgasm out of the black girl. This was live amateur lesbian porn, very intense and very real, taking place in arm’s reach in my back seat.

Really? Really? Does this shit really happen? This felt positively surreal, like I am being punked… or this is some sorta test, and there are surveillance cameras watching right now, observing what I say or do next.

And if I were to say something, just what does one say at a moment like this, anyway? “Hey, stop that”…?

The black girl is trembling and gasping, and the other girl looks at me and tells me to proceed to their hotel. And over the last few blocks, the car REEKS of pussy, and they are whispering to each other about scheduling vacations in a month or two, with the white girl saying, “you have to come back down here as soon as you can“, and the black girl saying , “yes, yes, I can put in for vacation for the week of the 18th…”

I pulled up in front of the resort, stopped the car, turned on the interior light, but they both kept discussing their next rendezvous… paying me no attention whatsoever. They are wasted and in the afterglow, and the white girl whispers, “I’ll be at your room in 10 minutes…” She glances up at the meter, not at me, pulls about sixteen or eighteen crumpled dollars out of her purse and drops them on the front seat, never making eye contact with me, like I am a non-entity, not even there in the car with her. She gets out and ushers the wasted and trembling black girl into the lobby of the resort, and the newbie taxi driver drives away, wondering for the rest of the night if there is some sort of paperwork he needs to fill out regarding this incident.

The Greatest Twitter Account Ever

Posted: 15th February 2013 by Taxi Hack in Uncategorized

I was reluctant to get on Twitter… I’m really busy, and I just don’t have time to pay attention to the moronic missives of talentless rappers or some vapid celebutard’s most recent yeast infection. Seriously… if you aren’t banging Kim Kardashian, why would you give a rat’s ass about anything she has to say? But on the other hand, I find that I do like reading the tweets of other hacks… misery loves company, I suppose. But most of all, I enjoy Twitter accounts that make me laugh or offer incisive political commentary. It is truly a shame that most of my literary heroes died before Twitter… can you imagine following the Twitter feeds of the likes of Hunter Thompson, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, or HL Menken?

If you don’t know who those people are, you need a library card… badly… twenty bucks says you voted for Obama.

I deeply regret that Andrew Breitbart passed before I got on Twitter.

I have enjoyed @ShitMyDadSays for a long time… a truly epic and hilarious account that reminds me of my own old man. But without a doubt, The Greatest Twitter Account Ever is a superhero… not Batman, not Superman, not Spiderman or Aquaman. No, I proudly follow the Twitter account of Florida Man.

Florida Man

Florida Man is the real-life headlines about the world’s worst superhero. Just some of his recent posts:

Florida Man Arrested While Sunbathing Naked And Holding Rubber Penis

Florida Man Arrested For Driving While Masturbating With A Toy Gun In His Ass

Florida Man Mistakes Girlfriend For Hog, Shoots Her

Florida Man Accused Of Shooting Six Cows In The Face

Florida Man Arrested For Calling 911 After His Cat Was Denied Entry Into Strip Club

Florida Man Accidentally Shoots Off Penis And Testicles While Cleaning Gun

Florida Man Smokes Synthetic Pot, Shoots Glock, Runs Around Neighborhood Naked

Hallucinating Florida Man Seeing Imaginary Aliens Walks Into Store With With Large Knives And Asks Not To Be Eaten

Florida Man Caught Masturbating In Front Yard, Left “Unknown Clear Liquid Substance” On Door Knob

Florida Man Busted For Performing Back Alley Butt Injections

I truly wish I had thought of this. Sheer, unadulterated genius. Ever since I discovered him, I have laughed daily at his zany news headlines, and as a Florida taxi driver, I am certain I have driven Florida Man on more than one occasion. Florida Man deserves to get wealthy from this, and I hope to someday be his personal chauffeur and sidekick, like Cato to the Green Hornet. Just gotta get me the cap and black gloves…

Or maybe a ballgag, a six-pack of Vaseline, and a spatula…

Follow @_FloridaMan on Twitter. You won’t regret it.

Also, hat tip to David Burge, aka @IowaHawkBlog for introducing me to Florida Man. Follow him on Twitter. Remember I mentioned incisive political commentary earlier? This man is a straightrazor of political insight. You’ll get smarter reading his blog.

And while you are at it, follow me too… @TheTaxiHack.