The Stonecipher Report

Stonecipher Reruns #1 and #2

Since I most likely will not be able to post over the weekend from my undisclosed bunker, somewhere in Oklahoma, I am posting links to some of my favorite posts here on TSR from the past six months.  I'm specifically choosing some pieces that I thought were fantastic (mostly by other writers - not me), but didn't get quite the exposure I had hoped for when they were first published.

With that in mind, here are two pieces about lousy cab drivers - we have a segment planned for The Stonecipher Report on the Air about bad cabbies and one or both authors of the following pieces will be joining us on the air at WHPK to discuss their stories in the near future:

Rerun #1 - What's Yellow, Has Four Wheels and Can Kiss My Ass? - by Demosthenes

Rerun #2 - Remember James King - The Penmanship Conspiracy - by Dan Radke

Remember James King - The Penmanship Conspiracy

Inspired by Demosthenes' piece about his New York City Cabbie we here at The Stonecipher Report saught out more bad cabbie stories and we found this one which occured in the Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago near Kedzie and Logan:

Remember James King By: Daniel Travis Radke

So my girlfriend Amanda and I are coming home from our friends Matt and Mary's house. We're pretty drunk, it's around 3 in the morning.

We opt to take a cab. It's only about 7 blocks away, but once again, we are pretty drunk.

A cab driver picks us up. We give him directions and we're on our way.

Now I don't remember how the conversation started, but the cab driver is suddenly throwing things about in the front seat, and he picks up a manuscript. It's his book. It's about half an inch thick, hand written, on college ruled lined paper.

He's shoving it in my face. "This is it. They don't like hand written things anymore. They're against it. But not me. It's what I do."

He's looking at me and not the road. We come close to hitting many cars, but we're only going twenty-five and I'm sloshed, so I read the first few lines. It's absolute tripe, but I don't say anything.

"Good penmanship," he says. "That's what they're afraid of, what they're trying to get rid of. Everything's typed nowadays. But not me. It's a conspiracy, they're trying to get rid of cursive."

I look down the paper again. I share it with Amanda, she starts reading it. It really does look good...the penmanship.

"What's it about?" I ask, tired of his odd rant.

We're three blocks away from our place.

"It's about a guy, and he's in a Kingdom. This Kingdom is dark, messed up. The people living in it, they're all crazy. Information is all monitored. Monitored by THIS THING!" As he says, "this thing" he slaps the device in front of him that all cabs have. It records time and distance traveled so they can tell how much to charge.

Two blocks away.

"And EVERYTHING goes through THIS THING (slaps it again) so everything is monitored and no one is safe, and the government, the GOVERNMENT sees everything we do, no matter who we are, no matter what we're doing. And the people in it, in this city, this Kingdom, they're vile, dirty people."

One block away.

"But I'm there, I'm in this Kingdom. I have to live in this vile place, that's constantly being monitored by the government, through THIS THING (this time he grabs it and shakes it violently). And the government is watching everything I do."

Amanda points to our house. "We're here, it's this one right here."

He stops the cab. But not his story. "There's this guy, this guy in it that wants to stop all cursive handwriting. He wants everything typed-"

"Um, how much, dude?" I say.

He punches a few buttons on the device he's been beating the shit out of.

"Eight dollars."

Amanda hands him ten.

He takes the ten bucks and makes change while he continues. "So he wants to destroy everything handwritten. But I'm going to stop him. It's my goal, it's what I do. I'm going to stop him. Him and the government."

He hands me back twelve dollars. I give it to Amanda, letting her decide if we should steal from this guy or not. She stares at the money a few moments.

"Because the government is everywhere, everything. They're always watching, monitoring us, through everything-"

Amanda hands me everything he gave us, and I give it back to him.

"-especially shit like THIS! (Slaps his cab device yet again) THIS thing records EVERYTHING."

I reach to the other side of Amanda and open the door for her, silently signaling that we should soon make our non-aggressive, calm exit. She agrees as she starts inching her way out of the car.

"And you think sometimes that they NEED to record SOME stuff, with all that's HAPPENING in the WORLD, all the fucking INSANITY-"

Amanda is now out of the car. I start inching my way across the seat.

"But not everything. They can't monitor and record everything they want. And they can't stop CURSIVE."

I have my foot on the ground outside of the car as I find my proverbial "in." "Hey man, that's cool. Sounds like a great book. What's your name?" I'm finally out of the car.

"James King. I'm almost done with it, I'll be published in a few weeks. Remember James King."

"Sounds good man!" I shut the door. He speeds off.

I don't know if I've said it enough, but I love this town.

Note: Daniel Travis Radke works in insurance and he recently purchased an xBox 360 with Grand Theft Auto 4, while playing the game he routinely drags cab drivers out of their cars and beats them senseless while screaming "Here's your fuel surcharge!"  He has been a resident of Chicago for two years.

Also, in case you missed the link above, if you enjoyed this piece and want to check out another great "bad cabbie" story, click here.

What's Yellow, Has Four Wheels and Can Kiss My Ass?

July 3, 2008

The Answer is a New York City Cab.

I F-ing Hate NY Cabbies

NY cabbies suck.  And if I could come up with a way to put them all out of business, I would. Anything that makes their jobs harder, I'm all for it:

Bigger fare increase that'll lower their tips - do it.

Make them all install expensive GPS systems - excellent idea.

Replace them all with robots - I'm in favor.

Now you're probably thinking, "What in the world could make him hate cabbies so much?" Well, there are many reasons.

For starters, if you live in a borough of New York City, there's a 90% chance that the cab you get into doesn't know how to get to where you want to go, even though that’s the only thing they actually have to know!  Learning your way around a city is not rocket science -- buy a damn map.

Another great reason to hate New York cabbies is that they drive like they're insane.  I have personally witnessed at least three cabs run down people on their bikes. 

I've been in a cab when they went the wrong way down a one way street, jumped out in traffic, cut off another cab, and then cursed out the other cab for having the nerve to honk at them.

But two reasons for hating New York City cabbies really jump to the forefront:  I live in Brooklyn and I am black.

For those of you who don't live in NYC, it's a fact of life that cabbies hate black people.

But that's common knowledge for the most part.  What most people outside of New York don't know is that they also hate going to Brooklyn.

Now, if you happen to be a black person trying to go to Brooklyn, well, then you've hit the daily double!

I've had cabbies just drive on by me. 

I've had them start to pull over to let me in, get a clearer view of me, and then speed off. 

I've had them pull up to me, roll down the window a crack to ask where I'm going (which is illegal by the way), and then speed off when I tell them The BK. 

I've also had them tell me that they are suddenly no longer in service. 

I've even had one pretend his cab broke down a block from where he picked me up. 

Whenever I tell this to my white friends, they are amazed, shocked, outraged, etc..., that this still happens in America.  Unfortunately, I'm used to it.

My fondest memory though, is when this Arab dude picked me up in his gypsy cab in Manhattan.  Normally I don't do gypsy cabs (those unmarked black cabs), but it was late, and it's not like I was having any luck with the regular yellow cabs.

After I got in and told him where I wanted to go, he refused to go anywhere until I paid him up front.

He also locked the doors so I couldn't jump out and run away without paying.  Normally, I would not have let this slide, but as I mentioned, it was late and I just wanted to go home.  So I paid the man and sat back for a quiet ride home.  However, it was not to be.

I guess he was afraid he had offended me, so he decided to explain why he asked me to prepay:  basically because black people are all thugs. I mean, I looked nice enough, but he couldn't take a chance, right?  We like to skip out on fares.  We're loud.  And if we actually do happen to stick around to
pay the fare, we skimp on the tip.

Now white people, they aren't great either, he continued.  They start wars, they don't care for the poor, and are basically the devil.  But there's one major difference: they tip well.  So in the end, that makes up for everything. 

I mean, homeboy was really feeling like he was dropping some knowledge on me.  Meanwhile, I'm just sitting in the back, saying nothing.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that there are pieces of truth to every stereotype. I'm sure he's had some bad run-ins that caused him to develop this particular philosophy.  But what exactly did he hope to gain by tell ME all of this?

As time has gone on I've learned to work the system a bit.  If you can hop in the cab before you tell them where you're going, the cabbie is stuck with you (a method employed by my white brethren who also live in the BK). 

Another tactic, if there happens to be a white girl around, I'll use her to hail the cab, and then jump in...and we're going to Brooklyn, bitch! 

I also make sure to tip well in the hopes of encouraging return trips to the boroughs. 

And if it's raining, well, I've actually never caught a cab in the rain; I'm pretty sure it's impossible.  So the subway it is (MTA, don't think you're off the hook.  You're on my list as well).

Now, after saying all of this, I do understand that every cabbie in NY is not like this, and that I'm using a broad brush to paint them all the same.  There are some good ones out there that are getting lumped in with the rest.  But here's the thing: I don't care.

The majority of them drive like madmen.  The majority won't drive to the boroughs, and if they will, they don't know their way around. The majority look at me like some thug that's going to rob them. The majority won't pick me up. 

Hence, I can only guess that the majority f-ing hate me.  And as such, I f-ing hate them back, because isn't that the American way?

Oh, and my friend who was dropping knowledge on me during the ride home?  Well, he didn't get a tip that night.  Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecy?