jackshoegazer: (Cab Driver)
[personal profile] jackshoegazer
Good afternoon dear Reader,

He was confused or merely indecisive, but he couldn't decide whether the stale winter air escaped through the windows in a stampede or if the new spring wind charged through the windows like a raging army come to slaughter the dark and deformed monsters of stagnation.  Either way, the breeze simultaneously held the breath of new life and growth and the mulch stink of death and it made him sleepy and reminiscent, or merely ponderous.  As I said, he was confused, or merely indecisive.

No, I don't always write about myself in the third person, but here it felt necessary.  Or perhaps I just wanted to.  Like I said, I'm confused, or merely indecisive.

Being a cabbie is like being a limo driver, only the car is smaller and the clientele is usually of a lower class.  However, I am gaining the belief they are much more interesting. 

This week I met a girl with no arms, who signed her credit card slip with her feet and her handfootwriting was better than most people's hand-penmanship. 

I met an aging hippie who used to travel the country helping organize unions for striking workers.  He told me if I ever chose to get into journalism, his good friend is the editor of a newspaper here and could get me an in.

The man I picked up from the AIDS Support Network used to be a millionaire, teach political science at Brown, had a stroke, went bankrupt and now lives in a one-room apartment and watches TV, living off ramen and hot dogs.  He says it's a better life and he loves it.

There was also the older black man who told me he thinks the white judges and politicians in this country are all secret KKK members, that slavery never really ended, that the whites have been terrorizing the blacks here much longer than our War on Terror has been focused on Islam, and that a black man will never be president because a white supremacist will assassinate them first.

He was great fun to talk to.  Seriously.  We got into a good mutual rant about how impossible it is to live on minimum wage and how the idea of a service economy is nothing but indentured servitude all over again.

Yesterday I had to take a woman back to her hotel so she could get her things and pick up her car, just so she could go right back to the hospital, because her husband had a heart attack that morning.  She was nervous and skittish.  She didn't say much at all.

That's enough cab stories, don't you think?  I get a nice cross-section of human life every day.  It's like living a thousand lives per week, but only for a moment each.  Like Quantum Leap on methamphetamines, only I don't have to right historical wrongs.  Just listen to their stories, like the neighborhood bartender.

Soon, I will write to you about walking through crowds, the first days of spring, social anxiety, psychic shells, Jack's hoe-gazing, my immersion into liberal radio programs, jazz on Satudays, and what I've made for dinner recently.  Or not.  After all, I am confused, or merely indecisive.

Date: 2007-03-25 11:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] weishaupt.livejournal.com
I do not think that is enough cab stories. I love cab stories. Except for that Taxi Cab Confessions show or whatever it called itself which was - or at least came across as - painfully fake.

Date: 2007-03-26 01:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com
I should watch and study that show so I can learn how to steer a conversation in a particular direction so people will tell me about assassinating Guatemalan dictators while in the CIA, and how they cheated on their wives with their mother-in-laws, and show me their tits.

Date: 2007-03-26 02:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] irishspongie.livejournal.com
...and show me their tits.

Of course, you'd need photographs for the book you're eventually going to write about your cab stories. In this, I'm reminded of some JCvD (Jean-Claude van Damme) film in which he kicks bad guys' arses (yes, I'm narrowing it down, aren't I? - I think Natasha Henstridge was in it, too) and acquires a sort-of sidekick: a cab driver who plans to write about his experiences. Only, the chap gets killed in the crossfire, I think.

So the moral of the story is: don't be JCvD's sidekick if you happen to pick him up as a fare.

Date: 2007-03-26 02:30 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com
And don't pick up Tom Cruise if he has grey hair!

Date: 2007-03-26 06:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] weishaupt.livejournal.com
I should watch and study that show so I can learn how to steer a conversation in a particular direction so people will tell me about assassinating Guatemalan dictators while in the CIA, and how they cheated on their wives with their mother-in-laws, and show me their tits.

Do you really think you're likely to have a fare who has done all three?

Date: 2007-03-26 11:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com
If I don't then I'll have to invent them and make them the main character in a novel. Actually, Tom Robbins might have already done that. Shite.

Date: 2007-03-26 02:43 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] joraina.livejournal.com
I am eager to hear more stories. This is what I enjoy about working in retail during schooltime: the interaction.

Date: 2007-03-26 05:07 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com
I used to listen to other people's phone calls at my last job and I thought that gave me insight, but actually talking to people in person, you get a much clearer idea of what they are like.

Date: 2007-03-26 10:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] joraina.livejournal.com
I don't believe so. It is only that you are getting to know another person when you never encounter the body.

Date: 2007-03-27 02:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com
I find that misleading, as you're not experiencing part of them. You can tell a lot from mannerisms, gestures, and the eyes that you can't tell from non-body contact. People exude energies, vibes, whathaveyou, and these you can't really tell except in person.

Date: 2007-03-27 11:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] joraina.livejournal.com
My point being, that the friend you have online is not the same friend you know in person. You form an identity of the person in each instance.

Date: 2007-03-27 11:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] joraina.livejournal.com
Or on the telephone.

Date: 2007-03-26 03:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kiwikat.livejournal.com
i agree about the service economy.

i like how i know what you're talking about in that last paragraph as far as hoe-gazing and crowds.

stephanie miller is the queen.

Date: 2007-03-26 05:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackshoegazer.livejournal.com
I'm half-tempted to take the mis-division of my screenname seriously and gaze at hoes and take pictures of them :P

Stephanie Miller is great. The rest of 92.1 is kind of crap from 11am to 4pm.

Date: 2007-03-26 07:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com
Do all these people start to talk on their own, or are you the one to start the conversation?

Date: 2007-03-27 06:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sarahdipity418.livejournal.com
Oh man, I was totally jazzed to hear you got the cabbie job for the stories alone! I'd love to hear all you have to tell!

Date: 2007-03-28 01:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lagizma.livejournal.com
How many people sit up front vs. in the back? Do you prefer them to sit up front / do you feel more indentured when they sit in the back?

Date: 2007-03-28 02:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kiwikat.livejournal.com
http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/11573753.html#cutid1

i think you would like that ^^

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