Why didn’t we think of this?
I’ll be a monkey’s uncle jimmy if I know how we missed those three powerful phenomena together separated by simple dots.
Anyone on the loungechicken who harbors such genius business ideas please bring them forward … now please.
Holy Jeez -
Sometimes, most times, I don’t know why I bother holding out hope. Particularly since 9/11. Sold out again by the whores in congress. The senate followed the house and expanded the spy powers of the government and let phone companies off the hook for illegally assisting in wiretapping us. Not surprised. 40 lawsuits tossed in the garbage.
Here’s the thank you list:
Video of Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein and Tom Hayden of the Chicago 8 in a timely dialogue that touches on so much including whether reading the Loungechicken is the reason you and I are not taking direct political action “in the streets” this fine morning…in a roundabout way of course.
“Well where do I fit in this? (and) I realized that I didn’t get any insights into the world until I accepted the fact that there was something about me that was maladjusted.”
Hayden
I believe I can relate to that. You’ll have to watch til the 22nd minute for that gem, but you’ll get treated to other great discussion threads on writing, journalism, activism, and insightful biographical storytelling by both Klein and Hayden. First rate shit, plus it kicks off and ends with the bad ass Ben Harper tune “People Lead”. It’s brought to you by the folks at Brave New Films and I almost forgot to mention, it’s part of a series of discussions (Carl Pope & Van Jones , Bonnie Raitt & Dolores Huerta, Anthony Romero & Ava Lowery, Pete Seeger & Majora Carter) you can check out in their entirety here
And may I add, holy fucking floating island of garbage batman. I drove across Texas once. Hard to imagine. You know, science fiction geeks can point out numerous inventions that seem to have sprung directly from fiction writers imaginations (i.e. the Star Trek communicator as the prototype for the flip phone). Nowadays, I think sci fi writers can be lazy and scan the news for inspiration. You can’t make this shit up….although I imagine there are evangelical fiction writers scribbling stories that connect this monument to our hubris to some line from Revelations as we speak. People will believe it too. God did it and he works in mysterious ways…pass the cheetos.
Some say history is cyclical and that this is the new gilded age much like a century ago. I’d say it is. There was a program on the television tonight about rich people and those that are rich but don’t feel like they’re rich because their 10 million won’t buy an apartment overlooking central park in NYC. 
A valid concern no doubt. Especially when confronted with the fact that the top 25 hedge fund managers AVERAGE $877,000,000 a year. Holy fucking shit. I think they need to come up with a better job title then manager. You can’t really be called a manager and make more than 3/4 of a billion dollars a year now can you? After the program my friend went to sleep so I went to read the internet. I found a charming article about how career academies are proving to be a better route then regular high school for young people if they want to make more money or attend college. The career academies are upgraded vocational schools to put it in terms that I understood being old. The article did mention that these were mostly utilized in lower income districts. I assume that means districts with an average family net worth of less then $10 million. The exciting thing about the article is that it made me use algebra which I thought had been completely replaced in the memory banks. Of course memories aren’t replaced, just buried. I had to figure out how much more the career academy people were making per year as opposed to their regular high school counterparts. They said that the academy folks were making 11% more a year or $2088. My math may be wrong but I figured out that $2088 was 11 percent of $18,982. That means the more prosperous people 8 years after high school are making $18,982 a year. One of the above mentioned top 25 hedge fund managers makes more than that in 3 minutes. Who are we kidding? Is anyone really buying this as any ethical way to live? I’m not.
To finish up, there’s a lot of talk of oil but even more important for ALL LIFE ON THIS PLANET is water. Or should I say Blue Gold. It’s been happening for a while, but big fish are buying up lots of water rights. I would argue that access to water is a basic human (and all other species) right but this is America and everything, and I mean everything, is for sale. T. Boone Pickens, a Texas billionaire, has invested $100 million into buying up water rights. He’s betting that water will be the new oil and if he’s right he “is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller.” Hooray! Someday we’ll get a really nice public library. Though we’ll have to pay to use the water fountain. But I have a better idea. Let’s sell Mr. Butt Pickens some water the size of his current home state, Texas. It’s in the Pacific Ocean and it’s a big garbage dump. He can spend his billions on figuring out how to desalinate the water as well as removing all the plastic. Yes, there is a big pile of garbage in the Pacific Ocean at least the size of Texas.
From the NY Times’ 4/14/08 article “Housing Woes in U.S. Spread Around Globe”:
“Such cutbacks are well under way in Ireland, where the taxi drivers complain that their ranks are being swollen by laid-off home builders. The housing collapse has brought an abrupt end to more than a decade of pell-mell growth that earned Ireland the nickname “the Celtic tiger.”” You hear the same thing here. A common refrain among drivers is “Too many cabs”. Business is down in the resorts and casinos here, so you have the same number of drivers competing for fewer fares. In talking with other drivers, I’ve heard that the “extra” boards of other companies are filled with former real-estate agents. More people vying for smaller pieces of the pie…welcome to the new world order. You have taxi drivers and food servers on one end, hedge fund managers and CEOs on the other.
My aunt in Holland recently attended a little family get-together, and heard that a distant relative whom I’ve never met, well, this young woman was working as a landscape architect and was laid off some time ago due to the downturn there. Being an entrepreneurial sort, she started a small travel agency selling package tours to Tibet. Apparently she has been to Tibet and is a fan of the country. But with the recent unrest there, travel has been restricted and she was forced out of business. I’m going to try to get her email. I didn’t know I had any relatives who did interesting things like that! Maybe I could offer some empathy. I hope I get to meet her someday. It’s become apparent to me that I may lose my living connections to Holland within the next several years.
Oh yes, the taxi driving. One thing that has been interesting to me is how you remember some people and other passengers are immediately forgotten. Sometimes just a few brief sentences, combined with the public persona of the person saying them, are enough to create a memorable impression. What follows are some brief quotes along with descriptions of the speakers. I think they are notable for what they say about the current state of our society.
“We lost everything in Katrina” –A tiny sad-eyed young woman who had just refused a ride with the cab in front of me because the driver wouldn’t allow her to smoke. She had just gotten off of her shift housekeeping at Bally’s and was dying for a cigarette. I told her she could smoke in my van. Apparently she moved to Las Vegas from Mississippi after Katrina with her boyfriend. They were sharing one car, so I had to transport her to the Rio, where he worked, so she could pick up their car. She told me a little bit about starting over in Las Vegas, about how they had just a few possessions when they arrived here. Someday historians will refer to the “Katrina diaspora” to describe the after effects of that hurricane. The people of the deep South, especially New Orleans, have a unique way of life, a unique culture. To try to adapt to a different one, despite being in the same country, must have been difficult after having one’s home destroyed and livelihood lost.
“I say FUCK the Spotted Owl!” –a twenty-something white male from Virginia who was here with some college buddies. We got to talking about the price of gas. He was of the opinion that environmental laws were blocking new territories from being opened up to oil drilling. I reminded him that the spotted owl pertained to logging in Pacific Northwest forests. “Well, you know what I mean.” he protested. To him it was just a symbol of marginal concerns impeding progress. He went on to say that he believed high gas prices were due to a government conspiracy with the purpose of controlling people. To do what, he didn’t seem to have an idea. I would have liked to explore the notion with him further, but we had reached our destination. They wanted me to drop them off at Mandalay Bay so they could get a free limo to take them to a strip club.
A group that was in town for the INTEROP computer show/conference got into my cab. The man who sat next to me in the passenger seat came off as kind of an aging hippie/computer guy. He immediately got to talking with me and I could see that he was very well read and had interests that went far beyond computers. He said he thought that the people who really have their finger on the pulse of what Americans want would be the Las Vegas cab drivers. He had a good point. Though the visitors to Las Vegas do not represent an accurate cross-section of the US population, a wide spectrum of people does come through here, with all the conventions, conferences and shows. It isn’t just gambling-related tourism. I’ve encountered people from all walks of life. His memorable quote was “You wonder what will happen to Las Vegas when America doesn’t have so much money.” This seemed like an odd thing to come from a computer person, a person who must have substantial faith in technology to continuously offer us improvements in standards of living. Maybe he’d read too many Cyberpunk novels. Maybe he’d read the dark, dystopian urban futures posited by urban theorist Mike Davis. What could have lead to the notion that he was willing to entertain the possibility that the prosperity that the US has enjoyed for the past half-century or so is but a brief historical anomaly, that future conditions may call for more austere living, with little play money. That’s an interesting perspective, don’t you think? Will the Strip someday resemble the crumbling seaside resort that Asbury Park, NJ has been for many years? Will the lake of The Bellagio turn into a fetid swamp when the power to run the sophisticated pump system becomes too costly? Will all these displays of extravagance, of man’s dominion over nature, of arrogant demonstrations that we can build whatever we WANT in the middle of the desert someday be forced into ruin? Admit it, it is at least a valuable mental exercise. The volume of Lake Mead, the man-made lake behind the Hoover Dam from which Las Vegas draws its water, is way down. The snowfall on the western Rocky Mountains that drain into the Colorado River has been considerably less in recent years. The data used, I understand, to determine what sort of river flows would fill Lake Mead was based on a limited historical period. When further analysis was done, studying the rings of ancient trees along the Colorado, among other methods, it was found that there have been extended periods of drought over the centuries. Flow levels have been much lower than what was shown in the historical data used to calculate the average level that could be expected in Lake Mead. You can read about it here. Gasp! I’m linking to foxnews! There goes my journalism cred. So what if Lake Mead did run dry? Well, they could desalinate seawater and pump it some 280 miles here. But that is costly. Will the funding exist? All the necessities of daily life for Las Vegas are trucked in from afar. There isn’t much that is edible that can be commercially grown here. With oil costs soaring, just keeping the store shelves stocked will cost more. The tourism that is the lifeblood of the city counts on millions being flown in. The cost of air travel is going up as well. With the downturn in the economy, occupancy rates at the major resorts are down. And just how is the city preparing? They did buy water rights from areas many miles to the north, there are watering restrictions, there are incentives for converting lawns to low-water-use desert landscaping. As for the rising price of oil, that doesn’t seem to be on the radar at all. Transport is largely left to the realm of free enterprise. Of course, there are alternate futures that can be imagined. Someone might actually come out with a 100 mpg carburetor and is given the investment capital and government approval to produce thousands of them per day, made to fit all types of cars. Within months they are being installed on cars throughout the world. The bottom falls out of the oil market, the price of gas drops drastically, peak oil is pushed further into the future. Las Vegans embrace higher-density living, cutting down on land devoted to water-intensive landscapes and making mass transit more workable.
OK, I’m boring you. Back to the human drama. Who wants to hear about the swingers?! I picked up this couple at the Rio. They were attractive, stylishly dressed. The girl was a thin brunette in a tight dress with an open back. They looked good together, in a superficial sense, but there was no love in their eyes. They got in and asked me if I knew how to get to the Red Rooster. The Red Rooster is actually a chain of swingers clubs that are in private homes around the valley. Apparently the guy had seen their website and wanted to go to this one that is far out on the east side of town. As we discussed how to get there, my over-active imagination wandered into notions of what goes on at these sex clubs and of this couple engaged in such acts. I pictured doughy, middle-aged white men in bondage gear milling about, hoping someone would show up. I imagined uncomfortable, awkward couplings with marginally willing partners, bad smells, stains on the furniture, faces with ball gags and pained expressions…meanwhile the cost of the long ride made him decide against it. The girl seemed annoyed with the guy for not planning better. They decided to just go back to the Luxor. Oh well… so much for a journey to swingerland. Only one other time did I get a request for a swingers club. It was from The Sapphire gentleman’s club, the one that bills itself as “The World’s Largest”. Two middle-aged men and one woman entered my cab. The woman told me that they wanted to go to the green room. “You mean “The Green Door?” I asked. “Yes, that’s the place!” The Green Door is a swinger’s club that claims to be “world famous” in its ads. It is located in a depressingly ugly strip mall a few blocks east of the Strip. I’ve been told its really nice inside, and I think I’ll take their word for it. The men didn’t seem at all into the idea. They asked me what kind of place it is. I told them it’s a place “…for, um, open-minded people”. I was asked if I would go there, and I told them no, that it’s not “my thing”. So I dropped them off and parked to wait and see if they would actually go through with it. Most of these places will give cab drivers kick-backs for dropping people off. But in a few moments they marched back out. They walked down the row of storefronts to yet another swinger’s club called “Show & Tell”. I approached them and asked if they didn’t like that place. “Oh, she doesn’t know what she’s doing” opined one of the men. They asked if I could take them back, and I told them I couldn’t since there were other cabs waiting. There is sort of a code among drivers that you don’t pick some one up when there are other drivers waiting. But sometimes you can’t prevent it.
Just a few seconds after I drop a couple off at the Palms, a group of men pile into my van, bypassing the taxi stad line, saying that they are in a hurry. It was nearly 9 pm. The story was that there were members of a wedding party from Burlington, NC. As the groom-to-be seated himself in the seat next to me he announced “Hey, you’re white!” “Surprise, surprise.” I responded. “This will be an interesting ride.” I thought to myself. The groom was already quite drunk, and a bigoted loudmouth on top of that. “So what’s goin’ on here man? You ain’t black, you ain’t no A-rab, you ain’t Indian! You’re like us!” he commented. “So you think I’m like you?” I asked. While I really wanted to tell him how I’m not like him…I am so much not like him. But on the other hand, I didn’t want to discourage him. I wanted to see what kind of off-the-wall things he would say next. I wanted to see how far he would take his diatribe. It got better. “You know, regular white guys like us are losing our rights in this country!” “Really? What makes you say that?” I queried. But in his drunken state he was not able to stay on one subject for more than a few moments, as he was also joking with his buddies. He kept looking at my taxicab permit, looking for some kind of evidence to support his theory that I was not a “real” taxi driver. He couldn’t seem to get his head around the fact that a clean-cut, well-spoken white guy without a foreign accent was driving a cab. Maybe he’s never seen one, maybe it flew in the face of his sense of white entitlement. “Why are you doing this? I don’t get it!” he exclaimed while gesturing to the dark street in front of us. I acted as if I didn’t know what he was talking about. “What do you mean? This is a great job.” But he was talking to his buddies again. The purpose of the rushed cab trip was to procure a pair of dress pants for one member of the wedding party. He had somehow forgotten to pack them and was not about to pay $300 for a pair of pants as offered by the store inside the Palms. We had decided to head for a Wal-Mart. Uh-oh, the subject is changing again. “I’m fuckin’ getting’ married tomorrow, Tim!” was his next exclamation. “Congratulations” I said, gritting my teeth. What I would have liked to have said was something along the lines of “The thought of you choosing to marry, and most likely procreate is abhorrent. I find it depressing that you have been given this opportunity. Your progeny will spread the hate which you will instill in them.” But back to the pants. This is about an expedition for pants. I mentioned the Fashion Show mall, which is filled with clothing stores. I guess the idea of getting pants that are a cut above the Wal-mart variety appealed to them. I called the dispatcher on the information channel and asked if they know when the mall closes. 10:00 I was told, so I headed in that direction. By the time we got there, the fare had run up to over $18.00. I let them out near the first door I saw, and they scrambled over to the store. As I was starting to drive away, I saw one of them come out again. I looked in his direction. “Stores closed” he said. The groom was urinating behind some shrubs. For a moment I considered waiting for them, taking them to the next stop in their pants expedition, but then the thought of having these drunken rednecks in my cab again made me decide not to. “Fuck ‘em.” I thought to myself. I’ll never see them, nor would I want to. I wanted to get as far from them as possible. North Carolina, your people have spoken for you. How will this man and his ilk handle difficult economic times? Will they look for a scapegoat when it costs $150 to fill up the pickup? Will it be foreigners, “A-rabs”, Indians? When what was once considered a good standard of living by their parents is no longer available to them, whom will they blame?
show this to a mainstream friend/relative and see what impact these words have today … just for shits and giggles
Ya’ll should check this out when and if it comes to your town: http://www.gasholemovie.com I watched it Monday night at a special screening where you could question its makers afterwards. Yes, remotely intellectual things go on all the time in Vegas! Anyway, its a documentary, mainly about the story of the 100 mpg carburetor and why efficient vehicles just haven’t caught on here amid the meddling of the oil companies, while including a brief history of the major oil corporations. As a documentary, its rather formulaic, with the clips from old movies and promotional films portraying what is now to be seen as the cute naivete of the postwar era contrasted with today’s reality. They try to go for the Michael Moore-style “gotcha” sequences, but don’t pull it off as hilariously. They end on a positive note, portraying biofuels and alternative energies and engine types as something that will save us, complete with triumphant music as the evil oil companies go the way of the dinosaur, and presumably the good ol’ US of A can go on its merry way and maintain its lifestyle, pushing that Peak Oil reckoning day to some nebulous future date where it really wont matter anymore because we will have found alternative energy sources. Someone asked what they now thought of biofuels in light of how they have spiked food prices, but they we’re just kind of like “yeah, that wasn’t really a problem when we made it.” And what is it with the rabid Ron Paul supporters? This guy in my row accusingly and angrily tells them that if they are not supporting Ron Paul for president, then they are part of the problem. Um yeah, OK, and you have a question? I wanted to ask the filmmakers if they had seen “The End of Suburbia” and what they thought of it, but they had to cut the Q&A session short due to the theater closing. Still, I’d recommend it to anyone who has more than a passing interest in why it costs so much to fill up your car or if you have ever wondered about the motives of the oil companies.
I get lazy, don’t feel there’s much to be said and then I realize we’re still in a tight spot and there are many many talking heads pushing for war with Iran and an administration just crazy enough to do it. Holy Geez.
Earlier this decade when things really started going to hell (think inauguration day) a group of us started drinking beer for peace. The first moment in my memory where it was declared that we were drinking beer for peace followed the anti-Iraq war march that a group of us took part in in Amsterdam in 2003 before Bush released the hounds of war. He called us a focus group of 10 million (globally). We were right he was wrong. WAY wrong. He’s a tee-totaller. We’re not. That is no small point. Now, admittedly it was a way to justify the large amounts of beer consumed on a night out since the topic of conversation most assurdly turned to politics and the current unsustainable way of life pursued by affluent countries, Americans in particular as well as sprinkling in a little forgetfulness so as not to have to watch helplessly while knowing how foolish this country likes to act. While we were being a bit facetious there was definitely some truth and a real feeling of joy while drinking beer for peace. How could there not be? An interesting thing has happened since that time. Like many brilliant ideas, movements or starting of new countries it started not with a bang, but with a belch. Not an ostentatious belch, just a sly, slow and steady release of gas that has gone on not only to fill the room but become part of the larger narrative, movement, deeper understanding that has seeped into the mainstream consciousness, although missed, as usual, by stick figures running for el presidente (that actually have a chance at winning).
But I will refrain from any more talk of how politicians and politics are playing out. What’s important is how to drink beer for peace in 2008. Out here in San Francisco it’s by drinking the locally brewed beers. Luckily they’re delicious so it makes imbibing locally easy. On windy days, like today, when I step outside my door the smell from the Anchor Brewery fills your nostrils with a lovely, hoppy, peaceful scent. So, while here we like the anchor steam, lagunitas, Sierra Nevada, and last but not least, Anderson Valley, everywhere you go there is a local beer to explore with thoughts of peace. But if you’re taking this tongue in cheek, please rethink what you take seriously. I’ll not try to convince with scary scenarios, just try to communicate the joy of drinking local beer for peace. And to add a different and better voice to the subject, check out the beer activist. Solidarity brother. Oh, the tear drops on the map represent the local brews. The one in San Francisco is Anchor, Petaluma is Lagunitas, Chico is Sierra Nevada and the one by Point Arena is Anderson Valley. Peace.
This reminds me, I have a special friend that quit his job, solds his possessions and hopped on a bike to ride from San Francisco to wherever the journey takes him. Happily, he is blogging about the journey and can be followed here: 2 Steps Back.
Lastly, I hope you enjoy this song: In Heaven There is No Beer
I started what I’m calling my “recession job” recently. With opportunities in the field that I’ve invested some 20 years of my life into, landscape architecture, rapidly vanishing due to the housing downturn, I decided to go for something else to get by until things improve. The taxi companies here in Las Vegas seem to be forever advertising for drivers. Not that they are growing…there is high turnover for what are probably obvious reasons. I was surprised to find how much actual training and background checking was required. I had to be finger-printed and drug tested. There was also a minor physical, which revealed to me that I am partly color blind. That would explain a few things. I wondered if having LASIK last summer had anything to do with that. They first have you take a multiple choice test to see if you have at least some knowledge of the streets and major landmarks of Las Vegas. Once you pass that, you go for the first part of the training with the taxicab authority. They go over all the hazards that a driver is likely to face. Being alone with cash on dark empty streets makes you an obvious target. You are reminded that one of the sins frequently committed in Sin City is the violation of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. To drive the point home, the training materials were spotted with pictures of corpses. Cabbies shot to death, mutilated bodies at accident scenes, that sort of thing. They went over, in detail, every last instance of a cab driver in Las Vegas being killed on the job. The last was in 2004 when a driver was doused with lighter fluid and set on fire. He later died from his injuries. It has been a long time since I’ve had a job where the training material included such photos. Yes, I’ve actually had one before. Years ago, I was a firefighter, volunteer, in my hometown. Sometimes we’d see photos of burn victims when they’d bring in an arson investigator to talk. Then of course there were the auto accident victims for the classes in first aid and accident extrication. So there I was, looking at photos of people who had died horrible deaths, once again. It’s funny how life goes in circles. They’ve actually done a lot to make things safer for the drivers here. The trunks have releases on the inside so anyone locked in the drunk can escape. That would be a horrible death…locked in a trunk in a car left out in the desert. If they left the engine running you’d likely be killed by the exhaust sooner than the heat.
Yeah, I suppose I could have found some office job or maybe worked in a store. I had applied at a furniture store and never heard from them. I applied on a major casino gaming company’s website, but I suppose their online psych test weeded me out, being the troublemaker that I am. Maybe it revealed that I’d be the one to tell off a guest or try to organize a strike. But driving a cab had sort of a gritty urban appeal, and I liked the fact that I wouldn’t be holed up in a cubicle all day. I’ve had my fill of cubicle life and office politics. I also thought of it as a foray into another sphere of life for the purpose of gaining some insight into what life is like for these people. I was perhaps partly inspired by Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “Nickel and Dimed”, where she did the ultimate in sociological research in trying to get by on low-paying jobs throughout America. I’m not taking it so far in that I don’t have to rely on driving a cab as my only source of income.
I’ve seated myself among the recent immigrants…West Africans, Indians, Hispanics, escapees of the former Soviet Union, former alcoholics, the down-on-their-luck, the sad old men, the ex-cons, and the people who for one reason or another CAN”T GET ANY OTHER JOB. One driver I met claimed to be a former stockbroker who “lost it all in the crash”. I asked “Which one, 1987?” and he said “all of ‘em”. He also said he’s been driving a cab for 50 years, so something isn’t adding up. He was of the opinion that driving a cab is the “biggest scumbag/lowlife job in the country.” “I used to make so much money, and now I do this” he shared with me. Clearly things had not gone so well.
But overall the others in my company are decent people. I’ve been a little surprised at how nice and helpful the other drivers have been, considering that we are competitors for fares. I haven’t been made to feel like I don’t fit in, which has happened at some office jobs. It’s not the place of people with big dreams or ambitions who are just doing it to make ends meet until they get their big break, as was portrayed in the ‘70s TV series “Taxi”. There is no Marilou Henner type for eye candy, but there may be more than one “Jim” (the crazy one) analog. I’m still not sure. I haven’t spoken to them yet. There is a surly supervisor who’s only pleasure seems to lie in insulting the drivers. This is a place of dreams deferred, dreams stolen, dreams abandoned for the possibility of a wad of cash to bring home daily. One recent slow night I asked the cab driver who pulled up in a line behind me how it was going. “Livin’ the dream, man!” was his response, said in obvious irony.
This is a job that calls for a large amount of what Marx called “surplus labor”. You start as an “extra” which means you are assigned a shift, but you only get to work if enough people call in or don’t show up. You may or may not work. Several times now I have gone in and waited for over 2 hours only to go home again. You get paid nothing for this waiting time. For some reason this is apparently not a violation of labor laws here. If you actually get a cab, the onus is on you to get to the cab as fast as possible, check if everything is working, and get out on the road. You are paid a commission which is a percentage of your fares minus 78% of the gas cost. I suppose they have to offer some incentive for conserving gas.
As far as the work itself goes, it’s pretty easy. There is no ogre-like boss monitoring you. You are largely on your own, navigating the wilds of this clusterfuck of a city. You spend a lot of time waiting around. I try to bring something to read, but the low light of the cab interior makes it a little difficult, and you have to keep looking up to see if the line of cabs is moving up. Yeah, you just get in lines for taxis at the various casinos and hotels and eventually you get a fare. Drop someone off and then get in the line at the same place if it’s not too long. They have video monitoring all the taxi stands so they can see who got into your cab if something happens. They don’t like you to pick people up on the street for that reason. The cabs themselves are equipped with cameras. Erratic driving and bumps will activate them. You can activate them yourself as well, which you might want to do if someone is threatening you. All that makes me feel safer doing it. Still, if I were to be injured by a patron or in an accident, the medical costs would be on me. I have no health insurance. I’ll be eligible for it if I manage to stay on for 9 months. It’s already cost me a traffic ticket and a cheap pair of sunglasses. The police don’t seem to think very highly of cabbies. A funny thing happens when law enforcement thinks of a segment of the population as being somewhat lawless. They catch members of that segment breaking the law. It’s the same law-breaking that everyone does. My ticket was for dropping people off in a fire lane. It’s not like I had parked and left the car there. I could easily MOVE if I were to see a fire truck coming along. So now I know to avoid that spot. I was tempted to lecture the cop about “fighting the real enemy”, but somehow I restrained myself.
The range of people I’ve picked up has been fascinating. I’ve picked up obviously wealthy couples at the Bellagio, and at the opposite end of the spectrum I gave a ride to a homeless woman who was staying at this dingy hotel downtown. Most people are fairly conversant while some seem to regard you as just another piece of machinery linked to the car. It’s obvious when they think of you as belonging to a social class that you are not a part of. Some people have more social lubricant coursing through their veins and so tend to be chatty. White males riding alone tend to want to talk the most. They want to hear your story, where you’re from, how you ended up driving a cab. Its only been a few times that I felt like I was being condescended to. The idea, at least, of some form of egalitarianism is alive and well. In that respect my opinion of people in general has not been too damaged. But how do the recent immigrants get treated? The guys who can barely speak English? I’ll have to talk to them more, gather some more opinions. I get a lot of drunk kids, kids in town for clubbing. It’s amazing to me that so many of them seem to know people who can afford to drop a few grand for tables at the more pricey nightclubs. When I was that age it seemed like everyone I knew was broke. Yeah, that’s what they do here. You spend a grand or more to get a table at a club along with a few bottles so you can pour your own drinks. All the other club goers can see you and your posse enjoying the luxurious appointments and gaze upon you with envy. The casinos are all about making you feel like you’re rich so you spend money like you’re rich. Sometimes it trickles down to me, sometimes they’ve tapped themselves out by the time they’re ready for the ride back to their hotel.
Aside from the danger of accidents, the threat of physical violence and getting robbed, dealing with traffic, breathing exhaust fumes all the time, sitting in a filthy cab with a sticky steering wheel for hours, the (usually) low pay, the social stigma, the long periods of waiting and being alone, the lack of mental challenges, and traversing a mind-numbingly crass urban landscape, its really not a bad job. I’ll write more about the plusses…as soon as I experience a few more.
