Prejudice is alive and well in Chicago. I was dispatched to the Mt. Prospect train station to pick up two passengers under the name Prasalli at 9:00pm. Usually, when it's a time order at a train station, the passenger is coming in on a train.
I arrived at the station around 8:55. The night after Christmas was cool, damp and rainy, with a light drizzle falling as I waited. At 9:00 nearly on the dot two young women approached from the station house and got into my cab. Since no train had pulled in yet, I verified that they were my customers.
"Hi. Did you call for a taxi?"
They were both young, probably college age, both very attractive. They both responded at once. The brunette said, "Yes."
The blond replied, "Who are you?"
"You did call for a taxi?"
Blond said, "We called one of our friends. What's your name?"
I told her my name. "I'm waiting for a customer who ordered this taxi. What's the name you gave when you called?"
Blond said, "Erin."
"Well that's not the name I have on my order."
Blond asked, "What's the name you have?"
Brunette said, "Doesn't matter. He can't take us."
"Prasalli," I replied.
The confused conversation continued, and they told me that they had a couple of taxi drivers they use regularly.
"We find the good guys we like, and we call them when we need rides so we don't get any ...weirdos. You know what I mean?"
I was pretty sure I knew what she meant.
They chatted on and told me that one of their best friends had just died, and that one of their taxi driver friends was apparently coming to get them in an unmarked green van, which Blond was uncertain about getting into. I told them that, as it was now after the scheduled time for my customers' pickup, there was a good chance they wouldn't show, and I could take the ladies to Palatine after all. Resigned to the likelihood that I wasn't available to take them to Palatine, two towns up to the northwest along the rail line, they got out.
The railroad crossing gates came down, signaling the approach of a train from Chicago. The two young women approached me again.
,
They both were under the delusion that my incoming customers were a woman, named Priscilla. Blond seemed to be in charge, or at least the stronger personality. "Where is this Priscilla going?"
"Wheeling," I replied, about a ten-minute drive north from the train station.
"Do you think maybe we could ride in your cab with them to wherever they're going, and then you could take us to Palatine?" she asked.
"That's up to my customers," I replied. "If they're cool with sharing, then I have no problem with it, but you'll have to ask them."
Moments later, train in the station, there was a knock on my driver's window. A dark-skinned man with straight hair combed and parted on one side, and sporting a mustache asked me, "Wheeling?"
"Did you call for a taxi?"
"Yes," he replied, his crisp Indian accent evident even in one brief word.
"What name did you leave on the order?"
"Prasani."
It was close enough to "Prasalli" to call it a match, so I told him and the woman who accompanied him that they could get in my car. I mentioned to them that the two young women standing now about 20 yards away from the taxi were interested in sharing a ride, though I'm not sure Mr. Prasani understood what I was saying.
I rolled down the window and called to the women. "Do you still want to share the ride?"
"No, we're good."
I find it amusing that they were willing to do just about anything to get a ride right up until they saw that their car mates were Indian, no doubt the kind of "weirdos" they were so concerned about having as their taxi driver in the random taxi lottery into which calling for a taxi enters you.
So I drove Mr. Prasani and his companion to their destination in Wheeling, all the while contemplating a return to the Mt. Prospect train station on the slim chance that those two young women would still be there. I mean, they were attractive, I am a horny middle aged man and I did want to be a hero. But the more I thought about it, the more disgusted with them I became that they had a change of heart when they saw who they thought was "Priscilla" actually was. So I said screw 'em! I am bound by the laws of this state to serve all customers, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. If those women had gotten into my otherwise available car spewing racial hatred, I would have had to take them wherever they wanted to go. However, the circumstances as they were, I was not bound in any way to head back to get them, to save them from the rain.
No, as a matter of fact that thought quite pleased me!
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Magic Memory
I wish I was a pure atheist, one who never knew what it's like to have felt a duty to a god or a church and their corresponding patterns of behavior. Because those things have left a mark on me, on my cerebral cortex, my instinctive brain. I often call religious indoctrination "brainwashing," and this is why; the trained instinct of belief. It's brainwashing because - despite the rational, reasoned thought that tells me there's no magical, invisible entity holding the universe in the palm of his hand, who knows my every thought and that of every other thinking being in the universe - in unguarded moments I still catch myself thinking of my mother "in heaven," or my father "looking down on me" and approving or disapproving. It's brainwashing because - despite years - decades, now - of consciously brushing off those ideas into the dust-pile of fairly tale - I still can't unthink the thoughts that swim up from the depths of my childhood indoctrination.
Yes, to be free of that ready, instinctive compulsion to regard an active, populous spirit world would be refreshing. To have never felt beholden to a god, a prophet and that guy behind the screen every Sunday would be liberating. But those childhood memories are also responsible for the warm feelings I still get at Christmas time, for the anticipation for Christmas day, when it seems as though the world goes quiet; for the warmth I feel when I hear the songs - reverent or secular (one has to admit, whether a believer or not, that the concept of the nativity of Jesus Christ has inspired some great songs!); for the comfort of the closeness of family and the anticipation of the great food and lively conversation in their proximity.
I guess it's pointless to wish for the things I'll never have, or to be what I can't be, for they're things done that can't be undone. Not without a frontal lobotomy, anyway. And, now that I think of it, I guess I've had the best of both worlds; to a kid - the kid I was - the magic, the fantasy, is real. With age, reason ruled out, and I'd hate to imagine myself a slave to that kind of doctrine, but, with a head still full of those magic moments, looking back has a magic all its own.
*
Yes, to be free of that ready, instinctive compulsion to regard an active, populous spirit world would be refreshing. To have never felt beholden to a god, a prophet and that guy behind the screen every Sunday would be liberating. But those childhood memories are also responsible for the warm feelings I still get at Christmas time, for the anticipation for Christmas day, when it seems as though the world goes quiet; for the warmth I feel when I hear the songs - reverent or secular (one has to admit, whether a believer or not, that the concept of the nativity of Jesus Christ has inspired some great songs!); for the comfort of the closeness of family and the anticipation of the great food and lively conversation in their proximity.
I guess it's pointless to wish for the things I'll never have, or to be what I can't be, for they're things done that can't be undone. Not without a frontal lobotomy, anyway. And, now that I think of it, I guess I've had the best of both worlds; to a kid - the kid I was - the magic, the fantasy, is real. With age, reason ruled out, and I'd hate to imagine myself a slave to that kind of doctrine, but, with a head still full of those magic moments, looking back has a magic all its own.
*
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Joint Ownership
I get pretty tired of the people who cry foul about how "we" are taking Christ out of Christmas. Nobody is taking Christ out of Christmas. He's right there where he has always been all along. It's the first two thirds of the damn word!
Nobody is taking Christ out of Christmas. If you haven't noticed by now, here in this melting pot society we call the United States of America, there are more religions than just the Christian ones, and more than just the Christian religions that happen to have high holy days that fall during this time of year. And you know something? Those celebrations are not called "Christmas!" The Jews have Hanukkah, for instance. The pagans — should you happen to consider paganism a religion (I don't) — hold special relevance for the winter solstice, which happens a couple days before Christmas. Every. Frikkin. Year. I'm no expert, but I'm sure there are other groups who observe something special at this time of year, too.
So when collective society at this time of year gushes with "Happy Holidays!" they ... we ... are not taking Christ out of Christmas. We're taking Christ out of Hanukkah, out of the solstice, out of the grand sauce festival of the fellowship of the flying spaghetti monster... wherever Christ is not observed or cherished or wanted. This time of year is not owned by Christians, so don't get so bent out of shape when I don't want Christ to be a part of my celebration, yet I want to honor or respect you — and everyone else who is celebrating something at this time of year — by gushing, "Happy Holidays!"
Just as you wouldn't want me to come to a Christmas party at your church and scream "Praise be to Richard Dawkins!" no Jew is going to be too crazy with you crashing his family's Hanukkah observance and shouting "Jesus is the reason for the season!"
Understand that when your local TV station runs a station ID that reads and blurts, "Happy Holidays!" you and your savior are included respectfully along with everyone else whose religion or belief system finds these days to be something special.
Celebrate Christ in your home and your church, let everyone else celebrate in their own way in their own place, and just shut up already about the generic public acknowledgment of "everyone's" reverence for this time of year!
Nobody is taking Christ out of Christmas. If you haven't noticed by now, here in this melting pot society we call the United States of America, there are more religions than just the Christian ones, and more than just the Christian religions that happen to have high holy days that fall during this time of year. And you know something? Those celebrations are not called "Christmas!" The Jews have Hanukkah, for instance. The pagans — should you happen to consider paganism a religion (I don't) — hold special relevance for the winter solstice, which happens a couple days before Christmas. Every. Frikkin. Year. I'm no expert, but I'm sure there are other groups who observe something special at this time of year, too.
So when collective society at this time of year gushes with "Happy Holidays!" they ... we ... are not taking Christ out of Christmas. We're taking Christ out of Hanukkah, out of the solstice, out of the grand sauce festival of the fellowship of the flying spaghetti monster... wherever Christ is not observed or cherished or wanted. This time of year is not owned by Christians, so don't get so bent out of shape when I don't want Christ to be a part of my celebration, yet I want to honor or respect you — and everyone else who is celebrating something at this time of year — by gushing, "Happy Holidays!"
Just as you wouldn't want me to come to a Christmas party at your church and scream "Praise be to Richard Dawkins!" no Jew is going to be too crazy with you crashing his family's Hanukkah observance and shouting "Jesus is the reason for the season!"
Understand that when your local TV station runs a station ID that reads and blurts, "Happy Holidays!" you and your savior are included respectfully along with everyone else whose religion or belief system finds these days to be something special.
Celebrate Christ in your home and your church, let everyone else celebrate in their own way in their own place, and just shut up already about the generic public acknowledgment of "everyone's" reverence for this time of year!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
In Bidness!
Well, Stuff Enterprises, LLC, is off and running, and earning a buck. It's not any time soon on the Forbes 100 list, but I'm paying the rent...so far. I don't know that there is a businessperson anywhere who can truly say he's done it all himself, because when it comes to all the crap involved in setting up a business legally, a businessperson would just give up and hold a cup on a street corner for a daily meal.
My savior has been Chris, the accountant-cum-HR-cum-taxes whiz at my former employer. She has helped me cross the I's and dot the T's and had me sign the forms that the state and Fed need in order to properly get their claws on my earnings.
It was on her advice that I shifted my personal status from independent contractor to employee. Of Stuff Enterprises, LLC. The company I own. So, yes, I am the owner and president of the company. And I am the sole employee of the company! The reason behind this setup is to protect myself from any potential lawsuits that may arise as a result of my operation of the taxi. Should that happen, the company is the legal target, and any damages or seizure of assets is exacted upon the company, and not me, personally. As an independent contractor leasing the taxi from my company, I would still be individually liable in the event of any legal action. So I exercised my Employer Identification Number and became a job creator! Though, admittedly, the hiring process involved an unfair amount of favoritism....
As a tax deadline loomed in October, Chris called me in to finalize and sign some paperwork. And she said to bring my checkbook...which sounded ominous.
I arrived, and she explained a few things, and gave me some forms to sign, among them an IRS form authorizing the service to withdraw a fixed amount monthly as payroll tax, based on a salary that I'm paying myself.
I'M PAYING MYSELF A SALARY!
I asked her if this IRS fixed amount was the amount for which I needed to write the check, and she said that it was not, and that it was going to be withdrawn electronically from my business checking account.
She also advised me to consider changing my company from a Limited Liability Company to an S Corporation — which I did not know I was eligible to do — in an effort to save a little on taxes annually. We're going to wait on that decision until the new year.
Then she presented me with another form, and pointed to the amount on that sheet as the amount I needed to write on the check — an amount which, for this month, anyway, was anything but ominous.
"This form is the Unemployment Insurance form. As an employer, you have to provide this for your employees. As an employer, should you close the doors on Stuff Enterprises and go out of business, as an employee you can collect unemployment."
The spoon in her coffee cup rattled when my chin hit the desk. In the freaky world of entrepreneurial endeavor, I am no longer unemployed. And while I am self-employed, I am no longer self-employed.
My next question for Chris is to wonder if Stuff Enterprises, LLC, can have a summer work slowdown and subsequent layoff for, say, a month or two....
I also want to remove the name "Stuff Enterprises" from the taxi business, as I also operate — in principle, anyway — a video production company. I want Stuff Enterprises to be the parent company of the others, so I need a new name for the taxi operation. My favorite, because it actually sounds like my family name — Gasbarro — is "Casbah Row Transport Company," though I fear it may mislead one to think I'm Algerian.
Of course, I could call it "Casbah Row Airport Passengery," and go by "CRAP" for short.
OR, I could take suggestions. From you. Serious ideas accepted, too!
My savior has been Chris, the accountant-cum-HR-cum-taxes whiz at my former employer. She has helped me cross the I's and dot the T's and had me sign the forms that the state and Fed need in order to properly get their claws on my earnings.
It was on her advice that I shifted my personal status from independent contractor to employee. Of Stuff Enterprises, LLC. The company I own. So, yes, I am the owner and president of the company. And I am the sole employee of the company! The reason behind this setup is to protect myself from any potential lawsuits that may arise as a result of my operation of the taxi. Should that happen, the company is the legal target, and any damages or seizure of assets is exacted upon the company, and not me, personally. As an independent contractor leasing the taxi from my company, I would still be individually liable in the event of any legal action. So I exercised my Employer Identification Number and became a job creator! Though, admittedly, the hiring process involved an unfair amount of favoritism....
As a tax deadline loomed in October, Chris called me in to finalize and sign some paperwork. And she said to bring my checkbook...which sounded ominous.
I arrived, and she explained a few things, and gave me some forms to sign, among them an IRS form authorizing the service to withdraw a fixed amount monthly as payroll tax, based on a salary that I'm paying myself.
I'M PAYING MYSELF A SALARY!
I asked her if this IRS fixed amount was the amount for which I needed to write the check, and she said that it was not, and that it was going to be withdrawn electronically from my business checking account.
She also advised me to consider changing my company from a Limited Liability Company to an S Corporation — which I did not know I was eligible to do — in an effort to save a little on taxes annually. We're going to wait on that decision until the new year.
Then she presented me with another form, and pointed to the amount on that sheet as the amount I needed to write on the check — an amount which, for this month, anyway, was anything but ominous.
"This form is the Unemployment Insurance form. As an employer, you have to provide this for your employees. As an employer, should you close the doors on Stuff Enterprises and go out of business, as an employee you can collect unemployment."
The spoon in her coffee cup rattled when my chin hit the desk. In the freaky world of entrepreneurial endeavor, I am no longer unemployed. And while I am self-employed, I am no longer self-employed.
My next question for Chris is to wonder if Stuff Enterprises, LLC, can have a summer work slowdown and subsequent layoff for, say, a month or two....
I also want to remove the name "Stuff Enterprises" from the taxi business, as I also operate — in principle, anyway — a video production company. I want Stuff Enterprises to be the parent company of the others, so I need a new name for the taxi operation. My favorite, because it actually sounds like my family name — Gasbarro — is "Casbah Row Transport Company," though I fear it may mislead one to think I'm Algerian.
Of course, I could call it "Casbah Row Airport Passengery," and go by "CRAP" for short.
OR, I could take suggestions. From you. Serious ideas accepted, too!
November's Urge ~ November Surge?
This author has been very extremely remiss with this blog, and with reading others' blogs. However, judging by the number of blogs in my "Better Blogs Than Mine" that have gone dark, I am not alone in this.
I can blame any number of factors in my life right now for the word blight, but they all come back to me, eventually. The taxi job, of course, takes up a lot of my time. Where I had originally thought that I could use all of the down time in the car for writing, I soon realized that working nights — and the down time that came with it — translated to slow financial death: I wasn't making any money. So I switched to days and began to enjoy the busyness that shift brings... and my writing suffered.
I also leapt back into theatre — with a vengeance, to my exhaustion — and every last moment of potentially free time was taken up.
This past summer I purchased my own taxi with the hopes that lightening my burden of the steep weekly lease payment would also free up some of my time. Of course, I have been in hiatus from theatre work since the spring due to the impending move in the fall, so that free time was fleeting at best. But ownership of my taxi, in conjunction with my move into a lower monthly rent, has made it possible for me to function entirely without leaning on my retirement IRA for supplemental cash, as I had been doing since shortly after I lost my job in 2009...IF I work the hours of an indentured servant.
I always lament at how far behind the curve I am with movies, so I have renewed my slog through my Netflix queue, another activity that sucks my time away from writing.
And I will do no more than mention "Words With Friends."
My photo blog even died a lonely death. I would link to it, but what's the point? It hasn't seen a contribution since July, and nothing short of a monumental effort (for which I have no time, surprise, surprise!) can resuscitate it.
So I can do nothing more than promise to try (how's that for evasive?) to write more in future. Perhaps there will be a real, serious New Year's resolution involved. The shame of it is that I call myself a writer, yet every opportunity I have to write I have filled with other activities. And sorry, Tony, the discovery during "Words With Friends" that "BICE" is actually a word does not count as writing.
I can blame any number of factors in my life right now for the word blight, but they all come back to me, eventually. The taxi job, of course, takes up a lot of my time. Where I had originally thought that I could use all of the down time in the car for writing, I soon realized that working nights — and the down time that came with it — translated to slow financial death: I wasn't making any money. So I switched to days and began to enjoy the busyness that shift brings... and my writing suffered.
I also leapt back into theatre — with a vengeance, to my exhaustion — and every last moment of potentially free time was taken up.
This past summer I purchased my own taxi with the hopes that lightening my burden of the steep weekly lease payment would also free up some of my time. Of course, I have been in hiatus from theatre work since the spring due to the impending move in the fall, so that free time was fleeting at best. But ownership of my taxi, in conjunction with my move into a lower monthly rent, has made it possible for me to function entirely without leaning on my retirement IRA for supplemental cash, as I had been doing since shortly after I lost my job in 2009...IF I work the hours of an indentured servant.
I always lament at how far behind the curve I am with movies, so I have renewed my slog through my Netflix queue, another activity that sucks my time away from writing.
And I will do no more than mention "Words With Friends."
My photo blog even died a lonely death. I would link to it, but what's the point? It hasn't seen a contribution since July, and nothing short of a monumental effort (for which I have no time, surprise, surprise!) can resuscitate it.
So I can do nothing more than promise to try (how's that for evasive?) to write more in future. Perhaps there will be a real, serious New Year's resolution involved. The shame of it is that I call myself a writer, yet every opportunity I have to write I have filled with other activities. And sorry, Tony, the discovery during "Words With Friends" that "BICE" is actually a word does not count as writing.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Expensive Lesson
I smelled coolant. Then I saw just a very light puff of steam vapor coming from under the hood. My taxi was vacant, and I was right next to a Ford dealer, so I figured I would have them at least diagnose the problem and decide from there what to do.
It was Monday, after 5:00pm, and all of their mechanics had gone home for the day. I couldn't find a spot from where the vapor was escaping, and it wasn't coming out with pressure, so I chanced it on the road to the nearest Pep Boys, and was told the same thing: mechanics went home. It was too late in the day for me to go to Golf Mill Auto Center, where I have been taking the taxi for maintenance, and I was afraid I wouldn't make it the 15 miles or so to get there anyway. I was out of options, so I headed home. The steam stopped, but I still occasionally smelled coolant.
The next morning I started the taxi, drove it for a while, and checked things out. No vapor and only occasional whiffs of coolant. I made a note to myself to take it in to Golf Mill to have it looked at. Business was exceptional this week, so I continued to put it off. Then, Thursday afternoon, after taking the daytime off and planning to shift to nights for the weekend, I walked out to the car, ready to work, and saw that a large puddle of liquid had formed beneath the car and had oozed down the slight slope of the parking lot at my apartment complex. I dipped my finger in the liquid, believing it was motor oil. It didn't smell like motor oil...or anything I could identify. In a bit of a panic, I drove the car to the nearest garage, a local chain called Casey Automotive. I had taken a car to one of their other locations before; wasn't impressed with their work, and was even less impressed with their rates. But I'm even less comfortable with Pep Boys, so to Casey it was.
They told me it was a head gasket, and that it would be a minimum of $1800! I probably wouldn't get it back until Monday. It was not one of my better moments, and I did a mild internal freak-out. And I said, "Do it." I never even asked for a written estimate, nor did they offer me one! But they did give me a ride home.
Friday I went to the taxi office to take care of some other business, and I mentioned in passing to one of the guys from whom I had bought the taxi about its current status. When he asked me what they were charging, his eyeballs fell out of his head. He told me that Golf Mill would do it for way less. He even called them, and they said they could do it for around $500. Then he relayed their question: "Which side?"
I didn't have an answer, for the guy at Casey never told me. The guy at the taxi office said that for a hundred-dollar tow I could have saved a bunch of money! Part of me wishes he had never told me that, or that I had never mentioned it. Suddenly I had a headache!
After several minutes alone in my personal vehicle I became very angry, not only at the guys at Casey, but at myself for not thinking things through and at least calling Golf Mill myself to see what they would charge.
Second opinion, you fucking moron!
But my anger grew. Casey had been working on my car for about five and a half hours at this point. I felt... I knew I was being taken advantage of, knew I was being ripped off. I went back to Casey and talked to the manager(?). He took me to the car. Half the engine was sitting on the floor! I asked him on which side the head gasket leak was. He said, "It doesn't matter, we do both sides. He has both heads off, now, and it's only a half-hour more labor...."
But if they only needed to do one side, it would only be half the labor they had done, since they would only have had to remove the one head. I called Golf Mill Auto myself and told them the situation. They told me that, at this point, it would cost me less for them (Golf Mill) to put in a used engine than for Casey to do the whole job! I asked him if I should have Casey stop the work and tow it to Golf Mill. He said, "YES!"
I told the manager at Casey to stop the work and put all the parts in the trunk of the car, paid them for the labor to that point (about $600) and I called the number that Golf Mill gave me for the tow truck.
The mechanics at Golf Mill were all visibly stunned at what Casey had done to the engine. They all agreed that, even if they had to replace both head gaskets, they never would have needed to remove the front components of the engine, such as the timing chain and gears! They all looked at me with pity and, it seemed, mild disgust. What an idiot they must think I am.
So, for the labor alone, it would still cost me more, at this point, for Golf Mill to replace the gaskets and put everything back together than to just replace the engine with a used one. All told, I'll still wind up paying about $1800 for this repair. I keep trying to console myself with having denied Casey automotive the whole chunk of change they were going to charge me and instead giving it to Golf Mill, who I know aren't trying to rip me off.
So, lesson learned: don't panic. Ask questions. Trust the guys you trust, and do everything in your power to let them work on your car. Idiot.
Second lesson: Casey Automotive is a scheister operation. Tell everyone you can reach not to take their cars to them. They may repair your car, but you're paying not only too much for the work, but possibly for work you don't even need done!
Now I just want to cry!
It was Monday, after 5:00pm, and all of their mechanics had gone home for the day. I couldn't find a spot from where the vapor was escaping, and it wasn't coming out with pressure, so I chanced it on the road to the nearest Pep Boys, and was told the same thing: mechanics went home. It was too late in the day for me to go to Golf Mill Auto Center, where I have been taking the taxi for maintenance, and I was afraid I wouldn't make it the 15 miles or so to get there anyway. I was out of options, so I headed home. The steam stopped, but I still occasionally smelled coolant.
The next morning I started the taxi, drove it for a while, and checked things out. No vapor and only occasional whiffs of coolant. I made a note to myself to take it in to Golf Mill to have it looked at. Business was exceptional this week, so I continued to put it off. Then, Thursday afternoon, after taking the daytime off and planning to shift to nights for the weekend, I walked out to the car, ready to work, and saw that a large puddle of liquid had formed beneath the car and had oozed down the slight slope of the parking lot at my apartment complex. I dipped my finger in the liquid, believing it was motor oil. It didn't smell like motor oil...or anything I could identify. In a bit of a panic, I drove the car to the nearest garage, a local chain called Casey Automotive. I had taken a car to one of their other locations before; wasn't impressed with their work, and was even less impressed with their rates. But I'm even less comfortable with Pep Boys, so to Casey it was.
They told me it was a head gasket, and that it would be a minimum of $1800! I probably wouldn't get it back until Monday. It was not one of my better moments, and I did a mild internal freak-out. And I said, "Do it." I never even asked for a written estimate, nor did they offer me one! But they did give me a ride home.
Friday I went to the taxi office to take care of some other business, and I mentioned in passing to one of the guys from whom I had bought the taxi about its current status. When he asked me what they were charging, his eyeballs fell out of his head. He told me that Golf Mill would do it for way less. He even called them, and they said they could do it for around $500. Then he relayed their question: "Which side?"
I didn't have an answer, for the guy at Casey never told me. The guy at the taxi office said that for a hundred-dollar tow I could have saved a bunch of money! Part of me wishes he had never told me that, or that I had never mentioned it. Suddenly I had a headache!
After several minutes alone in my personal vehicle I became very angry, not only at the guys at Casey, but at myself for not thinking things through and at least calling Golf Mill myself to see what they would charge.
Second opinion, you fucking moron!
But my anger grew. Casey had been working on my car for about five and a half hours at this point. I felt... I knew I was being taken advantage of, knew I was being ripped off. I went back to Casey and talked to the manager(?). He took me to the car. Half the engine was sitting on the floor! I asked him on which side the head gasket leak was. He said, "It doesn't matter, we do both sides. He has both heads off, now, and it's only a half-hour more labor...."
But if they only needed to do one side, it would only be half the labor they had done, since they would only have had to remove the one head. I called Golf Mill Auto myself and told them the situation. They told me that, at this point, it would cost me less for them (Golf Mill) to put in a used engine than for Casey to do the whole job! I asked him if I should have Casey stop the work and tow it to Golf Mill. He said, "YES!"
I told the manager at Casey to stop the work and put all the parts in the trunk of the car, paid them for the labor to that point (about $600) and I called the number that Golf Mill gave me for the tow truck.
The mechanics at Golf Mill were all visibly stunned at what Casey had done to the engine. They all agreed that, even if they had to replace both head gaskets, they never would have needed to remove the front components of the engine, such as the timing chain and gears! They all looked at me with pity and, it seemed, mild disgust. What an idiot they must think I am.
So, for the labor alone, it would still cost me more, at this point, for Golf Mill to replace the gaskets and put everything back together than to just replace the engine with a used one. All told, I'll still wind up paying about $1800 for this repair. I keep trying to console myself with having denied Casey automotive the whole chunk of change they were going to charge me and instead giving it to Golf Mill, who I know aren't trying to rip me off.
So, lesson learned: don't panic. Ask questions. Trust the guys you trust, and do everything in your power to let them work on your car. Idiot.
Second lesson: Casey Automotive is a scheister operation. Tell everyone you can reach not to take their cars to them. They may repair your car, but you're paying not only too much for the work, but possibly for work you don't even need done!
Now I just want to cry!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Baby Step or Giant Leap? (OR... Yup, This Is What I'm Doing)
Above is a photo taken today of me with my taxi. Take careful note of the prior sentence. Focus specifically on the phrase "me with my taxi." My taxi. My taxi.
In an effort to reduce day-to-day expenses and increase my daily headaches, I decided to eliminate the middleman (one of them, anyway, as I'm learning) and stop paying him a lease, and have bought my own taxi.
Yes, I wrote that correctly. Bought.
Shortly after I was laid off from my salaried job I formed a limited liability company, Stuff Enterprises, as a way to protect myself from possible litigation that might arise from operating as a freelance video production god (litigation that might arise simply from use of the term "video production god," frinstance), but since no real work came from that, Stuff Enterprises, LLC, was more of a limp, lackluster company than anything else. As the idea to own a taxi came along primarily as a way to take more of the money I get from the passengers and keep it in my pocket, ownership revealed itself to me also as an avenue to greater flexibility to do the things I want to do when the opportunity arises to do them, as well as the freedom to relax just a little and not have to work so freakin hard to put a decent meal in front of me.
And so, Stuff Enterprises, LLC, is now in the transportation business. Does this make me a tycoon?
°
Monday, June 20, 2011
All You Gotta Do Is Act Naturally
Click on any photo to embiggerize.
A couple of months ago, while Bleacher Bums was still in rehearsals, I stopped in at the taxi office to pay my lease, pick up my check and take care of other business. I had some little advertiser post cards with Bleacher Bums info on them, so I decided to drop them at desks in the business office there at 303 Taxi. When I set one down at the elbow of Erica, the new, young Public Relations director, she called back to me, "Hey! You're an actor?"
"Yes," I replied. "Of sorts."
"Would you like to be in a commercial for 303?"
The idea intrigued me, however, as I'm supposed to be a video production guy and not a taxi driver, the idea appealed much more to me on a different level.
"I'd rather make the commercial!" I quickly explained to her my background, and why I was interested in making her commercial.
My friend Sean — a video and filmmaker with whom I have been friends since 1989 — has been trying to find an avenue to reach local small businesses and offer to make web commercials for them. He had accepted my interest and my offer to participate in that with him if it ever came to be, and suggested that we do the first few for free to establish ourselves and build a portfolio, and create a need within other businesses for our service. And then Erica dropped out of the sky right in front of me.
She already had a pile of commercial ideas, some of them a little edgy, or perhaps even a little too risqué for local TV. Indeed, her target was the web, and specifically a 303 Taxi YouTube channel. She was very interested in what I told her about Sean and myself, but she wanted to go over the ideas in detail, and then meet Sean.
Her ideas were actually very well thought-out and very visual, which surprised me. I have worked with veterans of the video business who were not as imaginative or visually oriented as Erica.
Through many e-mail CCs and a few meetings with Erica and Sean at a local Starbucks we came up with three scripts to do first. Erica's approach is to complete three of the less edgy spots, present them to the owners of 303 (one to whom she is related, so that may be very favorable!), put them up on YouTube and watch them (with much hope) go viral. Then with ownership approval — and perhaps a budget! — we'll be able to do all of Erica's ideas, edgy and all!
We got a less than stellar response from our Craigslist casting notice, and Erica insisted that I play the role of the taxi driver in the first commercial we had lined up. After going bust on another actor for the role of the passenger, I called on Rick, an actor friend with whom I had worked on Vanishing Points, who jumped in with both feet! Another meeting, a few more e-mails, and we had set a shoot date!
This past Saturday, June 18, we all met at Sean's house, the location for our spot titled Affordable Therapy, which explores with humor the theme of taxi driver as good listener to a passenger who confides in him. Despite the weatherman's threat of rain, it was a wonderful — if a little muggy — day to shoot a commercial! Through Erica's connections within the taxi company, we borrowed another driver's brand new Scion xB to be our show car.
The 2011 Scion xB we got to use as our picture car.
Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Sean recently bought a Canon 7D DSLR camera with HD video, a camera platform that shows great promise as a filmmaker's camera which puts high-resolution, High Definition video within reach of financially strapped production companies. He's been itching to put it to serious use, and Affordable Therapy is the guinea pig in Sean's very capable hands. The camera offers little flexibility in recording audio, so we had to shoot in a bit of a new old-school way, using a separate digital audio recording, which will be married to the video during the editing process.
The Canon 7D in position. Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Another shot, another angle, here with
the LCD monitor's view in view.
Photo: Sean McMenemy
Erica operates the boom microphone and the digital recorder
while Rick emotes. Photo: Tony Gasbarro
We had a tight script, a self-confident actor and an experienced crew, along with Erica who is new to it all, handling herself quite well as Executive Producer/sound recordist for the day-long shoot in very warm, humid weather.
Sean sets up the shot with Rick in position.
Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Erica rockin' the headphones! Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Actor Rick and me. Photo: Sean McMenemy
When the spot is finished, I will follow up at this site with a link to the YouTube (or other video) site where it will reside.
°
A couple of months ago, while Bleacher Bums was still in rehearsals, I stopped in at the taxi office to pay my lease, pick up my check and take care of other business. I had some little advertiser post cards with Bleacher Bums info on them, so I decided to drop them at desks in the business office there at 303 Taxi. When I set one down at the elbow of Erica, the new, young Public Relations director, she called back to me, "Hey! You're an actor?"
"Yes," I replied. "Of sorts."
"Would you like to be in a commercial for 303?"
The idea intrigued me, however, as I'm supposed to be a video production guy and not a taxi driver, the idea appealed much more to me on a different level.
"I'd rather make the commercial!" I quickly explained to her my background, and why I was interested in making her commercial.
My friend Sean — a video and filmmaker with whom I have been friends since 1989 — has been trying to find an avenue to reach local small businesses and offer to make web commercials for them. He had accepted my interest and my offer to participate in that with him if it ever came to be, and suggested that we do the first few for free to establish ourselves and build a portfolio, and create a need within other businesses for our service. And then Erica dropped out of the sky right in front of me.
She already had a pile of commercial ideas, some of them a little edgy, or perhaps even a little too risqué for local TV. Indeed, her target was the web, and specifically a 303 Taxi YouTube channel. She was very interested in what I told her about Sean and myself, but she wanted to go over the ideas in detail, and then meet Sean.
Her ideas were actually very well thought-out and very visual, which surprised me. I have worked with veterans of the video business who were not as imaginative or visually oriented as Erica.
Through many e-mail CCs and a few meetings with Erica and Sean at a local Starbucks we came up with three scripts to do first. Erica's approach is to complete three of the less edgy spots, present them to the owners of 303 (one to whom she is related, so that may be very favorable!), put them up on YouTube and watch them (with much hope) go viral. Then with ownership approval — and perhaps a budget! — we'll be able to do all of Erica's ideas, edgy and all!
We got a less than stellar response from our Craigslist casting notice, and Erica insisted that I play the role of the taxi driver in the first commercial we had lined up. After going bust on another actor for the role of the passenger, I called on Rick, an actor friend with whom I had worked on Vanishing Points, who jumped in with both feet! Another meeting, a few more e-mails, and we had set a shoot date!
This past Saturday, June 18, we all met at Sean's house, the location for our spot titled Affordable Therapy, which explores with humor the theme of taxi driver as good listener to a passenger who confides in him. Despite the weatherman's threat of rain, it was a wonderful — if a little muggy — day to shoot a commercial! Through Erica's connections within the taxi company, we borrowed another driver's brand new Scion xB to be our show car.
The 2011 Scion xB we got to use as our picture car.
Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Sean recently bought a Canon 7D DSLR camera with HD video, a camera platform that shows great promise as a filmmaker's camera which puts high-resolution, High Definition video within reach of financially strapped production companies. He's been itching to put it to serious use, and Affordable Therapy is the guinea pig in Sean's very capable hands. The camera offers little flexibility in recording audio, so we had to shoot in a bit of a new old-school way, using a separate digital audio recording, which will be married to the video during the editing process.
The Canon 7D in position. Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Another shot, another angle, here with
the LCD monitor's view in view.
Photo: Sean McMenemy
Erica operates the boom microphone and the digital recorder
while Rick emotes. Photo: Tony Gasbarro
We had a tight script, a self-confident actor and an experienced crew, along with Erica who is new to it all, handling herself quite well as Executive Producer/sound recordist for the day-long shoot in very warm, humid weather.
Sean sets up the shot with Rick in position.
Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Erica rockin' the headphones! Photo: Tony Gasbarro
Actor Rick and me. Photo: Sean McMenemy
When the spot is finished, I will follow up at this site with a link to the YouTube (or other video) site where it will reside.
°
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Dogged Again.
Photo via iPhone4
I don't know. Maybe I could still do a hot dog blog. The Chicagoland Dog Blog? This, by the way, is NOT a Chicago Dog (nor, in their defense there at The Mean Wiener, do they call it such). It's not a poppy seed bun, there's no celery salt, and even though the menu says I get one, there was no pickle. See, I'm all criticky already!
°
Monday, May 30, 2011
The Cost of Creativity
Yet another Sunday came where, while I prepared to go to work, I decided instead to take the day off. It’s one great thing about being self-employed. I don’t want to work today? I don’t work today! Of course, the down side to that is I also don’t get paid today.
The moment called for effort to be made on behalf of breakfast, so I fried up some eggs and nuked some bacon and French-pressed some coffee, and it was wonderful. And then I sat down at the computer, played on Facebook for a while, and I decided that some blogging needed to get done.
And it did.
By then it was time for lunch, and I emptied the last of a bag of Perdue Crispy Chicken Strips, which I highly recommend for flavor only, because, nutritionally, I’m sure they’re crap. As I pulled the bag out of the freezer I also decided to pull out the last of the big, thick, expensive (for my budget) rib steaks I had bought back in January. Those would make great lunch items for the coming week! I set them on paper plates to thaw on top of the stove.
I went back to the computer, played some more on Facebook, and I think I blogged some more. Then I did something I haven’t done in far too long: I uncovered the midi keyboard and plugged it in to the computer, fired up Garage Band, and started messing around.
As I’ve mentioned in this blog in the past, I like to fart around by mainly tickling the keys, and if I hear a sound that’s interesting to me, I’ll explore it. If it takes me anywhere, then I’ll record a track in Garage Band, and keep it for posterity, or better, I’ll get truly inspired and make a grand production of it.
And so it was. I heard it, and I started playing with it, and it began to grow legs! The wonderful, amazing, astonishing thing about a truly creative process, no matter how truly talented you are — and, musically, I ain’t that talented — is how time disappears from your consciousness. I think I’ve babbled about that, here, too — the Flow State.
When you’re in flow, you are completely absorbed in the project at hand. Bodily functions seem suspended, as bathroom urges, muscle stiffness from sitting nearly motionless, and eye fatigue don’t interrupt your effort. And time flies. Quickly! When I pulled out the keyboard, it was around 3:00pm. Doubtful that I would hear anything I liked from my own fingers, I figured I’d play for about an hour, and then go watch one of my Netflix selections. However, when I figured I had reached the peak of my musical ability versus the difficulty of the musical dalliance I had created, I looked at the clock: 10:38. ZOINKS! I never even had dinner!
I had a 4:00am Monday morning pickup, so I had to get to bed! I quickly put away the keyboard, shut down Garage Band, and hit the sack.
Monday morning I was up at 2:30. I showered and shaved, and I saw that I had just enough time for a bowl of cereal before I had to leave. I walked to the kitchen, turned on the light... and I was reminded of my dinner plans of the prior evening, not to mention lunches for the coming week. There on top of the stove sat two formerly beautiful rib steaks, long since thawed, and now mostly dried out, ruined, and a waste of about $15.
Who knew that individual creativity could be so damned expensive?
°
The moment called for effort to be made on behalf of breakfast, so I fried up some eggs and nuked some bacon and French-pressed some coffee, and it was wonderful. And then I sat down at the computer, played on Facebook for a while, and I decided that some blogging needed to get done.
And it did.
By then it was time for lunch, and I emptied the last of a bag of Perdue Crispy Chicken Strips, which I highly recommend for flavor only, because, nutritionally, I’m sure they’re crap. As I pulled the bag out of the freezer I also decided to pull out the last of the big, thick, expensive (for my budget) rib steaks I had bought back in January. Those would make great lunch items for the coming week! I set them on paper plates to thaw on top of the stove.
I went back to the computer, played some more on Facebook, and I think I blogged some more. Then I did something I haven’t done in far too long: I uncovered the midi keyboard and plugged it in to the computer, fired up Garage Band, and started messing around.
As I’ve mentioned in this blog in the past, I like to fart around by mainly tickling the keys, and if I hear a sound that’s interesting to me, I’ll explore it. If it takes me anywhere, then I’ll record a track in Garage Band, and keep it for posterity, or better, I’ll get truly inspired and make a grand production of it.
And so it was. I heard it, and I started playing with it, and it began to grow legs! The wonderful, amazing, astonishing thing about a truly creative process, no matter how truly talented you are — and, musically, I ain’t that talented — is how time disappears from your consciousness. I think I’ve babbled about that, here, too — the Flow State.
When you’re in flow, you are completely absorbed in the project at hand. Bodily functions seem suspended, as bathroom urges, muscle stiffness from sitting nearly motionless, and eye fatigue don’t interrupt your effort. And time flies. Quickly! When I pulled out the keyboard, it was around 3:00pm. Doubtful that I would hear anything I liked from my own fingers, I figured I’d play for about an hour, and then go watch one of my Netflix selections. However, when I figured I had reached the peak of my musical ability versus the difficulty of the musical dalliance I had created, I looked at the clock: 10:38. ZOINKS! I never even had dinner!
I had a 4:00am Monday morning pickup, so I had to get to bed! I quickly put away the keyboard, shut down Garage Band, and hit the sack.
Monday morning I was up at 2:30. I showered and shaved, and I saw that I had just enough time for a bowl of cereal before I had to leave. I walked to the kitchen, turned on the light... and I was reminded of my dinner plans of the prior evening, not to mention lunches for the coming week. There on top of the stove sat two formerly beautiful rib steaks, long since thawed, and now mostly dried out, ruined, and a waste of about $15.
Who knew that individual creativity could be so damned expensive?
°
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Strange Days Indeed
Some people have noticed that I don't blog much about the taxi job any more. It's not that I don't care to, but more that the customer stories that stood out began not to stand out so much after six or eight or twelve months. Not to mention my heavy involvement in theatrical endeavors, which took their toll on my time to write.
But some interesting things happened over a couple of days last week that I want to share. Put your tissues away; it's nothing like that.
No, wait. I make no guarantee against boredom; you might want to keep them handy.
On Wednesday morning I met with my friends for our weekly get-together that we call "Midwest Media Now!", after which I ran to the taxi office to pick up my check, so my morning was cut short from the taxi. When I got back on the road, I was a little more eager and willing to chase fares that were a little out of my usual range. As soon as I had gotten into my car at the office, I saw on the dispatch computer screen a fare sitting open in Schaumburg. From the office that's just too far away for me to chase, even on this day, so I let it be. But as I got closer to Schaumburg, the fare remained open and unclaimed. When I was about 15 minutes away, I claimed it and was on my way.
As it turned out, it was an elderly woman I had picked up several times before, usually at a Wal-Mart store south of her home, but today she was at the Target store on the corner of Meacham Road and Higgins Road on the east side of Schaumburg.
When I arrived at the store, she politely griped about how long she had waited, but I think she recognized me, so she accepted my apologies and stated her awareness that it wasn't my fault. So I dropped her off at her home, helped her with her bags, and got back in the taxi to book back in on the computer.
As I punched the buttons to tell the dispatch system that I was done with my ride and ready for the next one, I noticed that there was now a fare open in the very zone I was in, so I knew that, unless someone else grabbed it before I could punch the buttons, I would get the fare.
I got it. The pickup? At the Target on the west side of Schaumburg, at the corner of Schaumburg Road and Barrington Road! HAH! Another Target store pickup!
I arrived about 15 minutes later and drove the woman to her home in Streamwood, which wraps around the west and south borders of Schaumburg. She took me west and a little bit north. When I dropped her off and booked back in, I was offered another fare, this time in Hoffman Estates, in a zone that I know is a little further west and north of where I was at that moment. I accepted the fare: Target store, corner of Higgins Road and Illinois route 59!
Three fares in a row, each pick-up at a different Target store, the last of which brought me to just 5 blocks from my home, where I paused for lunch!
Princess
Anyone who has ever read every single one of my blog posts ... [crickets] ... may remember one of my passengers, Ricky, who was the source of an interesting ride. Well, his sister, Susie, factored in another interesting coincidence Thursday evening.
On Thursday mornings I meet with my friend Sean as we try to develop several ideas for short films or web series, and last Thursday was no different. But I also had to take the taxi in for an oil change and to get the air conditioning system recharged, which took about an hour and a half longer than the hour they told me it would take! So, with my entire morning shot to hell, I knew I had to work into the late evening in order to have a chance to make up the time and money.
Around 6:00 in the evening I had a fare which brought me into downtown Arlington Heights, so after I dropped off, I parked at the nearby Metra train station because I knew there would be an outbound from the city coming in about 15 minutes. When I arrived at the train station I was the third taxicab in the line at the curb, and the second in the electronic line behind one of my 303 Taxi colleagues. My chances of getting a passenger here were slim.
After a few minutes I saw a fare open up in zone 279 — which almost always means Woodfield Mall — in Schaumburg. At 6:00pm, due to traffic, that's a 20-minute drive from Arlington Heights. Normally I wouldn't chase this, but almost desperate to at least break even, I seriously considered it. Then I saw her: Susie, the gypsy sister of Ricky, approached the taxi line from the rear. She's no longer petite, as she has gained a considerable amount of weight since the last time I saw her, but I was certain it was her. I feared she would come straight to my taxi, for two reasons: I didn't want to have to deal with passing her to the front taxi, as the next passenger rightly belongs to him; and I really didn't want to take her, because her home is only about a mile away from the train station, a chump change ride during which, as was her usual, she would immediately get on her phone and start arguing with her husband.
To my relief, she walked past me, but we made eye contact. I waved. She went to the front taxi, my 303 colleague, who turned her away. Whether he really had a pre-arranged passenger coming on the next train or not, I'm sure that's what he told her. So Susie moved to the taxi behind him, owned by a friendly, affable Nigerian young man. Assuming that the taxi at the front of the line indeed had a prearranged passenger, I figured there would be slim chance that a second passenger from the train would seek a taxi. I asked for — and received — the fare at Woodfield Mall.
About ¼ of the way to the mall I noticed the Nigerian's taxi behind me. He pulled up next to me at a stop light. I tried to look into his rear seat area, but his tinted windows prevented me from seeing anyone there. Did he take Susie? Did I unwittingly abandon her?
The light changed and I pulled away, ahead of the Nigerian. I started to wonder if maybe my passenger waiting for me at Woodfield Mall had, as some passengers do, called two taxi companies to increase her chances of a taxi actually showing up, and taking the first one to arrive and leaving the second guy sucking wind when he gets there. Did the Nigerian get that order? I turned onto Golf Road. The Nigerian, behind me, turned as well. I reasoned that, had he same fare or not, I had to assume he did. It was a race!
True to form, I chose the wrong lane of traffic and got stuck behind some slow movers, and the Nigerian pulled past me. Ahead of me, he ducked back into my lane and signaled a left turn into the mall parking lot! I found a break in the lane to my right, zipped out from behind the slow cars in front of me, and sped to catch the Nigerian, who turned just in front of a line of oncoming cars, leaving me waiting for them to clear.
On the mall property, I once again caught up to him in a line of cars, but I made another crucial mistake. In order to get to the pickup point, outside the "fountain" entrance to Macy's, I needed to make a right turn onto the mall's Perimeter Road. I was in the left lane. The Nigerian was in the right, at the head of a long line of cars. DAMN HIM! He pulled away in the proper direction. I was forced to turn left and then quickly right into the parking lanes, and then double back across to get to the access lane to the Macy's entrance. And there sat the Nigerian, blocking my access to the pick-up/drop-off lane. And then his driver's side rear door opened up, and out came Susie!
How odd that she was headed not home, but to the very spot that my order wanted to be picked up! I waved meekly at her when she again made eye contact with me as she rounded the Nigerian's taxi to the rear and headed to the Macy's entrance, where my fare was waiting faithfully for me to take her to her home.
Just after 9:00 I was still out. The evening had been stingy, and I was just a few dollars under the break-even point for my Thursday. I was in southwest Schaumburg and had just decided to throw in the towel. I had started to pack up my laptop when two fares opened up in zone 279. At that hour the distance to the mall was not an issue, and meant about a 15-minute drive (Schaumburg is quite a sprawling suburb!). On the way there, the other zone 279 fare disappeared from the computer screen, claimed by a driver, and within five minutes of that, another open fare in zone 279 popped up.
I arrived at The Cheesecake Factory as requested by the passenger, but after the five minutes required minimum wait, no passenger had shown up. I requested a "no show" with the dispatcher and waited, nervously eyeing the zone 279 fare that was still open. If no one grabbed it while I waited, I would still get a fare out of this trip to the mall!
The "no show" was granted, and I quickly booked back in to the system. I was instantly offered the fare in 279: Woodfield Mall, Entrance near Stir Crazy restaurant. Susie. HAH! What are the odds?
I went around to Stir Crazy and within a few minutes she was in my taxi and immediately on her phone, arguing with her husband.
Sometimes life is indeed truly strange.
°
But some interesting things happened over a couple of days last week that I want to share. Put your tissues away; it's nothing like that.
No, wait. I make no guarantee against boredom; you might want to keep them handy.
On Wednesday morning I met with my friends for our weekly get-together that we call "Midwest Media Now!", after which I ran to the taxi office to pick up my check, so my morning was cut short from the taxi. When I got back on the road, I was a little more eager and willing to chase fares that were a little out of my usual range. As soon as I had gotten into my car at the office, I saw on the dispatch computer screen a fare sitting open in Schaumburg. From the office that's just too far away for me to chase, even on this day, so I let it be. But as I got closer to Schaumburg, the fare remained open and unclaimed. When I was about 15 minutes away, I claimed it and was on my way.
As it turned out, it was an elderly woman I had picked up several times before, usually at a Wal-Mart store south of her home, but today she was at the Target store on the corner of Meacham Road and Higgins Road on the east side of Schaumburg.
When I arrived at the store, she politely griped about how long she had waited, but I think she recognized me, so she accepted my apologies and stated her awareness that it wasn't my fault. So I dropped her off at her home, helped her with her bags, and got back in the taxi to book back in on the computer.
As I punched the buttons to tell the dispatch system that I was done with my ride and ready for the next one, I noticed that there was now a fare open in the very zone I was in, so I knew that, unless someone else grabbed it before I could punch the buttons, I would get the fare.
I got it. The pickup? At the Target on the west side of Schaumburg, at the corner of Schaumburg Road and Barrington Road! HAH! Another Target store pickup!
I arrived about 15 minutes later and drove the woman to her home in Streamwood, which wraps around the west and south borders of Schaumburg. She took me west and a little bit north. When I dropped her off and booked back in, I was offered another fare, this time in Hoffman Estates, in a zone that I know is a little further west and north of where I was at that moment. I accepted the fare: Target store, corner of Higgins Road and Illinois route 59!
Three fares in a row, each pick-up at a different Target store, the last of which brought me to just 5 blocks from my home, where I paused for lunch!
Princess
Anyone who has ever read every single one of my blog posts ... [crickets] ... may remember one of my passengers, Ricky, who was the source of an interesting ride. Well, his sister, Susie, factored in another interesting coincidence Thursday evening.
On Thursday mornings I meet with my friend Sean as we try to develop several ideas for short films or web series, and last Thursday was no different. But I also had to take the taxi in for an oil change and to get the air conditioning system recharged, which took about an hour and a half longer than the hour they told me it would take! So, with my entire morning shot to hell, I knew I had to work into the late evening in order to have a chance to make up the time and money.
Around 6:00 in the evening I had a fare which brought me into downtown Arlington Heights, so after I dropped off, I parked at the nearby Metra train station because I knew there would be an outbound from the city coming in about 15 minutes. When I arrived at the train station I was the third taxicab in the line at the curb, and the second in the electronic line behind one of my 303 Taxi colleagues. My chances of getting a passenger here were slim.
After a few minutes I saw a fare open up in zone 279 — which almost always means Woodfield Mall — in Schaumburg. At 6:00pm, due to traffic, that's a 20-minute drive from Arlington Heights. Normally I wouldn't chase this, but almost desperate to at least break even, I seriously considered it. Then I saw her: Susie, the gypsy sister of Ricky, approached the taxi line from the rear. She's no longer petite, as she has gained a considerable amount of weight since the last time I saw her, but I was certain it was her. I feared she would come straight to my taxi, for two reasons: I didn't want to have to deal with passing her to the front taxi, as the next passenger rightly belongs to him; and I really didn't want to take her, because her home is only about a mile away from the train station, a chump change ride during which, as was her usual, she would immediately get on her phone and start arguing with her husband.
To my relief, she walked past me, but we made eye contact. I waved. She went to the front taxi, my 303 colleague, who turned her away. Whether he really had a pre-arranged passenger coming on the next train or not, I'm sure that's what he told her. So Susie moved to the taxi behind him, owned by a friendly, affable Nigerian young man. Assuming that the taxi at the front of the line indeed had a prearranged passenger, I figured there would be slim chance that a second passenger from the train would seek a taxi. I asked for — and received — the fare at Woodfield Mall.
About ¼ of the way to the mall I noticed the Nigerian's taxi behind me. He pulled up next to me at a stop light. I tried to look into his rear seat area, but his tinted windows prevented me from seeing anyone there. Did he take Susie? Did I unwittingly abandon her?
The light changed and I pulled away, ahead of the Nigerian. I started to wonder if maybe my passenger waiting for me at Woodfield Mall had, as some passengers do, called two taxi companies to increase her chances of a taxi actually showing up, and taking the first one to arrive and leaving the second guy sucking wind when he gets there. Did the Nigerian get that order? I turned onto Golf Road. The Nigerian, behind me, turned as well. I reasoned that, had he same fare or not, I had to assume he did. It was a race!
True to form, I chose the wrong lane of traffic and got stuck behind some slow movers, and the Nigerian pulled past me. Ahead of me, he ducked back into my lane and signaled a left turn into the mall parking lot! I found a break in the lane to my right, zipped out from behind the slow cars in front of me, and sped to catch the Nigerian, who turned just in front of a line of oncoming cars, leaving me waiting for them to clear.
On the mall property, I once again caught up to him in a line of cars, but I made another crucial mistake. In order to get to the pickup point, outside the "fountain" entrance to Macy's, I needed to make a right turn onto the mall's Perimeter Road. I was in the left lane. The Nigerian was in the right, at the head of a long line of cars. DAMN HIM! He pulled away in the proper direction. I was forced to turn left and then quickly right into the parking lanes, and then double back across to get to the access lane to the Macy's entrance. And there sat the Nigerian, blocking my access to the pick-up/drop-off lane. And then his driver's side rear door opened up, and out came Susie!
How odd that she was headed not home, but to the very spot that my order wanted to be picked up! I waved meekly at her when she again made eye contact with me as she rounded the Nigerian's taxi to the rear and headed to the Macy's entrance, where my fare was waiting faithfully for me to take her to her home.
Just after 9:00 I was still out. The evening had been stingy, and I was just a few dollars under the break-even point for my Thursday. I was in southwest Schaumburg and had just decided to throw in the towel. I had started to pack up my laptop when two fares opened up in zone 279. At that hour the distance to the mall was not an issue, and meant about a 15-minute drive (Schaumburg is quite a sprawling suburb!). On the way there, the other zone 279 fare disappeared from the computer screen, claimed by a driver, and within five minutes of that, another open fare in zone 279 popped up.
I arrived at The Cheesecake Factory as requested by the passenger, but after the five minutes required minimum wait, no passenger had shown up. I requested a "no show" with the dispatcher and waited, nervously eyeing the zone 279 fare that was still open. If no one grabbed it while I waited, I would still get a fare out of this trip to the mall!
The "no show" was granted, and I quickly booked back in to the system. I was instantly offered the fare in 279: Woodfield Mall, Entrance near Stir Crazy restaurant. Susie. HAH! What are the odds?
I went around to Stir Crazy and within a few minutes she was in my taxi and immediately on her phone, arguing with her husband.
Sometimes life is indeed truly strange.
°
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Chicago Dogged
Lately I've been sampling this area's offerings of the "Chicago Dog” — or rather, the Chicago-style hot dog.
Back when I was a kid — as kids are wont to do — I hated just about everything food related that wasn't done my way. And back then, a hot dog was to be served to me on a bun or nestled in a rolled up slice of white bread, and slathered in ketchup and mustard. Nothing else! I remember going somewhere with a relative, probably one of my sisters, and along the way she asked me, “Wanna get a hot dog?” Also as kids are wont to do, I was always ready for restaurant food!
“Hell yes!” Of course, had I answered her like that, I would have had my mouth washed out with soap. But you get the idea.
So we pulled in to the parking lot of a small roadside stand in Steger, Illinois. I’m pretty sure this was a small chain that existed only in the Chicago area, and perhaps only in the Chicago south suburbs, and I’m not sure exists today at all. It was Bozo Hot Dogs and, despite its Chicago connection, it had nothing to do with the Bozo the Clown television franchise. I don’t recall the chain of events, but I imagine that I was asked if I wanted everything on it and, to my sheltered mind, “everything” meant everything on it I liked, which was ketchup and mustard. Nothing else!
To my utter disgust and disappointment, I got this heaping pile of vegetables on top of a bun. I couldn’t even see the hot dog! But what I didn’t realize was that I had been handed a classic.
The quintessential Chicago Dog is a steamed — not grilled, not boiled — kosher beef frankfurter on a poppy-seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, chopped raw white onions, neon-green sweet pickle relish (sometimes called “picalilli”), a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, sport peppers and a dash of celery salt. A Chicago Dog purist will gouge out your eyes at your mere suggestion of putting ketchup on your Dog. (I don’t understand it, either.)
I vaguely remember digging the frankfurter out of that garden mess and just eating that — the bun’s flavor was "ruined" by all those juices from the tomato and the pickles...and those poppy seeds! And I remember being scolded for all the wasted food.
Until very recently, I still hadn’t cared too much for The Chicago Dog, mainly because it seemed to be so much to put in a bun. But I was in a hot dog mood one day a few weeks back, and I decided to get one “dragged through the garden.” While I don’t consider The Chicago Dog to be anything special, a classic is a classic, and I, as I am wont to do these days, decided to take the “appreciation” approach: rather than concern myself with all that stuff on it, why not take it in and experience the flavor that a Chicago Dog is intended to impart?
Again, while I consider it to be nothing special, it was pretty tasty, albeit quite a handful. A few days later I realized I hadn’t shaken my hot dog jones, so I tried another Chicago Dog at a different place. Its presentation was different than the first, and certainly less fantastic than the one I remember from Bozo Hot Dog. And that reminds me... the first dog I tried didn’t have tomatoes on it. Neither did the next one.
Some weeks later I tried another one. Though I ordered a Chicago Dog, what I got was a frankfurter on a bun with no poppy seeds, relish, mustard, pickle spear, no peppers (but I ordered it that way), and no celery salt that I could discern.
More recently I attended a Chicago Cubs baseball game. After a few innings we went on a nosh run and came to a concession stand that sold "Chicago Dogs." It came with nothing. Just a frank on a bun, with some chopped onions sprinkled on it. The condiments station only offered ketchup and yellow mustard, and little individual blister packs of regular sweet relish.
And that sparked an idea. I would start a blog that would chart my sampling of as many Chicago Dogs I could find, reviewing each on its merits as well as the establishment where I purchased it. There would be photos of each dog and its culinary environs, and a shot of the restaurant exterior. I would schmooze with the management of each establishment and build a rapport, and perhaps have a hand in the improvement of The Chicago Dog across all of Chicagoland, and I would call it The Chicago Dog Blog!
But somebody already beat me to it.
But HEY! It’s a blog about places to take your pet dog! I could just call it something else! I could still inform all of Chicagoland about where to find the best Chicago Dog anywhere!
But, no.
I guess I’ll just stick to inane chatter about long-shot hopes and failed dreams.
°
Back when I was a kid — as kids are wont to do — I hated just about everything food related that wasn't done my way. And back then, a hot dog was to be served to me on a bun or nestled in a rolled up slice of white bread, and slathered in ketchup and mustard. Nothing else! I remember going somewhere with a relative, probably one of my sisters, and along the way she asked me, “Wanna get a hot dog?” Also as kids are wont to do, I was always ready for restaurant food!
“Hell yes!” Of course, had I answered her like that, I would have had my mouth washed out with soap. But you get the idea.
So we pulled in to the parking lot of a small roadside stand in Steger, Illinois. I’m pretty sure this was a small chain that existed only in the Chicago area, and perhaps only in the Chicago south suburbs, and I’m not sure exists today at all. It was Bozo Hot Dogs and, despite its Chicago connection, it had nothing to do with the Bozo the Clown television franchise. I don’t recall the chain of events, but I imagine that I was asked if I wanted everything on it and, to my sheltered mind, “everything” meant everything on it I liked, which was ketchup and mustard. Nothing else!
To my utter disgust and disappointment, I got this heaping pile of vegetables on top of a bun. I couldn’t even see the hot dog! But what I didn’t realize was that I had been handed a classic.
The quintessential Chicago Dog is a steamed — not grilled, not boiled — kosher beef frankfurter on a poppy-seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, chopped raw white onions, neon-green sweet pickle relish (sometimes called “picalilli”), a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, sport peppers and a dash of celery salt. A Chicago Dog purist will gouge out your eyes at your mere suggestion of putting ketchup on your Dog. (I don’t understand it, either.)
I vaguely remember digging the frankfurter out of that garden mess and just eating that — the bun’s flavor was "ruined" by all those juices from the tomato and the pickles...and those poppy seeds! And I remember being scolded for all the wasted food.
Until very recently, I still hadn’t cared too much for The Chicago Dog, mainly because it seemed to be so much to put in a bun. But I was in a hot dog mood one day a few weeks back, and I decided to get one “dragged through the garden.” While I don’t consider The Chicago Dog to be anything special, a classic is a classic, and I, as I am wont to do these days, decided to take the “appreciation” approach: rather than concern myself with all that stuff on it, why not take it in and experience the flavor that a Chicago Dog is intended to impart?
Again, while I consider it to be nothing special, it was pretty tasty, albeit quite a handful. A few days later I realized I hadn’t shaken my hot dog jones, so I tried another Chicago Dog at a different place. Its presentation was different than the first, and certainly less fantastic than the one I remember from Bozo Hot Dog. And that reminds me... the first dog I tried didn’t have tomatoes on it. Neither did the next one.
Some weeks later I tried another one. Though I ordered a Chicago Dog, what I got was a frankfurter on a bun with no poppy seeds, relish, mustard, pickle spear, no peppers (but I ordered it that way), and no celery salt that I could discern.
More recently I attended a Chicago Cubs baseball game. After a few innings we went on a nosh run and came to a concession stand that sold "Chicago Dogs." It came with nothing. Just a frank on a bun, with some chopped onions sprinkled on it. The condiments station only offered ketchup and yellow mustard, and little individual blister packs of regular sweet relish.
And that sparked an idea. I would start a blog that would chart my sampling of as many Chicago Dogs I could find, reviewing each on its merits as well as the establishment where I purchased it. There would be photos of each dog and its culinary environs, and a shot of the restaurant exterior. I would schmooze with the management of each establishment and build a rapport, and perhaps have a hand in the improvement of The Chicago Dog across all of Chicagoland, and I would call it The Chicago Dog Blog!
But somebody already beat me to it.
But HEY! It’s a blog about places to take your pet dog! I could just call it something else! I could still inform all of Chicagoland about where to find the best Chicago Dog anywhere!
But, no.
I guess I’ll just stick to inane chatter about long-shot hopes and failed dreams.
°
Bums Rush Aftermath
The photographer who took our production shots made up
posters to be put up around the school. The official posters
had a black & white photo of four or five of the cast,
myself included, with the rest of the informational copy you
see here. Then he offered to make individual souvenir posters
for each of the cast memebers, and used my image
as an example. Pretty cool, no?
Back in high school I was heavily involved in theatre. I was more of a techie, then, about equal to the actor I was also, until I realized that I knew nothing about any real tech stuff, and what I did know I wasn’t really any good at. But no matter how I served on a show, the constant with each one was the withdrawal I experienced when it was over.
I’m sure it doesn’t matter which field you may be in; put together a group of people, each with a different task in an effort toward one important — at least to the group — goal, and a kinship will form. Hours each day, together, constantly honing the project from its tangled beginnings into the well-executed show/product/process/whatever you want it to be.
And then you’re done.
I remember weeks of boredom as a teenager, home on the regular school bus instead of the late activities bus; hours yet until dinner instead of a cold plate waiting for me when I got home; unfamiliar TV shows getting in the way between me and the shows I wanted to watch, all after a play — it mattered not whether it was a full length play, or a one-act, or a musical — had seen its final curtain.
And this past season, having jumped into theatre with both feet once again, doing three shows back-to-back in a span of six months, I expected that same withdrawal.
Perhaps it was an effect of being part of three different casts, or of three divergent shows; perhaps it was the effect of being exhausted after half a year of 12- to 14-hour taxi shifts followed by three- to four-hour rehearsals followed by three-hour nights of sleep, but when we took our final bows for Bleacher Bums, I experienced none of the dread of the quiet hours ahead of me. I was ready for a break!
And I thought it would eventually find me. I even scribbled some notes down, a muscle-memory exercise in post-show withdrawal, ready to convey my feelings of loneliness, of anxiety, of loss in my next far·ra·go post. But they never came.
Instead, I’ve been busier than ever in the taxi (nothing over which to get excited...my records show that May of last year boomed, too, just in time for June to bust), even stretching my days to 15 and 16 hours sometimes to squeeze in one more fare. I’ve been working through my Netflix queue. I’ve been taking in plays that some of my friends are in. In the evening the day this post was first drafted (I'm blogging again!!), I went out to see not one, but two bands that friends are playing in, at two different bars!
I have my life back!
But don’t get the wrong idea from the prior sentence. I thoroughly enjoy acting, and thoroughly enjoyed the plays I was involved with since September of 2010. This is just a clear indication that I need to find the niche into which to fall that gets me paid to perform, and paid enough that I can spend my days eating, sleeping, watching movies and interacting with friends and family between the hours spent working under the lights.
The same goes alternately for writing. And for freelance video work.
Perchance to dream.
°
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Family Tragedy
It was a poignant moment in the flash of a few seconds as I drove on Golf Road in Rolling Meadows during rush hour Friday. A family of Canada geese not unlike the one pictured here had apparently just crossed the road. Golf Road in that area is a stretch of four-lane, divided highway with a speed limit of 45mph past an office park on one side and a forest preserve on the other.
The drama unfolded in the seconds it took me to approach and pass the geese. One of the babies had straggled or perhaps struggled at the curb and was run over by a passing car. The rest of the family was standing in the grass next to the curb. A couple of the babies stood at the edge and looked at the suddenly flattened corpse of their sibling. One adult goose pressed onward in the direction away from the road, with some of the goslings in tow. The other adult looked at the dead bird on the pavement with a sort of bewildered thrust of its head toward the flattened, lifeless form.
I didn't witness the death of the baby bird, but only this aftermath and, as I mentioned, in only a few seconds. But those few seconds are burned into my soul for the moment, and the sadness I felt for that adult goose — most likely the mother — as she looked on helplessly at one less chick in her brood.
°
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
A Big Little Mistree
Among the last of my remaining readers, does either of you know what kind of tree this is?
In the past three days I've had about five people ask me what kind of tree it is. WTF possesses them of the thought that I might know?! ... I guess it's the same thought that possesses me that you might know.
°
In the past three days I've had about five people ask me what kind of tree it is. WTF possesses them of the thought that I might know?! ... I guess it's the same thought that possesses me that you might know.
°
Monday, May 09, 2011
Free Ticket
A few weeks ago I received a request from the lady at the taxi company who coordinates the school driver service to pick up a kid. A good number of taxi drivers make their hay solely by driving kids to school in the morning and back home again in the afternoon as part of the service which is in place to help the schools get behaviorally challenged kids, or kids with other developmental challenges to school.
I picked up Belinda and drove her to a certain school in Schaumburg, Illinois. I had never been to this school before, so I needed to load its address into my GPS in order to find it. The GPS had me approach from the north and indicated to me that the school would be on my left. And it was. As soon as I saw the school, I began looking for the driveway entrance so I could pull in and drop her off at the curb near a door.
When I arrived at the entrance to the parking lot, I was confronted with two signs bracketing the entrance:
Click on any photo to biggysize it.
Stuck for what to do next, I sat for a moment. Then a large box truck came lumbering out of the parking lot and signaled the driver's intention to make a left turn onto the street I was on. As I was blocking his exit, and the passage of anyone who may have been behind me, I pulled over to the right. I had passed a crossing guard and a policeman who were standing beside the driveway, and I hoped to ask the policeman where I was supposed to drop off this special needs child. But, luckily for me, the policeman approached my car — and proceeded to write a ticket.
"You can't stop here." he said tersely.
I said, "I'm sorry. I was just trying--"
"I know you're sorry," he said, cutting me off, as he continued to take down my vehicle information.
He came around to the side of the car and noticed the girl in the back seat. "How old is she?"
"How the fuck would I know how old she is?!" It's what I wanted to say. My real answer was, "I don't know. I'm helping out the dispatcher by taking her here. I'm supposed to drop her at a door, but if I can't go in the parking lot, I don't know where I'm supposed to drop her off."
"You have to drop her outside the no stopping zone." He pointed ahead, and there I saw a sign made tiny by its distance from where I was illegally stopped.
"I can't just drop her off at the curb," I said. "I have to make sure she gets inside."
Then the cop showed some compassion. "I can take her in. I'm not a sworn officer. If I was a sworn officer I could cut you a break, but I can't cut you a break because I'm not a sworn officer."
Okay. I get it.
He handed me my ticket and took the frightened little girl by the hand and walked her to the school...I think. I never watched where he took her.
I fumed. I drove straight to the police station to dispute the citation, but when I got there I was told the hearing officer had just held hearings the night before, and then next hearing date was three weeks away. On May 9th. Today.
I drove back to the school and, parking outside the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone, I pulled out my camera, handy for me since I've been doing Phlog, and captured the neat little trap the village of Schaumburg has set up at this particular school.
SIGNS
There are signs clearly marking the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone. But they're on tall posts with a lot of inch-tall lettering on a foot-tall board that, at a distance of more than a few feet, you have to slow down just to read. And if you're trying to find the school using your GPS, and it tells you that the school is on the left side as you approach, and you're looking for the entrance to the parking lot, you're not going to see a stupid little sign to your right on a tall post with a foot-tall board with inch-high letters telling you that you can't stop in the zone.
Aside from the signs at the parking lot entrance, there's no indication of the restriction on using the parking lot to drop off or pick up children. If it's the first time you've ever come to the school, you don't know of the restriction until you're at the driveway, preparing to turn left, and then you're already stopped — INSIDE the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone you don't even know you're in — while you read the signs telling you that you can't drop off kids in the parking lot.
And then, while you're stressed with a kid you have no place to drop off and a box truck waiting to get out through the entrance you're blocking, the next sign marking the other boundary of the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone is far away beyond the capacity of your eyes to make out those tiny fucking letters!
Note the sign approximately 30
yards further away that you can
read clearly in comparison
to the one marking the zone
restriction in the foreground.
And that's what I told the hearing officer today, only without the profanity. Or the attitude. I gave him copies of the photos. He gave me "benefit of the doubt," and let me out of the ticket. The $40 stayed in my pocket!
°
I picked up Belinda and drove her to a certain school in Schaumburg, Illinois. I had never been to this school before, so I needed to load its address into my GPS in order to find it. The GPS had me approach from the north and indicated to me that the school would be on my left. And it was. As soon as I saw the school, I began looking for the driveway entrance so I could pull in and drop her off at the curb near a door.
When I arrived at the entrance to the parking lot, I was confronted with two signs bracketing the entrance:
Click on any photo to biggysize it.
Stuck for what to do next, I sat for a moment. Then a large box truck came lumbering out of the parking lot and signaled the driver's intention to make a left turn onto the street I was on. As I was blocking his exit, and the passage of anyone who may have been behind me, I pulled over to the right. I had passed a crossing guard and a policeman who were standing beside the driveway, and I hoped to ask the policeman where I was supposed to drop off this special needs child. But, luckily for me, the policeman approached my car — and proceeded to write a ticket.
"You can't stop here." he said tersely.
I said, "I'm sorry. I was just trying--"
"I know you're sorry," he said, cutting me off, as he continued to take down my vehicle information.
He came around to the side of the car and noticed the girl in the back seat. "How old is she?"
"How the fuck would I know how old she is?!" It's what I wanted to say. My real answer was, "I don't know. I'm helping out the dispatcher by taking her here. I'm supposed to drop her at a door, but if I can't go in the parking lot, I don't know where I'm supposed to drop her off."
"You have to drop her outside the no stopping zone." He pointed ahead, and there I saw a sign made tiny by its distance from where I was illegally stopped.
"I can't just drop her off at the curb," I said. "I have to make sure she gets inside."
Then the cop showed some compassion. "I can take her in. I'm not a sworn officer. If I was a sworn officer I could cut you a break, but I can't cut you a break because I'm not a sworn officer."
Okay. I get it.
He handed me my ticket and took the frightened little girl by the hand and walked her to the school...I think. I never watched where he took her.
I fumed. I drove straight to the police station to dispute the citation, but when I got there I was told the hearing officer had just held hearings the night before, and then next hearing date was three weeks away. On May 9th. Today.
I drove back to the school and, parking outside the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone, I pulled out my camera, handy for me since I've been doing Phlog, and captured the neat little trap the village of Schaumburg has set up at this particular school.
SIGNS
There are signs clearly marking the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone. But they're on tall posts with a lot of inch-tall lettering on a foot-tall board that, at a distance of more than a few feet, you have to slow down just to read. And if you're trying to find the school using your GPS, and it tells you that the school is on the left side as you approach, and you're looking for the entrance to the parking lot, you're not going to see a stupid little sign to your right on a tall post with a foot-tall board with inch-high letters telling you that you can't stop in the zone.
Aside from the signs at the parking lot entrance, there's no indication of the restriction on using the parking lot to drop off or pick up children. If it's the first time you've ever come to the school, you don't know of the restriction until you're at the driveway, preparing to turn left, and then you're already stopped — INSIDE the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone you don't even know you're in — while you read the signs telling you that you can't drop off kids in the parking lot.
And then, while you're stressed with a kid you have no place to drop off and a box truck waiting to get out through the entrance you're blocking, the next sign marking the other boundary of the "No Parking, Stopping, Standing" zone is far away beyond the capacity of your eyes to make out those tiny fucking letters!
Note the sign approximately 30
yards further away that you can
read clearly in comparison
to the one marking the zone
restriction in the foreground.
And that's what I told the hearing officer today, only without the profanity. Or the attitude. I gave him copies of the photos. He gave me "benefit of the doubt," and let me out of the ticket. The $40 stayed in my pocket!
°
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Reawakening
The silence is shattered by a loud thump, a squeaky grinding of small metal gears. Hinges creak, and a needle of light pierces the darkness. Gossamer veils of dust disturbed by the currents of air rent by the swinging door swirl and dance in the light as it swings by in lazy swaths.
Footsteps further invade, reducing the silence to momentary pauses between movements, between breaths of noise. Tentative, searching, the footsteps and the swinging shaft of light work in tandem. The illuminating beam alternates between sweeping arcs and focused aim as the eyes of its holder find things of interest in its gaze.
"Here we go," a lone, lonely voice mutters, its vibrations muted by the darkness and dust. "This could be it."
The brilliant shaft lands upon a jumbled pile of words. Footsteps become determined as the intruder focuses his attention on the words.
"Uh huh!" he mutters. He trains the light on trove he has found.
The words make no sense as they are. It is just a pile of words — thoughts, mostly; unrelated ideas brought up by circumstance, by meditation, or by random chance, but left here in hopes of being used some day, if their father ever returned.
The light reflects brightly off of something at the bottom of the pile. The holder of the light trains his tool and his eyes on the glinting thing: the edge of a tray or some other sort of receptacle. A hand gently pushes the words to one side revealing a set of dust-covered letters set in place by time, by some long-forgotten promise to give these few letters meaning, to give them audience.
"YES!" the voice pants, certainty resonating. A hand reaches down. Fingers touch tentatively the dust-covered letters. Then, with the reverence of a seasoned archaeologist, the hand brushes the dust from the letters and reveals them to the light, to his eyes:
FARRAGO!
Jubilation erupts from his vocal chords. At last, at LAST!
Without warning, the room is suddenly awash with a light without source, as though this discovery had awakened Light and now Light was aware its father had returned. He takes in his surroundings. What he had remembered as a tiny closet with a few interesting artifacts is in reality a vast, cavernous warehouse full of information, of intense thought, of wild imaginings, of whim, whimsy, passion and pain, and he knows that it is his renewed task to share as much of this information as he can with the world.
"Well," he says to himself. "Time to get to work... but maybe a nap first."
°
Footsteps further invade, reducing the silence to momentary pauses between movements, between breaths of noise. Tentative, searching, the footsteps and the swinging shaft of light work in tandem. The illuminating beam alternates between sweeping arcs and focused aim as the eyes of its holder find things of interest in its gaze.
"Here we go," a lone, lonely voice mutters, its vibrations muted by the darkness and dust. "This could be it."
The brilliant shaft lands upon a jumbled pile of words. Footsteps become determined as the intruder focuses his attention on the words.
"Uh huh!" he mutters. He trains the light on trove he has found.
The words make no sense as they are. It is just a pile of words — thoughts, mostly; unrelated ideas brought up by circumstance, by meditation, or by random chance, but left here in hopes of being used some day, if their father ever returned.
The light reflects brightly off of something at the bottom of the pile. The holder of the light trains his tool and his eyes on the glinting thing: the edge of a tray or some other sort of receptacle. A hand gently pushes the words to one side revealing a set of dust-covered letters set in place by time, by some long-forgotten promise to give these few letters meaning, to give them audience.
"YES!" the voice pants, certainty resonating. A hand reaches down. Fingers touch tentatively the dust-covered letters. Then, with the reverence of a seasoned archaeologist, the hand brushes the dust from the letters and reveals them to the light, to his eyes:
FARRAGO!
Jubilation erupts from his vocal chords. At last, at LAST!
Without warning, the room is suddenly awash with a light without source, as though this discovery had awakened Light and now Light was aware its father had returned. He takes in his surroundings. What he had remembered as a tiny closet with a few interesting artifacts is in reality a vast, cavernous warehouse full of information, of intense thought, of wild imaginings, of whim, whimsy, passion and pain, and he knows that it is his renewed task to share as much of this information as he can with the world.
"Well," he says to himself. "Time to get to work... but maybe a nap first."
°
Monday, January 17, 2011
Italic
When you boil it all down, I guess I’m a pretty poor excuse for an Italian. I’m only half-Italian, really, as my mother was a Euro-mutt: half German, and the other half English and Irish. The ethnicity we most identified with as a family was Italian, though, and as I look at and listen to the other Italian “kids” I know, my life was comparatively devoid of Italian customs and traditions.
I think I know the reason for this. When my father’s parents came over from Italy — on their respective boats, and about fifteen years apart by my best guess — Italians were the “dirty” immigrants washing ashore in waves and glutting the job lines, relegated to the filthiest, least glamorous, lowest-paying jobs to be had, just so they could feed their families and establish a foothold in their new world.
And I think that sensitivity was bred into my father and his siblings, because to a person, none of my uncles or my aunt seemed to be very “Italian.” I believe they each — either by instruction, or by their own initiative — abandoned their Italian identities and clung to everything “American” that they could grab. They spoke English to each other, though they all could speak in their parents’ Abruzzese dialect. They cast off most of the old customs and traditions. They adopted the American versions of their Italian names — well... all except for Uncle Guido — Maria was Mary; Giovanni was John; Francesco was Frank; there was the stalwart Guido; Remo was Ray; Giuseppe was Joe, though everyone has called him Chooch forever. My father is the mystery. The handwritten name on his birth certificate is indecipherable. It’s either Vincurzio or Vincurzino, but certainly not Vincenzo, though he was James Vincent — Jimmy to his friends and family — all his life.
Throughout my life, our “Italian-ness” was more of a distant background than a foundation. Just about the only things Italian that my family honored was that we were all baptized and raised Roman Catholic, and Italian food. At the holidays. Only. Made by my non-Italian mother!
Most of the other Italian customs and traditions I knew of were what I heard from other Italian kids at school and around the neighborhood, the right-off-the-boat (plane, really, I guess) Italian family that lived across the street and a few doors down from us and Italians whose homes I visited with my father when he dragged me along on his handyman or traveling barber errands.
There was always a smell in these homes, an aroma not of cooking, but yet the suggestion of food. I never smelled this aroma in my own home, but it seemed so pervasive to me in these other Italian homes that I identified it as the “Italian smell.”
I smelled it again today when I picked up an elderly couple in my taxi. The gentleman apparently wasn’t feeling too well, and they were on their way to the emergency room at the local hospital. The moment their garage door opened (yes, the garage), that aroma reached my nose before the sound of the woman’s voice reached my ears, and even had I not already seen their name on the dispatch order, I could have told you their ethnicity.
That aroma — which now as an adult I can identify — is anise. The couple’s name? Mattiuzzi.
With that first breath, I was once again briefly in every Italian home I have ever visited since I was a kid.
But not my own.
°
I think I know the reason for this. When my father’s parents came over from Italy — on their respective boats, and about fifteen years apart by my best guess — Italians were the “dirty” immigrants washing ashore in waves and glutting the job lines, relegated to the filthiest, least glamorous, lowest-paying jobs to be had, just so they could feed their families and establish a foothold in their new world.
And I think that sensitivity was bred into my father and his siblings, because to a person, none of my uncles or my aunt seemed to be very “Italian.” I believe they each — either by instruction, or by their own initiative — abandoned their Italian identities and clung to everything “American” that they could grab. They spoke English to each other, though they all could speak in their parents’ Abruzzese dialect. They cast off most of the old customs and traditions. They adopted the American versions of their Italian names — well... all except for Uncle Guido — Maria was Mary; Giovanni was John; Francesco was Frank; there was the stalwart Guido; Remo was Ray; Giuseppe was Joe, though everyone has called him Chooch forever. My father is the mystery. The handwritten name on his birth certificate is indecipherable. It’s either Vincurzio or Vincurzino, but certainly not Vincenzo, though he was James Vincent — Jimmy to his friends and family — all his life.
Throughout my life, our “Italian-ness” was more of a distant background than a foundation. Just about the only things Italian that my family honored was that we were all baptized and raised Roman Catholic, and Italian food. At the holidays. Only. Made by my non-Italian mother!
Most of the other Italian customs and traditions I knew of were what I heard from other Italian kids at school and around the neighborhood, the right-off-the-boat (plane, really, I guess) Italian family that lived across the street and a few doors down from us and Italians whose homes I visited with my father when he dragged me along on his handyman or traveling barber errands.
There was always a smell in these homes, an aroma not of cooking, but yet the suggestion of food. I never smelled this aroma in my own home, but it seemed so pervasive to me in these other Italian homes that I identified it as the “Italian smell.”
I smelled it again today when I picked up an elderly couple in my taxi. The gentleman apparently wasn’t feeling too well, and they were on their way to the emergency room at the local hospital. The moment their garage door opened (yes, the garage), that aroma reached my nose before the sound of the woman’s voice reached my ears, and even had I not already seen their name on the dispatch order, I could have told you their ethnicity.
That aroma — which now as an adult I can identify — is anise. The couple’s name? Mattiuzzi.
With that first breath, I was once again briefly in every Italian home I have ever visited since I was a kid.
But not my own.
°
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Karmagical
Lately I have been working straight days. Well, "day" is a relative term, as I still start at 3:30 a.m. — in darkness — and quit around 6:00 p.m. — in darkness. I still work just about every day, so, lately, on Saturdays I "sleep in" until 5:00 a.m. or so, and plan usually to work until 5:00 or 6:00 p.m.
It was a pretty sleepy Saturday morning — yesterday — as I headed out to Arlington Heights, my usual cruising grounds in the taxi. It was seven o'clock. I had just started; the cabin of the car was still cold. A zone number popped up on the dispatch computer screen indicating an open fare. It was still a good ten minutes away from me, so I left it alone, but it stayed up there. Indeed, a sleepy morning...no other taxis out yet, or they all worked overnight. So I claimed the fare.
It was just an address, with the message "church, PU main entrance." When I arrived it became clear that the church was also a part-time homeless shelter, which, I learned moments later, provides a hot evening meal, a warm place to sleep and a simple breakfast to those it shelters from the cold.
I had picked up the guy about six to eight weeks before from another church in the area. He looks to be about mid-forties to mid-fifties — the gruff, weathered skin of his face makes it difficult to judge — white, with longish, straggly hair and a light, scruffy beard, and somewhat portly, though it could just be layer upon layer of clothing to keep him warm. What had struck me then was that he wore on his feet a pair of open shoes — open like sandals, but in a shoe shape with a mouth that snugged around his ankles — over white socks. He wore the same shoes Saturday. He loaded a couple of plastic shopping bags into the trunk of my taxi, along with his backpack. He directed me to the Mt. Prospect train station, and along the way I asked him if the shelter fed him. He spoke appreciatively of the hot meal they provided the night before. I asked him about breakfast, and he said that sometimes they provide a hot meal, but it's usually bagels and pastries and coffee and juice. So I made up my mind.
When we arrived at the train station he reached into his pocket to pay the $6.00 fare. I turned to him and said, "Keep it."
Before I could say more, he looked at me with a startled expression. "Huh?"
"Keep it," I said. "Make sure you get something to eat today."
He was very grateful, repeating several times, "Thank you very much!" As he began securing his plastic bags to his bicycle, which he had left locked up at the train station, he said to me, "Thank you very much! Have a good day!"
It seemed an odd thing to say to me as, I thought, there's little that could happen to me that would make the coming day worse than the one coming to you, sir, as you tool around on your bicycle looking for places to stay warm — and alive. The thought came out of my mouth as, "You have a good day!"
And I went on about my business.
It was very quiet the rest of the morning, but then things started to pick up around eleven o'clock. By one o'clock in the afternoon it was pretty much non-stop, with very little time to nap, or play on Facebook at the newly-discovered (by me) WiFi hotspot from the Holiday Inn Express across Arlington Heights Road from one of our posts.
By four o'clock, I was contemplating calling it a day, as, for a Saturday day shift I hadn't done too badly. But I chastised myself for being lazy, and decided to stick it out for at least the twelve hours I planned to work.
A couple of fares later it was around six o'clock in the evening. Usually, when I set a quitting time, I'll start about an hour before that time, working my way west, toward my gas station of choice, near my home, with the dispatch computer still available to receive fares. I call it "trolling," as though I'm a fishing boat moving while dragging a line in the water for whatever I can catch. At 6:15, when I was about five minutes from the gas station (where I would have then booked out of the dispatch system), I received a fare to pick up not five minutes from my location, but to the south.
I picked up a guy who looked to be in his fifties, but with long hair and a kind of stoner look about him — and he reeked of reefer smoke. He had me take him to a 7-Eleven store about a mile and a half from his house where he picked up a couple bottles of wine, and then had me take him back home.
On the way back to his house I saw on the dispatch computer a fare open up in the zone where I live. I figured it was probably a local, and that would be just fine. I was ready to go home. As we approached the guy's home I notified via the dispatch computer that I was just about to clear a fare, and that I would like to take that open fare.
As soon as I dropped the stoner dude off and booked back in to the dispatch system, my computer sounded with the fare I had requested, and I accepted it. But it was not a local. It was to take 4 people from Hoffman Estates to Northbrook! Twenty-two miles!
It was a Polish family heading to some party — probably a wedding reception — and they were very nice. Not great tippers, but, what the hell! The fare came out to $62.20! The dad paid with a credit card, and told me to make the total out to $65, but I goofed on the math and the card was run for $66. I pointed out my mistake and offered to give him a dollar back out of my pocket, but he said, "No. Iss okay!" and signed the slip. My day went from a respectable gross of $168 to a quite admirable $234!
It didn't occur to me until I was all the way back home and getting gas that I had started the day by giving away a paltry six dollars to a guy I figured needed to keep it in his pocket way more than I needed to get it into mine. I had taken the last fare on a whim because it was close to home; I was otherwise just headed home.
In telling others about this, I jokingly mentioned Karma, but I don't really believe in that. Another quoted scripture to me in an attempt to explain it, but if you've read here long enough, you know I don't believe that. I could use the $6 charity/$66 fare - 666 correlation to undo her explanation — and perhaps frighten her, but I don't believe that either!
It's just a coincidence, and the rare occurrence of a Good Day for Tony!
°
It was a pretty sleepy Saturday morning — yesterday — as I headed out to Arlington Heights, my usual cruising grounds in the taxi. It was seven o'clock. I had just started; the cabin of the car was still cold. A zone number popped up on the dispatch computer screen indicating an open fare. It was still a good ten minutes away from me, so I left it alone, but it stayed up there. Indeed, a sleepy morning...no other taxis out yet, or they all worked overnight. So I claimed the fare.
It was just an address, with the message "church, PU main entrance." When I arrived it became clear that the church was also a part-time homeless shelter, which, I learned moments later, provides a hot evening meal, a warm place to sleep and a simple breakfast to those it shelters from the cold.
I had picked up the guy about six to eight weeks before from another church in the area. He looks to be about mid-forties to mid-fifties — the gruff, weathered skin of his face makes it difficult to judge — white, with longish, straggly hair and a light, scruffy beard, and somewhat portly, though it could just be layer upon layer of clothing to keep him warm. What had struck me then was that he wore on his feet a pair of open shoes — open like sandals, but in a shoe shape with a mouth that snugged around his ankles — over white socks. He wore the same shoes Saturday. He loaded a couple of plastic shopping bags into the trunk of my taxi, along with his backpack. He directed me to the Mt. Prospect train station, and along the way I asked him if the shelter fed him. He spoke appreciatively of the hot meal they provided the night before. I asked him about breakfast, and he said that sometimes they provide a hot meal, but it's usually bagels and pastries and coffee and juice. So I made up my mind.
When we arrived at the train station he reached into his pocket to pay the $6.00 fare. I turned to him and said, "Keep it."
Before I could say more, he looked at me with a startled expression. "Huh?"
"Keep it," I said. "Make sure you get something to eat today."
He was very grateful, repeating several times, "Thank you very much!" As he began securing his plastic bags to his bicycle, which he had left locked up at the train station, he said to me, "Thank you very much! Have a good day!"
It seemed an odd thing to say to me as, I thought, there's little that could happen to me that would make the coming day worse than the one coming to you, sir, as you tool around on your bicycle looking for places to stay warm — and alive. The thought came out of my mouth as, "You have a good day!"
And I went on about my business.
It was very quiet the rest of the morning, but then things started to pick up around eleven o'clock. By one o'clock in the afternoon it was pretty much non-stop, with very little time to nap, or play on Facebook at the newly-discovered (by me) WiFi hotspot from the Holiday Inn Express across Arlington Heights Road from one of our posts.
By four o'clock, I was contemplating calling it a day, as, for a Saturday day shift I hadn't done too badly. But I chastised myself for being lazy, and decided to stick it out for at least the twelve hours I planned to work.
A couple of fares later it was around six o'clock in the evening. Usually, when I set a quitting time, I'll start about an hour before that time, working my way west, toward my gas station of choice, near my home, with the dispatch computer still available to receive fares. I call it "trolling," as though I'm a fishing boat moving while dragging a line in the water for whatever I can catch. At 6:15, when I was about five minutes from the gas station (where I would have then booked out of the dispatch system), I received a fare to pick up not five minutes from my location, but to the south.
I picked up a guy who looked to be in his fifties, but with long hair and a kind of stoner look about him — and he reeked of reefer smoke. He had me take him to a 7-Eleven store about a mile and a half from his house where he picked up a couple bottles of wine, and then had me take him back home.
On the way back to his house I saw on the dispatch computer a fare open up in the zone where I live. I figured it was probably a local, and that would be just fine. I was ready to go home. As we approached the guy's home I notified via the dispatch computer that I was just about to clear a fare, and that I would like to take that open fare.
As soon as I dropped the stoner dude off and booked back in to the dispatch system, my computer sounded with the fare I had requested, and I accepted it. But it was not a local. It was to take 4 people from Hoffman Estates to Northbrook! Twenty-two miles!
It was a Polish family heading to some party — probably a wedding reception — and they were very nice. Not great tippers, but, what the hell! The fare came out to $62.20! The dad paid with a credit card, and told me to make the total out to $65, but I goofed on the math and the card was run for $66. I pointed out my mistake and offered to give him a dollar back out of my pocket, but he said, "No. Iss okay!" and signed the slip. My day went from a respectable gross of $168 to a quite admirable $234!
It didn't occur to me until I was all the way back home and getting gas that I had started the day by giving away a paltry six dollars to a guy I figured needed to keep it in his pocket way more than I needed to get it into mine. I had taken the last fare on a whim because it was close to home; I was otherwise just headed home.
In telling others about this, I jokingly mentioned Karma, but I don't really believe in that. Another quoted scripture to me in an attempt to explain it, but if you've read here long enough, you know I don't believe that. I could use the $6 charity/$66 fare - 666 correlation to undo her explanation — and perhaps frighten her, but I don't believe that either!
It's just a coincidence, and the rare occurrence of a Good Day for Tony!
°
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)