News: Kidneys, love and punching

Okay, so I'm geographically off topic today, but everyone seemed to love this story (hence the e-mail flurry), so I'm going with it.

The AP reported that in Arizona, a taxi driver offered to donate his kidney to a woman he'd been driving to dialysis for a month. Is it love? Possibly. Coincidentally, the guy's kidney is an actual match. And his employers promised to pay him for his month+ recovery time.

The story's so sick-sweet it can almost make you believe in humanity again.

To compliment the story, I wanted to post a picture of a real kidney, but got squeamish after checking a few out. Never was good with blood and guts. Instead, this picture indicates where you should aim if you intend to punch someone in the kidneys. Which somehow seems more New York.

It's raining today, and I'm cynical. Does it show?

The Dutch Heart Taxis

Dutch people love New York. They can't help it. Not counting the Native Americans, and then possibly the Vikings, they claimed New York first. We were almost knickerbocker-wearing New Amsterdamers, after all.

I have found the perfect gift for the Dutch-speaking, New York-obsessed folk in your life. All 3 of them, in my case.

Plates. Delft pottery plates in the signature blue and white colors. (fyi - this type of pottery originated near the Dutch town of Delft.) In the plates' center is a graphic of a taxi; illegible graffiti tags circle the edge.

The plates are made by design duo Lovegrove & Repucci, both sporting excellent Dutch (and by Dutch, I mean English and Italian-sounding) names.

Thanks to native Amsterdammian Els for serving me pasta salad on this plate. Zeer chique.

Taxicab Confessions victim

I was at a birthday party at the W Hotel - I know, swanky! - and I met a woman who only the day before was filmed for the TV show Taxicab Confessions.

It’ll be a great show. How do I know this? Because the woman has basically zero recollection of what she or her boyfriend dished about. But she does remember that 1) she was plowed, 2) he was loaded, and 3) they really enjoyed their dinner (read: liquor) at STK.

Not that any of this kept her from signing the release waver. Just one more reason why I love people with little inhibition.

What she did notice: her cabbie drove really slowly. So people, if you’re in a cab abiding by traffic laws, be on the look-out. They may be taping. You could be next.

Update 2: Me driving a cab

Victory! I finally got Raja, the cabbie willing to let me drive his taxi, on the phone. He's currently in Richmond, but we're going to set something up when he's back.

The streets of NYC will never be the same. More to come ...

Crazy-old violin returned to flighty musician

Thanks to the tracking/stalker-like power of cabs' GPS, a $500,000, 184-year old violin was returned to its owner.

(FYI - When this violin was built, it took two days to travel from NYC to Boston via Stagecoach. Bet that was comfortable. The rest of the US was busy executing Indians.)

As that violin is worth more than my life, I can't imagine how I'd feel if I'd had one to many to drinks and left it in a cab. Not that the violin's owner, 22-year-old Korean virtuoso Hanh-Bin, did that. But I might. Then I'd freak out and cry.

But Hanh-Bin had the presence of mind to call the taxi authorities and the cops, and the cab's dispatcher tracked it down in no time via the GPS -- it was still in the trunk of the cab Dalbir Singh had driven home to NJ, the New York Post reported.

The couple was happily reunited.

Above is a picture of an 18th century violin which looks suspiciously like a modern-day violin. More impressive is Hanh-Bin's mohawk and eyeliner.

News: Brox livery driver killed

It's something I hoped to never blog about, but the news is important. Earlier today, a gunman killed a Bronx livery driver in an apparent attempted robbery.

Many people don't realize this, but taxi and limo drivers are terrified of passengers robbing them. These drivers are inherently vulnerable, as they carry wads of cash and have their back to their passengers.

According to the Newsday article, Amadou Ndiaye, a 46-year-old immigrant from Senegal, was shot in the chest. Because the poor man was unlicensed, he didn't have the protection licensed drivers have -- a camera in the car for livery drivers, or a partition for taxi drivers. He also picked up street fairs, something the limo drivers I spoke with refuse to do. It's too dangerous, they say. Instead, they pick up radio hails, as their dispatcher has the phone number and address of the potential passenger. The traceability makes everyone safer.

The gunman hasn't yet been caught, according to Newsday.

Update 1: Me driving a cab

I know you're just dying to hear about my adventures driving a cab, but you'll have to hold your horses.

I keep calling Raja -- the über generous cabbie willing to risk his own safety by letting me behind the wheel -- but there's no answer and no voicemail to leave a message on.

I'll continue calling, but the way I see it, it's only a matter of time before he blocks my number, thinking I'm some crazy stalker. Which may, in fact, be the case.

Story: More Androgynous than Bowie

An acquaintance's story. Note: not her real name.

Late one Saturday night, Alexandra Belknap* and her two best friends flagged down a cab just north of Union Square. They were 19 and going to meet more friends at a Lower East Side bar.

Loud and tipsy, the three girls giggled and gossiped about guys they hoped to run into. They were in a party mood. And they needed music.

“Someone has to ask our cabbie to turn the radio on,” one of Alex's friends said.

“You do it!”

“Alex can do it!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it.” Alex peered through the plexiglass divider. She gasped and leaned back in her seat, eyes wide, giggling.

“Oh my God!” She whispered. “He looks like Pat!”

Her friends glanced through the window. It was true. He had the same unflattering short curly hair, big glasses, and nebulous shape made famous by the unattractively androgynous Saturday Night Live character. He even wore the same type of uncomfortably tight button-down shirt.

Alex composed herself.

“Sir?” she said through the window. “Sir, could we please turn on the radio? Sir, to 104.3?”

The driver stared ahead, saying nothing.

“Sir?” Alex said, louder this time. She tried to ignore her friends who were giggling and making faces at her. “Could be please turn the radio on?”

Without turning to face her, the driver angrily shot back, “It’s not sir, it’s ma’am!”

Pat indeed.

News! Me driving a cab. No joke.

People! Do I have news for you. Or, rather, for me. For those of you who don't know, one of my all-time goals has been to drive a New York yellow cab. Well thanks to my friend Corinne, this goal is one step closer to being realized.

Last night, Corinne rode home in a taxi driven by Raja -- a friendly guy who's worked as a cabbie since the 80s. She told him about my goal, and he said he was game to let me drive his cab.

Let me repeat. He's game to let me drive! Oh yeah.

And to those of you who no longer feel safe knowing I'll be behind the wheel of a careening canary yellow sedan? Eat my exhaust.

Trust me when I say I'll keep you posted.

Hydration and hot dogs

I bought a hotdog from the street vendor. It was one of those days when the whole city breaks out its sunglasses and is in a good mood. The street vendor noticed me walking towards him and called out, “Hey baby.” He was pretty hot, until I noticed his yellow teeth. We chatted while he fixed my dog up with onions and ketchup. I handed him $2 but he smiled and said, “For you, baby, only $1.” Oh yeah.

Just then, a beat-up white van pulled up to the curb, the driver’s arm hanging out the window with $2 clenched in his hand. “Hey, give me a water,” he yelled. The vendor walked to the driver, gave him a bottle of water, and when the light chanced the driver peeled out.

And I thought, huh, this must be how taxi drivers get hydrated. No drive throughs in NYC, people. And no parking spaces to leave the cab while you jet into a deli.

Ads on Taxis

All taxis have ads on top. Today I saw cab with an ad for Brüno, starring sexy Sacha Baron Cohen as a gay Austrian in hot pants. Another cab had an add for a strip joint -- Scores maybe? Or did Scores close in NYC?

I digress. My point is that, since 90% of cabbies are foreign-born and with more than 50% from Muslim countries, maybe they'd prefer to advertise something less racy? (See the above dull airline ad).

Or maybe they're looking for their own Schniedelmeister.

Colombo, Colombia and a dead pigeon

Meet Colombo. He’s from Colombia and drove me to the airport on July 4th.

It was 7:30 a.m. and I was Colombo’s last fare of the night. He had plans to celebrate the 4th by going home, spending time with his family and then hitting a Colombian restaurant in Queens.

Then we hit a pigeon. Colombo felt bad. He had even slowed as he neared the flock, just hanging out in the street. At some point they generally fly away. This time they didn’t.

Dumb bird.


It was like hitting a little bump in the road. A gentle thump thump.

After lamenting the dead bird, he then told me he expected a crazy night of driving. Everyone, after all, came to the East River to see the fireworks exploding over lower Manhattan.

Then we talked about Colombia. “It’s much safer there now,” he said. “Now you can drive across the country. Before you couldn’t. Before were kidnappings.”

He grew up in central Colombia near farmland, but finds Medellin beautiful. Also, he raved about coastal Colombia, like Cartagena, and the nearby islands. I told him I’ve never been to Colombia, and he said I should go and experience its beauty.

A hold-up, hearing problems

We were in a cab, and the driver, Ullah, was telling us a story. The story exploded out of his mouth in bursts.

I couldn’t catch all the details. These factors worked against me:

1) He had a heavy accent and spoke broken English
2) He spoke rapidly
3) The closed partition muffled his voice
4) Wind rushing through the open passenger seat window was noisy
5) I had a sexy Frenchman in the backseat with me, and he was, needless to say, distracting

But here’s the gist of the story: Ullah pulls up to the curb to let some guys out of the cab. After getting out, one of the men walks up to his window. Ullah sees him reaching for something and cranks up the window. The guy pulls out a gun. The window’s up. The guy holds the gun to the glass, pointed at Ullah’s head. Yells at at him. Wants cash.

Ullah floors it. Escapes unharmed. Cash intact.

The lesson? “I never put the car in park. You never put it in park,” he said. I buy it, all the way.

Photo: both the Frenchman and Ullah have dark eyes, like these.

Mali vs. Toledo Ohio

My cabbie last night was born and raised in Mali. Here’s our conversation:

Me: What’s the most interesting thing that happened in your cab? Good or bad.

Him: One time a couple had sex.

Me: Did it last a long time?

Him: I drove them to Queens.

(aka, yes)

We got to chatting about hometowns. He’s been in the US for 30 years, and got his green card five years ago. He goes back to Mali every summer. It’s hot there. You know, the Sahara and all.

I told him I was going back to my hometown – Toledo, Ohio -- for a month this summer. Turns out, he’s been there. Insanity. We talked snow. Sadly, I was running late for a yoga class and had to jump out of the cab before I could learn more.

Pics of Mali vs. Toledo above.

New York Times Blogging Taxis

The New York Times saw the light, and journalist Peter Khoury blogged about taxi driver experiences. Not a bad idea, if I say so myself. Check them out.