Jump In A Cab, Man
Sep 26th, 2007 by Donagh
Taxi drivers get a lot of stick, mainly because they’ve a tendency to pontificate about things that they don’t fully understand yet still try to make out that they are the ‘world’s foremost authority’, to quote Tony Soprano. They’re a bit like Desmond Fennell actually.
Whenever I find myself in a taxi with an opinioned driver I always have to hold my tongue because, inevitably, my political opinion is going to be diametrically opposed to theirs. It seems wise not to get into a heated conversation with someone when you’re effectively trapped in their car till you get to where you have to go. Also, if you piss them off with your namby-pamby views on the ‘soaring’ crime-rate there’s the danger that they’ll take the roundabout route to get there.
But I also remember thoroughly enjoying some conversations with taxi-drivers. All such occasions coincide with the time I had to travel back and forth to The Coombe Maternity hospital when our first child was born. I don’t drive so there were quite a few chats as I travelled back and forth in the four days my wife stayed in hospital. The conversation inevitably turned to being a parent for the first time as many of the drivers were father and grandfather (taxi-driving is still a male dominated profession).
Being very new to fatherhood I had only the anticipation of what it would be like, but their insights and pleasure in remembering what it was like when their own children were born made that anticipation more acute and exciting.
So, despite their bad press and my own past experience, I still have a benevolent opinion about the insights that some taxi-drivers can provide in particular circumstances.
I was reminded of this last night while reading a recent piece in the New Yorker by George Packer about a visit he made twenty years ago to Burma, which is now known as Myanmar.
“The taxi-driver, who took me around Rangoon for a few days before I headed north to Mandalay and Bagan, let me know in a hundred subtle ways—sometimes it was just an exchange of looks—that Burma’s people might be cut off from the world, but they were not ignorant. They knew well enough that they lived in poverty, under a brutal regime, while their Asian neighbors were entering the modern world. Still, they seemed—like repressed people everywhere—doomed to endure their lot forever.”
Curiously, this reminded me of another story I read on Eric Umansky’s site the other day. Eric is from New York, but is studying in Syria at the moment. Although only beginning to learn Arabic, Eric is starting to feel confident enough to engage in short conversations with taxi drivers:
“Today on my way to class, the driver hit me with the usual list of questions: Where are you from? What city? And then,”Do you love Osama Bin Laden?”
I had heard something along these lines once before. And this time I decided to use my pidgin Arabic.
“No,” I said. “Do you?”
“Oh, no no no,” he responded quickly. “If I did, they would…” and here he put his hand together as if they were cuffed.
A few minutes later and we were at my stop. I paid him the going rate for the 15 minute ride–about one dollar. “Ahla u sahlan,” he called out. “Welcome!””
- Incidentally, Eric also has a very interesting story about the first incident of cholera to hit Baghdad (reported by the BBC yesterday) and how the spread of the disease is made more prevalent by a clampdown on the import of chlorine, because it was discovered that the chemical has been used in roadside bombs, although ineffectively -
Finally, maybe that Burmese taxi-driver was wrong and they won’t have to endure their lot forever. Now at least with the help of the Web, we can see more of what is going on there.
A 17 year-old Burmese YouTube subscriber called JUVENILEBIRDS has some of the latest footage of events as they unfold.
New Yorker link via Blood and Treasure
Check out this article on my blog. It’s a preview on the upcoming match between Argentina and Ireland. And don’t forget to leave your comments as well.
http://mundoalbiceleste.blogspot.com/2007/09/pumasireland-rivalry-resume.html
Jesus Christ. Not only spam, but rugby spam. Fuck’s sake.
Yea, I thought about deleting it on the grounds of it being Rugby spam, but then its spam that’s at least relevent to Ireland, and not penis enlargement or viagra (although I know those two spam topics might be of interest to those who follow Rugby
)
The seems no limit to the extraordinary gift of taxi drivers for telling tales. Last night I got a cab in Dublin. He was a likeable enough guy. Working class background. Talked about his passion for betting. Loved a certain boozer where he knew all the lads. Would go there to watch a match. Spent a good while as a barman himself before taking to the taxi trade. So he talked about how he makes a decent living from it. But he said there’s a down side : picking up drunks or worse still thugs, late at night. He said that two weeks ago he picked up a guy at 4am who was going to Finglas. Right away he knew it was a thug: the passenger was drunk and or doped off his face, and was visibly a hard nut, agressive and threatening. The taximan said he knew he was in for trouble. As he pulled into some street in the Finglas area the guy in the pack said he was going to take the car. “give me your keys, I’m taking your car”. He threatened the taximan that he would get his buddies to shoot him if we wouldn’t hand over the car. The taxi said he slowed up and stopped quickly. He leaped from the car as quick as he could grabbing the claw hammer from the pocket in the door. (He pulled out the hammer and showed me). He swung the back door open and pulled his passenger out. he admitted the passenger hadn’t the fastest reaction in the world. And then he literally hammered him. He pasted him with blows of the hammer to the arms and legs.
As he said this he was still shaking the hammer in his right hand. The taximan hadn’t raised his tone, he was merely recounting the story - just to clarify, in case you think he was giving me a little message!
He could have been bullshiting. This might have been macho crap. But he did seem genuine and said he went home shaking afterwards and that he didn’t go out for a couple of nights.
I do feel sorry for drivers who have to put up with drunkeness and worse still personal threats to their safety. Still, this I thought was extraordinary.
It is extraordinary.
If I get a taxi during the day - rare enough - the taxi driver will often be one of those who earns enough doing day runs to avoid working at night. They’ll tell you that working at night is not worth the hassle. On a couple of occasions taxi drivers have explained to me that they’re only starting out and that they rent the car and license from another driver, often from one of those drivers who only do day runs.
Still I think if you’re going to be a taxi-driver who continues to work at night, you’d have to be a bit of a hard-nut.
Great story.