August 27th, 2008
“Son of a bitch, you’re running up the meter!”27 comments
August 20th, 2008
"Hey bro, remember me? You wrote that story about me in the paper."3 comments
August 13th, 2008
“It’s the Californians, man, the Californians are the worst.”15 comments
August 6th, 2008
The middle-aged man I picked up at Vendetta is in a hyperactively verbose lather ...0 comments
July 23rd, 2008
When I step into the obese old woman's apartment5 comments
July 16th, 2008
The obese old woman at Fred Meyer has a bad hip and a wheelchair...8 comments
July 9th, 2008
“...I need to take a shower first and wash all of this blood off.”6 comments
July 2nd, 2008
“So I’ve got these two women in the back of my cab who just refuse to get out...”8 comments
June 25th, 2008
“My friend’s getting divorced, and he’s really drunk,” says the bartender...8 comments
June 18th, 2008
There’s nothing like a good Friday night, and I’m referring to the money.3 comments
[March 30th, 2005] Tonight I am not thinking of the long hours, the crazy drunks, the aching back-for tonight I have a cab with a CD player, sadly a rare thing for me as a part-time driver. The chance to liven up my 12 hours in this rolling metal box with some good music will make up for any number of assholes I might pick up.
But the assholes never materialize. The passengers follow each other like songs on a great mix tape.
I pick up some hipsters outside Beulahland. They say, "Cool, we've never had a cab driver listening to Tom Waits before!" We sing our way across the river.
Later, it's Mark Lanegan playing when a guy gets in: "Oh, man, this guy is awesome. Did you see him when he played at the Doug Fir?"
"Indeed I did," I reply. "I liked the first show so much that I parked the cab out front on the second night, went in for the show, and came back out to finish my shift." Another excellent fare.
R.E.M. inspires a somewhat heated discussion about whether they are still any good. I vote yes, whereas he thinks they started to suck when they signed to Warner Bros. He's wrong. Later, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy starts a spirited argument about whether all that's great about hip-hop died around 1994.
Finally, the hour gets late, and now it's Elliott Smith. My last fare gets in and says, "God, wasn't that sad, when that happened?"
"Yeah, I cried and cried."
"I did too."
Then we were both very quiet, just listening.
Story continues below
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