THE INTIMATE MUSINGS OF A NEW YORK CITY TAXI DRIVER

by Marc E Marc

1.
The taxi cab is a 4 wheeled umbrella in the rain.

photo by pikadilly via flickrIt is a park bench for the tired.

A place to make out or have sex.

Spot to listen to your ipod.

Dining room or rolling restaurant.

A getaway car from unpleasent situations or relationships.

Automotive chat room.

Sales office to take clients for the big or small deal.

Designated drunk tank.

Confessional.



2.

A decent taxi driver wears many hats and fullfills multiple functions.

It’s a unique roll.

He is a . . .

performance artist,
trained seal,
restaurant theater & movie critic,
tour guide,
comedian,
therapist,
philosopher king,
philanthropist,
drug runner,
real estate expert,
talking head,
consultant,
guru,
teacher,
mentor,
advisor,
counselor,

as well as your

best friend or worst enemy.

the nicest guy or the biggest asshole you will meet all day with the possible exception of your co-workers, boss or SO (significant other).

Of course, he can just be perceived as the interruption to someone’s very unimportant cell phone conversation or text messaging and just be ignored.

Which sometimes works out well for all.


3.
i just discovered or rediscovered “the shuffle” feature on my itunes program for my desktop computer.

The shuffle feature for those not familiar (it may or may not be a generational thing) takes your playlist of songs and shuffles them like a deck of cards,

Random tunes played back to back.

Without knowing what is next you get something like musical fruit salad.

This is similiar to driving a new york taxi.

You never know what is next.

A strange shuffling rearrangement of geography and humanity everyday.

To live this existence takes a certain amount of intestinal fortitude, tolerance for ambiguity , uncertainty and a strong spirit.

Most folks spend their lives avoiding tense situations,

A NYC taxi driver spends lots of quality time getting into tense situations.

Don’t try this at home.

If you can cut the mustard a certain transcendence, magnificence and virtuosity takes place.

You go in and out of worlds with fluidity.

People tell you their most intimate thoughts.

You develop the self-confidence of a shoplifter demanding a refund.

You become fluent in human nature.

If you are shocked or surprized by human nature you have not been around enough people because after a while, you begin to realize the slippery nature of people and humainity. Taking nothing personally, you are the mirror not the reflection.

Just like the lottery, many are called but few are choosen.

Of course if you're so fucking smart why aren’t you rich & if you are so rich why aren’t you smart?

Good questions without any immeadiate answers.

Yes

no

neither yes nor no

sometimes yes sometimes no




Marc E Marc is (not) a real New York City taxi driver but he plays one.  His day job is working the night shift in a yellow taxi. Born, raised & residing in the Exotic People’s Republic of Queens. His life is his art.

Comments

[judie]

if all taxi drivers were sufi-buddhist philosophers like you, i'd probably live in a cab.
Judie