cDc paramedia: texXxt #0367
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...presents... So You Want to be a Cab Driver?<br>by Ken Wanio<br>06/06/1999-#367
__///////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\\__<br>\\\\\\\/ Everything You Need Since 1986 \///////<br>|___heal_the_sick___raise_the_dead___cleanse_the_lepers___cast_out_demons___|
Well, cab drivers are scum bags. Now I know you're a scum bag. Worse.<br>You're a whore. A pimp and a whore under one roof. And you're a fucking<br>little sociopath. These credentials are impressive, but won't necessarily<br>make you a good cabby. You do look the part, if you weren't so goddamn<br>cute. A few more years of drink and drugs will take care of that.
Anyway.
Cab drivers are scum bags. They lust only for whores and gambling. They<br>like to fight. They like to kick jerks out of their cab. They are jerks.<br>They're not nice to women and children, even if they are women and<br>children. Arty types don't make the grade. They're sheep in cab driver<br>clothing. A real cab driver is a full time son of a bitch. He may or may<br>not know how to speak English, but you can bet he's a talking asshole in<br>any language. The son of a bitches will never grow up. They don't want real<br>jobs. They're eternal boys, which is to say your average American fellah,<br>except they do it for a living.
Have a beer.
Cabbies take the worse shit a man can take and get paid for it.<br>Mercenary killers are higher on the ladder. So are whores when it comes to<br>selling your ass. A cabby is a legal criminal. Something like a lawyer,<br>same branch of pedestrianism. Know what they call a cabby without a<br>hangover? A nonsequitur. No such animal. You'd fit in there pretty well.<br>Drugs too. You gotta take lots of drugs to be a cabby. But know how to<br>handle them. Combine them like an alchemist. The best cabbies can shoot a<br>goofball in their neck going sixty in heavy traffic and the passengers<br>won't even notice. You'd do alright there too.
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. The most important part - and I don't know if you fill the<br>bill here. We'll see - a cabby's gotta know how to push a hack. If you<br>can't pass a hack through the eye of a needle, you ain't no cabby. The<br>cab's gotta be an integral part of you. It has to fit like a glove, hang<br>like a genital, bounce like a tit, shit like an eagle, fly like a demon,<br>burrow through the city like a rat in a garbage heap and come out shining.<br>You gotta be able to sneak up on a fare like a pickpocket. You gotta<br>squeeze through double parked cars like toothpaste. There can't be more<br>than the distance between the hem of a whore's skirt and her snatch between<br>you and sleepwalking pedestrians. You gotta have nerves of steel and the<br>patience of a toad. Otherwise you'll crack up. You'll get fired or end up<br>in a fireball on the freeway. Cab driving is magic and you gotta master the<br>automatic pilot. If you're the type of pedestrian who bumps into other<br>people on the street, probably you won't make a cabby.
Got it?
Now's for the passenger. You gotta put meat in the back seat. That<br>meter's gotta be running or you ain't going to make it. You're going to<br>sweat blood to find the bastards and eat shit when you do. They'll put you<br>through the ringer. "Driver, where you taking us? This isn't the right way.<br>I'm taking your number. The police will hear about this!" They'll get out<br>after chewing your ear off and stiff you. The ones you've given the best<br>service to. The insult cuts like a knife and the stiff knows it. It's hard<br>out there these days. People are frustrated, powerless like they were in<br>Hitler's Germany. They make their little power plays wherever they can. You<br>got to shrug your shoulders. Keep your armor shining. Keep the meter<br>running. You'll be a true blue misanthrope in no time. Just take a few<br>hundred of the bastards around on Saturday night and you'll see what I<br>mean. They get in smelling of toothpaste, deodorant, perfume, mouthwash.<br>You'll pick them up a few hours later reeking of garlic, alcohol, digesting<br>food. A rich nauseating stink of momentary happiness. They'll scream in<br>your ear and tell bad jokes. The assholes will test your patience. They'll<br>spill drinks, vomit, ejaculate and fight like cats and dogs. You'll get<br>real familiar with the hose and the rag. You pick them up overflowing with<br>gaiety at the beginning of the evening and drop them off at the end angry,<br>depressed, gibbering drunk. You'll hear the same selfish, petty,<br>narrow-minded, ignorant, misinformed, vicious conversation repeated over<br>and over. Every one of the bastards thinking their situation is unique.<br>Planning kids, marriages, and...