Undoubtedly there are many unsung, Uncapitalized Cabbies out tonight
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 21st, 2007] Undoubtedly there are many unsung, Uncapitalized Cabbies out tonight, who will later write about their experiences—on their blogs, intended for all eyes, or in tattered composition books pulled from under the bed, to be carefully replaced as the sun rises. It's unlikely I'm the best writer among them. I'm just luckier.
However, there is one former night cabbie, so much better than I that it makes my teeth hurt. His writing was far less modest than its original distribution. A few folks got to read it, or got to hear it—until he was foolish enough to send it to me. Not fenced in by word count, he sometimes soared like I dreamed I might here, yet never truly could. Everything of his ended up far from where it started, ended up about something real. Here's about half of a longer piece:
"She sat in the back cracking jokes: 'What do you get with a room of 50 lesbians and 50 politicians? A hundred people who don't do dick.' The funniest thing was something Louise herself did not even know. That I am a politician. I was the butt of the joke. She had looked at me and saw a cab driver. Maybe I should have told Louise that what you see may not be what you get. A transvestite would have appreciated that. In politics, everything is about appearances. I spend my time making people familiar with my name, but people don't really know me at all. In the taxi, it's the other way around. Nobody knows my name, though we're as close as the distance between the seats. Intimacy and anonymity collide.
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"People say they want the truth, but often punish whoever gives it to them. We say we want honest politicians, but how many truly honest politicians get rewarded? Honest lovers? Honest friends? Ask yourself that the next time you watch a commercial. Can you handle the truth? Well, I'll give you the truth. I hope you want it."
Oh, the politician? Now Metro president, then council member, David Bragdon.
—nightcabbie@wweek.com
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