Hack in Canberra
Sep. 6th, 2007 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringFor as long as I've been driving taxis, I've been reading Melissa Plaut's blog of her life as a New York cabbie on the night shift.
And every time I read it, I give thanks that I'm driving in Canberra. Her traffic is thicker, her crazies are weirder, her interactions with other night people edgier. Me, the worst part of my job is dodging kangaroos on Hindmarsh Drive. Rush traffic is confined to a few slow-moving intersections and is clear in half an hour, the cops don't go too far out of their way to make taxidrivers miserable, and I don't have to wait in a smelly garage for a random cab every afternoon. It's cabbie heaven compared to Melissa's life.
Which is probably why I read her tales of angst and frustration with such glee. This is cabbie escapism, this is life on the brink, this is spice and raw emotion.
Melissa's first shift as a lesbian Jewish cabbie, someone stuck their hand into her window, formed it into the shape of a gun and said "Gimme all your money!" Great introduction to cabdriving!
Over the next few months she made her mistakes, found her feet, and became at one with the Western world's greatest city. She posted photographs and wrote up her adventures in a blog which rapidly became a classic.
And now it's a book. I was expecting an anthology of blog posts, really, maybe tidied and updated and commented, but no, this is a real, fresh book. Sure, some of her stories are recognisable, but they are rewritten into a coherent, consistent narrative.
There's a theme running through the book, a thread of life philosophy. She might not be laid back and buttoned down, but she's not selling out. She deals with the stress and aggression in her life and emerges all the stronger for it.
I took her book with me on my next shift, and in between passengers I read and rode along with her. When I got home, I read some more, and when I work up lat next morning, I finished the book off.
In many ways, Melissa and I are worlds apart, but in the world of cabdriving, we overlap. She talks of becoming a better driver, knowing the limits of car and traffic, opening up that mystical slipstream through the rush hour. Her nights are sprinkled with drunks and crazy people, cardboard coffee and seedy bathrooms.
And she has pride in her work, her life, her city. At three in the morning it's just the big city and the cabbies. Everyone else is asleep, the streets are hers and there's a feeling of satisfaction that ordinary people never know. She owns New York.
There's another tiny overlap. I spent twelve hours in New York on the Fourth of July, starting at midnight when I wished the immigration officer a ""Happy Birthday!", and ending at noon when my Tokyo flight left JFK.
In between I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, mingled with the night people in Times Square, had an ethnic dinner at four in the morning, took the Staten Island ferry, waved at the Statue of Liberty, posed with the bronze bull on Wall Street, and sauntered through the cloisters of Columbia University. Maybe Melissa was driving a yellow cab that night, and maybe our paths crossed.
But here's the view from the other side of the plastic partition, the view of a native New Yorker, the view of a tough, spunky lady cabbie. Just reading the book is like strapping yourself into the passenger seat and getting observations on life and traffic jams delivered in a rich New York accent.
And every time I read it, I give thanks that I'm driving in Canberra. Her traffic is thicker, her crazies are weirder, her interactions with other night people edgier. Me, the worst part of my job is dodging kangaroos on Hindmarsh Drive. Rush traffic is confined to a few slow-moving intersections and is clear in half an hour, the cops don't go too far out of their way to make taxidrivers miserable, and I don't have to wait in a smelly garage for a random cab every afternoon. It's cabbie heaven compared to Melissa's life.
Which is probably why I read her tales of angst and frustration with such glee. This is cabbie escapism, this is life on the brink, this is spice and raw emotion.
Melissa's first shift as a lesbian Jewish cabbie, someone stuck their hand into her window, formed it into the shape of a gun and said "Gimme all your money!" Great introduction to cabdriving!
Over the next few months she made her mistakes, found her feet, and became at one with the Western world's greatest city. She posted photographs and wrote up her adventures in a blog which rapidly became a classic.
And now it's a book. I was expecting an anthology of blog posts, really, maybe tidied and updated and commented, but no, this is a real, fresh book. Sure, some of her stories are recognisable, but they are rewritten into a coherent, consistent narrative.
There's a theme running through the book, a thread of life philosophy. She might not be laid back and buttoned down, but she's not selling out. She deals with the stress and aggression in her life and emerges all the stronger for it.
I took her book with me on my next shift, and in between passengers I read and rode along with her. When I got home, I read some more, and when I work up lat next morning, I finished the book off.
In many ways, Melissa and I are worlds apart, but in the world of cabdriving, we overlap. She talks of becoming a better driver, knowing the limits of car and traffic, opening up that mystical slipstream through the rush hour. Her nights are sprinkled with drunks and crazy people, cardboard coffee and seedy bathrooms.
And she has pride in her work, her life, her city. At three in the morning it's just the big city and the cabbies. Everyone else is asleep, the streets are hers and there's a feeling of satisfaction that ordinary people never know. She owns New York.
There's another tiny overlap. I spent twelve hours in New York on the Fourth of July, starting at midnight when I wished the immigration officer a ""Happy Birthday!", and ending at noon when my Tokyo flight left JFK.
In between I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, mingled with the night people in Times Square, had an ethnic dinner at four in the morning, took the Staten Island ferry, waved at the Statue of Liberty, posed with the bronze bull on Wall Street, and sauntered through the cloisters of Columbia University. Maybe Melissa was driving a yellow cab that night, and maybe our paths crossed.
But here's the view from the other side of the plastic partition, the view of a native New Yorker, the view of a tough, spunky lady cabbie. Just reading the book is like strapping yourself into the passenger seat and getting observations on life and traffic jams delivered in a rich New York accent.
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Date: 2007-09-06 07:22 am (UTC)