A Few Taxi Odds and Ends & Hurricane Sandy Video

Hello again from John Doe at New York City's Craziest Taxi Stories! There's not really a good story about shift here for this blog post. I've posted below a video I made during Halloween night and a few weird happenings from recent shifts.

    

Winter time has been cold and dark in New York City, but luckily we have not had much snow because taxi driving in snow and making money is really hard. I have continued to put in a few shifts a week while also doing other part-time jobs and I've continued to enjoy the series of random, weird, sexual, and ridiculous events and people that are streaming into and out of my taxi cab while at the same time bringing in the $.  

Katarina Ivanovska: Just recently while I was cruising the Meatpacking District, I picked up Katerina Ivanovska from Macedonia, the model who is the face is Victorias Secret. I told her that I thought she looked familar and she looked tall and skinny like a model so I assumed - lots of models in NYC. She sat up front with me while her Macedonian girlfriends sat in the back. They were not as tall as her but were just as hot. As is typical with most pretty girls she asked me if she could break the rules by smoking in the car. This time I was able to say no (not usually the case), since there were a lot of cops out tonight. We had a conversation a bit of smalltalk. nothing more really. I let her out at 17th and 10th Avenue at a restaurant called Cafeteria. For a few more cute babes who are famous, check out my celebrities section:

Katarina Ivanovska

A few other interesting passengers, lets see, I picked up a guy who runs a site and club called The Social Man. http://www.thesocialman.com/ Its a club that is really designed to teach shy guys how to pick up women. They also have some videos on www.youtube.com if you search under The Social Man. Kind of interesting videos and tips. They recommend being fun, dominant, chill, and intriguing in order to be attractive to women. Ehh, interesting tips but not sure that I agree with that totally. I think the key really is just two things, be confident in who you are, and know how to talk to women, especially ones that are strangers, then finally, relax and enjoy, thats it really. 

  

Here's another interesting mini-story. Got some money from a rich guy. Usually they can be a bit stingy. One night, I had a breakdown during rush hour. It happened in a bad spot at Meeker and Morgan in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. If you have any experience with Brooklyn traffic patterns, that intersection is right where the BQE exits onto Meeker Ave and there was tons of cars trying politely to pass my broken down brand new cab. The alternator on my van went bad, as is sometimes the case with these van cabs. So I had to have it towed back to the garage in Brooklyn and this cost me an hours worth of time during rush hour. Later on into the shift I picked up a guy from Park Avenue. Now Park Avenue types usually don't wanna chit chat with cab drivers or tip us well. I would describe them as overly formal passengers, you know just treating you as an employee. Well this guy asked me how it was going and I said I had a breakdown earlier in the night that cost me 1 hour but what can you do, sh*t happens. When we stopped at his doormanned building on Park Avenue, he handed me a $50 for a $8.00 ride and says thats yours to make up for the breakdown. Wow I thought, I was speechless! Thanks.

Hello guys, I want to show you a video I made during Hurricane Sandy, although this has been about 6 months ago. It was one of the weirdest nights to drive a taxi. There was no power, rush hour had HUGE traffic jams and hardly anyone was out on Halloween. It was surreal! I had a fare from the UES to Williamsburg that ended up costing $100 when it normally should've been $40 because of a huge traffic jam. Normally, there is a big Halloween parade in Greenwich Village but they canceled it this year. There was snow that night as well as a gas shortage in NYC. I had to ride the bus in order to get to the taxi garage because the subways were not running during hurricane. Here is the video:

It's also on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60qQHv-o1PQ