cabs. subways and cabs.

ok, so. my second favorite thing about new york is the people you encounter on the subway. but my most favorite thing has to do with cab drivers. it's the perfect inception of karma. no, really.

on one sunday morning a long, long time ago, i had my first new york city cab driver zen moment, and since then, i have believed...no, BELIEVED in the new york cab driver karma.

it was a sunday morning on the upper east side. perfect, in the way that you always want sunday mornings to be. especially in new york. and i needed a cab down to penn. but i hadn't even made my way down to the edge of the sidewalk when a cab, out of nowhere, screeched to a halt in front of me. the man inside was wildly enthusiastic. and french. his name, was michele.

we talked the entire way to penn. i believe i told him my entire life story, and he told me his. and when we finally pulled to a stop at thirty-fourth and seventh, we were hugging as if we had known each other forever. it was grand.

i will never forget it.

tonight, i endeavored to go to brooklyn to see an old friend and his new band play. it was in red hook, and all i had was an address. i finished work in midtown, ate some pizza(naturally) and took the 6 down to lower manhattan, where i thought would be an opportune place to hail a cab to brooklyn.

i got passed up by no fewer than three cab drivers, who pulled over, asked where i was going, and then said that they would not accept the fare. and then, finally, a cab pulled over, just as i was about to get on the subway and wing it in brooklyn. i walked up to the window, said 'i'm going to brooklyn.' and dude said 'lady, wherever you want to go, i will take you there, my boo.'

so i got in, and we embarked on the crazy escapade of trying to find this bar in red hook.

he was from africa, senegal to be specific, and he kept telling me that i was smart, for understanding the directions that we got from other cab drivers. he also kept telling me,
'this is very bad! where is this that you are going? i cannot leave you here!'

it's true. redhook is pretty shady. as my wonderful, amazing friend gerard put it, 'there's two things going on here. organized crime, and disorganized crime.'

but we found it, with a great deal of help from gypsy cab drivers, residents of cobble hill, etc...

and THEN! on the way home, i asked the doorman to call me a cab, and he was like 'there's one waiting, do you want it?" so i get in the gypsy, and the driver is like, were you in a yellow cab earlier, that was looking for directions? because i recognize you from the back seat.'

only in new york.

us.

i said it would be all about wedding pictures. and this one is all about me, so i apologize for being so self-centered. but charles williams iii has been gone for approximately 18 hours and i miss the living shit out of him. GET YOUR TRICK ASS BACK TO NEW YORK A.S.A.P.!!!!!!!!!! that's the message of this post. oh, and that we are fucking amazing. that too.

escapades down on the 6 train

god, i'm in such a better mood lately. thank you, new york.

so, among other perks of being back in the greatest city in the world, there is the re-introduction of the 'subway character of the day', which is, naturally, the one interaction you will undoubtably have on the subway during your morning or afternoon commute with someone who is pretty much completely out of their mind... the subway character of the day is statistically a given; i have done extensive cataloging of these occurences and found that it is far more likely than not that you will encounter a subway character at least once during the course of a day. especially if you are me. sometimes, there is more than one, creating a competition to see who takes the title. exciting!

anyhow, tuesday's subway character is the subject of today's post, and i will now recount the scene for readers as best as i am able.

boarding the 6 train to work at about 10:30am, i take my seat across from an older gentleman who has a very large black plastic trash bag at his feet and who is presently engaged in a conversation with, so far as i can tell, himself. i settle myself in, open my magazine and begin reading. at some point, said gentleman's solo conversation gets a bit louder, and i take aural note as he pulls something from the trashbag and holds it up, proudly. looking up, i see it is a can of colt 45.

'my grandmother gave me this beer when i was BORN!' he announces, with a giant grin. 'i have had this beer since way back before world war TWO!'

now, this is funny, and a small smile reaches my lips despite an attempt to supress it. he proceeds to talk about drinking beer as a toddler, all facilitated by his grandmother, and while i'm picturing his younger self, drunk on colt 45 and careening around his grandmother's backyard, and contemplating whether he means that his grandmother gave him a colt 45, or whether he is delusional and is trying to say that he has actually had this particular can of colt 45 since before world war two, and also trying to gauge whether colt 45 has been around that long, he switches gears, perhaps fueled by the colt 45, having cracked open and taken a healthy swig of the malt liquor. he now turns his attention to his fellow subway riders.

sizing up the inhabitants of the subway car, he says, suspiciously, 'where y'all goin'?' and then, louder 'it's eleven A.M...y'all ain't goin' to work...'

then, with an air of revelation, he says, 'y'all are goin' SHOPPING!' the woman next to me, perhaps startled by his incredible powers of deduction, shudders slightly. the man doesn't notice, however, because he is busy following up that observation with 'or else you on welfare...' this last part is muttered, maybe out of consideration to those people who are actually on welfare, or maybe just because this guy is a nutball and decided to mutter that part, but then the crowning moment, the sealing of the subway-character-deal happens.

he has just started to ramble about something else as we pull into 77th street, when the doors open, and he shouts 'OH NO! NOT THE PO-LICE!' and there, in the doorway, is a transit cop. just like that, he's gone, trashbag; world war II-era colt 45 and all.

good times. recent subway characters have also included the guy who came into our car from a smelly car and started preaching about how we should all be tolerant of other people's smells, but also mentioned that one can be killed in jail for farting, which is something i did not know. there was also the dude from monday night who sat next to me for two stops before he just started laughing, loudly, at nothing in particular, and then proceeded to do this sort of aerobics routine of o.c.d.-like maneuvers. charles saw some young dude dance with the subway pole like it was a stripper pole, and he said he worked into it, slowly, as if he were warming up.

anyhow, obviously i will update the subway character as often as necessary. who will be my subway character today? it's anyone's guess.

in other news, the fighting lebrons are making this whole nba playoff thing even more crazy exciting than it already is...if they take it all the way, i say we lobby cleveland to rename the cav's 'the fighting lebrons'...

that's all charles williams right there. all right...off to work. more details as they are received.

i'm really going to miss you people.

do you have friends who ask jeeves for the technical definition of a rim job? 'cause i do.

i'm from the murder capital, where we murder for capital

i got to nyc on thursday, in the wee wee hours, when only the garbage trucks and daily news trucks and random escalades with 42 inch rims pumping such heavy bass that your eardrums feel threatened are combing the streets of spanish harlem...

i love it here.

charles comes in today, making the whole thing offical, not to mention fucking awesome...

i already started my new job, which is really pretty cool; i went into it knowing a bunch of people, thanks to julieta. for a waitron gig it ain't bad, but i really have to try and get myself out of the waitron-ing...it's starting to kill my body, and we already know what it has done to my soul.

it was hard to leave v.a. and i know exactly why; the people. i met some absolutely stellar people in richmond virginia, and i am remiss to leave them behind. and i do so with serenity only because i have the distinct feeling that this is the start of something bigger and better, which will make me better able to enjoy and contribute to those friendships.

my sister and sarah's wedding was last saturday and was not only the party of the freakin' century, but also sort of a last hurrah, for cfw and i... seriously though, there has never been a party that good, and i would welcome a challenge to that statement, cause i think the ab-sarah wedding can back that shit up. can i get some frickin' pictures from somebody??? throw me a bone here, people. i know you have like, 600 of them kels... hook a sister up. i need to post some here on the blog for all to see.

in a final note, they should have never showed my ass the ellipsis, cause i use it all the fucking time, and i ain't gonna stop... so there.

in a final statement, steve nash, raja and the suns better whup some laker ass tonight. the mamba needs to go DOWN. and not in a blaze of glory.

in a final related statement, lebron j is pretty much the man at this point.

now, i'm gonna walk downstairs, out my front door, around the corner and get me some dunkin' donuts coffee.