Thursday, January 06, 2011

2011 PREDICTIONS

Few days ago Pat "the phony" Robertson predicted that the United States will go bankrupt in two years! Back in the days he once predicted that Jesus Christ would come back by the end of 1982. In 1982 while my high school buddies were getting stoned and having fun, I was waiting for Jesus at the corner of River Rd and Wilson Lane, and guess what? Jesus was a no-show! Pat, thanks for nothing you jackass, that whole year I deprived myself from jerking-off because I was paranoid that Jesus may knock on my bathroom door! I am not going to fall for your bullshit anymore you freak!

Let me tell you my predictions for 2011,

Pat Robinson and a former Washington DC high level official both will come out of the closet after being caught with transvestite hookers! The balance sheet of the United States will improve and by the end of this year the economy will generate two million more new jobs! How do you like that Mr. 700 Club?

Let me visit the bathroom and take care of business real quick now, and don't forget the homeless,

Mad Cabbie.

14 comments:

june in florida said...

Glad your back. Happy and Prosperous New Year Mad.

Anonymous said...

Dear Lord! This comes just when I thought I have got the English language down. Time to start studying Mandarin. I know where I need to be emigrating next. I just need to ask Pat how long before China goes bankrupt.

Moi

Mad Cabbie said...

Hi June, long time no talk! Have a great 2011, I know it's been cold in Florida lately but it beats Washington!

Moi, Merry Christmas! I am assuming that you belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Maybe you are right we may need to work on our Mandarin! I am also have to get the map of the streets of Shanghai and start hustling over there! But I still believe in AMERICA though.

brokemoto said...

You must mean Pat ROBERTson.

You asked me a question about using the radio again on an earlier post, but since it is old, I will reply here.

I would have to reply that you are the best judge of that. You know what you are getting into. I assume that you are aware who is working what shift and are familiar with what each one is capable of doing.

I am surprised that you would want a satellite. A satellite is grand for a cab driver, but is horrid for a hacker. You will, of course, be aware that there is a difference between a hacker and a cab driver. If you are even half the hacker that you claim to be, I would think that you would not want a satellite. As most of them at Diamond anymore are cab drivers, the satellite would be great for them, but for me, I do not want it. Still, a hacker can adapt; that is one of the things that differentiates a hacker from a cab driver.

Satellites are also good from Management's point-of-view.

One guy whom I hope never to see at Diamond again is King Jive. He could not dispatch, he could only talk jive and sell jobs. He was worse than some hotel doormen and apartment desk clerks (or desk JERKS, as Jones calls them).

It used to be that the lowest form of life was a hotel doorman followed by an apartment desk clerk. Then someone invented Adrian Fenty.

Mad Cabbie said...

"...If you are even half the hacker that you claim to be..."

Wow Phil, that's below the belt dude! But I never claimed to be something that I am not! I claim to be knowledgeable about this city and it's history, I claim to have an excellent navigational skills, I claim to be well prepared informed on what's going down in the city each night, I claim to be well versed on where to hustle during what hours, I claim that I don't discriminate because of people's color or which neighborhood they live in and I claim to be extremely helpful to my passengers! That's what I do and I am good at it. The only fault that I do admit is that I try to avoid airport jobs by all costs, that's why I miss Mr Jones, he knows I love the gravy jobs.

Let me tell you something Mr dispatcher, hacking and a dispatched cab got nothing to do with each other. You hack off the streets not from your dispatcher. How the call is delivered, radio or ADS doesn't define you to be a real hacker or just another cab driver. 70% of my calls are off the streets or my regulars and I would choose to get the rest of my calls from ADS than listening to dispatchers with a poor communication and English skills, dispatchers who feeds calls to their friends, Dispatchers who walk out with pocket full of work, Lazy ass dispatchers who don't like to do their jobs and a dispatcher who is full of himself and look down on African drivers treating them like shit! I don't want to hear none of that bullshit over the radio, I CHOOSE THE DIGITAL AGE!

Thanks for correcting me by the way.

brokemoto said...

There is something screwy about this to-day, it will not let me post my reply to your statements, but it let me post this.

I am not understanding.

Anonymous said...

Mad, way back then I used to dispatch for Barwood before and after they installed the KDT system. I voice dispatched to a fleet of almost 500 cabs and I earned my paycheck. When they installed the computer dispatch I couldn't be more happier, I pretty much stole the paycheck, my workload was down by 60%.

But here is the thing, the KDT is not corruption proof to a creative dispatcher, in fact the complaints went to the roof because drivers found a way to abuse the system and created a delay because the calls kept bouncing around from driver to driver. The other thing is the computer doesn't know the go to guys when it is crunch time, it doesn't know the drivers that you know no matter what they going to cover the job for you.

Both have pros and cons but for a relatively small fleet like Diamond all we need is computerized order entry system for the operators and good confident voice dispatchers and a radio set up that works. I go in and dispatch from time to time, I won't take those dispatch equipment if they gave it to me for free. The dispatchers are working with very little for very little money. The pay rate they offered me to replace Robby, I make much more if I take someone to Union Station from uptown. Mad, just stop by the radio room and see what dispatchers have to deal with.

The only dispatcher that I can think of who looks down on drivers is the driver of ONE SICKO if you know what I mean. That's a guy who is full of himself and I am not hiding behind this comment box, I would say it to his face.

Take care Mad.

Diamond #888

Unknown said...

My old man drove a Diamond back in the thirtys. (1930s') No meters. They used zones. If you could drive around long enough with a ride that didn't know DC you could get double and triple fare.

We lived in Foggy Bottom off Virginia Ave. Around the corner from Grant School. Mixed neighbors with no problems. Nobody had any money. Everyone was hustling. Cigarettes were a penny each. (They were called Twenty Grand)
It cost a dime to get in the Circle theater at 21st and Pa. ave. The streetcars ran in the bottom then. Had a riot in the late twenties. We didn't have Rosa Parks then. I saw her about 1996 in Detroit at a rally. Across from a fancy theater.Quite a gathering.

Mad Cabbie said...

888, I didn't know that you were a dispatcher at Barwood.....Like you said ADS could be a mixed bag but the pros wieghs more in my opinion. I know that driver/dispatcher you talking about, that motherfucker is just down on his luck and he is bitter that's all! Isn't he an electrical engineer or something....I don't think he dispatches anymore does he? Even though I mostly disagree with you 888 it's a great coment!

Robert you are the type I usually love to have as a passenger, you have interesting stories to tell. I get educated from people like you. Your dad drove for Diamond when it was for whites only, I think Diamond is the last cab company in DC to accept African American drivers.. Keep comenting Robert, thank you.

brokemoto said...

Let me tell you something, Mr. Driver, yes you can hack with a dispatcher. Street drivers do not have a monopoly on the hacker designation. There are some purists who would insist that a hacker does not even have regulars, he takes what the street gives him every day. I disagree with that as I disagree with your assertion that you do not hack with a dispatcher. I know who the radio hackers are, I know who the hackers are who use the radio and I know who the cab drivers are. If you believe that using a dispatch system diminishes your credentials as a hacker, then you do not know as much about this business as you would have us believe.

Triple-LATE mentioned the 'go-to' guys, or the 'cover guys', as Nick-Nick used to call them. Being one of those is one of the characteristics of being a radio hacker, but being a cover guy alone does not a hacker make.

A more accurate statement might be that you do not hack with a dispatcher (or dispatch system) alone. Perhaps even one might state that a hacker does not depend on a dispatcher alone to make his money or a hacker does not depend on a dispatcher for his living.


You may rest assured that there are these stand camper cab drivers who depend solely on the dispatcher for their earnings. These are the guys who answer on the Towers, you give them a call going to Ninth and Pennsylvania, N.W., they drop it, and deadhead back to the Towers, not stopping for any pickups and not trying to bid on a job until they get to Massachusetts at Garfield. Some of them even try to avoid walk-ups as they sit on the Towers.

Concerning the characteristics of dispatchers to whom you care not to listen, let me ask you two questions. The first requires a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer. It requires no riddles, word games, sacks of verbiage or any other extraneous matters, it requires only a 'yes' or 'no'. Here is the question: Are you trying to imply, or are you willing to come out and state, that I have any or all of the characteristics that you have listed?

If you answered 'no', proceed to my concluding statements for this post. If you answered 'yes', please answer the second question, which is: Which of those characteristics do you think that I have?

I have tried three times to post a reply to your statements in reply to my post. Three times, my reply would not post. I am now not just not understanding, I am not happy. I am going to try to break down my replies into several posts and see if I can get away with that.

Oh, and the driver to whom triple eight refers is a some-time 'dispatcher'. He has worked at least once in the last thirty days, maybe more, I am not sure. I do not make scheduling or personnel decisions nor do I have any input into the same.

Anyhow, let me try to post just this much. It is far from complete, but this is one reason that I am the luddite that I am. Tehcnology may be wonderful when it works. The problem is that it fails often enough to make the old ways much easier for accomplishing anything.

brokemoto said...

Diamond was, in fact the last company to accept black drivers. As far as I am aware, there were three segregated companies: Yellow, Liberty and Diamond.

When I came to Diamond, the first black American driver was still there, Mr. Alston, #42.

At one point, Jimmy Heffner, who was the rental manager at Yellow drove for Diamond. He told the story how he desegregated Yellow. It seems that this black driver, a retired D.C. Fireman, came there to rent, as they made you rent for a while at Yellow before they would take you as a private owner. The boss told Heffner to make him sit on the bench and tell him that there were no cabs available. This went on for three days until Heffner told the boss that either Heffner was going to give this guy a cab or the boss was going to tell this Fireman that he was not going to get a cab. The boss backed off and told Heffner to give him a cab, then went around there telling everyone that Heffner had pressured him into letting a black guy drive at Yellow. Heffner said that he took quite a bit of grief for that.

I know for a fact that Heffner is dead. Alston is probably, as well. I remember when he left, because he told me that he was taking off time because his health was failing him, but that he hoped to be back. He always had a buffalo nickel in one ear.

Up until 2007, the driver card file was still in the office. Gloria Sartori, who was front desk Secretary from 1947-1989 maintained it. She typed the race of each driver onto a card and put it into the file. She would type 'Nigerian' for any black African (if you want to make a Ghanaian or a Sierra Leonian angry, call him a 'Nigerian'). She would type 'Arabic' for any middle Easterner, even Persians or Afghans (if you want to make a Persian angry, call him an 'Arab'). Pakistanis and east Indians were 'Hindu', black Americans were 'Negro' and white Americans were 'White' or 'Caucasian' as were some of recent European origin, although some of those were identified by the country of their birth. The file was still there in 2007, although I have no idea if it is still there. The first driver to get the designation 'Nigerian', Mr. Bernard Obi, cab #658, is still at Diamond.

I do not know from where Mr. Obi comes.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Mad,

You are right,I had my Christmas last Friday.

Moi

Mad Cabbie said...

Phil, you sound like an IRS tax form "if you answered yes, please fill out the next box..if you answered no you owe the goverment one million dollars..."

Why are you worried about the characteristics of dispatchers if it doesn't apply to you? Just carry on Phil!

As an extremely talented cabbie I know what I am capable of bro, we sound like couple of retards going back and forth about the definition of a true hacker! We are both entitled to our opinions and we just agreed to disagree that's all.

I do appreciate the history of Gloria Sartori, the front desk Secretary from 1947-1989, it is so funny it deserves a blog post on it's own!

Moi i hope you had lot's of "DORO WAT"!

Anonymous said...

Better financials & 2 millions huh?

Nostradamus got nothing to fear from you...