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This is my Taxi Driver's photo ID from 1974. I had hair, tied in a pony tail.

TRUE TALES OF A NYC CAB DRIVER #7

"Celebrities"

John Belushi

...

Once I met John Belushi, not driving a cab, but in front of a jazz club on the upper west side. It was a famous place called Mikell's, on the corner of 97th and Columbus Ave. Musician friends of mine had heard that Joe Cocker might be singing there that night, because his backup band played there sometimes. This was not long after John Belushi did a wild imitation of Joe Cocker on Saturday Night Live. Had to be the first or second year of SNL, probably the summer of 1976.

Anyway, I was on line to get early tickets for later that night, and there was Belushi saying goodbye to George Benson, who was getting into a cab. He is the jazz singer and guitarist best known for the song "Masquerade." I was kind of brash and not too shy, and just had to go up to Belushi and tell him that I thought he was great on SNL. He was very friendly, then confided that he was there hoping to meet Joe Cocker. He had never met him, even though he did that hilarious imitation of him. Joe Cocker, some of you might remember, is an English soulful blues singer who seems so lost in the emotion of his singing that he looks a little spastic as he sings.

John Belushi (I swear this is true) actually asked me if I thought it was a good idea if he asked Joe Cocker about the SNL skit. He wanted to ask Joe if he minded that he made fun of him. I answered, why not, go for it. I told him I thought Joe Cocker would probably appreciate direct honesty. Belushi thanked me for my encouragement, and we parted.

Later that evening I returned with my friends for the show. Sure enough Joe Cocker sang with his band that night. It was great music. Belushi was there with friends. Late into the night I noticed Belushi was all by himself in a booth, so I went over and asked him if he had talked to Joe Cocker. He told me he had talked to Joe in between sets, and Joe had put his mind at ease. Joe said he didn't mind at all, but his friends felt uncomfortable about it. Interesting. Me and Belushi talked for a few minutes, and he said that a lot of people worried about Joe Cocker because he drank heavily. They worried that he wouldn't live long because of it.

A few months later Joe Cocker was a guest on SNL and he and John Belushi played on stage together, Joe as himself, and Belushi parodying him. It was terrific. Showed what class Cocker had. Sad that John Belushi died so young, a decent unpretentious guy. Happily, Joe Cocker lives on. Go figure.

Hermione Gingold

The most memorable celebrity who ever got into my cab was Hermione Gingold. Most people won't know who she is, but she played the matronly chaperone to young Leslie Caron in the movie Gigi. She and the French singer Maurice Chevalier had some memorable scenes together. Well, one night she got into my cab in midtown somewhere and wanted to be taken to Sutton Place. That's a really exclusive neighborhood on the east side near the East River. Very expensive.

As soon as she got in I recognized her, knew her from the movies. But I couldn't remember her name. So like the young doofus I was I said I remembered her, but forgot her name. She said, with great formality, "Hermione Gingold." I praised her acting and singing, gushing a little in my enthusiasm. She didn't speak after that, so I shut up.

When we arrived in front of a very fancy looking apartment building I parked and took the money she offered and gave her three one dollar bills for her change. She scooped the bills from the little money tray then hastily put them back, saying, "Oh no, these are much too dirty!" She wanted cleaner money! They were pretty grimy and old. So I looked through the paper money I had and found three cleaner bills. "That's much better," she said. And tipped me seventy five cents, about fifteen percent.

 

MY AUDIOBOOK PROMO VIDEO.  First chapter of my novel This Moment Is My Home, with music and pictures, to whet your appetite.

                                     

Watch and listen to the audiobook first chapter.

                                       TRUE TALES OF A NYC CAB DRIVER #6
                                                    Whoops, Sorry About That!

It was late at night, and I had dropped off a fare in the middle of Brooklyn. I was somewhere north of the Brownsville section and was heading back in the general direction of Manhattan. Somewhere not far from the campus of Pratt Institute, I passed a large man wrestling with a woman by a parked car. I slowed as I passed, because it appeared that the man was trying to shove a woman into a car. What went through my mind was kidnapping or rape. I pulled up and parked ahead of them and got out to help the woman. What can I say, I was young and strong, and didn't like to see women or animals mistreated.

As I approached on foot, the large man had hold of the small woman, and was trying mightily to get her into the car. She was fighting like a demon, holding onto the doorframe, resisting his every move, cursing and shouting, spitting mad. As large and strong looking as the man was, he was having no success. When I was close, I said, "Stop it! What're you doing to her?"

Of course, I expected hostility from him. But I was amazed when I got the opposite. He looked at me wearily and said, "Man, I'm just trying to get her home. She's drunk out of her mind. She's my wife!" I could see that the woman seemed to be really drunk. When I asked her if she was okay, she cursed and shouted incoherently at me. She seemed anything but a victim, and she was verbally abusing him something awful.  Though he was twice her size, was making little progress. He tried to explain further, "I got to get her home, man. I can't leave here like this. She don't know what she's doin'. What would you do?" Suddenly I was sympathizing with him.

He seemed to be telling the truth, and I was at a loss. All I could think to say was, "Well, don't hurt her." He answered, "I won't . I won't. She's my wife." So, with a stupid expression of bewilderment on my face, I left them to it, and got back in my cab. As I drove, the stupid expression stayed on my face for quite a while. I counted myself lucky that I hadn't gotten my ass handed to me by being such a boy scout. Fools rush in . . .

AUDIOBOOK

I'm working on an audiobook of This Moment Is My Home, read by me.  It's fun.  I'll be posting it chapter by chapter FOR FREE here and on my facebook page:  www.facebook.com/ThisMomentIsMyHome

 

I want as many people as possible to experience my book.  I like to be read to, don't you?

 

 

                                                                  

                               TRUE TALES OF A NYC CAB DRIVER #5

                                                    Encounter at Jilly’s

You may have heard of Jilly's in Manhattan.  A famous hangout for Frank Sinatra.  It used to be on West 52nd Street.  I once picked up a fare there.  I didn't intend to, I was just a punk kid driving a cab, I didn’t mess around with places frequented by Frank Sinatra and the well-connected on both sides of the law. But one winter night in 1974 I happened to be stopped at a red light around the corner from the place. 

 

I was in the middle of five lanes of traffic facing uptown, waiting for the light to change. Out of nowhere an extremely large man opened the door to my cab and leaped in. When I say large, I don’t mean obese. This guy was almost too tall to fit in the cab, with shoulders like a door frame, dressed in the flashy uniform of a doorman, long heavy coat and hat like a general. Without preamble he barked a command. “Pull out and make a quick right. Now, before the light changes!”
I’ve been around plenty of rough men, so I don’t exactly impress easily. But this brute was like a force of nature. And he was on a mission. I protested, saying I was in the wrong lane to make a turn.” He said, “Don’t talk. Do it.” It was a command from the kind of character you don’t want to disappoint, a real old-time thug, whose gravitic aura could only have been earned through an illustrious past of mythic proportions. Anyway, he impressed me, and it wouldn’t have been the first or fortieth time I had gone through a red light.

So I pulled out and crossed in front of the other cars and made an illegal turn through a red light. “Good,” he grunted, high praise indeed. He told me to drive up and stop in front of a place up ahead, mentioning I’d get a nice tip. The place was the famed Jilly’s, with a fancy marquis all lit up. He hopped out, all 300 pounds of him, and ushered a middle aged couple into my cab. His parting words to me: “Take these people where they wanna go.” I almost saluted. Honest to god, it made me feel good to obey him, like I had passed an important test of character. But he was wrong about the tip. I got a meager 15 percent.

ANNOUNCING: BOOK SIGNING

                I will be signing copies of my novel, This Moment Is My Home,
                               at Mostly Books, on Broadway and Wilmot in Tucson. 
                                                  Saturday, September 8 at 1:30.
                    

Me and Sherry Roberts, of Mostly Books, a great independent bookstore in Tucson.

                                          


            I donated a few copies of my novel, This Moment Is My Home to the local library.  Jeffrey Summers, librarian, was kind enough to pose with me for a photo.  I complimented him on the shade of green hair he was sporting.  He said, "I call it teal!"  Not a shy person, Jeffrey.



Librarian Jeffrey Summers and I at the Miller-Golf Links branch of the Pima County Public Library

                                             TRUE TALES OF A NYC CAB DRIVER #4


                                                                        A Creepy Guy

Driving. That's what the job of a cab driver is. Driving and watching for people who need a ride, watching the other traffic, jockeying for position in traffic. I learned quickly, mostly from imitating other cab drivers. Ever wonder why taxis straddle two lanes a lot of the time? It's annoying isn't it? It's because they want to be in the best position to maneuver, always looking for an advantage. I learned some good and bad habits from those days. I learned to look far ahead of my car and assess the situation. I learned to be aggressive, and to always be aware of what was happening all around my car, behind and on both sides. In Manhattan aggression and quick decision making are essential. All Manhattan drivers drive like that. If you don't take the opportunity before you, the next guy or gal will. Politeness only causes you delay and irritates the other drivers. You're expected to be aggressive. That's the way it is when you're driving amidst thousands of other drivers trying to get somewhere.

One of the things I learned early on was how to get from the east side to the west side of Manhattan as quickly as possible. That means knowing which streets are the main ones which allow traffic to flow more freely. You don't want to get bogged down in side streets, because one stopped car or truck on those one-way streets can keep you sitting for some time when there's only one lane. Getting cross town in the vicinity of Central Park is another challenge. You have to know which streets lead across the park. 96th street has a street which crosses through the park, but if you're going east to west the entrance is on 97th Street. If you don't know that you waste a lot of time going in circles.

One day crossing the park at 96th street with a fare I had an unnerving experience. I had picked up the passenger on the east side. I don't remember exactly where, but he wanted to go crosstown to the west side. I, being a friendly talkative type person, was doing my ususal, talking, asking questions, remarking about current politics, etc. Hey, it's the way I pass the time. The guy I was talking to didn't seem too forthcoming. In other words he was rather quiet, and I soon found that he didn't like what I was talking about. I may have been offering my opinion about the state of the human race, some of my liberal political views, I don't remember exactly.

As we were moving through the sunken roadway that passes through Central Park he started talking slowly and a little menacingly. He said, "You talk like you know me. But you don't know me. Maybe you should be more careful. For all you know I could be a dangerous person." I got quiet, glanced at him in the rearview mirror. There was something about the guy that was creepy. He was well groomed, dressed in a suit, , maybe in his thirties. But that told me little. He continued, "For instance, it wouldn't me much for me to put a little Beretta behind your ear. If I pulled the trigger you would feel a burning maybe, like a bee sting, not much more. And in a little while you'd be dead."

Well, what do you say to something like that? I shut up and drove the rest of the way across the park. When I let him out at the corner of Central Park West and 97th I turned off the meter and told him the amount of the fare and nothing else. He paid me and got out. I drove away fast, glad to be rid of the creep.

                                       MORE TRUE TALES OF A NYC CAB DRIVER  #3
 
                                                 I Throw Some Ladies Out of my Cab

Manhattan is a vast labyrinth of streets, massive canyons of buildings, an endless grid of neighborhoods, and a warren-like network of streets in lower Manhattan that defy logic, not unlike parts of Boston. It took a while to learn the basics on the best ways to get cross town and up and downtown the most efficient ways. 

Well, I was a cab driver with a few weeks under my belt, but was still learning the city. Three ladies got into my cab in midtown one afternoon, and gave me an address. I knew the general way to get there, but apparently not well enough to satisfy one of the ladies. One was very sweet and helpful, but one of them was a real handful. When I didn’t make a correct turn she started yelling. “Driver! Driver! Why didn’t you make a left at the light? You were supposed to make a left!” I was confused, said I was sorry. That didn’t mollify her in the least. She kept at me, “Driver! Driver! Do you have any idea what you’re doing? Oh! I’ve never seen such blatant incometence!”

I apologized again and told her I would take the next left and work my way to their destination. I told her that I was new and that I was still learning the city, and would appreciate any help. But she had decided that I was deliberately trying to lengthen their ride to make more money. Very loudly she said, “Oh, these drivers are all the same. They never get it right. It’s outrageous that we have to put up with it!”

I could hear her loud and clear, despite the plastic safety barrier between us, I heard words like "moron" and "swindled" and it got me angry. Their destination was less than a mile away, and it wouldn’t have cost them much more. I tried to apologize again, and asked for their patience. But she was determined to chastise me loudly to her two companions. She just wouldn’t stop, and I could hear every word. Even pointed comments from me didn’t stop her. “Look, I’m sorry, I’m not the perfect driver, but I’ll get you there. And I’ll forfeit the tip. Okay?”

Not good enough for her. The sweet one tried to get her friend to stop razzing me, to no avail. On and on it went, about how worthless and incompetent cab drivers were. I was thinking, do I really have to take all this verbal abuse? I’m really very polite and patient usually, but she just hit the right buttons. I took it for about seven more minutes, then I lost it. I veered to one side of the avenue and slammed on the brakes. I put the cab in park and shouted, “That’s it! Out! Get out!”

They all sat for a moment, too stunned to move. I turned off the meter, and yelled again, “Get out. There’s no charge. Just get out of my cab! Now! Move!” I was really pissed. They finally opened the door and filed out. The last lady, who was the sweet one, stopped before getting out and said to me, “I’m very sorry about this. My friend really had no right to be so rude. I do hope you’ll forgive us.”

I answered, “That’s all right. I just couldn’t stand it any more.” She said she understood and wanted to pay for the ride, even though I’d ended it prematurely. But I said it was okay, and thanked her for her good intentions. I wondered later, if the obnoxious woman had been drunk.

Anyway, I sat there for a moment, congratulating myself on getting shut of them. And what do you know? Three young men walked over asked if I’d take them to Brooklyn. “Sure!” I said, “Hop in!" They were fun guys, and we had a friendly long ride out of Manhattan, a good long fare. They even left me with a big tip. So the universe was rewarding me for my rightness of my actions.


 

 

 

 

Read an entertaining book that may help open you to the infinite within yourself:  http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000004420414/M.-H.-Anifantakis-This-Moment-Is-My-Home

BRAND NEW REALITY

                                  Inner reality?  

And what am I talking about here?  The start of something new inside my mind.   But coming from my mind itself, or rather another part of my mind? What is going on here?   Indeed.   Is it enough to be?  Yes.   But to be can mean to want, to desire and to do.  To dream, create and enjoy and/or suffer, depending on the moment. 

We have reality now.   It exists.   We know it.   But it is always changing.  "The only constant is change." --Buddha.  It, (All That Is) changes by itself.  We are part of it.  And we also affect change.   We often change it without knowing it.   What I would desire is to effect changes knowingly, mindfully.

Now I have an idea what Joseph Goldstein means when he uses the word.

MINDFUL.   Using the full mind.   Not just the linear, left brain, but the sub- or un-conscious self, right side of the brain, higher self, soul-consciousness, or however else you may characterize it.  The mind is more than the brain.  The who we are beneath and beyond the physical brain. 

 . . . mindful . . . the fullness of mind (self).  The feeling of being in all its infinite depth and reach. 

That's what I explore.  You?

--and that's the news from Lake Onbeyond, where all the elves are ardent, the gnomes mirthful, and the fairies fair.

                                                           Illustration by  Bill Pyne

subterranean Alaska blues

                   

Enough with the cute kittens already!  (but I can't help it!)  I want a hat like that to play blues gigs. 

                                                                    STEEPLEJACK

                                          streams screaming people
                                          through me, my bones,
                                          nimble steeplejack bounding amidst poised
                                          crystalline pinnacles,
                                          swinging by rope, my celestial thread,
                                          I play out my web
                                          so I will only net myself when I
                                          reach a too pin-pointed peak, and it
                                          snaps like sugar crystal

                                          dreaming from windows

                                          driven to walk out doors to
                                          grey clearings, lined at dusk with
                                          jagged forests dissolving into cities,
                                          stopping now and talking with her
                                          or him sharing something then
                                          parting for new associations forming patterns of ties
                                          with others, incomplete too

                                          breaking off congealed

                                          networks of friendships and habits letting
                                          them float away
                                          maybe passing them later and
                                          waving briefly
                                          but engaged always in securing
                                          the ropes to new flotillas
                                          of ephemeral goings on and knowing that I
                                          am going on too

                                          keeping my vision

                                          as a vise, tightening
                                          on the distant pour of light
                                          from my yawning horizon,
                                          previews of tomorrow which
                                          are someone's memories

                                          so continue searching down the corridor

                                          to the room with the face,
                                          to the door to the roof,
                                          to the afternoon sky.

                                          and Death dancing
                                          always dandying about.

                                          there may be nothing to souls but
                                          invisibly fine silk thread
                                          endlessly spinning spinning
                                          the tales of forever

. . . now for something REALLY interesting:

       GIANT UNDERGROUND PYRAMID IN ALASKA?

Did anyone hear last night's Coast to Coast AM broadcast report by Linda Moulton Howe that told of an underground pyramid discovery in Alaska?  It was discovered through seismic readings at the time of the Chinese underground nuclear test in 1992.  The report was broadcast on local TV in Alaska then story was subsequently denied and suppressed and all tapes disappeared.  The pyramid was supposed to be many times larger than the great pyramid of Cheops in Giza, Egypt!

 -- FROM:    http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2012/07/26: 

"In a two-part report, Linda interviewed retired U. S. Army counterintelligence Warrant Officer Douglas Mutschler who'd been puzzled by a USGS map in his intell work that had a large whited out area between Mt. McKinley and Nome, Alaska. Then, on an evening in November 1992 on Channel 13 in Anchorage, Alaska, he and 39 others in his unit were in a Ft. Richardson cafeteria when they all watched a news program about the discovery of a very large pyramidal structure underground between Mt. McKinley and Nome, Alaska, that was discovered when geologists studied crust images during the May 22, 1992, large underground nuclear detonation in China. After the newscast, Mutschler went to the Channel 13 TV news station to get a dub of the report and was told by the General Manager that no such broadcast had occurred. He knew that was not the truth and when he was leaving the station, a TV technician approached him and said privately that the underground pyramid in Alaska story had aired, but afterward someone ordered the story erased. Later, when he sought out information on the topic at a classified archive in Fort Meade, two men showed up and told him to leave the subject alone."

Linda Moulton Howe is amazing as a long-time journalist investigating strange anomalies on our planet!  Her website:  www.earthfiles.com 

                                                        

          
                                                      a soft place in my imagination


                                                                 PROCRASTINATION

                                                       waking, grinding thoughts,
                                                       must do, must be, can’t delay,
                                                       money to earn, time to burn,
                                                       grudging, churning my way through
                                                       awful twisting turmoils boiling within,
                                                       and always the yearning undertow
                                                       of unanswered desire pulling me down

                                                       why can’t I say no,
                                                       wave my magic wand of intent
                                                       and cast it all away?
                                                       where’s that little child I used to be
                                                       whose life unfolded like
                                                       a rolling mountain stream?
                                                     
                                                       I didn’t care then,
                                                       when I was little

                                                       not when carefree wisdom
                                                       blew through my thoughts
                                                       like bright winds of easy whimsy,
                                                       and I carelessly tossed aside
                                                       the great and small
                                                       and poured myself into
                                                       the trance of play
                                                       and put it all off
                                                       till another day

Just a Moment

            Me and Billy Hillerman were twenty years old in the summer of 1984, and had the world by the ass.  It was typical that we dropped mescaline one Saturday evening in July.  We sat around waiting for the signs that it was kicking in, but after a few minutes we couldn't stand the confines of the apartment any longer . . .

-- the opening of This Moment Is My Home my new novel . . . 

I play with my camera and mirrors

THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT:

            

some haiku:

                                                                                                                     this

this moment now is

                       a comingling sacred kiss
                                      of infinities

                       the magic wander,

                         yonder imagination,

                    river of stories

　

　

                                         I would tell if I

                            could, or would if there were words,

                                     but words are foggy


              






                 

Panda cubs on a slide!

           







What would you say to authoritarian forces of greed and control? 

Limitless Love

this is unconditional love

  New Haiku      

                                                                                                           

                         above, waiting sky

                 immeasurable love here

                       filling the quiet

                                                                             

         breath coming, going,
mind shifting like clouds drifting,
    galaxy turning

                                          select the phrases, 

                                      serendipitously come

                                                           upon a haiku

                              hope you read my book

                                 it’s to grok and delight in 

                           maybe blow your mind

                         　                                                     Comfy?

                            

 

 Step into an adventure that's totally unique, steeped in ghostly riddles, and the seductions of inner infinity.  Check out my new experiential novel at:

http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000004420414 

 

         At amazon.com they give you a peek at the first 7 chapters. 
       But click here for the least expensive way to order it. 

This is Picacho Peak.

This is me sitting on top of Picacho Peak.

OUT OF MY MIND: The Great Unknown

Please go here to learn about and order my unique novel:   

This Moment Is My Home

The SELF is the final, limitless frontier. We have been intrigued with outer space for decades, but I believe the more significant area of exploration is inner-space.

Hello, call me a voice from the edge of town, from the outer (or inner) limits.  I stretch my mind into unfamiliar territory from time to time.  The familiar gets dull, and at times I've had a sneaking suspicion that there's a world just beyond our grasp where the miraculous is possible. 

I explore my relationship with my own unconscious. My conscious mind is me.  But my unconscious is also me, just a more mysterious part of me.  It seems that my unconscious is there to do the bidding of my conscious mind, like an idiot-savant genie.  The only problem is that my conscious mind , which is in control, is faulty, full of delusions, neuroses and false information.  Dreams are another story, where there may be clues to this tangled puzzle that is you and me.

     

Consider that the unconscious controls the smooth functioning of millions of activities in our bodies every second.  It records everything we experience, every action, every thought, and stores it all.  You've probably heard of witnesses providing important information they didn't even know they knew, under hypnosis.  And how about those astounding feats where the normal laws of physics seem to be suspended;  like yogis piercing their bodies without any bleeding, or slowing their heartbeat down to less than ten per minute?  How about ESP, premonitions, walking on coals, or any of a thousand other strange mysteries that occur which make some people so uncomfortable that their knee-jerk reaction is to dismiss this huge area of human experience by heaping scorn on it.  Scorn doesn't change what is true, it just makes it easier to kid yourself about it.

Changing your own destiny and finding wisdom may not be as hard as we think.  They may be as easy as asking your unconscious for guidance and listening and valuing the insights, inspirations and revelations from that voice within. 

Through meditation or self-hypnosis I can reach an altered state where brain activity is in the alpha and theta states, as opposed to beta (normal waking consciousness). What I do with my time in that altered state is entirely up to me. I am finding that my unconscious seems to be limited only by my own imagination and beliefs.  That's a heady thought.  So to truly stretch my horizons I need to flex my imagination and expand my beliefs.

            I'm venturing into the great unknown . . . from time to time I'll report back. 

 For some fantastic inner adventures read my new novel:

                                               This Moment Is My Home

    More book info at:  http://www.friesenpress.com/bookstore/title/119734000004420414



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