Sunday, January 06, 2008

There is a lot of pressure. A lot of pressure.

The last 60 hours or so had me living inside of a taxi cab.
Thurs - ride 3 hours. ride to yellow. sit in cab for 14 hours.
Fri - sleep 5 hours. get in taxi for 3. ride to spin class, teach it, ride home. get in taxi for another 14.
Sat - sleep 6 hours. get up and ride with Mayhew for 3 hours. sit in taxi for another 9 hours. ride home in the rain.

It was cut throat taxi time, because of the home steelers game. Every cab in the lot was taken. I had to take what I was given. I got a crown vic with 350,000 miles. Not a bad rig. I get rolling and try to put the heat on. No heat. 20 degrees Thursday night.

The Pens played Toronto. I was cruising a hotel stand at a bling hotel downtown and got waved down. A guy jumps in and asks to go to "the southside bars." In the time it took for him to jump in, two tour buses pulled in and blocked the exit for a minute. I said "man I hope you arent a Canadian hockey player, cause their freaking buses are holding you up." He laughed and said he played for Toronto. Weird, why isnt he on the bus?
"That's cool, hockey is a tough sport..."
"yeah... there is a lot of pressure... lots of pressure... especially on the goalie."
Oh man, he gave up 6 goals.
"wow, yeah thats hard man."
"Playing goalie is all that I have done since I was 3 years old. There is so much pressure man... so much pressure."

Im assuming that he just walked to the hotel from the Arena, because he wasnt on the bus with the rest of the players. Poor guy. He wanted to go to a dive bar, so I dropped him off at Dee's. 20 on a 6 dollar fare. Sweet.

This is the closest thing to a famous person I have had in my taxi yet, that I know of. My grandfather had Ozzy Osborn in the 80's. He only kind of knew of him, and its when ozzy had a bad reputation. Apparently he was drunk and or high.

Another famous Pittsburgh taxi person is Michael Keaton. Batman. After leaving University, Keaton worked as a cab driver for Yellow. Apparently after he was famous, for some kicks, he came back and worked a few shifts. The guys talking about it said he dressed down and grew his hair out so that nobody recognized him.

2 comments:

Burt Friggin' Hoovis said...

The guy in your cab was Scott Clemmensen. He had a rough 3rd period on Thursday night.

Anonymous said...

I got laid in a cab one. The driver didn't seem to care. Ever have that happen?