White Taxi

2011-11-09T01:51:00.005+02:00

I have this theory about innercity muggings that was almost found out today. I don't think it's an original concept but when you're crossing town you don't always have the advantage of checking your references. If you are thinking, and only a fool switches into overdrive between combis on the streets of Jozi, then you're awake to the nuances of interracial action where memories are scarred into the group conciousness and nothing is ever simply going to gloss over because you want a better life for all and a receeding past.

I've been played for it often enough and after my first and since then only mugging some years ago I realised that there was a certain level of engagement needed between both players. Very seldom will you be walking along a crowded street in town and get hit over the head and robbed. The mugger requires an opening, provided by the muggee, the right, if you will, to be mugged. If you don't offer the right, the invitation is withheld, and the mugger will be required, through some twisted application of social norms, to remove the threat and move on.

The request comes in the form of recognition at first followed by some form of physical 'real' contact. Perhaps recognition is too strong a term, but then the victim needs to recognise the threat and somehow affirm it, agree to the terms and cons. The power switch is sudden and meant to disarm, entirely. The moment you affirm the scenario you are entitled to perform and can extract yourself only from the end of it once you have been mugged.

Sometimes the only way around being mugged is around being mugged. The semantics are as paired-down beautiful as the moment itself, that automated instant when you are singled out by someone you manage to ignore without offending and slip around and carry on and don't get mugged.

Today though it's hot, and you have spent a long time on the road and the pavements are a real people mashup. You're stepping out a slow taxi, people heldup, mamas manoeuvering themselves from a rustcan tinbucket and you're into the shove and someone walks passed and reaches out and stops you, arm across chest. This is the theory fucked, stopped, not engaged prevented from engaging, demanded attendance at a sudden trial no words at all no time for words a single moment when you do manage to move through the motherfucker and kill the motherfucker in your mind and then you are crossing the road just crossing fuck the cars and the taxis and there is a general crossing of the crowds and you're into the Bree Street rank and you don't look back this isn't the bible this is real life.

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Bullets for Malema. Bree Rank Shootout

2011-08-30T23:03:00.018+02:00

Today I got a healthy dose of deepdowntown. I did a Tshirt run, as usual. This involves catching a combi into town, Wanderers, walking the two grimy blocks to Noord Rank, MTN Rank (Meat Too Nice... no seriously... the butchery on the corner of Plein and Noord is the MTN Butchery) and then catching a combi from lane 3 (Alex) down Louis Botha (pronounced: Loo-is Boota) and then walking the last kay and a half into the factory district of Wynburg, where my printers are located.

Today is a good day. I am printing Hitler with his Rhythm Stick... a design not many people dig but a design I worked really hard at. I chat with the owners of the printers for a while... they're plenty busy and that suits me fine... bringing my work into a nicely oiled concern where all the teeth and grooves are meshing sweetly is a bonus... then I walk back out with the Hitler Ts, having deposited a load for Ou Skool. Things are ticking and I even whistle as I walk back to the corner of Ark Wright and Loo-is Boota where I catch another combi back into town.

The interchange between Meat Too Nice Rank and Bree Rank goes smoothly. I get out of the cab on Ntemi Peliso and then all fucking hell breaks loose. I'm at the intersection of Ntemi and Sauer (Sawyer pronounced Sour) when 2 3 4 gunshots go off to my left, about 50 meters away, and people scatter... The crowds are thick here, bru... not like one or two people in clumps but thick, gooey urban stew, do you know what I mean, and you can see them all move as one animal, out and AWAY like to-fucking-day, OK? I scarper quick, it's funny how that happens.. your mind doesn't need much of an invite. Shots = Fuck Off!. 7 or 8 more shots go off as I run bowed around the corner, between a bus and a combi then out across the street to the other side, people scarpering with me. More shots, and now sirens. The cavalry has arrived but I ain't waiting around. Some people don't seem too phased and turn to watch the show, but I've got better things to do with my life and I'm outtathere. I skirt the park and move past some guy who's looking back.

- shots, I tell him
- they're standing for Malema, he says and laughs.

yeah, I bet they are... the Africa I know is not the Africa I am told, and times are changing quickly, perhaps. I make my way around Bree, cross the Mandela Bridge, whereever he is, and find a combi to Cresta from outside the old FoodyX.

This is not the first time shots have been fired at Bree. I remember walking towards the Cresta lane and seeing cops chalking round 9mm casings, a handful of them. Jerry Springer crowds minus the pretension looking on. It's just one of the things we do... if we can... we carry on and ignore the signs, besides the ones that take us home.

Those we follow religiously.

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Change

2011-07-17T11:55:00.007+02:00

The return of white man jumping.

It has been some time, but I have decided to continue my blog on jumping between joburg taxis. By this I mean traveling Mzani-style, not literally dodging these things in the road. That would be manic.
In the interim I have discovered a new route through to Fourways that doesn't take the M1/N1 highway exchange. My reluctance to use the highway has nothing to do with the new tolling system, I simply don't enjoy hurtling along at highspeed in a taxi, I prefer it when they're boxed in traffic on the city streets, hooting and jostling, vying for position and edging along the yellow lane. I feel it to be a bit safer this way. An illusion I entertain to while away my hours spent on the road.

People in taxis are friendly. We enjoy a camaraderie lacking elsewhere. Handing over your fare to a stranger and being forced to share with them a tiny section of seat as they cram us in, traveling in the same boat as it were, centring the experience around the common goal - a destination, has a harmonising effect. All men travel equal, and there is little time for attitude.

The other day, moving across the Mandela bridge the guy next to me excuses himself and tries to give me R2.50, claiming I had over-paid. I know I handed him R8.00, which was the fare from Bree to Cresta, but this guy, a well-spoken student-type, clearly my junior, insisted that I take the R2.50. In his eyes, if a mistake was made it could only be mine, in handing him a R5 coin instead of a R2. I saw he wouldn't be dissuaded so I took the money thinking I could make a fortune this way, the obligatory white guy in a taxi casually accepting handfuls of change through fare-errors with people being super-nice all the time.

Like this other time, on the new Fourways route, there was massive change contusion. The passenger in front was not a money minded fellow and straight away things went awry. He kept on handing back the wrong change, and with people working out their own fares between them and passing them forward at different times, the three rows behind the driver that is, you can imagine how, with only your wits to manage the transactions, if you get it wrong it can go all the way wrong. Nearly in Bryanston the driver had to stop on the side of the road and whatwhat everybody behind him, and next to him to try figure this out. The end result... we started again, everybody got their money back and repaid. This doesn't work though as people have already managed change between themselves, and the money came back in rows. Of course, being the white guy I got more money than I should have, I already had my change but the nice lady next to me insisted I must have made a mistake this money was mine... so I repaid, kept my change, and made R1 out of the confusion. What can you do? It's difficult to argue with sincerity.

Add this to the few times where I have completely forgotten to pay, simply hailed the taxi and sat down lost in thought, and then jumped, later figuring I had jumped for free, and I suppose I am becoming quite flush, quite street-wise in my dealings. All in good spirits though, as we toot and teeter on the brink of freedom.

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u cant be a winner always

2009-11-18T20:03:00.004+02:00

Yesterday I needed to get to Bryanston.

I caught a taxi through to Bree that was playing "Takalane Sesame" (Sesame Street in Zulu) at full ball... This was followed by English Made Easy (Good morning Good morning how are you... children can you say "COW" Say "COW" Children.

CUNT. although in this case slightly softer. cunt. like that.

The driver didn't hear me. God knows what he's going to do with English anyway, Zuma doesn't hold with that kind of shit. As a matter of fact neither does Julius.

This whole episode, the bullshit sesame and the bullshit OLSET program (Open Learning Systems Education Trust for christsake) reminded me of a taxi with the following marking I saw in its back window about a week ago.

U CANT BE A WINNER ALWAYS.

Tell me about it.

To get to Bryanston you need to go through Randburg Rank. Somebody tell me an easier route, cos when you get to Randburg you gotta sit in the Bryanston Taxi and wait for it to fill up. In this instance 40 minutes. And the kid in the first row starts screaming 20 minutes in. It's still going full tilt when I get off at Bryanston Shopping Centre. I would have preferred to listen to Takalane Sesame, but not the OLSET crap.

I have a thing against the OLSET program. It brings back bad memories of Helen Joseph Hospital, when I ended up after my motorcycle accident in 2003, trussed like a gimp in traction, and every morning, every godforsaken morning in that slimepit, someone in a room down the ward played OLSET at full volume. Every fucking morning for 6 weeks.

Do you know what that can do to a man?

On a lighter note. I rode in a taxi the other day that carried the following instruction over the "footledge" behind the driver's seat.

PLEASE DO NOT PLACE FEET
OR SEAT ON THIS SHELF.
IT IS MEANT FOR PARCELS.

Some drivers adopt this stance with a military intensity. Others offer you some leeway. My advice. Keep you feet on the floor and your eyes on the prize. You can't be a winner always, but tomorrow might bring some slight respite, at least.

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markings

2009-10-16T23:04:00.006+02:00

today I rode a taxi that featured the bumpa sticker:

THE ONLY TIME WOMEN LISTEN IS WHEN MONEY TALKS
(inside: above the driver's door)

while travelling behind another taxi with the following marking in its back window:

FIVE MILES EMPTY

On the way back from work I sat behind the driver and someone had used an artline kokie to scratch in downward tending letters

F U C KER

on the guy's leather seatback

and earlier this morning someone outside MCALLISTERS Shoes along Wanders street just short of Noord Rank reached out for my arm to mug me but I ignored them and carried on walking

MLUNGU

fuck off

Things are heating up ahead of the world cup

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Stop Striking Taxi Drivers

2009-03-25T00:11:00.007+02:00

They have been known to strike back. Striking Taxi drivers. They strike back. Ahh fuck. Old joke. Anyway. On with the show. Today taxi drivers all over Joburg striked (struck?) over the introduction of the Metro Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Link Transit system, or more accurately, local and national government's inability to address their concerns at the city bringing in hundreds of new buses and dedicated traffic lanes to cart people back and forth during the upcoming FIFA Soccer World Cup (football?). You know what I mean. 10 - 15 000 angry fucking taxi drivers walking down the streets of urban Jozi wielding knob-kerries and shouting machine gun verse as their war-torn victor leader had done before them (many drivers are zulus who support, and who are supported by? Jacob. Zuma. Him of the techni-color scapegoat).

Reports of violence filtered in. Strangely I didn't take the taxis in today. No I mean haha I didn't have to even if there wasn't a strike on because I was sitting in for an absent manager at one of our bookstores (my role now with the bookgroup is very ill-defined. It's like I do everything and nothing). Of course, it wasn't the taxi drivers who committed these acts of atrocity (one putco bus driver was shot, and some people who caught a meter cab were accosted. somehow. vaguely. hurt. over the radio) it was detractors to the cause, arbitrary third party influences who played foul of the ball.

It's funny like that. A group of people do something that acts as an opening for another group of people to push the limits of the law (reference: looters during anarchy/ emergencies; violent perpetrators during demonstrations) yet the original group who created the opening want no part of the blame. Fuck that. GUILTY. Motherfuckers. Probably those same cunts who shot off those rounds at Bree Street Rank I was talking about. Good luck to them. The Rea Vaya Rabid bus lynx is coming to maul them in their spring-sprung seats, in their filthy 20-hour-a-day moth-beaten shirts, hanging on to their monkey-wrench steering wheels flinging their rattle-traps along the roads like ketties. Or, the projectiles that come out of ketties, once you release them. ...fuck.

Not that I mind, I must be honest. I haven't caught a bus in years. I don't know why. My blood might be red but I must have a black heart. Maybe I really am an African. I think I need to ask Julius Malema next time we meet to shoot the hoop, spear the queen on the corner by his donought shop. Because, of course, most of what I know about the world I have learnt from Julius Malema. My homeboy.

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good news and bad news

2009-03-17T23:29:00.006+02:00

I've got good news and bad news. The good news is there's another funny taxi story on the way. The bad news is it will have to wait until after the Taxi Violence.

So today right... and I haven't been writing but I have been jumping, travelling, getting on and off more taxis than you can ever imagine. Green ones, red ones, blue ones, white ones white ones... I am coming home from Balfour, just around the corner from our Lyndhurst Bookshop warehouse, where I am now putting in some time for being such a great guy, anyway. I get through Noord Rank (what a story Noord Street Rank is... I must let you in) and make my way to Bree. At Bree Street Rank I'm crossing the road to the rank and I look right and there is an ambulance with flashing lights. I think nothing of it. I move along, keeping my distance, keeping my eyes on the ground (change, remember...) and I get to the Cresta line. Fucking cops. Everywhere. Not metros. Cops. Badges. Bastards. I'm like, HoKay I'll just get in here then... and I sit next to this cute little black number and ask, what's with all these cops. They are standing around at the head of the Cresta line, the taxi is even seated a couple of meters back. She doesn't know. Then, they haul out the yellow DO NOT CROSS CRIME SCENE POLICE TAPE, and we're all, hahaha, this taxi is going to go straight through that shit when it starts up (which it does, by the way, the cops just lift the tape up, knowing better). As we pass through the cordon I look around and on the ground there are coke cans and sprite cans with chalk circles drawn around them. What, have the cans like pegged, I wonder, until I see the AK47 shells lying next to them. Before the chalk lines were drawn the cans were used to demark the areas where they landed. Bit of a dunce move, there are fucking cans littered everywhere in Bree, in between the change.

We move off, leaving the shells behind (I know they are AK because the word stands out in Zulu - ask Zuma...).

Tomorrow I'll let you know what the good news was.

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Enjoy!

2008-11-22T23:33:00.006+02:00

My my, it has been awhile. Still jumping though, taxi to taxi...
an old hand.

Something funny happened on the way from the rank this afternoon. Something that had "Africa" written all over it. So we leave Eastgate rank. A nice Inyathi (an "Inyathi" is like a local "Toyota" I think - don't hold me to this, I only ride the things). The driver, as soon as he gets out of the Eastgate parking lot, and has turned onto the slipway of the R24, the part where the freeway becomes the not-so-freeway into Jozi central, pulls the cab over to the side of the road and gets out. I'm thinking, not again (about a week ago we got pulled over by the pigs and I witnessed my first bribe - more on that later...).

Anyway, the guy gets out and goes behind the taxi. Others look around, I stay looking ahead, not your regular rubbernecker. Until I hear snickering. Our driver is taking a leak behind the cab at the side of the road. This draws out mixed responses from the other occupants. I know to hold my piece, haha, but I do smile. Once done he moves back along the cab and jumps back in, grinning from ear to ear and looking, to his credit, slightly embarrassed. He turns around to his audience, smiles an apology then holds up a 500ml Coke bottle in explanation. "iKoldrink..." Funny thing is I also needed a leak. I held it in until I got home an hour later. It was a long one. Not the ride.

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Smileys sighted at WITS

2008-09-16T20:15:00.004+02:00

For a change of pace, today, I am bringing you, at long last, an image of the Tshirt Terrorist bombing run of WITS university. Tomorrow I might revert to tales of taxi travails. I might also simply post more smileys. Watch this space.

Oh, before I forget... Today's BUMPA STICKA is:

IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS GIRLS COOKED LIKE THEIR MOTHERS
NOW THEY DRINK LIKE THEIR FATHERS

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How s m Dr ving?

2008-09-06T15:44:00.002+02:00

Today started out as any other day as a taxi jumper... I walked the stretch through Melville to Main Street, although this time aware that the only currency I had on me was a R100 note (refer to the BUMPA STICKA: DONT BRING R50 R100 R200 IN THE MORNING... well, sometimes, you know, you just can't help it).

First thing, a nice new blue car stops, and the driver tells me forget it he doesn't have change, so I jump off at the next robot and hail another one. This driver is more courteous and accepts my cash. Soon we have caught up to the nice new blue car (one of those fancy Toyota Quantums the government is pushing the taxi bosses to purchase as part of the recap) and on the back of the car I see the following

HOW IS MY DRIVING?

071 16 381

As far as I can remember there are 10 digits in an SA cell number. This little terror has scratched off 2 digits and left it there... hmm... it will take some working on but I'm sure I can figure it out. Number puzzles. Yay.

Anyway. I digress. The reason this nonevent stuck in my mind is because in the afternoon the taxi I caught had a real slow driver. Real slow. This guy went through a red robot. Just like that. At first the car is quiet and then everyone erupts... what the fuck, baba?! kinda thing.... This guy, this baba of note, he's grinning and you can see he just totally missed it... straight through.... Ten minutes later, Jesus, he almost does it again... this time everyone pipes up just before he tears through it and he stops just in time. Next, he's stopped at the side of the road, the door's open someone's getting out and he starts to pull off. Once again the taxi erupts... baba, what the fuck?! All this guy can do is grin as if he doesn't have a care in the world...

On the last leg to Bree I'm the only passenger left. You can bet I'm holding on... Baba, your car has shite shocks, is shimmying from side to side on piss-poor alignment and you can't see worth fuck. In the words of the one true bob... Stop the train I'm leaving... which is damn well what I did.

Sometimes, these guys... perpetual slow boat I tells ya.

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Both sides of the Phat Ass Coin

2008-08-20T18:37:00.005+02:00

Last Friday get this. We get into the taxi, catching it at Main Road, and an argument over change is in full swing. Let me explain quickly how the money thing works, and you'll find the rest easier to follow.

When you get into a car, you pass your fare to the person next to you. If the taxis is at the rank, you do this after the driver has started the car (just in case something happens and you need to find another car...). Once every row has collected their fares these are paid forward to the driver, or the person next to the driver who hands change backwards and the rest, the sum, to the driver.

Last Friday get this. There's a huge row. Not sure what's going on but I hear "R20 for 3" this and "R20 for 2" that. The driver is turning back to conduct his bit so often that he's hardly facing forward anymore. I think nothing of it - both his riding position and the row - and pass my R50 for 2 forward. I don't pass it sideways to the person next to me because not only is this my girl, but it is fairly obvious that the majority of people have paid, given the argument.

While waiting for my change I try follow what's up. The guys in the back are snickering about this driver. The implication seems to be he has no clue what he's on about. A lady behind me says, and not too kindly... "this guy just wants to drive his car, he doesn't want to know about no money..." which would amount to a serious problem. As a taxi driver you need have some small understanding in this direction. How to make change for one, if not how to make money.

I look around for interesting bumpa stickas. I see one, behind the driver's head. It says: THE DRIVER DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE LOSS OR THEFT WHATSOEVER. I begin to think... oh-ho....

Everyone is still arguing. I slot in my two cents. R50 for 2, I shout, adding to the increasing din of R20 for 2's and R20 for 3's. Fuck. This does not look good. Er, R50 for 2. At R7.50 a pop that means I am expecting R35.00 change from this phat ass zulu looking dude, and he's not showing any signs as yet of having heard me. He's got a handful of notes in one hand, the steering wheel in the other, the passenger beside him who should have by rights sorted this out long ago looks about as fucking clueless as he is. Great. FUCK. R50 for 2, I shout. I am silenced by the din of people wanting their bucks, and I don't mean the soccer team neither.

My girl gets out in Braamfontein, she says, you gonna be alright? you gonna get your change? Jeez, of course, who ever heard of not getting their change back from a driver, right, with or without the ol' doesn't accept responsibility for wharawharawhara...?

The taxi is getting lighter. I don't mean more white guys are getting in, I mean more and more people are getting out as it nears Bree Rank. As we enter into the rank I am lone guy sitting and I don't have my change. The taxi draws to a halt and I say, hey, baba, R50 for 2, where's my R35 change? He looks at me and points as to behind me and he says, you saw those guys, they robbed me. They robbed me! I'm like, fuck. He gets out. Here I am. The taxi is now standing last in a long queue of waiting cars and I am R35 lighter. And I don't mean I am whiter, there are for real spots of colour building high on my cheeks I'm sure, I mean I have just been lifted by this phat ass zulu looking dude either because a) he's a real shrewd piece of work or b) he's just a dumb fuck. I sit there. He has left his keys in the car. I sit some more. The keys.

Understand this. If I had taken this guys keys and bailed I would never have been able to come back to the rank. I would had to have taken the bus to work. The bus. Think about it for a minute, OK? The fucking bus. So of course I don't take his keys. I just sit there. Like this car right now I am going nowhere, brother.

He comes back. Leans in the window. I explain the story to him again he says to me, so who do you think robbed you? This, no doubt, is a loaded question. A knife point. Your friendly village assagai passed between friends like musical battle hymns on the eve of the revolution. So I say, it doesn't matter who robbed me, what matters is that this is your taxi... your responsibility. You need to ensure that things stay sorted, no matter who did what to you, at the end of the line, I need my change, to catch another cab, to get to work. He looks at me....

Let's take a step back here. Let's analyse this situation as part of the broader picture, OK? This ain't no pot or kettle name-calling session. A spade is a spade is a spade. The simple fact now remains, bullshit aside, that there ain't no fucking way I'm getting this cash. The guy has a clear way out. He is a black guy and I am a white guy. I am sitting in his taxi surrounded by hundreds of other taxis and their drivers and thousands of other black guys. I'm not getting this money. I can make an issue but that will be a poor judgement call on my part. So I do what any other self respecting white guy would do in this situation. I back the fuck up. I get out the car, but not without a parting shot, I say guy, I say dude, I say motherfucker, no I don't say that I say, mate, I'm the wrong white guy to mess with. And I mean it. I look back. CRB 482 GP. You'll never ride again. And if you do. God fucking help you, man. And I don't mean with the problems of counting out change neither.

I walk out to the ABSA ATM, eyes in the back of head, and withdraw another R50.00 then head back into the rank. Feeling like a loose white cannon I could shoot this entire shit-holed scenario straight to hell. It's stinking litterstrewn ganjapiss smelling beauty. I could rock the whole fucking thing down the block and off the edge. I don't. I find the car to Eastgate and wait to get taken to work. I'm gonna be late. Great. FUCK.

That was in the morning. The afternoon, well the evening, I had something else to do. I had been asked to attend the Jozi Spoken Word Fest as a speaker, a poet. I do that kind of shit often. I write stuff. And once I've written stuff, I sprout it. I'm some kind of spoken word artist. Or so they tell me. That's when I'm not a Tshirt Terrorist, which, let me tell you, amounts to pretty much the same thing. Sort of.

I catch a cab home from Eastgate, then catch another one into town. I jump off at my girl's work and we make our way to Wits. The fest is being held at the Wits Amphitheatre and I'm on at 9. It starts at 7 but before that we grab a bite to eat and embark on a Terrorist Branding campaign which does nothing if not lift the spirits slightly. (Pictures to follow.)

Anyway, to cut a long story off at the tail... I get up on stage... I do my thang... I'm up for about 4 minutes, having left my ego at home, and afterwards Rasta Zweli comes up to me (they're all Rastas, these poet guys I know, who have organised this thing and whose monthly event I support)... afterwards Rasta Zweli comes up to me, while the last performer is on, and the lights are still down, and he thrusts a clipboard into my hand and I'm thinking *groan* another sponsorship... I support these guys to the tune of R300 each month for their gig and they flaunt my logo on their posters and whatnot, so I write R300 down and he says to me, this Rasta, he says, no you must write R500, like everyone else, and trues bob all these other performers have written R500 down so I do the same. He then puts R500 in my paw and moves on. I think, wait a minute, whatthefuck?! This guy has just paid me R500 for 4 minutes on stage. That's comparatively the most I have ever earned.

This morning some black guy swindles me out of R35 and the very same evening another black guy gives me R500. I must be living in the africa of the south.

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BUMPA STICKAS Vol. II

2008-08-11T18:37:00.006+02:00

And today's bumper stickers are...

BEER: MY FRIEND I WOULD RATHER YOU KILL ME.
I'm still trying to figure this one out. Is the assailant coming at you with a beer bottle, or are you being assailed for your beer? Do you often talk to your beer, or is it only once, you know, there's not a lot of it left... nudge nudge wink wink.

I'M A FOOL OF JESUS. WHOSE FOOL ARE YOU?
Yours. For even bothering to read this, and then memorise it for my blog.

WOMEN ARE LIKE A BANK ACCOUNT. Once you have no money they give you funny warnings.
The service fees are also quite horrendous.

Last but not yeast:
PAY WITH SMILE I DRIVE WITH SMILE.
Looks like a monkey wrench to me, brother...

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STAYAWAYA

2008-08-06T19:23:00.004+02:00

Today Cosatu held a stayaway. This included taxi drivers. Usually when this happens I hang around main road Melville for a while, just to confirm there really aren't any of the buggers around, then I phone a friend and get them to work for me. This achieved I saunter on home and fire up the PC and percolator (in my case a kettle + Nescafe). Today though no-one can work for me, so I hang around main road Melville thinking: whatthefuck?!

There are one or two cars. They are few and far between. After seeing my girl off in a meter cab to Braamfontein I head on to Campus Square where I finally manage to catch a car into town. It's already like 9:30. I'm seriously late but what can I do? At least I'm on route, the bookstore can wait for a while.

One problem though, and this is a bitch but funny nonetheless. The taxi drops us all in town, at Bree, after telling us there are no taxis in town at all... anywhere. Now what? I peep inside Bree Rank. True's Bob... not a single car... I have never seen the rank looking so... clean.

So, here I am, in town, and stuck. Town is looking dead quiet y'all... not really the place you want to be hanging around if you can help it, so I decide to hightail it out of there. Problem is, to get out of town I need to find a meter cab... and it's going to cost me (turns out transport for today, to and from work, is going to set me back R300.00). Many cabs hang around Plein Street; it's a real trek. Joburg is looking decidedly Westernish - unnervingly silent as if a horde of bandits are about to arrive and shoot the place up. I begin walking and around the corner from Bree, at the Total garage, I run into about 100 taxis, deserted and parked in every available space, all minus drivers. These guys are apparently in Pretoria, Tshwane sorry, toyi toying against the rising price of power and fuel.

I find a cab along Plein. The driver quotes R120.00 and there's nothing I can do. Gotta pay the fare, fair or no.... It's 10 o'clock and I seem to be having one of those days. After getting out the taxi at Bedford I look down and my fly's open.

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JESUS LOVES YOU don't bang the door

2008-08-03T23:41:00.004+02:00

Taxis wear their bumper stickers on the inside. Here are a few gems.
ENJOY >>>

JESUS LOVES YOU DON'T BANG THE DOOR. The logic behind this one tickles, it really does. How many times do I have to slam the door before Jesus puts his foot down and I fall out of favour?

ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST. I sat under this bumper sticker the whole way home one day, smiling. I must have freaked a whole lot of black guys out. It's because I have a disarming smile.

90% OF G-STRING WOMAN LOVE YOU FOR YOUR MONEY. It's true, you know... Can't trust them G-string women as far as you can cart them, day after weary day, in a South African white taxi.

or: SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING G-STRING SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING: Presumably the same message as stated above, but translated.

A WOMEN ARE LIKE A ROAD. TOO MANY DANGEROUS CURVES. Another plea for world-wide mysogeny, with a bit of old skool English dragged along for the ride.

NO HEAVY WEIGHTS IN THE FRONT SEAT. Sound advice. I've seen these mamas, dude... the taxi tilts like one way.

DON'T BRING R20 R50 R100 IN THE MORNING. Don't bring 5c either... rather chuck these out on the ground for someone like myself to find.

EVERYONE HAS TO PAY, EVEN THOSE WHO KNOW ME (Heita da, majita my bra') No free rides, no free lunches. No more free toys with every Happy Meal.

and finally... I MAY BE A TAXI DRIVER SOMETHING SOMETHING SOMETHING BUT THE HELL WITH YOU I PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE. Tru dat... a litte bit of roadkill never hurt anyone.

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TAXI to ALEX

2008-07-30T22:39:00.008+02:00

Today I took a taxi to Alex township, although this blog title is misleading cos I jumped off before the township - Wynberg, Sandton to be precise. I was collecting a print order for 12 DOOS Tshirts for my company Tshirt Terrorist, but I'll get into that in a short while.

To get to Alex. I mean, Wynberg (I just can't resist the whole "ALEX" thing... it's like catching a taxi to Orlando, as in: I wish... no white man has ever, so far as I know, ever caught a taxi to Orlando... that's like "end of the line..." in more ways than one... but, I might be wrong, you never know.

Anyway. Back to the start. I gave myself 2.5 hours to do the round journey. This was before I got a call from Tshirt Terrorist's brand manager and entrepreneur extraordinaire Ant Scholte from TheAntsNest.com who was up from Cape Town for business and presently at my place. It was 1 when he called and said he would be at The Ant Cafe in Melville working (no guesses why he would choose this particular venue) so I said I would see him there, with the Ts!

To get to Alex you need to take 2 taxis. The first taxi, jumping on halfway, is one that travels from Cresta to Wanderers. Wanderers is not the cricket ground, I made that inaccurate assumption once, but a small street running off Plein Street, about three blocks away from Noord Street Rank. I don't like Noord Street. It is like Bree Street Rank except slightly more seedy, and in the open, which therefore feels less controlled by the taxi mob. The mob, the Bosses, keep the ranks clear of Tsotsis, so that commuters can travel the system, can feed it. Noord Street has always struck me as a dodgy haunt, but the taxi to Alex leaves from here. I don't know exactly where but I'm going to find out.

The funny thing is, when you catch a car midday, as I was doing now, the taxi driver often doesn't haul ass as he would through traffic during the rush hours. When the roads are calm so is he, cruising along slowly for tabs, hooting all the while to catch the heads up on potential fares. In other words it took about 45 mins to get to Wanderers from Melville. I asked him on route whether he knew where I could catch a taxi to Alex (iow: Wynberg, Sandton, along Louis Botha) and he said, yeah, he would show me. This amounted to pointing me in the vague direction of Noord Street Rank after depositing me on Wanderers Street. So much for that plan. I began my three block walk through the middle of Jozi.

When I travel taxis, especially routes I am not sure of, I make myself vaguely vagrantish. I don't shave, take off all bling, and keep it simply jeans and a Tshirt. Sometimes I test out my Tshirts, to see how offensive they really are, by running them through Bree Street Rank to see if I get a response. I would never do this through Noord though. I just don't feel that comfortable with the rank, or the people in it.

I make it to Noord though, trailing school kids and others, and head immediately for the far end... rows 2 - 4 where I once caught a taxi for a week through to Balfour Park, which is also on Louis Botha, on route to Alex. The best way to find out what car goes where is to either ask the line bosses, the guys who usher people into taxis, and get paid about R5.00 per taxi that leaves the rank, or to ask the passengers inside a taxi, the theory being they generally know where it's heading. On this occasion I head up to a dude who looks of passing importance and he fucking ignores me. Can you believe it? I must be white. Well, it takes about 5 mins of walking around getting told no this taxi no this one, no, man, this one, (which was the last one which wasn't the right one) before I get handed back to the guy who originally ignored me. His taxis go to Alex. I get in. Go figure.

The journey to Alex... hahaha... you know what I mean, would have been uneventful were it not for the driver stopping just outside Hillbrow for petrol... The Hillview Service Station, a regular fucking dive with apparently either no working pumps or working attendants because the driver had to reverse a few times and find a new pump. Now, I have no idea how he got this right but the driver had rigged some sort of ringtone effort to his reverse gear. You know how trucks make this incessant beeping racket when they reverse well, try this out. This 'ringtone' (I thought at first it was an unanswered cellphone) was a high-and-low-pitched recorded baby's wail... WAAAAH waahwaah... WAAAAH waahwaah... WAAAAH waahwaah... you get the picture.... This guy spent at least 5 minutes in reverse, then forward shifting, then back into reverse, and all the time, from somewhere behind and to the left, WAAAAH waahwaah. It stopped when he went forward and began again when he reversed. It damn near drove me ape.

WAAAAH waahwaah SHUTUP! WAAAAH waahwaah SHUTUP but of course I could not do that.

We got out of that bullshit situation thankfully and once more I was heading out to Wynberg, the scruffy ass-end factory district of the otherwise trendy and dolled-up Sandton. I jumped at the corner of Ark Wright and Louis Botha, just before the robots changed, and made my way down to my printers.

Someone ordered a Tshirt off my site. Low and behold a fucking miracle. But seriously, I wasn't expecting this T to sell... DOOS... it means: you cunt! or asshole! in afrikaans counter culture but really what it means is "box" so the design is effectively a cardboard box going ta-ra! and the guy wearing the Tshirt can advertise himself as a real piece of work, or advertise a "friend" as that real piece of work, if he doesn't want to wear the T himself. On my site you can buy the T and send it to someone else. I will then say, some guy thinks you're a DOOS, so we have bombed you with this Tshirt. Enjoy! I am not sure into which particular category this sale fits in, but as the guy ordered an XL I'm pretty sure he can deal with either wearing it himself or handing it out to some other doos.

I collect the Ts without too much hassle, discuss my brand with the owner of the printing concern some, then make my slow way back to the main arterial taxi route - Louis Botha Street. I really despise factory districts. It seems I have been ploughing through them, heading to or from taxis, for a long time now, ever since I started making Ts. There's dust and dirt everywhere, and people wandering around, and trucks and trucks and a few more trucks... just fucking trucks everywhere and me, walking through this to get to a taxi.

I was on a bit of a high though, having just collected Ts. Something like that does this to you. The journey from design to finished product for a small T company like mine is an amazing and very personal experience. I am way stoked, and feel good travelling back up through Orange Grove, passed Yeoville and Hillbrow, back into town.

Passed Noord street I jumped out and ran/ walked/ eyes-down looking for change, to outside the MTN butchery. MTN, not the mobile network, although their branded colours are similar to the MTN Jack Mincer Rank (Noord Street) across the way... but MTN - Meat Too Nice! (Can you believe that shit?) They name a butchery in such a sucky way to play on the larger branding across the road which means you're effectively left with a bull on a fading yellow background glaring at you with fading red eyes going, Meat Too Nice! Fuck me. I see a taxi that's heading to Bree and now I'm in a hurry cos not only is Ant waiting me at the Ant (and he's a busy guy but it has been almost two hours since we spoke) but I think I have picked up a printing fault on the Tshirt, and I can't exactly start checking this out in the car... this is low key stuff, this jumping cabs, you can't reel your reputation out as a big wig businessman in this environment and expect respect... you'll just call down all sorts of heat on your ass, so you sit still in your faded jeans and week-old beard waiting to get out Jozi. For some reason everyone else has chosen this taxi to Bree too, it seems. There are mamas struggling to get up into the car trailing helpful, dedicated sons carrying huge bags of goods. This whole process of filing people in takes a lot longer than I would have liked, but once again, like that kid in reverse, I gotta keep my mouth shut and my eyes on the ground, scouring for change. Do Not Fuck With The Locals, white man jumping, Just hold your lid.

I eventually do get back into Melville, convinced the printer has messed up the Ts, but it's all a big misunderstanding, between me, two different designers and the printer designer who eventually had to make a tough call, did so, and seems to have done the right thing. A few things I need to sort out tomorrow but for the most part I am happy, and Ant is happy. Got himself a Doos Tshirt is why... has been keen on one of these for a while now. I didn't ask whether he planned to wear this himself or hand it to some other doos. He told me....

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BLACK to the future

2008-07-17T23:18:00.002+02:00

How else would "die Groot Krokodil" have crossed the Rubicon?

Money makes the wheels go round...

2008-07-17T20:05:00.001+02:00

Today I earned a total of 20 cents at Bree Street Rank. There is so much money to be had if you know just where to look. Mostly thrown on the ground, mostly discarded coppers, although sometimes you're luckier and something bigger crops up. On Saturday I was travelling down through Noord, passed the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and I caught sight of an elephant under the back seat. A whole elephant. R20. It was a good day for White Man Jumping. I snatched it up quick as you can and sat there thinking: what a score! It pains me, however, to take money like that. Most of these people don't have much, but I have a theory about money that I would like to share with you. I don't think it's completely my own, or even a very workable theory, but it might explain why someone would go ahead and drop 20 bucks in a taxi (and this is not the first time this has happened either).

To understand my theory you need to imagine that money isn't real, that it doesn't exist. No wait, hear me out. Money, the daily reality that is commerce, exists solely in our collective consciousness. Our desire for something to exist that we can trade between ourselves for other things is the foundation upon which the very nature and value of currencies extend themselves. This is pretty much an established fact, passed down by economists to us little folk and for the most part, I think it holds true. It forms the departure point for my theory which is, I'm afriad, just a little 'esoteric'.

If you choose to discard money, throw it away, no matter the denomination/ value you are discarding, money will in return reciprocate this lack of respect, trust, and meaning, and pretty much do the same to you. As a concept money takes no shit from any of us, if you abuse it it will desert you. Ergo: if you're going to go throwing 5 cent pieces about, don't expect to find the big guns waiting to crowd your wallet, and don't be surprised if you lose money all the time.

Over the years I have found more tom in taxis and the ranks than elsewhere. Most of it is 5c pieces. I saw a mamma, a trader in Bree Street Rank, chuck a whole handful out onto the tarred lanes. I don't make a big thing about collecting these discarded units of our communal angst but I tracked down as many as I could, after they had rolled on about, abused and miffed at the whole thing I'm sure, then continued on my way. Every so often I get up out a taxi and there's all this change, all this silver, just lying useless on the seats. Thank you very much, I don't mind if I do.

The moral, I suppose, of this little episode is: If you're travelling the taxis, or walking the ranks, keep your eyes on the ground, keep your head downcast. Not in fear, supplication, or humility, you fool. People are forever losing their change.

Outspan.

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White Cop Black Cop

2008-07-16T20:15:00.000+02:00

Today was a pretty average day as far as taxis go and boy, do they go! But seriously, most of the time it's business as usual, so I am going to have to make something up. Just kidding. All of the posts by White Man Jumping will be the troof... I promise. Let me rather take you back a week to the incident I mentioned yesterday, where a metrocop got behind a wheel of the taxi I was in, for the first time, although I did not know this then (not that he got behind the wheel, of course, but that another similar incident would follow, jy verstaan?).

In the mornings I reverse the route that I take in the evenings to get back home. Er.... We were travelling through Bertrams, next to Ellis Park, the very Bertrams that looks like a dog chewed at it, morosely, before moving on to something with a bit more zeal. All of a sudden, out of the blue (like no kidding) these metrocops woot woot passed us and stop the taxi. This angry looking black cop gets out, shouting and screaming, followed by his calmer, more chilled, polystyrene coffee cup toting white partner. The black cop comes up to the driver's window and says, you almost bloody hit us, you fool, and he points backward some. We all of us in the taxi look behind us, but it is only for show because, of course, there is nothing to see there. The driver looks nonplussed, and for sure, none of us can figure where and how this might have happened. He is asked to get out of the car and the black cop, like seriously pissed, says he is going to inspect this car now and find something wrong so he can impound it. At the time I am thinking back a year to where another pissed off metro, this one white and purebred bonehead, wanted to do the same thing, all the time uttering, "I'm going to take this piece of shit off of the road!" (not the black cop now, the white cop then... anyway, I digress - back to the present, which is actually last week).

So, the black cop gets behind the wheel and makes a show of trying to find something wrong. The usual... start her up, shift her about. The coloured lady next to me in the first back row says to the cop, hey we are late, why not drive us all to work so you can see where the problem is? This cop is like not impressed. He gets out the car to shout at the driver some. A black lady behind me says knowingly, this cop is looking for a bribe, but as far as we can see the driver isn't falling for it. The white cop has wandered off back to the metrocar ahead of us, and we don't see him again. Our black metro friend meanwhile is getting way worked up, gesticulating (we all turn around again, look back the way we came, still nothing) and this is where the coloured lady with the original chirp gets involved.

She's out the car and siding up to the arguing cop and asking him what the hell the problem is we're all late for work. This rankles our bribe-seeking officer who threatens to take her in for "Interfering with the course of justice" or some such bullshit. He has his finger wagging in her face but she feels feathers, she just gets back in, followed by the driver, eventually, and we pull off, our sideshow entertainment abruptly curtailed.

That's about it. That's the funny incident. Not much I'm afraid, but then I said it was a slow day. Join me again tomorrow for another exciting, edge-of-your-seat adventure with White Man Jumping, your eye on route as we move in transition. If it's not exciting I'll fiddle with it a bit (again, don't stress) or recall something else that happened that makes jumping taxis the only way to go.

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RFG 538 GP - IMPOUNDED

2008-07-15T19:36:00.000+02:00

Today the taxi I was in got impounded by the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police (metrocops). According to the metrocop who was part of the team outside Ellis Park who pulled our driver off the street, this taxi, a Mazda registration RFG 538 GP, was officially still impounded. How this taxi came to be back on the street, with me in it, is beyond our present comprehension. The rest, luckily, is fairly easy.
Let me begin.

Today, for the second time in a week, a metrocop got behind the wheel of a taxi that I was in and, after starting it up, shifted it about a bit to see if it was working properly. The first incident will require a blog all on its own it was just so... random. Today, it took this metro, a white Afrikaner, the help of the taxi driver to simply open the driver's door. You can imagine how the situation would deteriorate after something like this. Actually, the whole thing will snowball to the point where I find myself without a ride in the middle of Jozi. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

The cop gets in and turns around to us. He says, do you guys feel safe in this car? What can we say really...? It's a ride, you know, A 2 B. I did feel, at the start of this journey from Eastgate, that the driver was fucking off a bit fast. There's this one dip, past Bez Valley, I held my breath. He starts the car and puts it into first. It would seem he is an old hand at this because he doesn't struggle a bit. The gearbox engages, he revs the engine, tests the brakes, up and down shifts, checks the hooter (the hooter in a taxi always works, but you never know...) then switches her off and gets out. All seems well, and this latest episode in the endless saga that plays itself out between taxi drivers and metrocops each day in Joburg City looks headed for a happy ending but, a tiger lurks, the foilage explodes in a blur and shit, all of a sudden, happens.

Hey, buddy, come here, come, here, look... The cop has moved to the left side of the front of the car to check the car's vehicle registration and he is now calling the driver over. The driver has been standing at a safe distance the whole while. It would seem that this car doesn't have a valid registration or something. The something turns out to be enough to get the cop, who for some odd reason has not done so until now, to ask the driver for his license. Low and behold, he either doesn't have one or doesn't have one on him. Off he goes to the metrocop car, the backdoor is opened, the driver is pushed in. And here we sit, fourteen black guys and one white guy, stranded, driverless, outside Ellis Park amidst the turmoil of the 2010 FIFA World Cup roadwork preparations. It is 15h45 and I am beginning to regret sneaking off early from work.

We all file out. This happens often. You get in a taxi at a rank, or after having hailed it, and the metrocops stop you with the end result that you all file out and find another one. You actually learn to plan for this eventuality. You wait for it to happen. You choose a seat near the door so that you can be the first to find a new seat on a new taxi and not get left behind. Today I am right at the back of taxi number one, and taxi number two, that was hailed by our driver, who has somehow managed to extricate himself from the backseat of the metrocop car and is lazily every so now an then searching the backpocket of his dirtyjeans for a license that is so obviously still not there, has filled up and pulled away leaving five of us still waiting to be relieved. We end up waiting fifteen minutes for another taxi. During this time I have been speaking to one of the metros. He says the taxi is impounded. Was impounded. Was somehow, incorrectly (shall we say: Corruptly?) released, and will therefore be impounded again. I see a pattern developing here. The metrocop says, this guy obviously hasn't learnt we need to educate him. I do not ask questions. I file into the new taxi.

Off we go again. The only problem is, when you get routed from a taxi for whatever reason, the driver is meant to return your fare to you, so that you can pay the new driver. This, in the slow African confusion that assailed the scene at Ellis Park, has not happened. But it's OK. I am once again in a taxi on route to Bree Street Rank. Haha.

The driver of our new taxi, a snazzy black Toyota Hi-Ace number, is apparently none too happy that he has had to change his route and deliver us to Bree. 1 K down the road, in the shadow of Pontii, amidst more roadworked grit and sound, we are expelled. There are five of us, the driver hastily hands one guy R15.00 (we stand around and together count the coins on his stained palm - yip... only R15.00). The fare to Bree is R7.00 per person. Four guys, obviously pissed off, file into a new taxi as it slows and stops, and I, the white guy out, can't get in, it's full.... It pulls off and disappears and I am left standing, literally, in its dust.

On a good day I have loads of tom. Today I have enough money to get me from Eastgate to Bree (R7.00) then from Bree to Melville, which is on route to Cresta (R7.50). I have R7.50 on me, and will need to pay full fare to Bree in another car. Fuck. I go across to the BP station under the Pontii Towers. The FNB ATM is "being serviced". FUCK! I begin walking. The idea now is to get to Braamfontein, about 5 Ks away. My girl works in a bookstore there. I will catch the bus home with her. I haven't been on a bus in ages. It will be an adventure. But first, the walk, through Joburg. Ah. Did I say "adventure?" I did, didn't I?

I remember Joburg. I used to club here as a teenager. I went to varsity at WITS (for 6 months, before moving on to RAU). I even worked in Hillbrow, at the South African Blood Transfusion Service as a Donor Assistant (don't ask) after dropping out of WITS. I used to walk Jozi's steets flat. Smal Street Mall to High Street Look 'n Listen I'm a fucking legend. But Joburg has changed. This is not 1994. I am older and a lot less loose. I think I'm a bit wiser and less naive. Anyway... this is one horror hell of a walk, there is construction everywhere and my contact lens is bitching, my eyes are streaming and it must look like I am crying - a poor little white guy lost in the big bad ol' city.... I am struggling here, and my right hand, clutching a small, dented, mace, is itching in my puma zipup pocket. I think I might be forced to use it damn dude don't pull it whatever happens last resort keep it concealed or the fuckers will fuck you up long before you get to flaunt your high-noon reflexes. Remember that guy outside Bree. These guys do not mess around.

But make it I do. I feel a bit better once I navigate off Smit street, find the top of Braamfontein and thread my way down closer to WITS. Still, this is not what I was expecting on a Tuesday afternoon. Here I am, brave white man can jump taxis but set me down in the middle of Jozi and I'm a total kitten. I need to work on my profile.

I think about this some, go in to meet my baby, and slowly, after some quiet time, make my way home, on a bus. fu-uck.

WHITE TAXI, by WHITE MAN JUMPING
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