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So, your cab was christianed “The Spirit of New India”? Fancy! I call my Rav4 “Le Papillon du Lorenz”.

London is a beautiful city and it is my hometown, if you come to visit it you will find that you were in the heaven. Maybe before your coming you can find many kownledge about it on EbonyFriends.com, so welcome to London.

All Cab drivers have “The knowlage” lol. Its part of the job.
It will never be replaced with GSP. GPS can tell you where a place to eat is, but little about how good the cook is. Looking for a little jazz joint that has a hot band, ask a cab driver. They are the first contact most people have with a city, and they know it from end to end. —A former cab driver

You know that reminds me of a funny story, My wife and I were in Chicago once and wanted to go to a music store we heard about in a blues bar. This music store was on the south side of Chicago. We ask a cab driver if he knew about it, I guess its somewhat famous. Anyway, we crossed that line in Chi town called “The Loop” and headed to the south side. Now, I am from Detroit, so a few burned out buildings and bars on the windows does not scare me, but let me tell you the deeper we got, the worse it started to look. We passed mountains of uncollected garbage and burned out buildings, saw kids playing in the water from an open fire plug, not too bad. Then even the sun seemed to dim. The burned out buildings became rubble and the people all looked like angry zombies. There were cars burning and small fires in the rubble, little columns of thick black smoke rising into the haze. Every once and a while we would hear a bottle break someone had thrown at us. My wife was down on the floor of the cab, peeking out the window. I was as low as I could get in my seat. Just then the cab driver said, “you sure you want to go on, its going to get a little rough up here”. I’m trying to figure out how it could get worse than the post nuke zombie movie we were already in. Well, we turned back. We tipped the cab driver danger pay and headed back to the DMZ, the “Loop”. My wife and I laugh about this adventure whenever we take a cab.

Heh, I’m from Chicago and now live in Detroit. I’ve been all over Chicago and can’t say that I’ve ever witnessed anything close to what you describe, espescially that close to the Loop. The Taylor homes on the South side were pretty scary, but cramming dozens project towers into a small area can do that.

The difference that probably made you nervous is that there were a lot of people on the street. In Detroit, I’ve noticed that in any area that is even a little sketchy, the place is almost totally devoid of human life — eerily. Whereas in Chicago, there is still a large population of — people.

Detroit is amazing in it’s large swaths of sheer destruction. And, huge open spaces where they’ve bulldozed entire neighborhoods.

That said, I enjoyed your narrative.

Back on topic, sort of, the Chicago cab drivers have gone way down in their grasp of The Knowledge. I know where everything is, so I at least hope that the cab drivers will, as well. Too many times in the last few years, I’ve gotten into taxis where the drivers didn’t know where anything was outside of the tourist areas — which I avoid. I gotten out of more than a few after a couple of blocks of trying to explain directions to the taxi driver and that he was a complete moron to turn onto Michigan Ave. heading North on a weekend afternoon.

Stoaty, enjoy your trip — and a few stouts.

Here is Dallas where cabs are only taken to the airport, we’d settle for “The English”. “The Knowledge” (beyond how to get to the airport) is owned by one man, whom all Cab drivers call on their cellphones for help. He speaks arabic, loud enough to hear over the music.

Mesablue, well Ive been telling that story for 20 years, so maybe Chicago, and the story has changed a bit. Thats my memory of the adventure. I should say I love Chicago and dirty old Detwaa as well. As for Detroit being “devoid of human life — eerily” What about all the Rappers having Rap contests on 8mi, like the movie by M&M ? lol Just Kidding. Anyway, both citys have there charms. I’m still laughing at “The English” in Lokki’s post. No offence was intended. Chicago is a great city if you are a musician btw, most bands in the bars encourage you to sit in. I got to play a whole set at Blue Chicago. Both citys have very nice people in them as well.

There once was a Weasel from Boston,
Who flew to an island to get lost in.
But all the cabbies were grand,
They knew the land like their hand,
So the Weasel got a scotch with ice tossed in.

Beloved so fair
Cabbie’s knowledge unbounded
Spam bucket gone wild

New India ride
Stoat’s wireless retiring
No mobile postings?

Akismet restrained
Bluffed by haiku minions
Pooter gets a pass.

Aw…buckwheat!

My brain is so small
The pain of comprehension
Is truly mindless.