TAXI to ALEX

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....


WHITE TAXI, by White Man Jumping
is brought to you by

TSHIRT TERRORIST
www.tshirtterrorist.co.za

Tshirts TO DIE For!

Join my blog network
on Facebook

Blog Networks

BLACK to the future

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

Money makes the wheels go round...

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.


WHITE TAXI, by WHITE MAN JUMPING
is brought to you by

TSHIRT TERRORIST
www.tshirtterrorist.co.za

Tshirts TO DIE For!

White Cop Black Cop

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.

WHITE TAXI, by WHITE MAN JUMPING
is brought to you by

TSHIRT TERRORIST
www.tshirtterrorist.co.za

Tshirts TO DIE For!

RFG 538 GP - IMPOUNDED

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
is brought to you by

TSHIRT TERRORIST
www.tshirtterrorist.co.za

Tshirts TO DIE For!