Skip to main content

Crack Motels: desperation, hope, and survival...hope not doing too good these days

The Mosley Motel
I had a pick up in south Tampa at a nice townhouse/condo. A girl came out of the condo, but did not look the part. She looked road weary and beat. You know, hard living, even though I just picked her up on easy street. I knew this was not  her place. I have seen her type before. Years of bad decisions, poor emotional support, lack of friends, no job, no man, and everyone else in the world is too blame. Sad. What is really sad is I'm rarely wrong on this. Two decades of driving a hack has jaded me, I guess. It's not bias if you've seen it a million times.

I was surprised when she said she needed to go to St. Petersburg on 34th street. That's an out of town trip and that is when I get nervous about getting paid. I hope the John was nice enough to give her money for the fair. They usually do. I ask a few qualifying questions and I'm now satisfied she has money because she knows exactly what the fare will run because she has done this before. We settle down for a nice ride.

A typical swinging night at the Mosley
We end up at the Mosley Motel (read the reviews! LMFAO). The place looks almost passable during the day. At night, the cockroaches, crackheads, drug dealers, prostitutes, dickheads, and bums come out in full force. Its an arm pit. People who end up here are out of jobs; out of couches; out of touch; and out of luck. This is the last way station before you are officially homeless. $200 plus a week keeps you from the streets. It does little to protect you from the marginal elements of socitiey. You fucked. There is no other way to put it.

Ain't got nothing to do
My experience has shown, from the front of my taxi cab, that these people are in between work, and in between here and there. Transient workers, mentally ill waiting for their checks, sex offenders, and the stung out. Unfortunately, since the recession, Families have turned to these places. That was not supposed to happen with this administration. Politicians have only  paid lip service to a very real, but solvable, problem.

Obama has made their life so much better.
She paid the fare and got out. I could notice people just hanging out on the stoops. Nobody looked like they had a job. Nobody looked like they had any fire burning behind their eyes. Life takes...I guess. I wonder how many just chose to live this way. While I was parked there, you could see a black, older guy, come up the ally on a bicycle. He was looking around for someone but no one.

He must be a 'hook.' In normal person terms, that is a middle man. He never touches the dope or the money. He waits for people who want to score dope and he takes them to the place. He gets a fee for his services. I saw a hook get the shit beat out of him when he demanded money. It was in the backseat of my taxi. They had called for a taxi to go to the hood. I never ask people what they are doing, but you know. You know what I mean. The buyer was upset because he knew the dope boy and said the could get the rock on his own.

"Fuck you nigger!" he says

The hooked continued to demand his money. Then the buyer dives over the seat and beats the shit out of him. I stop and get out of the cab. Realize folks I was in deep hood. I mean DEEP HOOD. My white ass was standing there while a crowd was gathering. I hop back in as the buyer got out and I hit the gas. The origin of that fare was a crack motel in Tampa. The point I am making is these places are not safe.

Do these people ever go inside. They did pay for the room, right?
Most people can drive home at night to their nice crib. They can close the gate, and never have any contact with this problem society has. The only way it will get better is have housing for families and put the rest of fuck-ups  in prison. The later one is being done in Florida by this Governor and it already having a positive affect.


Comments

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Popular Posts Last 30 days

What Lyft and Uber will take from the Tampa taxi business

A lyft car at the Iconic sign on Florida ave downtown Tampa I have been a hack in Tampa Florida since 1995. Unlike the estimated 50% of Americans that hate their jobs, I have never had a day when I did not feel like going to work. Certainly, the last few years  have not been fun because the economy fell apart like a three dollar watch. However, economies are like tides and this one is on the rebound, at a snail's pace. I would like to thank Mr. Obama for that but that would not be fair. The economy is recovering despite any fiscal policy of his. That being said - there are challenges. My job is inherently difficult. We face strange and deranged people street level on a daily basis. Taxi companies in Tampa (which are regulated) must serve the general population. We have no choice. Short fares, drunk fares, people going to buy drugs (they don't tell you that) we must pick up. Don't get me wrong, there are business people, beautiful women, great trippers, and long haul...

FUCK UBER

Listen, you Uber fuckers, you screwheads. You are stealing my shit. I tried to be rational (What's that?). But not now. I am a man who will not take it anymore. A man who stands up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. I am a man who stands up. Look at it this way. A man takes a job, you know? And that job - I mean, like that - That becomes what he is. You know, like - You do a thing and that's what you are. Like I've been a cabbie for nineteen years. Ten years at night. I still don't own my own cab. You know why? Because I don't want to. That must be what I want. To be on the night shift drivin' somebody else's cab. You understand? I mean, you become - You get a job, you become the job. One guy lives in a shit hole, another lives on drugs. You pick up a lawyer. Another guy's a doctor. Another guy dies. Another guy gets well. People are born, y'know? Why do you want to drive Uber? You think you can avoid your destiny? You'l...

How Uber is hurting workers

Robert Reich is an economist who worked in Bill Clinton's cabinet. His problem with Uber and the "shared economy" is no sharing is going on. The worker absorbs all cost and risk, for less than minimum wage.

Stuck in the mud and a ripoff tow

Kevin and I went to a walkthrough at a nature preserve. It was full of wildlife and we even found an abandoned hunting cabin from decades ago. That was there long before civilization found its way to north Hillsborough county. I'm glad we found the cabin because it began to rain like crazy. It rained for a good half hour before we could finish the hike. We then went as far as we could but much of the trails were flooded. You see I have boots on. When we got back to the cars, there was standing water for we were in the grass. I started the cab and buried it in the mud. You should have been there. You would have laughed your ass off. After waiting 2.5 hours for the tow, he winched me on to the parking lot and charged $100. I found out the charge should have been $45. I think the company will dispute this. I hope. posted from Bloggeroid

Why I am not using the "www.tampataxishots.net" anymore...can you help?

I received a warning from Google that Blogger hosted blogs using a private URL will not be HTTP protected anymore. I do not really know what that means and if I really need it. Below is what a search found..Does anyone know anything about this? HTTPS  (also called  HTTP over  TLS , [1] [2]   HTTP over SSL , [3]  and  HTTP Secure [4] [5] ) is a  protocol  for  secure  communication over a  computer network  which is widely used on the  Internet . HTTPS consists of communication over  Hypertext Transfer Protocol  (HTTP) within a connection encrypted by  Transport Layer Security or its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer . The main motivation for HTTPS is  authentication  of the visited  website  and protection of the  privacy  and  integrity  of the exchanged data. In its popular deployment on the internet, HTTPS provides authentication of the website and associated...

Hillsborough County bans Uber today as taxi company

The HCPT and Hillsborough County public commission today affirmed Uber is an illegal taxi company and bared them from operating in the Tampa area. This is wonderful news to longtime drivers like me. An Uber attorney asked Hillsborough County to make new rules to fit the trendy ridesharing movement pioneered by his company and Lyft, but was told flatly on Wednesday that Uber is an illegal taxi service. The county's Public Transportation Commission unanimously affirmed that an appointed officer had enough evidence to fine Uber, based in San Francisco, for providing hiring and public taxi services without proper licensing. Uber attorney Drew Sorrell held to the company's argument that it isn't in transportation. As a technology company, it doesn't need to follow transportation regulations as they are written. "There's a perfectly good way to do this, and that is to write the rules so that they fit," said Sorrell, of the Lowndes Drosdick Doster Kantor...

Dana Young is a Liar or very confused about Uber

A very bad person with no honor or integrity I attended a meeting at the hockey arena downtown which was attended by all the Tampa Bay area state senators and representatives. In attendance was one Dana Young (R). When it was her time to speak, so told a story about a young women that was being raped. While the college student was being sexually assaulted, the student hit the Uber app on her phone and the police now knew the GPS coordinates of her location. What MS. Young did not disclose was that it happened on the UCLA campus and that it was an UBER DRIVER THAT WAS RAPING HER! "As students prepare to return to college, one thing female students cannot go without is caution. Assaults, especially sexual assaults, are a haunting part of daily life for so many students. Uber has made that nightmare even more of a reality . We tell our students that getting a driver when they’ve had too much to drink is the responsible course of action — it’...

National Taxi strike called for October 26, 2014 against Uber & Lyft

Following the crowd is the opposite of the Uber Man...They want your mind...don't let them have it! There is more at stake then a ride to work. The battle for man's mind has begun. The Internet has made many things possible and reacting with incomplete information has had a debilitating effect on peoples behaviour and mental acuity. The ability to assess facts accurately has been diminished. When wide swaths of hipsters chose to use a ride share company because it has a slick app, without considering the consequences to society, then harm is being done. Ignoring that modern society is structured by law - they proceed anyway. This course must be redirected Back in the dark ages, villagers and townspeople would often react to a rumor and then take action swiftly to bring justice upon the presumed guilty party without waiting for the authorities to resolve it. The more emotionally attached people were to the crime, the less real or confirmed information they needed to follow...

Tampa Night Flight / Phantom 3 Drone

Watch the video below This is one of the best sunset shots you will see of Downtown Tampa and the surrounding area. It was shot by a cab driver...Tony Cowen #309 with his new Phantom 3 Drone which has 4k resolution. You get a clear view of Downtown and the University of Tampa as the sun sets. You also get an awesome horizon shot as the sun is now under the horizon. Lets see and Uber driver match this.

Be cautious of flaggers

Always use caution when picking up flaggers All taxi drivers need to be cautious of flaggers. When you see a stranger on the sidewalk, make sure you go by your gut before you let the person in your taxi. Who knows what may await you if you don't go by the "gut." Don't be tempted by a pretty lady. You may be surprised. Just to be fair about the matter...its not raining!!