Taxidriver - A Venetian in Miami E-Book

Pio Dal Cin

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint Self-Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Miami in the Eighties was not an easy place to live. Fighting to gain control of the territory the various mafias in the area staged a fierce war. This is a true story of a Venetian that happened to be in Florida for his first time. Drove a cab. Told the story. A true story.

Leseprobe

Pio Dal Cin

TAXIDRIVER A Venetian in Miami

Youcanprint Self-Publishing

INDEX OF CONTENT:

So you want to be a writer (by Charles Bukowski)

Timeline of the events

Author’s note

Chapter One New York to Miami

Chapter Two Surrounded Islands

From my reporter’s diaries- Venice Italy 1986-Birth of a reporter.

From my reporter’s diaries- No more Berlin Wall- November 9th1989

Chapter Three From Hollywood to Hollywood

From my reporter’s diaries- The Italian restaurant in L.A. the Northridge earthquake

From my reporter’s diaries- Alligator Blues

Chapter Four- Karen

From my reporter’s diaries The Xstmas Revolution

Chapter Five- Yellow Cab of Ft.lauderdale.

Chapter Six Alcatraz Las Vegas The Holding Yard

Chapter Seven The Girl my Labrador friend

Chapter Eight A dangerous job.

Chapter Nine The Moon The Flute The Lesson

Chapter Ten Welcome to the Gaza’s trip

Chapter Eleven Liberty City

Charlie Brown The real scumbag

Chapter Twelve Terror on the Highway.

Chapter Thirteen Back to Italy.

So You Want To Be A Writer (by Charles Bukowski)

if it doesn't come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don't do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your

heart and your mind and your mouth

and your gut,

don't do it.

if you have to sit for hours

staring at your computer screen

or hunched over your

typewriter

searching for words,

don't do it.

if you're doing it for money or

fame,

don't do it.

if you're doing it because you want

women in your bed,

don't do it.

if you have to sit there and

rewrite it again and again,

don't do it.

if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,

don't do it.

if you're trying to write like somebody

else,

forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of

you,

then wait patiently.

if it never does roar out of you,

do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife

or your girlfriend or your boyfriend

or your parents or to anybody at all,

you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,

don't be like so many thousands of

people who call themselves writers,

don't be dull and boring and

pretentious, don't be consumed with self-

love.

the libraries of the world have

yawned themselves to

sleep

over your kind.

don't add to that.

don't do it.

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don't do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don't do it.

when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

All the facts, places, people mentioned in this book are real.

Mitakuye Oyasin We are all connected

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitakuye_Oyasin)

“The people we love never die. I carved a special place inside my heart where I nested my loved ones who moved on to a different dimension. I talk to them from my heart in the moment of joy, sorrow, or when I have challenges facing my life, or just because I want to talk and feel them close once again. Accepting death as a passage, not feeling as something that suggests the end of something. The death of a caterpillar is the beginning of life for a beautiful butterfly.”

This book is dedicated to my daughter Maria Aurora and my wife Francesca for their Love and support.

To my mom Maria Teresa who taught me the love for music, art, and writing. To my dad Narciso who passed me the virus of photography. Both have gone to a different dimension, but still live in my heart. In that very special place where they’ll never die.

To Karen Rodolfo Monica Magdalene and Roger .My real true friends in America.

TIMELINE OF THE EVENTS NARRATED

Timeline of the events on this book:

This story has a timeline that I will try to explain briefly:

First trip to the States: October 15th 1979.

Arrival in Miami : October 18th 1979

From 1979 to 1985 Lived in the Hollywood Fort Lauderdale Miami Beach areas. (Except for six months in 1982 spent in Knoxville Tennessee for the World’s Fair.)

From 1986 to 1994 Back to Italy . (The boat accident in the Everglades on November 8th 1986 happened during a photo assignment I had from an Italian photo agency while I was in Florida for 15 days)

From October 1994 to November 1995 back to the States in Hollywood California where I joined my friend ( Rodolfo) who opened a restaurant there.

From November 1994 to August 1997 back to Hollywood Florida, brief working experience as a driver and then back to the taxi. This time it was Yellow Cab Co. of Fort Lauderdale.

July 16th 1996. I became an American Citizen.

August 1997 Back to Italy where I reside and work as a street photographer and a writer

AUTHOR’S NOTE

With the intent of not getting the reader bored, I thought to insert here and there, in between the taxi’s tales, some episodes of my life as a photojournalist.

The reader will find some stories when I first started my career as a war photographer.

I dodged bullets and avoided land mines in the Serb Croatian war. I risked my life in the occupied territories in the Holy Land and in the Gaza’s Strip.

I was willing to put my life on the first line just to take a photo.

Not Anymore.

Today as a father, as a husband, I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.

I love taking street photos of people now but I am still nurturing a dream: to make this book become a movie.

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams” I will never stop dreaming. There is too much Love and positive energy in dreams.

Thanks to the readers. I hope you’ll Enjoy reading it as much as I did enjoy writing it.

Any comment will be welcome . Find me on Google plus, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin using my real name, or send me an email at :[email protected], or just Google my name. I like to think that I am the “Nutella” of the web, spread everywhere. Life is too short to hide, so if you decide to go social do not be afraid to show who you really are.

PREFACE

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”

This is a true story. The story of a country boy who wants to travel to know, to understand, to learn and confront himself with the world and its people. He lives his hometown of five thousand nested in the province of Treviso, in north eastern Italy on the day he turned twenty three, and flies to the USA , Florida, Miami. He wants to know the way of life, the trends, the curious habits of its people.

The initial enthusiasm clashes with the hard reality of the search for a job.

Six months in America and the tourist visa expires and our hero goes into hiding and that’s when the real story begins. Like a small eagle out of his nest for the first time, trying the thrill of flight. He must look out for the winds, the rocks, the predators.

I always believed in my dreams. The most wonderful adventure that can happen in a person’s life is to have a dream and see it happen. Life becomes a path designed to reach the goal. The choice of following your own dream comes with a price tag though. You must be willing to endure some sacrifices. It is like climbing a mountain one step at the time, without turning around to check on the road already travelled but looking ahead to the road that lies ahead . Those who have hiked a mountain’s trail know that. It doesn’t pay to start the trail at a fast pace and having to stop ten minutes later to gasp for air. Many are the difficulties, as many are the satisfactions, the delusions and the successes .

The pleasure of climbing remains intact. The reward is the breathtaking view you’ll see upon reaching the top.

Photography and writing two equal and different ways of expressing your emotions and make them public so that everyone can benefit from them somehow.

The people, the street’s names, the places you will encounter in this humble book are all true. Nothing is invented, as reality often surpasses the fantasy.

I did so many jobs in my life that it would take a whole book just to describe them in full. Two were the jobs that helped me in realizing my dream : being a photojournalist had me travel the world and getting to know it better, being a taxi driver has given me the opportunity to meet thousands of people and understand their emotions, dreams, fears, and all the feelings that are part of human nature.

When people get in the taxi they feel they can open up as if they were in a confessional or laying on the “shrink’s” bed. They know that chances to meet again with that particular taxi driver are very slim. They know that by living and working on the streets you acquire a kind of “street wisdom” that is not taught in any school.

I had people crying, laughing telling me their stories in ten minutes, asking me for advice, cussing, smoking, using drugs, dressing, undressing, drinking passing out, counting money, trying to escape without paying or giving me huge tips, people trying to rob me and women who wanted to take me home. When I started my day as a taxi driver I always had the same attitude as if I was going to see a movie and the script was unfolding right on the back seat of my Yellow Cab.

It was just a great feeling of freedom being able to pick the hours in which I wanted to work, the area where I wanted to work. Nobody was telling what to do, I was a young Italian working in a wonderful place, working hard and having fun. What else could have I asked for?

You will find some of these stories , both about the photojournalist and the taxi driver that I tried to tell using simple words.

CHAPTER ONE “The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears” NEW YORK TO MIAMI

I choose the day of my twenty third birthday to fly to the USA for the first time in my life. I wanted to remember it as an epic day in my life’s history.