Sunday, August 04, 2002Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Taxi driver uses Web site, radio show and column to share what cabbies are thinking
By JOHN PRZYBYS REVIEW-JOURNAL
To the locals and tourists who ride in his cab, he's John Shannon, who navigates the congested streets of Las Vegas so they don't have to.
To his fellow drivers, he's "Hound Dawg," top dog of the VegasCabbie.com Web site and host of the weekly radio show "The Dawg Shift."
Both the Web site and radio show represent narrowcasting in the purest sense, featuring news, advice, discussion and whatever else might be of interest to Southern Nevada's legions of cab drivers.
Shannon, 39, knows about the job firsthand. He's been driving in Las Vegas for about four years, and before that spent 17 years as a cab driver in Minneapolis.
In fact, Shannon and his wife, Diane -- also a driver, who operates a wheelchair-accessible cab -- became hooked on the city when they tied the knot here.
"I said, `We've got to come back here and live,' " Shannon said. "When I first proposed the idea, it was, like, `No way.' Now I couldn't get her to leave if I wanted to."
VegasCabbie.com started about 2 1/2 years ago as a hobby for Shannon, who figured the Web site would be a good way to work on his computer programming skills.
Originally, Shannon designed it as "kind of a tourist information site, maybe as a kind of link between cab drivers and potential passengers."
But, he said, "I wasn't getting a whole lot of play with that."
Shannon decided to focus the site toward drivers. Last September, he put up a message board on which cabbies could post their opinions, questions or comments, and VegasCabbie.com was off and running.
The site began at a time when Shannon was developing an interest in "the politics of the industry."
"I started attending (Nevada) Taxicab Authority meetings. I'd gotten myself involved with the Professional Drivers Association, which is a group that is representing taxi drivers' interests. I just saw a bunch of stuff that was happening and decided I'm obviously not the only one who had an opinion about this, and I wanted to hear everybody else's opinions."
Word of mouth and general Web-surfing have brought increasing numbers of contributors to the site, which Shannon said totaled at least 19,000 page views during July.
In mid-March, a companion radio show, "The Dawg Shift," joined VegasCabbie.com as a forum for valley cab drivers. The show airs at midnight each Wednesday night/Thursday morning on KLAV-AM 1230 and also can be heard via live Webcast and through archived shows available through the Web site.
"It's a little bit of something for everybody," said Shannon, who also writes a column for Trip Sheet, a local cab driver-oriented publication. "It's totally open to whatever the guys want to use it for."
Recent postings include opinion pieces about news issues, bits of Internet humor, even a note from a new driver seeking advice.
"There was a guy not long ago looking for a roommate. So it's little things like that," Shannon noted.
The most talked-about issue lately has involved strip club operators, Shannon said -- "who was paying, who wasn't paying and who started this whole deal with cutting off cab drivers from receiving tokes from strip clubs."
"One of the biggest things, too, now has been the overallocation of taxi cabs," he added.
Another issue is cab drivers who want to own their cabs. "The way it's set up here, it's not impossible to do so, but it's damn close," Shannon said.
Shannon also posts stories about issues that can affect cab drivers in less overt ways.
For example, "strip clubs are big news for guys out here," Shannon said, so, "we've been following the issue of the county trying to change how lap dances are done."
Shannon said he's so far found no need to delete the posts drivers contribute. "It's their opinion and it's their right to post it, and if I don't agree with it I'll reply to it, as will other people," he said.
"I'm not afraid to banter in discussion with anybody that wants to talk about an issue, whether they agree with me or disagree with me."
In fact, Shannon jokes, "I'm not above sarcasm and I'm not above, quite frankly, being a jerk sometimes over the air."
Shannon, who drives for Union Cab Co., said his own bosses "have never given me a lick of grief about anything I ever said on the radio, posted on the Web site or even said in Trip Sheet magazine," despite the fact he's occasionally taken the company to task over its radio dispatching.
While cab drivers remain VegasCabbie.com's primary audience, Shannon would welcome comments from cab riders, too.
"It's not just for drivers, but also for people who come into contact with drivers as well," he said.
"I've encouraged people on several different occasions, people who have had dealings with cab drivers, `If you've gotten a bad ride or something like that, tell us about that. If you have something on your mind, we'd sure love to hear about it.' "
Before you go any further, read this...
Dictionary.com defines a redneck as:
1. an uneducated white farm laborer, esp. from the South.
2. a bigot or reactionary, esp. from the rural working class.
It goes on to say that redneck is A slang term, usually for a rural white southerner who is politically conservative, racist, and a religious fundamentalist. This term is generally considered offensive. It originated in reference to agricultural workers, alluding to how the back of a person's neck will be burned by the sun if he works long hours in the fields.
While I can't say all that fits me to a tee, a lot of it is pretty damn close.
You see, I lost both my parents before I turned 12 years old. I bounced around in a couple of foster homes before moving in with my uncle when I tuned 15. By age 17, I was on my own. I dropped out of school half way through 11th grade so I could go to work full time. Three months after my 18th birthday, I got behind the wheel of a cab for the first time.
I've learned more about life in 28 years in a hack than any philosopher ever could know. I've had multi-million dollar businessmen, celebrities and pro athletes as well as crack whores, drug dealers and murderers in my cab. I refuse to be an airport jockey or one of those guys that only stages at the hotels, so unfortunately, I have to deal with more of the bottom feeders of life than I do the upper crust.
It is the dealings that I've had the bad apples that has made me what I am today...
The Redneck Cabbie.
You see, to escape the madness of the city streets, my mind drifts off (not while I'm driving) to a quiet country town. A place where everyone knows everyone, and a man's handshake is as binding a contract as a person needs. A place where friends gather to down a couple of cold ones and listen to music that you can actually understand the words.
A place where young men don't walk around with their pants falling down over their ass, and young ladies don't have to dress like sluts to draw a man's attention.
I think you get the picture. I know, boring as whale shit to most city folks. I'd be living in a town just like that if it weren't for the fact that there's just not much demand for my line of work in most small towns.
This blog will reflect these feelings. If I seem a little bitter now and then, its just because that wonderful little town is nowhere in my near future, and because the life expectancy of someone in my line of work doesn't extend much past retirement age, all I can do is dream about it.
1. an uneducated white farm laborer, esp. from the South.
2. a bigot or reactionary, esp. from the rural working class.
It goes on to say that redneck is A slang term, usually for a rural white southerner who is politically conservative, racist, and a religious fundamentalist. This term is generally considered offensive. It originated in reference to agricultural workers, alluding to how the back of a person's neck will be burned by the sun if he works long hours in the fields.
While I can't say all that fits me to a tee, a lot of it is pretty damn close.
You see, I lost both my parents before I turned 12 years old. I bounced around in a couple of foster homes before moving in with my uncle when I tuned 15. By age 17, I was on my own. I dropped out of school half way through 11th grade so I could go to work full time. Three months after my 18th birthday, I got behind the wheel of a cab for the first time.
I've learned more about life in 28 years in a hack than any philosopher ever could know. I've had multi-million dollar businessmen, celebrities and pro athletes as well as crack whores, drug dealers and murderers in my cab. I refuse to be an airport jockey or one of those guys that only stages at the hotels, so unfortunately, I have to deal with more of the bottom feeders of life than I do the upper crust.
It is the dealings that I've had the bad apples that has made me what I am today...
The Redneck Cabbie.
You see, to escape the madness of the city streets, my mind drifts off (not while I'm driving) to a quiet country town. A place where everyone knows everyone, and a man's handshake is as binding a contract as a person needs. A place where friends gather to down a couple of cold ones and listen to music that you can actually understand the words.
A place where young men don't walk around with their pants falling down over their ass, and young ladies don't have to dress like sluts to draw a man's attention.
I think you get the picture. I know, boring as whale shit to most city folks. I'd be living in a town just like that if it weren't for the fact that there's just not much demand for my line of work in most small towns.
This blog will reflect these feelings. If I seem a little bitter now and then, its just because that wonderful little town is nowhere in my near future, and because the life expectancy of someone in my line of work doesn't extend much past retirement age, all I can do is dream about it.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
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