a new advocate for arts managers?

This is possibly the best thing I've seen on the internet, like, ever. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ryan Gosling, Arts Administrator

(I've got several committee meetings coming up this month and would love the notes help!)

the kissing cabbie

Sometimes I don't feel like taking the bus to the train station from my job on Navy Pier. On those occasions, I will splurge on a cab ride. Cabbies are a special breed (although the ones in Chicago are not nearly as special as the ones I've encountered in New York, most notably the one who turned around and told me, as we were screeching along at 60 or so mph "De brakes - dey are not wohrking!") and I've had my fair share of crazy cabbies between the pier and union station. Some of them keep to themselves, some of them like to chat. There was one who saw my "Gypsy" tote bag and asked me, in a broody, eastern-european accent "Vot does it say on your bag? Vy does eet say dees?" He didn't think I'd like real Gypsies (even though I tried to explain it was from the broadway show - I thought it would confuse him if I told him it was really about the stripper Gypsy and not actual gypsies). He then thought I might like to see a few (Serbian) movies about Gypsies and proceeded to write them down (while he was driving).

There was the one who didn't know the address I wanted to go to. I was dropping something off, and I didn't know how to get there either, but, like, I'm not the cab driver. Aren't they supposed to know stuff like that? So he kicked me out because neither of us could figure out how to get there. Something wrong with that, I think.

Then there was the one that dropped me off at the train station last Wednesday. He noted that it wasn't a nice time to be out (rush hour) and I agreed. "Why you do it?" he asked me. Well, I told him I was on my way home from work. Then he asked me what routes were good to get to union station. So I told him the ways that I'd gotten there in the past. He asked me which one was best, and we took that. I think a lot of people were off last week, because the traffic was really light. Anyway. He asked me what I was doing for New Year's. This is before I was stricken with the plague (oh, fine, a really awful cold) so I said I was going to a rocking party at a friend's house. He then asked "You hev boyfriend?" and I said no and he wondered who I would kiss at midnight then. He told me I should just grab somebody, bend them back and give them a huge kiss. I said if there were any eligible guys around, I would consider it and he said "Who cares if they eligible? They not complaining!" He said there was a window between 12:00 and 12:30 where you just needed to kiss as many people as possible. I was surprised at the half hour window, but whatever. Since he was going to be driving that night, my driver went on, "I kiss my customers!" I asked him if he thought they would like that and he replied "I don't care!" and then he laughed like a lunatic. So there may have been a kissing cabbie on the streets of Chicago on NYE - maybe I should have warned y'all before? Anyway, I was amused and the ride ended on a cheerful note. I wished him a happy new year and lots of kisses (but not from me).

Never once have I gotten in the cash cab, and now that the Chicago show is over, so I guess that's not going to happen.