I've seen clips and teasers but never until last Saturday did I ever sit through watching the whole thing. Believe it or not it was for my birthday. Last Sunday was my 67th birthday and my beloved wife invited me to take Saturday off in celebration, and she bought me the video because I had mentioned that curiosity was eating me up and I had to see this flick. The idea was I would take off Saturday because the garage never lacks for drivers on Saturday night and missing me would be no problem for them and I wouldn't hurt my standing as a regular driver who works every time he shows up. I actually got sick and had to call out on Sunday too but I digress.
In 1978 when the movie was made I was 32 years old. I don't even remember for sure where I was living at that time but I had lived for 18 years in the East Village which is where most of the action takes place. The East Village was seedy then but I don't remember pimps in doorways soliciting customers, but maybe that was because I was not interested in such things. There were women offering themselves to men for money but I wouldn't say that was what characterized the place, and I never paid them any mind.
Taxi Driver was, I guess a propaganda warmup for the Giuliani - Bloomberg regime and its "cleaning up" and prep to become the world's foremost rich folk theme park, a process and a campaign that real history tells us actually began under the cruelly and falsely maligned David Dinkins.
Anyhow, the star of the show is Robert De Niro who plays a whacked out Marine Corps Vietnam combat veteran (Travis Bickle) who can't sleep or be much of a team player and so he gets a gig driving a taxi on the night line all over New York whee he sees all sorts of stuff that bother him. He has an epiphany when a passenger makes him park and stay parked while talking about how he is going to murder maim and mutilate his unfaithful wfe. Bickle sees that as a tax driver he is at the mercy of any lunatic who gets into his taxi, and realizes that some of them are armed and dangerous. At this point I also think Bickle was feeling that he had to do something about the "scum" that he saw everywhere. He buys a couple of illegal pistols which is a thing I could have also done during the 80's without too much trouble.
Travis goes on to execute a drug addict who was trying to rob a bodega and also realizes that he hates a Democratic candidate for President. Travis schemes and tries to assassinate the candidate or maybe the campaign manager but he is thwarted by the Secret Service.
Bickle goes on to rescue a prostitute who is one of the two loves of his life and famously tells a pimp to "suck on this" as he executes the guy.
In 1978 when the movie was made I was 32 years old. I don't even remember for sure where I was living at that time but I had lived for 18 years in the East Village which is where most of the action takes place. The East Village was seedy then but I don't remember pimps in doorways soliciting customers, but maybe that was because I was not interested in such things. There were women offering themselves to men for money but I wouldn't say that was what characterized the place, and I never paid them any mind.
Taxi Driver was, I guess a propaganda warmup for the Giuliani - Bloomberg regime and its "cleaning up" and prep to become the world's foremost rich folk theme park, a process and a campaign that real history tells us actually began under the cruelly and falsely maligned David Dinkins.
Anyhow, the star of the show is Robert De Niro who plays a whacked out Marine Corps Vietnam combat veteran (Travis Bickle) who can't sleep or be much of a team player and so he gets a gig driving a taxi on the night line all over New York whee he sees all sorts of stuff that bother him. He has an epiphany when a passenger makes him park and stay parked while talking about how he is going to murder maim and mutilate his unfaithful wfe. Bickle sees that as a tax driver he is at the mercy of any lunatic who gets into his taxi, and realizes that some of them are armed and dangerous. At this point I also think Bickle was feeling that he had to do something about the "scum" that he saw everywhere. He buys a couple of illegal pistols which is a thing I could have also done during the 80's without too much trouble.
Travis goes on to execute a drug addict who was trying to rob a bodega and also realizes that he hates a Democratic candidate for President. Travis schemes and tries to assassinate the candidate or maybe the campaign manager but he is thwarted by the Secret Service.
Bickle goes on to rescue a prostitute who is one of the two loves of his life and famously tells a pimp to "suck on this" as he executes the guy.
This is where Thomas Friedman comes into the mix. Friedman is a well respected asshole who writes for the New York Times and gets on the TV and radio a lot though he is an expert on nothing. He is a smooth and conscience free liar though and he had used this phrase "suck on this" when he was explaining why he believed thata few million muslims had to be murdered, raped, made homeless and starved.
You see, because I had never seen the movie I never had realized that Thomas Friuedman is a Travis Bickle wannabe! What a putz, no
