[The 90’s raw: Taxis]

Raw footage for the award-winning series, The 90's. Eddie Becker interviews three cab drivers in Washington, D.C.

00:00Copy video clip URL Tape opens in a taxi cab, where Becker asks the Washington D.C. cab driver, Eugene Sharp, about his career. Sharp says he’s been driving since 1975, and talks about traffic issues over the years. He doesn’t like tourists’ driving, and thinks they should take public transportation or cabs instead, because they cause a lot of traffic. He talks generally about his cab patrons and the city of Washington, D.C. He says that politically, he agrees with his customers, whatever their views, to avoid difficulties. Sharp and Becker discuss, among other things, the Metro system, prostitution, government workers, and the cab business in other countries.

18:24Copy video clip URL Cuts to the inside of the DC Metro, where people wait for the train. Becker gets on the train. The tape cuts and Becker pays for fare, and then goes up an escalator. The tapes cuts to inside a bus, and Becker gets off. This segment is presumably demonstrating the contrast between taking taxis and public transportation.

23:04Copy video clip URL The tape cuts to another cab driver, Thomas Osgood. Becker asks him about the mass transit system, and the driver thinks that the people who take the subway aren’t the ones who ride in taxis, anyways. They talk about fares for a while. As for unusual experiences, the driver talks about cab robberies, though he himself has been lucky. Osgood finds his work more and more physically depleting, and he gets headaches in traffic. “There’s no future in this, you have to look out for yourself.” Osgood talks about his son.

35:55Copy video clip URL Cuts to another cab, whose driver is Ethiopian, from Tigray. They discuss the political situation there, but the tape cuts. Becker asks him to take us to where people deal drugs. The driver says he has been robbed twice, and that he sends money back to Ethiopia through the liberation front there. The driver narrates as they pass by some police stopping people, some people wearing religious clothing, and a police car parked on the sidewalk in front of a store. The driver attributes the drug problems to it being a low class neighborhood, and preaches the importance of getting a job. He would like to go back to Tigray, if it were not for the military government there. He says that Ethiopians get depressed by leaving their families, but that there are organizations and churches that bring Ethiopians together. “Most people became depressed because of their education,” because their good education may not yield a job. He describes his own difficulties in getting a job in electrical engineering or mechanics. Becker asks about the perception of Ethiopians as rich, perhaps, and the driver thinks that Ethiopians like to be clean even if they don’t have money, and like to keep their dignity. As for Americans, he thinks that there are many differences between the black Americans and Ethiopians, such as the use of drugs, and dignity. They talk about drugs in Jamaica and Ethiopia before the tape cuts.

01:12:21Copy video clip URL Footage of a TV, with a loud audio buzz. The son onscreen has gotten bad grades and is upset, but he is shown as a “future news anchorman” because of his good looks. The film is evidently the intro to a movie. The tape cuts, and a woman is inside a cab. The tape cuts.

01:15:25Copy video clip URL End of tape.