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Although they did not arrest me during the Thigpen, merely detaining me in the back of the police car, they did impound my van. They then tore it apart, rifling through the inside, leaving it with things strewn about from their search. Then they took photos of it messed up, then showed these to the jury (or was that the taxi commission?) to say that my cab was illegal, because it was not clean enough. They did this to me, the former Reliable Don Sparkle Cleaner, who always took great pride in a clean cab. And i kept my van clean. Why wouldn’t I, spending all my time in it? I left De Soto because they harassed me about equal access to their car wash, claiming I wasn’t entitled to it, according to Chuck Solares, 374. Cindy backed him up. They allowed I could use their car wash after everyone else had. I paid them money for their radio service and thought this entitled me to equal car wash privileges, but they didn’t .
When Thigpen tried to paint me as a slob, I was just devastated.
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False Imprisonment
For the record, at this time, I want to delineate these several case numbers:
The Thigpen is APP—09—006981 for which there is alternately SF #2334541
There is another case, not yet discussed in this book, I’ll be mentioning at least peripherally , a small claims filing 11-25-2008 CSM - 08-827497
There was an 1-14-2009 entry of judgement in my favor in this Grasshopper Kaplan vs. the City & County of San Francisco. Unbeknownst to me then, the time has now lapsed to get the exhibits for that, which are destroyed. Oh well.
The Commissioner or Judge ruled that I was never given a hearing about my color scheme, (specifically re: the phrase “to Impeach is Patriotic,”) and ordered the return of the $790- dollars application fee, but this did not get refunded to me in time to save the tooth, sadly, which I wasted that money on, oh well.
Then at this time for the record let me remind of the Janet Vandebos conviction, PC 422 “criminal threat with intent to terrorize,” APP 08-006671 and also has an SF jail #233405 , the one I served under, that was on my wristband.
Now, part of the problem with my effort to appeal involves the fact that Judge Garrett Wong heard both of these cases, the Thigpen and the Vandebos, on the same day, and apparently these transcripts and records have gotten mixed up.
Have they finally corrected , after all this time, the issue about a mismatched cover sheet numbered for the Thigpen that got put on part of the Vandebos transcript?
The whole thing is a big mess that the court has just not felt it important enough to bother straightening out so as to grant me , after 3 years already, that I might finally be able to get a filing from Kathleen for a legal appeal of the Vandebos. NO appeal is forthcoming at this time. Nada. Sadly, it seems that basic equal treatment under the law is too much to ask of your honors at this time? But nevertheless, I am hereby asking, begging, pleading, and humbly requesting the immediate dismissal of these false Vandebos charges/convictions. (I count the Thigpen among them, hence plural.)
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One charge they tried me for within the Vandebos trial that I was not convicted for was false imprisonment. Indeed, I was the one falsely imprisoned, thank you for that.
False imprisonment or kidnapping is a charge they seem to relish for taxicab drivers, oddly, but not for the cops.
To Impeach Is Patriotic
It must’a been ‘round early 2007 when I got this nagging feeling that I wasn’t doing enough to bring some sort of awareness about the daily horrors of war that so many folks are living in the nightmare shadows of. Simply stated, our Gaia is in deep doo-doo if we don’t deal with the record global warming that is induced and accelerating due to actions and inactions of us human critters , like, say, idling instead of turning the thing off. I personally feel that non-idle ought to be mandatory in vehicles in the interest of common survival. Anyhoo, I am in fear that we shall not soon be able to do much for the cooling we require, let alone halt the warming, if we are still working out of these old and broken paradigms of war and scarcity which perpetually induce more war and more scarcity. Meanwhile there is really plenty enough to go around, and for all creatures as well, if we can become better managers instead of merely consumers, always consuming and disposing. Garbage is a myth, that lends or leads to the disposable nature of these perilous times for our problematic culture. We must compost the current notion of disposability.
To the noble end of somehow updating that old hippie adage, now more than ever, to wit, “Question Authority, “ and in an effort albeit failing to promote some specific sort of exchange and enlightenment, I took it upon myself (foolishly) to exercise my dearly cherished Freedom of Speech. I helped design and had painted upon the back of my van a beautiful bumper sticker that read, “to Impeach is Patriotic,” in fancy New York Slime style font. Anne Mayo believes that this is the phrase that did me in. “I can’t believe you lost your business over that lousy phrase,” she says, adding, “You had a good thing going…” Does she really believe it was over the phrase? Was it?
So what happens is I’m at that mean old airport, SFO in the queue for the passenger pick-up, when I notice these two who are definitely not getting into anyone’s cab, sort of plainclothes federal marshals or Agency types. The woman, snickering, points out my lovely bumper sticker, sort of in amazement. The phrase , “ To Impeach is Patriotic,” was hand painted on the rear of my van.
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The man walks around to me and tells me to paint over it [who the hell is he anyway? Was his name Steve Moss?] and he says its in violation of some imagined law. AT that time it most definitely was not. Since then, they’ve regulated signage as such on taxicab color schemes , a direct response to me. The Freedom of Speech would be standing to apply when not otherwise precluded by San Francisco Taxicab Rules and Regulations , I presume. Hence it was legal. To prove it, I took it to the Taxi Commission.
Had I just ignored that guy, whom never followed through with anything in writing requiring removal (how could he have?) and, if I had just avoided the airport…would I be writing this sad document now?
Well, I was proactive. First I requested to be able to get this phrase approved as an advertisement on my cab. I paid the $200- bucks for a hearing to apply for the ad as such, but they denied me this. They voted against the “ad” saying it was a color scheme change, while I maintained it was just a bumper sticker that happened to be painted, not really even an ad. They tried to argue that it was too big to be a bumper sticker, the constitution was too long to have any amendments, and that it had nothing to do with the content, but the location and size, and the fact that it was painted, was what made it a violation of rules and regulations that they thereafter created.
They began referring to my phrase, “To Impeach is Patriotic,” as “THE PHRASE,” at Taxi Commission meetings, to avoid having to iterate the sentiment itself, apparently poisonous words if spoken. Hush! They had long and important debates about other phrases, like Crown Cab Co.’s “Your Safety is Our Top Priority,” except now they’ve taken out the word , “top.” They have regulated phrases now so that they may only appear on the side, not upon the rear. They must be of limited size. Bumper stickers must be stickers, I gather, or may be prohibited? {You can paint the town, just not on ya rear.}
These Taxi Commissioners were philosophizing away and discarding my freedom of speech, which they spoke freely to abort. One gal said how beautiful the art was, such pretty colors. Then she voted against it. But the tyranny of the majority is not to compromise the basic civil and human rights of any minority. Except Grasshopper. Because I was different.
…the tyranny of the majority is not to compromise the basic civil and human rights of any minority. Except Grasshopper…
Ms. Patricia Breslin, another high priest of the voodoo Taxi Commission, she was just fabulous. I’ll never forget how she went upon the record, stating so eloquently, her alarming experience of ACTUALLY DRIVING ! behind my lovely Grasshopper ( well , maybe she meant that someone else was driving and
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she was just a passenger, I suppose, given her content) . Patricia stated that she had actually been distracted by my bumper sticker , that it was a safety hazard, she said. Sort of like a threat to public safety, that old freedom of speech. How come they got so much freedom, those chumps like her, to tell me not to talk, and how to be so quiet?
This Patricia Breslin, she said, I shit you not , that she felt it was dangerous to be driving behind my taxicab BECAUSE of “THE phrase.” Personally, I think that dizzy chiquita has been watching too many car commercials and it got her heart racing just to see my beautiful Grasshopper van but that didn’t have nothing to do with no bumper sticker. Gosh, can you believe they tried to imply I was indeed free to speak, but not too much, and only if I said what they wanted to hear. Like if it had said, “ I love Gravel Threesome” in bold greasy black hair lettering and I had a fancy movie star wife,1 then that would be cool and I could twitter all my friends about it. Please.
I got in front of that room, for my cross-examination, and told the jury, er, the Commissioners, that the freedom to speak was not limited to what Ms. Patricia Breslin could manage to drive behind safely without colliding into. I didn’t quite say it like that, I was polite. I suggested that one ought to keep a safe following distance, as a safe driver, behind any motor vehicle such that one can see the rear tires of the car in front of you on the ground, where they contact the ground. If you can’t see those tires in front of you on the ground, you might be too close to safely stop. This sentiment was resoundingly well-received in a room full of fellow taxicab drivers. May I now be so bold as to suggest that safe driving and freedom of speech are quite compatible, thank you.
Paul Gillespie, no friend of mine, asked about, well, what if we get a new President (I wish we had) and you are forced to keep that thing on there, to which I answered, of course , that it was about being able to question your so-called representatives. For example, while Gavin Newsom was avoiding any Board of Supervisors meetings, which they tried to force him to attend, I myself got arrested for daring to try to speak at one, later.
Richard Benjamin thought they should just let me have the phrase and then I would leave them alone. But instead, they jumped through a bunch of hoops to make it illegal, but not because of the “content” of the phrase, they were so careful to say. Do you believe that?
So I was requesting a color scheme change to make my phrase legal, a hearing which I never did receive, while they kept updating and revising their laws. But I had applied for this color scheme change and put in the $790- dollar fee, which they were refusing to return to me for years, after they shut me down. I had to take them to small claims court.
[actually, his wife at the time, Kimfoyle, switched from coke to pepsi and started bangin’ Don jr, but maybe that’s just in the script.]
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There, Jordana Thigpen with her Taxi Commission lawyer lost against me with no lawyer, which I was not allowed, of course. Those folks stated that my hands were dirty. My hand were unclean because I had been riding roughshod with that phrase, and thereby threatening public safety. Actually, they didn’t say that there. But they did say my hands were dirty. Jordana has never looked at my hands, I wouldn’t get close enough to smell her, thanks. I guess she used her x-ray vision to see that my hands were dirty. But they weren’t. The ruling returned the fee, agreeing that i had indeed made efforts to get a hearing that were continually denied. The judgement was that the hearing was never granted, hence my fee ought to be returned.
But they dragged their feet on the refund of MY money, and it cost me the tooth I was trying to save. I lost all that money anyway, and much more. I also lost the tooth, because by the time I was able to pay for dental care, it was too far gone. Like my freedom of speech.
Over the course of these proceedings around the phrase, the manager of Luxor, one Tom Stanghellini, got up and spoke about how the phrase , “to Impeach is Patriotic,” was offensive to Veterans. {of wars, not cab companies, did he mean?} He did not try to say that this was the supposed freedom that how many had died for? Wonder why not? I tried to give comment just after his. He had gotten free rein to speak, but they shut my mic right down. Was that the time they threatened to arrest me for talking? The actual military veteran I spoke with after, he thought my phrase was okay, and not offensive (nor a safety hazard.)
They often shut my mic off. When I was given the initial hearing about my advertising, I thought it was worth $200- bucks for a couple of minutes at the Taxi Commission to argue that my “advertising” was important because of the events of September 11th, 2001, the controlled demolitions of buildings 1, 2, and especially WTC 7, which no airplane hit, yet came down anyway at freefall speeds. Well , they shut my mic right off when I got to that part about controlled demolition, they felt I had overstepped a boundary and Heidi gave the signal to shut off my mic.
The whole sordid affair has been a severe curtailment of my freedom of speech. Perhaps that was in fact the whole purpose and intent of the persecution and prosecution. To put a chill on folks who might be inclined to speak on behalf of truth, and peace. Truthful speakers, flowers, seagulls.
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In February 2008 or so, when they revoked my business while I was being tortured in solitary, stuffed inside the cage, they did so using
all sort of lies and misrepresentation, from
the way bills to petty and pointless complaints upon me, to the
false Vandebos charge. They tried to revoke me even without Zadik present at their meeting, although he had specifically asked for notice to be present. He showed up with the way bills they said I had not filled out, but they wanted me out of their hair, so they cut off my legs, as it were.
[ / / / to be continued . . . \ \ \ ]
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