larry johnson speaks with judge napolitano about the world and tells tales of his russia trip;

The Judge and I did our usual Monday morning hit. Last week it was 6 pm St. Petersburg time. So let me tell you about the Dushanbe taxi cab driver. A muslim guy in his late thirties, who missed his calling as a Formula One or Stock car racer, picked me up at my hotel, 20 minutes after I appeared on Judge Napolitano’s show last week. I was headed downtown to scout out a restaurant, where I was originally scheduled to have dinner with the Judge, Scott Ritter, Pepe Escobar and Eva Bartlett the next day. I was doing recon to make sure the place could handle our crowd. Those plans collapsed.

Anyway, the driver and I used a phone translator app to communicate with each other. I dubbed the gent, Dushanbe’s reincarnation of Mario Andretti. We started off slow and then, I guess he wanted to test my mettle, he pinned the accelerator to the floor and we were zipping through rush-hour traffic at blazing speeds. A 120 km per hour on a two-lane highway, packed with cars, is scintillating to say the least. All the while he is yammering away, telling me about his wife and daughter, showing me their pictures, typing on his phone so I could understand what he was saying, and passing cars like they were standing still. I only flinched one time, when he came within millimeters of hitting a parked car. That got a belly laugh out of him.

The trip was educational. He taught me how to identify what part of Russia a car is from based on the numbers on the license plate. For example, 198 is St. Petersburg. This taxi driver was entertaining and nerve wracking at the same time. I also learned that he owns two restaurants devoted to Dushanbe cuisine (sadly, I did not have a chance to visit either) and proudly claimed to be buddies with the local cops. He dropped me off on Nevsky Prospect. I thanked him for an unforgettable ride (fortunately, I did not need to change underwear)..........more........