mr cab driver

Saturday morning. Walking down Ipokratous Street. It’s raining. I like it. But I am late. H.A. is waiting for me @ S&M. So I stop a taxi. The driver says “good morning” first. Now that’s a first indeed. A couple of seconds later, I realize that I am listening to Tom Jones’ “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”. I turn and look at the cd player. I can read the artist’s name and song title on display. That’s no radio. That’s a cd-r!
“Mp3 actually”, he says, reading my mind. “It has saved my life. I drive around town for so long I need good music to get by”… I ask some questions. I find out that he owns 10.000 records. He recalls the first time he saw Shirley Bassey performing live. He wants to know my opinion on Engelbert Humberdinck. He mentions Bobby Darin, Charles Trenet, Edith Piaf, Frankie & Dino… I am amazed!!! This guy knows a crooner from a copy cat… We arrive @ Skoufa. This is where I get off. “It was really nice meeting you”, I say and I mean that. It was nice. And it was extra-ordinary.

Thursday night. I walk outside the Box drunk and knackered… I raise my hand. A taxi stops. I enter… I try to remember where I am supposed to go. I tell him. I hope he will not be in the mood for talking. When I am drunk, I find it extremely difficult to concentrate on what the other guy’s trying to say to me and it’s almost impossible for me to talk in an articulate way. But he wastes no time. No time at all. He points at my cd bags and asks “What do you carry there mate?”
“Give me a fucking break” is the first thing that crosses my mind but I don’t say that. I just listen for a while to the radio, notice we are listening to Pashalis Terzis or some other greek singer and throw a slow and kind of hostile-coloured line: “Cd’s. Just some cd’s”. “Wow!”, he says… “So many? What for? Are you a DJ or something?”
– “Something…”
– “And? Where do you play?”
– “There’s a bar…”
- “What’s the name of your bar?”
– “It’s not MY bar, it’s just a bar…”
– “Yeah, alright, but which one?”
- “Would it make any difference?”
– “But I know all of them, I want to know!”
– “Ok then, it’s called the BOX!”
– “And what music do you play?”
– “Various stuff. Not that well known…”
– “Try me”.
– “It would be pointless”
– “Try me. I know almost everything”
– “Well, I don’t play greek music”
– – “Why on earth do you say that? I know you don’t play greek music in the BOX. I asked what do YOU play!!!”
– “And I said you wouldn’t know…”
– “C’mon buddy, don’t be so negative. Try me!”
– “Ok then, you asked for it. LCD Soundsystem, Medeski,
Martin & Wood, Shriekback, Haircut 100, that kind of stuff”

I smile. I lay back. I win. He loses. He’s lucky I am no Tom Cruise in Collateral… but at least now it’s time for him to shut up. I am wrong…

– “Ok, got it”
– “I am glad you did”
– “What about Frankie? Do you play Frankie?”
– “Yeah, I do sometimes, but obviously you didn’t understand what I just said, otherwise you wouldn’t ask about Sinatra…”
– “No, I mean Frankie Goes To Hollywood!”
– “Gasp! Yes…”
– “Relax is a classic. Do you remember Lefteris Kogalidis? Back in the late 70s, he was saying that, when people go out, they only wanna listen to good music and forget about their personal problems. That’s what Frankie Goes To Hollywood do to me…”

As he keeps on explaining why music is so important in his life, I open the window so that the cold air would sober me up a little. And here I am, at the back of a yellow taxi, five hours before my morning wake-up call, listening to a fifty something driver talking about FGTH and 80’s electro pop and rock music and music journalism and...oops, EN LEFKO radio station…
And I make the mistake to tell him I had a show once at the very same station. And he asks my name, and I have nothing to hide […], so I just answer back, and he confesses he was a fan but lectures that my music choices were everything but commercial and also boring sometimes.
But I am too drunk to get mad and explain why it was neither but no one can please both 20 year old students and 55 year old taxi drivers within two hours but now that I come to think of it… it was all so very funny. Because at the same time we were listening to Pashalis Terzis and he did bother to explain to me why, after two o' clock in the morning, there is nothing better to listen to the radio and I couldn’t [still can’t] exactly blame him for that…
And then he starts laughing and repeating my name but I am not THAT drunk to actually believe I am famous among taxi drivers. But he promises to pass by BOX next Sunday for a drink.

And so it happened twice in the same week. What can I say? Maybe I run into the most prolific and cultured taxi drivers in the country. Next thing you know, they’re going to let you chose your favorite radio station for the ride… And indicate the short cuts to your destination. And maybe, just maybe, do the driving and let them rest at the back seat…