Back in 2007, I spent several chaotic months driving a taxi in New York City. During this brief but impactful period of my life, several important things happened:
I was so under-slept that I often fell asleep in the middle of sentences during emotionally turbulent conversations with my then-girlfriend. Many of these conversations were brought on by her concerns about my decision to become a cab driver, which made for a pretty vicious and ouroborean cycle.
I made almost no money, despite working 72 hours a week.
I picked up the actor Steve Schirripa, who played Bobby Bacala on the Sopranos. The air conditioning in my cab was broken, and I was so excited to talk to him that I accidentally turned into oncoming traffic on 7th Avenue, prompting him to shout at me that I was the worst cab driver he’d ever seen.
I nearly died on three occasions [see aforementioned concerns on the part of my then-girlfriend], one of which I later told a story about at The Moth.
I listened to WFUV for between four and twelve hours a day, which is where I first heard many of the artists whose music I still rely on to make sense of this cruel yet beautiful existence, including (but not limited to): The Hold Steady, The Wood Brothers, Todd Snider, Frazey Ford, Erin McKeown, and Ben Kweller.
The thing about cab driving is that I knew it was a dangerous and impractical job, and that it was kind of nuts to leave a stable union job at a hotel in order to do it (which is exactly what I’d done). But I had convinced myself that I needed to be a cab driver - it felt like there was something essential about New York City that I’d never understand unless I tried it. That actually turned out to be true, which is a subject for another post. The point is: there weren’t a lot of people in my life who understood what I was doing.
Except, it seemed to me, for Ben Kweller. He’d just released his self-titled second album, and the song Penny on the Train Track was in heavy rotation on ‘FUV. It’s about feeling compelled to live a life outside the mainstream, and how it probably won’t make sense to most people, including yourself. And yet: you know it’s what you have to do. It features the line: If you can’t get behind your own life, get behind the driving wheel. Many times, speeding along the Henry Hudson Parkway in my rattling yellow Ford Crown Victoria, I cranked up the volume on the radio and screamed that line at the top of my lungs.
It was thrilling, then, some eighteen years later, to have the opportunity to interview Kweller on the radio about his latest record, Cover The Mirrors. As you’ll hear, he once again finds himself in a season of life where things don’t make sense, and turning to music to find his way through.
Putting this dispatch together, I was reminded that my brief sojourn behind the driving wheel of a yellow cab was a time of many revelations. One of the biggest was that no matter how little money I was making or how many sanitation trucks I collided with, I woke up every day looking forward to driving my taxi. Part of the reason I felt that way was that I knew, if nothing else, I’d get to spend the day with my favorite radio hosts: Claudia Marshall, Alisa Ali, Dennis Elsas, and Darren DeVivo on WFUV; Brian Lehrer, Soterios Johnson, and John Schaefer on WNYC. Somehow, everything about myself I couldn’t explain made sense with the city whizzing past my windows and their voices in my ears, telling me stories and playing me songs.
These days, when I’m on the radio, I picture someone like the 2007 version of me: confused, careening, aimless and anxious. But through sheer willpower and absolute (possibly misguided) conviction that wherever he’s headed is worth the trip, keeping his foot on the gas. I try to talk to him the way it felt like they were talking to me.
Share this post