Genius At Work.... as a Livery Cab Driver

The business of livery cab conversation is a fickle matter to say the least. Often times we are dealing with the fringes of the calendar day; early morning to the airport when you’re just hoping to grab a half hour more of rest before you have to interact with society, or post Atlantic crossing when your body is geographically disoriented and the last thing you want to talk about is state of English club football with the driver. On a recent trip to the airport, the mention of stopping to pick up a fellow band member in a certain neighborhood had the driver tossing out ethnic stereotypes, you know, just to find some common ground and get the ball rolling. Nice! headphones? Check…. So, when myself and band mate Wes were picked up on Sunday afternoon flying into LaGuardia from Chicago’s O’Hare, I didn’t expect anything remarkable. I use the 7th Ave Car Service because they have my credit card on file and are generally punctual and safe. I know a handful of the drivers which is beneficial because you can either catch up, or chill out without repercussion. The man who picked us up pulled up right as we walked to the pickup area, our timing metronomic. In a thick, Eastern European accent, he applauded our arrival. It seems that he had an agenda for our journey together, although I wasn’t totally aware of it at the time. He spoke of a fatal accident that was causing massive backup on the main artery to our destination and asked if he could take an alternate route. Being a bass player with an affinity for inversions, I’m all about alternate roots (lame musician joke!). He was chatty to say the least, asking about our origins and the name of the band that we toured with. At the mention of Ohio, he groaned, “Cleveland is such a shit city.” Apparently he hailed from Transylvania (“do you know where that is?!” he prodded) and had family who resided in Lake Erie coastal regions. I mentioned that my great grandparents were also from Transylvania area and settled in Cleveland in the 20’s, the family name was Eskowitz. “Ah, Jews. Orthodox too.” I told him I wasn’t sure about the Orthodox part. He explained that only Orthodox Jews resided in Transylvania; “My father was the ruler of the Austria Hungarian empire”. Excuse me? The next 45 minutes., Mihai Bunai (as we learned was his name) dazzled us with tales, political propaganda and rhetoric that definitely was worth more than the 20% tip that I ended up giving him. It seems that Mr. Bunai (not his real name) has lived a number of existences. One moment he it telling us how the Challenger explosion in 1986 happened after NASA decided to ignore the advice of his 18 person engineering team, the next he is describing his tenure playing Clarinet and Saxophone with the late Ella Fitzgerald. (Apparently, Ella was the god mother to three of his children and he was in her band through her battle with diabetes and her eventual passing. All the time proving to her that white people can indeed, play jazz). It seems Mihai was not driving a livery cab for the compensation, but to promote, one passenger at a time, his Write-In Vote party. “The government is diseased and corrupt and I know it. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter!” (a phrase that my father volleyed around a lot when I was boy). He handed us half size business cards with his name, PO box address and party title. I asked him if he had any info online, “none!” He preferred to speak to the people in person, that’s the only way you know if your getting through to them and more importantly, if they even want to be reached. When I questioned that perhaps speaking to one cab passenger at a time, while admirable, was probably not going to achieve his desired appointment to office, he lashed back that he didn’t want to go about it the traditional way. I suppose, like his driving, he preferred alternate routes to his destinations. As we approached Wes’ neighborhood and clarified some directions, Mihai chimed how happy he was to not have to use one of those “silly little screens” (referring to a GPS device). He has just finished telling us about his experience in wireless, global technology. “Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, they all want me.” His work with telecommunications is apparently the stuff legends are made of. “Ironic”, I said given the fact that he doesn’t use a GPS because it sounds like he could build one. “Could!?” he questioned. “I have.” But is seemed that he didn’t want himself or his words to be traceable. “What happens if I Google you?” I asked. “You will find nothing. All my operations with the government are classified and I don’t advertise my positions online. I prefer to talk to the people.” Besides, according to Mihai, the government is listening to his conversations anyway. “But they don’t have nothing. The only people I call are my family. Hello, how are you, fuck you. You know, normal shit.” My default reaction was to doubt this guy, throw a couple of questions at him to appease him, but nothing too committal. But the more he talked, the more intrigued I felt. Especially because he really seemed to care that he was getting through to us, and was happy for us to redirect the conversation, which I think is the difference between a tangent and a discussion. I suggested that perhaps he was (as Hunter Thompson puts it) “one of God’s prototypes, unfit for mass reproduction.” He was unfazed. “I’m a trade of all jacks.” Apparently Mihia is also a licensed electrician, plumber and carpenter. “You have to learn a trade” he told me. This fall we will be making his 2nd run for the Mayoral office of the government of New York City. Last time he gave Mayor Bloomberg a run for his big money with 18,000 votes (written in of course). Among the other bits of information that Mihai imparted on me during our hour of existence together included; his time spent in Maoist China studying at the military academy in the late 50’s. He speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese in addition to 11 other languages (12 if you count “street”, his words). His first wife is Chinese and therefore so are his first children. His next wife is Polish and third was African American, and they all live on property he owns to this day. He owns land all over this country and the world, including Estonia, Switzerland, Poland, China and ….. Idaho (where he has his potato farm.) Apparently he had been working recently with the contractor whom Boeing hired to design the flawed battery system in the new 787 Dreamliners. “I told them there would be a problem.” As we talked more, I noticed that he has stumps for fingers on his left hand. I inquired about it; “I had an accident and lost them. So I operated on them myself. I also have a medal plate here (pointing to the middle of his forehead).” I didn’t ask he performed that operation as well. “So you can’t play the clarinet anymore I guess.” “No, I taught myself to play the trumpet instead.”