Confessions of a New York Taxi Driver

The memory of our conversation stayed with me for some time. I found myself wondering, whenever George or Billy would make the news with some new blunder, what Paul would have said about it. He had become for me the conscience of the Yankees. And then one day, out of nowhere, an idea hit me with the impact of a Goose Gossage fastball: Paul Simon would make the perfect owner of the New York Yankees. A native New Yorker, a lifelong Yankee fan, an important contributor to the legacy of the team through his music, a caring, intelligent and disciplined person, and the possessor of some serious wealth – somehow it all just fit. Yes! Paul Simon, the one man who could rescue our Yankees from the tyranny of the wicked King George. I decided that if fate ever put Paul back in my cab, I would do my best to sell him on the idea.

As it turned out, fate was kind.

On an unusually frigid day in late November, 1984 – just a few weeks after the conclusion of yet another dismal baseball season for the Yankees – I again spotted Paul standing with his doorman at the same building on Central Park West. Once again I made an outrageous turn to get to him and, after refreshing his memory about our previous conversation, I wasted no time in getting to the matter at hand. I told him I had an idea that he’d probably think was crazy at first, but I wanted him to at least take a look at it. And then I laid it on him.

‘I want you to buy the Yankees,’ I said.

It certainly took him by surprise.

‘Me? You want me to buy the Yankees?’ he said incredulously.

I told him it wasn’t as crazy as it sounds. A lot of things happen that seem bizarre until we get used to them. I told him he had some pretty good qualifications, having written that line about Joe DiMaggio, and being a native New Yorker, and all. I could see he was softening up on the idea. He started tossing the concept around in his mind. But he hit a snag right away.

‘I don’t have that kind of money,’ he said. ‘You should talk to McCartney.’

I took this as a minor stumbling block that any salesman would encounter en route to closing a deal. All I had to do was show my client that where there’s a will there’s a way. I asked him what he thought the team was worth. After giving it some thought he guessed that ninety or a hundred million dollars would do the trick. Arriving at this figure, however, was not something that helped my cause. But then I realized that what he’d given me was in sales parlance just an ‘illegitimate excuse’. Now it was my job to strip away all the illegitimate excuses until we came to what the real objection was, if, in fact, there was one. So I suggested setting up a consortium of investors with Paul as the principal owner.

‘What about Billy Joel?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yeah, he’s a big Yankee fan!’ Paul replied with genuine enthusiasm.

Now we were getting somewhere – the seed had been planted and was starting to grow. I could see in my mind the same image that I was sure was in Paul’s: a large conference room in Yankee Stadium, Paul sitting at the head of the table, Billy Joel at his side, and about twenty seats filled with rock singers and movie stars. A big decision had to be made: should Tommy John be offered a new contract even though he’s forty-one years old?

But Paul raised a new objection. He began talking, quite sincerely, about his basic purpose line. He’d always wanted to be a rock singer, he said, and that’s what he had dedicated himself to and had become. He told me that there had been times when he had considered doing things that would have been divergences from his purpose line, but they never came to anything, and that his steadfastness to his purpose was one of the reasons for his success. Although owning the Yankees sounded intriguing, it would ultimately be something that would take him away from his work.

As a salesman I had to consider this statement, convincing as it might sound, as just another illegitimate excuse and I went to work at chopping it down. My objective was to show Paul how owning the Yankees would actually enhance his basic purpose. I pointed out that buying the franchise would give him access to Yankee Stadium as a concert arena. He could book concerts, including himself as a solo artist and himself with Garfunkel, on dates when the Yankees were unlikely to draw large crowds. This concept seemed to sit well with him as he immediately started looking at what might stand in the way of his acquiring the team.

‘I don’t think George would ever sell,’ he said.

Now here, I had to admit, we had a formidable, perhaps even insurmountable, obstacle. What if it wasn’t a matter of money? What if the team simply wasn’t for sale at any price? It seemed that the only possibility of overcoming this barrier would be to solve the mystery of what it is that makes George tick. We went to work at it.

Why, we wondered, would George Steinbrenner want to be the owner of a baseball team, anyway? Was it because he loved baseball? Possibly, but we didn’t think so. Was it for the money? Again, this was possible but, knowing as much as we’ve all come to know about George, it didn’t seem to ring true that money would be his real motivation. What was concluded, after some discussion, was that George is a person who needs recognition and approval in a big way.

Now there could be various ways of achieving recognition and approval. Certainly one way was to become famous and loved as the owner of a baseball team. But there could be other ways, too… like performing in front of thousands of people and singing lively songs while a band plays behind you.

So there it was, the solution to the problem! Paul would put together a group of investors, the matter of the money would be resolved, and everyone would get what they want: Paul – the Yankees. George – well, first George will get training for his new career. Voice control, stage presence, a new wardrobe. And then, before you know it, the world will be enamored of, astonished by and delirious for the harmonies created by George and his new partner.

The group will be called Simon and Steinbrenner. Sorry, Art.

We had arrived at Paul’s destination, the Brill Building on Broadway and 49th. There was still one detail he had some attention on – the matter of contacting George, conducting the negotiations and closing the sale. It was something he didn’t particularly want to get involved in until it was really necessary. So Paul decided to offer me a deal.

‘Tell you what,’ he said as he started to step out of my cab into the freezing afternoon air, ‘if you can get George to sign the papers, I’ll give you a percentage.’

And with that he smiled, waved goodbye, and went on his way.

I drove less than a block down Broadway, already doing the math in my head of what a percentage would bring me, when my next passenger, a middle-aged woman, hailed me from the frozen street and jumped in. She sat in the same spot in back where Paul Simon had just been sitting.

‘Hey, you know who I just had in my cab?’ I said to her… ‘Paul Simon!’

‘You did?’ she said in amazement. She then started moving her body back and forth against the seat. ‘You mean I’m sitting in Paul Simon’s warmth?!’

A Woody Allen story

Of all the celebrities in New York, I don’t think there is any who is as much identified with the city nor as visible in the city as Woody Allen. I have often seen him around town – going into Knicks games at Madison Square Garden, directing or acting in his own movies on the street, or just walking around. It’s easy to spot him. He looks exactly the same in real life as he does on the screen.

He has also always been the most locatable celebrity in New York City. You always knew where this guy would be on a Monday night – at Michael’s Pub on 55th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. For many years Woody played the clarinet in a Dixieland band there without ever missing a date. He was always there on Monday nights.

In 1977, for example, when the Academy Awards ceremonies were still being held on Mondays, Woody’s movie Annie Hall won Oscars for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture. Was Woody in Hollywood to pick up his Oscar? No, he was playing the clarinet at Michael’s Pub.

It so happens that Michael’s Pub, before it moved in 1996, was situated on the ground floor of a high-rise office building that is occupied almost entirely by lawyers. Many of them work late so this building is an excellent place to look for a fare between the hours of seven and ten on any weeknight. If a taxi driver waits there for a few minutes between these hours, he will be sure to get a customer. Therefore I would often be there, and if it was a Monday night I’d always wonder if I would be seeing Woody Allen.

At 9.25 p.m. he would come out of the place. It was that predictable. Sometimes he’d be alone, sometimes he’d be with Soon-Yi, sometimes with his father. He had a Mercedes and a driver waiting for him. If people gathered around him and asked him to pose for a photograph, he would oblige for a minute and then his driver, in what appeared to be a rehearsed drill, would wrench him away and usher him into his car. I saw this many times and I always considered it to be a treat, one of those special, little New York experiences. And there was an additional treat from a business point of view. The people who had come to Michael’s Pub to see Woody Allen would also become taxi customers, so adding them onto the lawyers made Monday nights even better over there. For some reason nearly all of them were Europeans, usually from France, Denmark, Sweden, Germany or Holland. I supposed that Woody was big in those countries and apparently it was well known that you could see him in person at this particular location. Perhaps it was even better known over there than it was here, because my passengers were rarely Americans.