To Consider His Vision

Uber drivers are different from Di Di drivers.  This is certain.  Like the CCP’s five year plans, there is a certain predictability with Di Di drivers in Beijing.  They always say the first line at the outset: "thank you for letting me serve you."  They always remind the passenger to buckle their seat belt.  And they never have music on when you step in.  I am jarred each time I sit down in an Uber and the driver doesn’t think to turn the music down.  I think there is, in part, a strong sense of egalitarianism that is casual and understood pulling the bar downward towards a rather modest standards of politeness.  There is little sense of service.  You have just stepped into my car.  This is like coming to my living room, where I am necessarily going to be playing my music. 

I assume the driver will break the tension.  Surely they don't think anyone would enjoy stepping into  vehicle and hearing this.  I look at my phone.  I consider calling someone.  The driver is oblivious.  “Hey I’m going to call someone if that’s alright.”  “Huh?”  Would you mind turning that down a little while I make a call.”  “Oh yeah.  Sure.”  And promptly, but with a scent of reluctance, our man turns it down.  Were I to have made such a comment in Beijing the driver, even a properly grizzled old Beijing cabbie, would cut off Shan Tian Feng, completely, were I to have mentioned the sound. 

This morning's driver laughs when I say I can speak Chinese.  This happens over and over in the U.S.  Accented, beneath a beard and a baseball cap, I couldn’t tell where my driver was from, till he told him he was from the Dominican Republic.  We talked about merengue and another local music I’ve forgotten the name of.  He wanted me to hear a cut.  It was all too polished and smooth  for my taste.  But I suggested the congas sounded nice. 

Soon though he confessed that he was a singer and had me listening to his own music.  And it sounded good.  I liked it better than what we’d just heard.  And I was filled with a warmth for my driver now.  “Did you do all your own production?”  “All me.”  Now I want him to hear music as well.  He’s thumbing through Spotify so I look at my own.  Soon he’s passed me the charger.  No.  He’s never heard of Johnny Pacheco.  "He’s from D.R.?  You don’t say?"   “You’ve never heard the Fania All Stars?  Soon I have “Borinquen” from the first Willie Colon Album. "El Malo" filling out the interior of the car.  Hector Lavoe sounds so confident.  The driver suggests he sees a room of people dancing and it is lovely to consider his vision.  It’s a fine way to sail into Boston and I decide it doesn’t matter that I’m not getting any work done.  The driver comments that he was imagining what "Borinquen" would sound like with modern production, how much more full it might be.  I realize it is all but impossible for us to hear music the same way, as the absence of production is precisely what makes me love that sound and feel that it is precious.

Wednesday, 10/31/18