Soon after I arrived in New York City I became a subway person. The price, speed, and anonymity suited me. And this was the wild and wooly 70s when things were somewhat dicey below ground.
But even then I realized that if you wanted to see the city and be squired around by someone who knew the joint, then the taxi was your man.
I admired taxi-drivers, for despite the fact that I dwelt in the existential junky kingdom of Alphabet City, I never had the courage to drive a yellow cab. And believe me, there were times I sorely needed the money.
Being an itinerant musician wasn’t the safest of gigs either. Still, you were grounded inside some pub or club for five hours a night, not swanning around an urban jungle like a real-life De Niro.
I’ve had taxi-driver friends who went on to success in other fields, one of whom almost killed a tipsy Ted Kennedy when taking too sharp a turn in his dilapidated checker with a loose door. Heck, I even knew Harry Chapin who wrote the Taxi anthem.
But John McDonagh trumps them all. Just talking to John is like taking a spin up and down the FDR some icy pre-dawn, January morning: you’re never quite sure where you’re going to end up.
John says we first met at WBAI-FM when I waltzed in with a 45 of "Avenue B is the Place to Be," a single by the punk/new wave band Major Thinkers.
So what was a cabbie doing fronting a show on prestigious Pacifica Radio? That’s the thing about John, everything comes from an unlikely angle; with regard to the WBAI show – mix in sheep, Donegal, and emigration, and it all came to a head in the terrible year of 1981.
John, from Queens, was spending the summer on his uncle’s sheep farm in the wilds of Donegal when the Hunger Strike was in progress. After attending three wakes and funerals, he decided to do something about it.
Chucking the Donegal shepherd gig, he returned home and joined a demonstration outside the United Nations. Never one to button his lip, John waxed eloquently on what he had seen. Whereupon, WBAI offered him a radio show to spread his Republican gospel.
Enter one of the great Irish-American political characters, Brian Mór Ó’Baoighill, aka Bernie O’Boyle, a fabulous artist who earned his crust designing major-label album covers and doing bar security.
Brian Mór came aboard as co-host of "Behind the Green Curtain." The name came straight from the lips of Father Pat Moloney. Talk about characters! This particular padre had just been released from behind the green curtain of Portlaoise Prison.
The show is still running every Sunday and has had a battalion of co-hosts, including the incredible Malachy McCourt, and the ineffable Sandy Boyer.
You could say that Radio Free Eireann (current name) is the little show that could – and did! At times, the hosts seemed to be at war with just about everyone. Why? Because they called it like they saw it.
That all stems from the taxi driver vibe. John took up the wheel in 1977 after serving three years in the US Army. Bet you didn’t know he was a vet, especially since two retired FDNY guys used to call in and yell at him, “Go back to Cuba!” Ah well, Cuba, Nicaragua, Donegal, Queens, wherever it’s hot, that’s where John’s at.
He doesn’t drive pro anymore, but he keeps the cabbie vibe alive with his one-man-show "Off the Meter, On the Record," that proved a knockout at the Irish Rep and beyond.
And on the second Thursday of every month, John and other yellow chariot drivers tell cabbie stories at the Republican paradise of O’Malley’s on 27th Street, in the aptly named Malachy McCourt Storytelling room. Be there or be square!
But that’s only the half of the story. Mr. McDonagh is currently featured in the hit YouTube TV series "Keep The Meter Running," hosted by that rambunctious man about town Kareem Rahma, best known for his popular "Subway Takes," on which John has also appeared.
That’s the thing about taxi drivers – they keep New York, and every other city, moving. So, the next time you ride a cab, instead of nodding off to some dumb corporate ad, talk to your driver. They all have an immigrant story, and like John, they’re going places you and I never will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olL1pjZ4WP4&t=1939s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiOzOk-HZcY&t=1466s
