One look at John Travolta strutting his stuff in “Grease,” and 11-year-old Eddie Burga knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up. That guy up on the screen — an entertainer you couldn’t take your eyes off, someone who made you smile and laugh and have a good time.
That was his dream. His reality, at 50, was working for a plumbing company digging ditches to empty septic tanks. Nobody had any “Saturday Night Fever” dreams for that guy.
He was losing faith, but he never gave up, even at his lowest. He just needed a break. He never realized it would arrive in his own car. Eddie the plumber became Disco Uber Eddie, the rock star of local Uber drivers.
He appears nightly all over the city in his black, pinstriped 2021 Toyota Corolla with a disco ball and light show inside, and all the karaoke you can handle. His customer ratings are 5-Star, and he’s in demand.
“I always wanted to be a rock star,” he said Wednesday night, April 19, on his way to Hollywood with his audience of four singing disco songs with him. “In this car, I am a rock star.”
It’s good to see her older brother smiling again, said Veronica Moskowitz. It’s been awhile.
“Of the six of us, Eddie was the funny one who would never grow up,” she said. “His whole goal in life has been to make people smile and be happy. That’s his thing. He doesn’t do well with mean people.”
It’s been tough on him all these years watching his siblings become successful in their careers, and buy new homes and cars while he was just getting by in odd jobs.
“He was so unhappy,” Veronica said. “We told him, ‘While you’re trying to figure out what you really want to do, why not do Uber? Everybody else does.’”
So, after digging ditches during the day, Eddie became an Uber driver at night. He didn’t like the job his first few weeks. Driving people around in silence wasn’t entertaining. He had more to offer than just getting them to the airport or the Hollywood Bowl on time.
“I knew I had to come up with something out of the box, something different,” he said. “I decided to add a little spice to the ride.”
He ran the idea by his family, who thought he was crazy. No one was going to get in a car with a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, and a guy behind the wheel wearing a black wig and bandana, singing karaoke.
Eddie listened, but he didn’t budge. This was his life, his opportunity to be an entertainer and he wasn’t going to blow it. As Veronica put it, her brother “went back to where his heart was.”
It was a hard sell for some, Eddie admits. “About 10% of the people were in shock when I pulled up. They’d request another car,” he said.
But more people, a lot more, smiled and laughed when Eddie rolled out the red carpet from his trunk, and escorted them to their seat on stage with him. He became the warm-up act to their night on the town.
It’s been almost four and a half years, and 5,000 rides later, and his show is still running on Broadway, and every other street leading to Dodger Stadium, LAX, Staples Center, the Hollywood Bowl, nightclubs, casinos, and wherever else his audience wants to go to have fun.
“The first tip I ever got was for $100,” he said. “It was for a five-block trip. Happy drunk people are really good customers, but I don’t take the ones sitting on the curb with their head in their hands, or the guy really staggering and pushy to get in my car. I won’t take him.”
They can turn mean real fast, and Eddie doesn’t do mean. Sometimes people can surprise you, like the 85-year-old, sweet, little old lady who met him at the curb in front of her house in Thousand Oaks, and walked slowly around his car, examining it.
She’s not getting in, Eddie thought. No way. “I love it,” she finally said. “Let’s go for a ride. Crank up the music and turn on the disco ball.”
Grandma needs to pick up a few things at Ralphs.
Eddie’s got every variety of music you want. Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop, Country, R&B, Jazz, Soul, whatever. “For old people, I’ve got the Beatles and Sinatra,” he said.
Old people? Disco Uber Eddie laughs. OK, mature adults with good taste. How’s that? Whatever it takes to make his audience happy.
He hopes to expand soon to a bigger venue — a mid-size SUV. He might even add a few cast members to his show one day.
“This is my passion,” he said. “It’s a hobby, not a job. I do it for fun, but to pay the bills, too.”
He knows being an Uber driver will never make him rock star rich, but he doesn’t care. He’s just happy to go back to where his heart was.
He’s a paid entertainer now, and that’s all he’s ever wanted since that day in 1978 when he sat in a dark movie theater, and couldn’t take his eyes off John Travolta strutting his stuff.
Dennis McCarthy’s column runs on Sunday. He can be reached at dmccarthynews@gmail.com.