ROCK STARDOM'S ALL GREEK TO ME 

	The most beautiful women in the world fixed 
their gaze on the singer as he cradled his acoustic 
guitar and confidently stared back. When his string of 
sweet serenades broke, flash bulbs popped as 
strangers posed with their arms around him.  
	That singer was me. For once, I'm reporting on 
my own musical notoriety, not someone else's. This 
summer I was a rock star in Greece. Kiss my axe, 
Eddie Vedder. 
	Sometimes you just have to take it overseas to 
have your genius appreciated. I'm thinking the young 
Jimi Hendrix in England, David Hasselhoff in 
Germany, Jerry Lewis in France. 
	Everybody plays guitar in Los Angeles. My 
dentist even has one propped up by his nitrous tanks. 
This is not so on the scenic island of Santorini, where 
most of my July was spent chomping greasy grub, 
glugging Robitussin-bad wine and getting scammed 
by anti-American taxi drivers.  
	On only my second day there, I was hired to sing 
at a beachside restaurant.  
	"You play guitarra?" a man who looked like Ray 
Romano shouted as I strolled the volcanic black 
sands of Perrisa Beach during sunset.  
	Some guys have tight abs, some own mansions 
and yachts, some are taller than 5'7". Some simply 
know how get ravishing women not to light up a 
cigarette and look away after the third sentence of 
their pickup line. Me, my thing is to walk along 
beaches with my guitar, pathetically hunting for 
unattached women to serenade. 
	Unfortunately, the only person my method 
attracted this afternoon was this loud Greek man. 
	"You sit down! You play for me now!" he 
insisted, shooing me into a restaurant called Meteora. 
(All Greeks speak English as a second language, 
although -- as I learned from extensive field research 
-- Greek women pretend not to when you approach 
them in bars.) 
	The man pulled out a chair for me as his friends 
circled. He introduced himself as Bob. 
	"Do you know any Western pop, Bob?" I queried, 
throwing out the names of some bands I can cover 
from memory: U2, Beatles, R.E.M. 
	"R.E.M., yes!" he screamed. "You play R.E.M. 
for me now!" 
	Considering how demanding Bob is of strange 
men, I felt sorry for the women he dates: "You lie 
down with me now! After, you cook eggs!" 
	I threw down "The One I Love" and waited for 
the critical consensus. It was better than I hoped. 
	"You play in my restaurant tonight!" extolled 
Bob, who manages Meteora. 
	Why not? I mean, Greece gave America George 
Michael (real name: Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou). 
The least I can do is retaliate by giving them me. 
	My traveling companion, Roy, later pointed out 
something I hadn't noticed about Bob and his offer. 
Scrawled on a chalkboard behind him were the words 
"LIVE MUSIC TONIGHT." His regular booking had 
apparently canceled. Had I been walking along the 
beach with a pan flute, the gig still would have been 
mine. 
	Playing cover songs for unattached beach women 
is a casual scene. When I get stuck for lyrics after the 
first verse of Pearl Jam's "Black" or Tom Petty's 
"Free Falling," all I have to do is repeat the verse or 
say, "That's all I can do" and kick into another half-
tune. But being a featured cover artiste meant I would 
have to perform at least an hour's worth of songs in 
their entirety.  
	Panicked, I hit an Internet cafe, where for four 
hours I printed out the sheet music for every melody I 
could remember occupying the A.M. radio in my 
parents' 1972 Oldsmobile Delta 88: "Bridge Over 
Troubled Water," "American Pie," "Moondance"... 
	I didn't bother negotiating a salary with Bob, since 
the drachma is currently so much weaker than the 
dollar that I didn't want to hear I was worth only $10 
a night (which happens to be the per-person price at 
the finest Greek restaurants). I did point out, 
however, that Bob should pay for the cab from my 
hotel to his place. (My inner rock star wanted a limo, 
but I told him to shut up.) After thinking about it for 
an inappropriately long time, Bob acquiesced. 
	"Please welcome, from Los Angeles, Meestah 
Coren." 
	OK, so my name's not Coren. But the waitress 
tried her best to decipher Bob's crib sheet. And the 
welcome was still warmer than when I played 
original music last summer at Lounge at the Beach in 
Hermosa Beach, for a crowd of 12 of my most guilt-
fearing friends and a birthday party of 10 female 
strangers who shut up only long enough to wonder 
who ordered the Guinness. 
	Yes, the second stop on the Corey Levitan world 
tour was the charm. 
	I opened up with "All I Want Is You" by U2, a 
simple song featuring three chords, easy lyrics and a 
vocal too low to screw up. It was the deadliest babe 
weapon in my musical arsenal. 
	"Pink Houses" by John Mellencamp was next, 
another personal fave whose lyrics and elementary 
chord changes are burned into my medulla. It was at 
this point I worked up the nerve to open my eyes and 
scan the room.  
	Not only was I performing in my sleep, but the 
audience was listening in theirs. Not one pair of lips 
was singing along, and some were engaged in 
conversations. Nobody knew these tunes. Although 
applause followed each one, it was the smattering 
kind that Billy Crystal's wretched comedian received 
in the movie "Mr. Saturday Night." 
	Meteora is an apropos name for this place. I was 
crashing and burning just like one. 
	I needed to go more international, I realized, to 
play songs that were hits OUTSIDE the States. I went 
straight to the song sheet for "Bridge Over Troubled 
Water," which I intended only as a fallback. It was a 
minefield, with about 250 chord changes. My eyes 
would not leave the paper for a second. But at least 
the audience would probably know it. 
	"Bridge," I discovered, is also like the National 
Anthem. It starts out nice and low but delivers the 
human voice to a place where ever having been 
exposed to testosterone is a liability. And Bob 
provided no microphone or amplifier, so I was forced 
to scream every uncomfortable Mariah Carey note.  
	A bigger problem was developing, too. The wind 
began whipping in from the beach so hard, it folded 
the bottom of my song sheet over the top of it. I was 
sailing blind along with Silver Girl in the home 
stretch. With the guitar occupying both my hands, 
there was nothing I could do but motion for the 
nearest person to unfold the paper so I could stop 
playing incorrect chords along with even more 
incorrect lyrics.  
	The cook at Meteora -- a Belushi-sized, sweaty 
bald man in a T-shirt who for some reason wore 
Chanel sunglasses -- detected my desperate eye 
movements and interpreted them to mean that I 
wanted the sheet music held three inches in front of 
my face. While doing so, he began a loud 
conversation in Greek with someone else (probably 
about eyewear trends for the fall season) and the 
paper began wildly bobbing about. 
	Having failed "follow the bouncing ball" as a kid, 
I was forced to stop before the song did. 
	"That's all I can do," I told the Meteora diners. 
Surprisingly, they went along, laughing and clapping 
wildly at my predicament like so many unattached 
women at the beach. This was not a crowd expecting 
a professional cover artiste after all. 
	I began pulling out every song I partially knew - 
"Free Falling," "Black." I even got up and jigged a 
little mock George Michael on two-thirds of "Faith." 
The casual repartee encouraged people to begin 
yelling out requests. 
	"Hotel California!" someone demanded. The 
place erupted in agreement. But I have no idea how 
"Hotel California" goes. I barely know the songs that 
I do know. I stared blankly. 
	"Play Greek music!" another man yelled. Things 
had taken a sudden turn southward. 
	Luckily, I won the audience back with my 
suggestion of "Stand By Me," one of the first songs I 
learned when I began playing guitar in 8th grade. The 
crowd sang along so loudly, I let them take it 
themselves after the second chorus. When I finished, 
Bob played Ben E. King's recording on the restaurant 
stereo, flashing the houselights on and off in 
exultance. 
	"This is a special song to the Greek people," Bob 
said to me as I packed up. He couldn't articulate 
exactly why, but at least I had ended my set on a high 
note. 
	The next night, I was better prepared. I brought 
sheet music for "Hotel California" and made sure to 
hold it in place with two heavy tea cups. I also 
brought along my own groupies, three hot Greek 
sisters from Montreal who I picked up in town that 
afternoon without even a beach serenade -- thanks to 
my new rock-star confidence. 
	"They must pay for their own dinners!" Bob 
insisted to me after greeting them warmly. 
	The crowd welcomed "Hotel California" like 
Elvis Presley had returned and brought John Lennon 
along for the ride. Just knowing this song apparently 
qualified me to release a CD in Greece. Only 20 
minutes later, someone even requested it again.  
	I closed once more with "Stand By Me," and Bob 
informed me that he wanted me back every night for 
a month. I was so good, he said, I was worth a full 
$10 a night (but still no dinners for my groupies.) 
	Hey, if this journalism thing doesn't work out...