I was waiting for the 71, which stops along the Haight and heads toward the Mission. Looking at the bus map, alone at the bus stop except for one girl, this older, ruffian-type man comes up to me. He has a bandana wrapped around the top of his head like a pirate, long stringy gray hair coming out from underneath it and his left eye is completely bloodshot. He asks where we are going? I tell him to the Mission. “Where are you from?” he asks, thinking me and the other girl are a couple from out of town. I tell him I live down the street.
“Oh,” he says, “so you know North Beach?”
Sure, I know it, I tell him.
"There are some fine Blues and Titty bars," he muses.
Is that what you’re on your way to, I ask him, a titty bar?
"A Blues and Titty bar," he corrects me. "Music," he continues, "is my only friend. I’ve been married four times in my life; had a lot of great experiences and a lot of terrible ones, but music is the only thing that’s stuck through it with me. Music," he says, "is my friend, my lover, my drug, my alcohol, my bitch, everything," he says. "In the words of James Douglass—and you’ll know who he is when I start singing—in the words of the Great James Douglass..." and he started singing:
For the music is your special friend
Dance on fire as it intends
Music is your only friend
Until the end
I didn’t know who James Douglass was, but when he started singing I felt nearly as though he were channeling Jim Morrison directly, as though he were some kind of Jim Morrison impersonator or reincarnation. His voice was so bold and stinging in the night. As he finished I could see the bus pulling up. I wanted to speak to him more now, but it was clear he was not getting on this bus. "Sounds like Jim Morrison to me," I said to him.
"James Douglass Morrison," he says, "have a good night." And that was that.
When I heard about this band The Black Ghosts I initially rolled my eyes. I know and like too many bands already that start with "The Black..." I'm not sure that I enjoy their original songs yet, but the remixes are nice.
The Black Ghosts- Its Your Touch (Ashley Beedles Heavy Disco edit)
The Black Ghosts- Any Way You Choose To Give It (The Whip remix)
And Boy 8 Bit's remix, who seems to be popping up here and there these days, perhaps something to look for in the future. He seems to love those Nintendo arpeggios that I guess his name suggests:
The Black Ghosts- Any Way You Choose To Give It (Boy 8 Bit remix)
