Karaoke With Jim Jones Jr.
I Got Drunk at a Karaoke Bar with Jim Jones Jr.
Part of my job as an intern for a local film magazine was to attend various film festivals that would pass through the city on weekends. On this particular night, about two years ago, I had to go The Lumiere Theatre to take pictures at the opening of Stanley Nelson’s new film “The Life and Death of People’s Temple.” The idea was to snap a few shots before the film started and then be off on my merry way, but by the time I got there the show had already begun. I hung around the lobby for awhile hoping to catch some VIP’s on their way to the bathroom, but soon realized I should make a decision. I could either keep doing what I was doing or I could head next door to the karaoke bar to drink and wait for the Q&A start. I chose the latter.
So I was sitting there drinking a beer and cursing my chronic inability to be punctual when my luck suddenly changed. The small door at the bottom of the stairs opened and in walked Stanley Nelson, Jim Jones Jr., and their publicist. We were sitting there sipping drinks and talking about nothing when Jim Jones Jr. suddenly said “Well I guess I’m gonna have to go first.” He shot his publicist a mischievous smile, downed a quick double-shot of Patron, and then jumped onstage as his favorite song was queuing up.
The gravity of the situation made my brain roll over in its shell. Here I was in a dark and lonely bar in downtown San Francisco watching the son of a mass-murdering cult leader perform a flawless rendition of “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong. I knew all the small steps that got me there that night –I got dressed, found directions, paid for a cab, etc- but how and why fate had led me from a modest Midwestern upbringing into such a morbidly glamorous situation, I’ll never quite understand. I smiled a secret smile because I knew it could only get better from here. I was making it.
