“When you get a new car and you’re feeling like a star, whatcha gonna do?” raps Mistah F.A.B., an Oakland-born artist whose questions challenge us as Bob Dylan’s challenged our parents.
It is mere seconds before Mistah F.A.B. gleefully answers his own query: “Ghost ride it!” That, in fact, is the title of his song, a modern masterpiece that puts a hip-hop beat over the theme from “Ghostbusters.”
Just like Dylan, Mistah F.A.B. is telling the world what we young people are all about: ghost riding, or the art of exiting moving vehicles and dancing beside them—or on top of them—like there’s no tomorrow. Which there really might not be, depending on how fast the car is going.
It is a Bay Area creation, and proud son Nate F. Houghteling ’06 highlighted the trend in his video, “F*&% the Fremont A’s, I’m Ghostriding my Volvo.”
A longtime Oakland Athletics fan, Houghteling was appalled when the franchise recently announced plans to relocate to Fremont, which the video characterizes as “a parking lot with a mayor.” He and childhood friend Ben Rosenberg filmed a brief clip promising that “to keep the A’s in Oakland, Ben and I are prepared to do anything. Even...ghost ride my Volvo.” The solemn declaration is followed by 75 seconds of glorious ghostin’ to Mistah F.A.B.’s anthem.
Since posting the clip, Houghteling has received avowals of love from underage girls. People have called him “fat” and “really white.” But Houghteling isn’t the only person dancing on the hood of the bandwagon. There are blogs, video montages, and even some news articles detailing tragic ghostin’-gone-wrong incidents. One can only imagine what will happen when ghost riding takes hold in Cambridge, and cars are seen coasting through Harvard Yard, or along the Charles, or up Quincy Street past Lamont Library.
But thanks to Mistah F.A.B., the Lamont-dwellers will at least know the answer to the question wafting through the windows as they work: “When you get a new car and you’re feeling like a star, whatcha gonna do?”
—Rebecca A. Seesel
