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Post by darkstar3 on Jan 31, 2011 14:23:42 GMT
Los Angeles Times Entertainment Morrison's Mystique By PAT H. BROESKE January 07, 1990 In his 1967 Elektra Records publicity bio, Jim Morrison wrote, "I've always been attracted to ideas that were about revolt against authority. I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos--especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom. . . ." On the same bio, Morrison said that his favorite color was turquoise, that what he looked for in a girl were "hair, eyes, voice, walk" and that all his family members were dead. But, they really weren't. Morrison was creating his own myth. It was a myth that he perpetuated with his near-mystic, highly sensual stage presence. He once dubbed himself "The King of Orgasmic Rock," with some justification. He was both pretty and handsome, slim yet charged with strength and energy, and capable of projecting a sense of danger--of the demonic. It was a combination, along with his talent for writing poetic lyrics, that seemed to appeal to males and females alike, for all kinds of reasons, tapping a range of fantasies. Morrison liked to relate how, as a child, he was driving with his parents across the desert when they came upon an overturned truck and some dead Indians in the road. At that point, claimed Morrison, he became possessed by the spirit of one of the Indians. Thus, he often wore a concho belt--along with his leather pants--and let loose with ritualistic-type dance movements on stage. Of one thing there was no doubt: Morrison was possessed by personal demons. Those demons, and his artistic search, led to his drug use and, finally, to raging alcoholism. As a result of his excesses--in an era that predated today's multitudinous substance abuse programs--Morrison got into brawls, was arrested, showed up late for concerts and passed out on stage in Amsterdam. (It happened during a set by the Jefferson Airplane.) He also changed physically: Less than three years after he'd shot to the top, the hell-child with the lean, brooding good looks was fat and full-bearded. Those who knew him would later surmise that Morrison the poet was struggling to break free of the mythic rock star figure he'd created. The son of a Navy rear admiral, Morrison was born James Douglas Morrisson (he later dropped an s ) on Dec. 8, 1943, in Melbourne, Fla. A voracious reader, Morrison--whom many have described as "brilliant" and "a genius"--spent two years at a junior college in St. Petersburg, Fla. He then made his way to UCLA, where he studied film, wrote poetry, ingested lots of drugs--acid was a favorite--and, after graduation, took to living on the beach at Venice. It was there that Morrison bumped into fellow film school graduate--and keyboardist--Ray Manzarek. "I hadn't seen Jim all summer. He'd lost about 30 pounds. I remember thinking how incredibly handsome he looked," recalled Manzarek. But what really startled Manzarek was when Morrison sang for him the lyrics to a song he'd written called "Moonlight Drive." ("Let's swim to the moon/Let's climb through the tide/Penetrate the evening/That the city sleeps to hide.") Manzarek and Morrison formed a group, bringing in guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore, both of whom Manzarek had met at a meditation center. Morrison came up with the group's name, which comes from the William Blake passage, "There are things that are known and things that are unknown, in between the doors." From the beginning, the college-educated Doors stood out as a group of innovation and eerie magnetism with their mix of music, poetry, theater and daring. "We're trying to break through to a cleaner, purer realm," explained Morrison--who quickly emerged as the group's pretty-boy star. The Doors' hits--including "Light My Fire," "Hello, I Love You" (both of which made No. 1), "Touch Me," "Love Her Madly," "People Are Strange" and "Riders on the Storm"--remain benchmarks of the era. So does Morrison's behavior. One night at the Whisky, the entire club--including the go-go girls in the hanging cages--came to a shocked standstill during his improvised rendition of the song, "The End." An Oedipal journey, it climaxes with a young man's screaming threat to kill his father and rape his mother. But rape wasn't the word that Morrison used. The Doors were fired from the club that very night--after the enraged Whisky owner screamed at Morrison for being "one foul-mouthed son-of-a-bitch." It was Morrison's behavior at a now-infamous Miami concert in March, 1969, that symbolized his downfall. After taunting the crowd with obscenities, he threatened to expose himself. Morrison, who wasn't wearing underwear, went on to tug at his pants. Days later--in the heat of a conservative political movement sweeping the city--he was arrested on charges including indecent exposure. Miami marked a turning point for the Doors, internally. (It didn't help that Miami had been the first stop on a 21-city tour, and that after Morrison's arrest the other 20 cities cancelled.) Though they went on to record additional albums, and enjoy success on the charts, the symbiosis was waning. After recording the group's "L.A. Woman," a burned-out Morrison headed to Paris to concentrate on his poetry. To hear the three surviving Doors tell it, he would eventually have returned to the fold--especially after the startlingly good reviews for "L.A. Woman." We'll never know. Morrison was just 27 when he died mysteriously on July 3, 1971, reportedly of a heart attack, which he suffered in the bathtub. He's buried in Pere-La Chaise Cemetery, along with Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Balzac, Chopin and other notables. But Morrison--and the Doors--live on. Their music has been featured on at least 10 movie sound tracks in the past decade. Their songs are also re-recorded by contemporary artists. Forthcoming albums by Joan Jett, Anita Baker and Billy Idol will feature Doors' songs. The Doors' record sales in this country alone today exceed 1 million copies annually. New repackagings are constantly in the works. As are new videos. Consider the multi-album boxed set, anticipated for Christmas, to include: the Doors' six studio albums, a compilation from their live albums, the complete "An American Prayer," and, as a "bonus," previously unreleased Doors material. There's a new Doors video, "The Soft Parade," planned for 1991. (Already on the video shelves: "The Doors: A Tribute to Jim Morrison" (1981), "Dance on Fire: Classic Performances and Greatest Hits" (1985), "The Doors: Live at the Hollywood Bowl" (1986); "The Doors: Live in Europe" (1989).) Plus, Morrison's poetry--first printed in 1970's "The Lords and the New Creatures"--is enjoying new attention. "Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison" (Villard Books) will soon have a companion volume. There are even efforts underway, by Morrison associates and devotees, to get his poetry included in college curriculums. Meanwhile, "The Doors: An Illustrated History" (1983), by Doors consultant Danny Sugerman, is in its ninth printing. And at least two new Morrison biographies are due to join "No One Here Gets Out Alive," the controversial Morrison biography co-authored by Sugerman. The sleek, sexy Morrison is also emblazoned on numerous posters, T-shirts and the like. articles.latimes.com/1990-01-07/entertainment/ca-510_1_jim-morrison?pg=1
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adam
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Post by adam on Jan 31, 2011 21:42:39 GMT
================================================================================================= This post by Darkstar has inspired me to give a slightly more mundane take on the genius of Jim =================================================================================================
"Morrison was creating his own myth."
indeed.
But in a very real sense he was creating his own marketing. he was actively working as part of a group (the band) & later part of a company (record company) to create not only his myth but his image.
even now this marketing is inextricably entwined with the doors story.
we all know how the myth goes, uber talented poet stumbles into the notion of being a rock singer after an acid induced song writing extravaganza atop of jacob's roof top.
soaking up the rays of venice beach who does our young hero run into but Ray (sic)
"lets a get a band together"
thank goddess they did, wouldn't the world be a lame place without the dark timeless sound of the doors
But the constant re-telling of the myth is a shame. The truth may be boring, but ultimately it's what should be respected
we hear how Jim couldn't play a single chord & how he's "magic" with all those tunes stuck in his head
Well Jim wasn't "magic" = Jim worked his arse off to be a rock star, i don't just mean long nights at the london fog, but the cruising for a record deal, the ceaseless self promotion, the constant re-working of song lyrics, the natural flair for publicity, the incessant rehearsals & singing practice, the necessity of surrounding himself with highly talented & creative musicians, Jim thought through every aspect he needed to realize his dream & then pushed himself & those around him as hard as possible to deliver that (collective) dream.
Yes, Jim was a genius, a creative colossus, a legend forever more
but more importantly than that - he worked his little cotton socks to attain his status & IMHO this fact is so often over looked.
in short - if you wanna be tiger woods or rossi or picaso or any giant of your genre, then not only do you need the type of talent not given out en masse you also need hundreds of thousands of hours of hard work & practice to hone your gift & in this respect i personally think morrison's commitments are over looked....
....it wasn't all whisky bars & acid nights... the muse didn't reside, she visited - the hard graft of those guys may read better using words like, myth & magic, but it was hard work that made the achievement.
very few of us are gifted.
but see what can be achieved with hard work.
4o yrs later it sometimes comes across as only magic, leather pants & beer.
perhaps it's time to wise up & respect the man for the man, not for the myth.
Cheers
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Post by darkstar3 on Feb 1, 2011 13:31:54 GMT
Hello Adam and thank you for your reply to the Los Angeles Times article. There were alot of articles coming out in the early 90's that countered the Oliver Stone, Jim Morrison story.
It is a shame that the myth of Jim Morrison has grown larger than life and the sadder aspect of it all is there are alot of people who actually still believe the myths instead of digging deeper into the story.
Nice synopsis you put together. I look forward to reading more of your replies.
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 1, 2011 17:12:13 GMT
Nice one Adz...... ;D As you eloquently point out, a majority of Doors fans don't give due credit to the work involved in being a genius. The When You're Strange film pandered to the drunken myth instead of trying to look for the men behind it. Jim was not always drunk and spent many hours working quietly and alone in places like Room #32 honing his craft. The band themselves had to do a lot of work to refine their sound and define The Doors sound. The album may have taken just over a week to lay down the thoughts of the entity known as The Doors but months of hard slog, both physical and mental, went into getting to that famous set where finally Jac Holzman 'got' The Doors. Too many of us believe the shit guys like Manzarek trawl out and don't explore further than the veneer The Doors like to present to market the product. They themselves don't even seem to recognise the work that went into 'The Doors' so why should we? The myth shifts units but as you say the truth may not rival the myth for sensation but it's the Historical record that is the more interesting as far as I am concerned. That's why I reopened the forum mate. Not to wallow in the mire of the trivial but try to explore what's behind the 'bright midnight'. Hopefully a few will join in and we might discover something interesting. BTW you are one of those missed in July .......nuff said
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adam
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Post by adam on Feb 1, 2011 21:04:03 GMT
cheers guys i think (& i mean i think - i can't know, don't claim to know & ultimately my opinions aren't worth the pixels they're printed on) i think the doors catalog pretty much tells the story... the 1st 2 albums are the doors, the myth, the legend, i wouldn't go so far as say morrison wasn't his own man, but its the period around the first album where he's still changing his voice, his wardrobe, his hair to get the look & image he wanted. and we know this image, ray still peddles this image today - the drugy love god, other worldly angel sent here as a shaman to enlighten us all. jim didn't believe in his own myth, in fact (IMHO) he found it all rather ridiculous that we did & that the others (in the band) placed so much importance on this 2 dimensional character that jim created..... .....we've all seen the pix where he can barely keep a straight face during the some of the songs, stiffing the mirth at the absurdity of it all... how really anyone could be jim, with enough practice & the right band behind them, so why place so much importance on just another singer.... ...the later albums (to me) almost seem to be jim resigned to his life, "ok so i'm a singer, so lets sing the blues & a little rock n roll" i (quite) enjoyed "when your strange" (enjoyed alex's review of it a lot more ) but for my €0.02 the "elephant in the room" was that jim wanted a new job & his 3 work colleagues wouldn't let him.... so he drank... so they pretended not to notice the drinking, or perhaps the REASON he drank... the bloke desperately wanted to leave, but didn't want to leave the other 3 high & dry either... a catch22 only "resolvable" by alcohol fo sho, no? =============== edit i'm also a big valentino rossi* fan (motorcycle racer) in his biography he makes valid points applicable to anyone in the public eye "when you become an icon you cease to be a person" "when the masses see your fame, they are envious of your status & power, but you (the reader of his book) have more power than me, you can come & go as you please, you don't have people analyze your every word, your every movement" ================ i take it you've seen bbc classic albums 'the doors' utterly brilliant imho [if anyone hasn't pm me & i'll upload it to my drop box] despite a good bit of "jim is a god" publicity from all the 3 surviving members, to me the truth is inescapable..... .........jim had far less musical input into the doors than the myth would have you believe.... ....but please check it out.... Ray & Robby & John telling us how the songs were composed, which bits they stole from other artists to get the sound they wanted.... .....jim gave them words & a hint of melody, the doors were the tunesmiths... part of the "deal" of jim being the focal point saw the band having to down play their input & its great to hear them genuinely & excitedly explain their individual contributions.... almost worth the licence fee ) *coincidently rossi is a jim morrison fan !!! i'd been into rossi for a decade b4 i found this out!!
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 2, 2011 7:24:48 GMT
cheers guys but for my €0.02 the "elephant in the room" was that jim wanted a new job & his 3 work colleagues wouldn't let him.... so he drank... so they pretended not to notice the drinking, or perhaps the REASON he drank... the bloke desperately wanted to leave, but didn't want to leave the other 3 high & dry either... a catch22 only "resolvable" by alcohol fo sho, no? Your 2 pennorth is worth as much as anything manzarek has come out with this last 30 odd years mate. You are a Doors fan so your opinion is always worth listening as far as I am concerned mate. Interesting take on the elephant in the room question. You should check out my dissertation on the reasons for Miami and beyond. The Doors unhinged..Soft Parade cause & effect
Glad you liked my WYS review. When You’re Strange: Critique?I go a lot further here. Interesting quotes by Val and even more interesting that he is a Doors fan. I can't remember if you told me that in Paris. I blame alcohol
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Post by casandra on Feb 2, 2011 21:23:20 GMT
I liked your comment Adam.
I have always caught my attention for the ability to work, willpower and perseverance of Morrison, first for being singer (a good singer) and after to be recognized as a poet. All the Doors fought for their dreams, it is true, you can say to me. But Manzarek’s dream seems to make a lot of money. Jim’s dream is an intellectual dream, becoming an artist. As much as his band mates say that he was unpredictable, etc... the truth is that between 1965 and 1971 he did many things. I think it is impossible for a guy who was constantly drunk or stoned.
For example, Unknown soldier song. In a hotel room in New York, after making some nonsense, Jim took out of his pocket a paper napkin which he had written the song. They forgot to tell that the guy probably spent many hours or days thinking about the song, sitting quietly in a bar or in his room. They just tell the end of the story (it helps to sell books and CD’s: the myth, a wild guy).
So as you say, Walls, who was really the elephant in the room? DiCillo takes (manipulates) the image to support his theory. However, in this image the background sound we can hear is a recording of Soft Parade song and we have seen others images filming Wild Child the same day. How many hours they had been there and how many songs they recorded on the same day? We don’t know. I think that repeating more than 100 times the song Unknown Soldier, for example, it just finished with the patience of anyone. If the same often happened on all recording sessions for Waiting for the Sun or The Soft Parade, I don’t wonder he was bored and tired.
I don’t refuse that Jim was an alcoholic and sometimes uncontrolled, that's obvious. But I think we only know good these episodes. When he was quiet, alone and writing (which probably happened the most of his time), we don’t know anything. Who could remember a shy boy sitting in corner of a bar writing and drinking? Nobody.
"When you're strange, no one remember your name"
I believe John Densmore who said they could only play concerts from Thursday to Sunday because Jim was tired. This is very unfair. If John broke the drums in a concert, he replaced for another one and the problem solved. But the musical instrument of Jim was his voice. In Felt Forum is clearly heard in the last show of the second night he is almost hoarse. How many concerts stopped or was cancelled because the boy was sick or hoarse? I don’t know, but I think very few (Amsterdam… any more?). Even in the Isle of Wight (after 36 hours without sleep, after a transcontinental travel), he made a good concert, I think.
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adam
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Post by adam on Feb 2, 2011 23:25:18 GMT
thank you very much
i will reply when more sober, but u hit the nail on the head of the myth
when your drunk you phone in sick from work & sit in front of the tv doing fuck all, is true
jim he work a lot, so for sure he wasn't always drunk cos drunk people do very little & he did a lots of things = ergo he was sober a lot more than ppl wanna think
even ray says (if memory serves me................) he was drunk like one in five times in the studio (Hmmmm one in five.... lol)
plus of cousre the band were pro musicians they'd have never stuck with someone who couldnt deliver...
imagine if jim was a fuck up in 1967.....
Hmmmmm says ray..... i wanna be rich.... our only hit is written by robby.... do we need this guy.... lets get a session singer n split the LMF royalites 3 ways + paid staff....
jim worked hard n hard workers aint complete wasters
trust me, i;m very lazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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adam
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Post by adam on Feb 3, 2011 12:29:07 GMT
Hi Casandra,
I agree that jim wasn't overly motivated by money, but i think it was important to him in that it gave him freedom that he enjoyed.... ray is defo motivated by money... but that first royality cheque was spent far more friviously by jim than ray
[ray married dorothy, jim bought a sports car]
jim poured a lot of money into pam (no criticsm there) but also used the money to support a transiant life style... it's cool to be a millionaire & live in motel, but (apparently) also jim would get drunk forget where he's parked his car & simply buy another one!!
i couldn't agree more that compsoing lyrics & tunes would be a task completed sober... john even makes reference to this, saying that jim made a lot of his writings early in the morning, nursing the hangover from the night before..
you're also spot on with the comments about jim getting tired, the doors (& other bands of the era) really worked hard, 6 albums in the time it takes a modern group to release 2 & a tour schedule that was basically non-stop
plus of cousre they had no personal managers, trainers, dieticans etc that todays' groups have to support them
if a modern artist has alcohol issues & arrives drunk, he's whisked off to a clinic, whilst the publicist composes the "suffering from exhaustion" cover story
in jims day if he showed up drunk, people said "well get him a stool to sit on & tell him to get on with it"
legend (as far as i know) only has jim doing a no show on 1 gig (amsterdam) & this was a miss-calculation on substance intake (not the first american to get caught out in the 'dam, it's strong stuff ;-)
jim had more responsibilities than ppl care to think, the band, pam, his poetry... the band placed demands on him he felt obligated to oblige ("please Jim, 6 more months" says ray) pam really looked out for him & knew the doors were bad for jim & wanted him to leave, whereas his band mates wanted him to stay... jim wanted to be an interlectual artist, but clearly enjoyed some of the aspects of fame that only rock & roll gave him
his alcolhism is linked to stress, his decline in health & physical apearance is linked to stress & yet he never completely fell apart, he never stopped writing, never stopped creating, he never stopped trying to please the people who were important to him, even when they went off with other men (pamela) or sold off his artistic integrity (doors/buick commcercial)
he attempted to carry this burden, to internalise his feelings then escape thru alcohol (most modern accounts of his drug use suggest jim barely bothered with drugs after 1967)
imho jim's success is 99% work ethic & 1% talent. Stephen King uses the same stat to describe his literary career (that's SUCCESS not ability - clearly the guy was more than 1% talented!!)
but the other 3 doors will tell you they discovered jim by following a star & bringing him gold, mer & frankenscnce!!!!!!!! (or however the fuck you spell that)
cheers
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Post by casandra on Feb 3, 2011 21:23:49 GMT
Gracias, Adam. I totally agree with all your comments. So when I went to the cinema to watch the documentary "When you're strange" (here, in Spain, it was released before Christmas), I was expecting some more, I believed the film was a deep thought about the band and his members. Not just keep saying the same old things about Jim. The film dissapointed me a little. I believe, in my humble opinion, the film is not anti-Oliver Stone film (who is a filmmaker that I personally like a lot since I saw “Platoon” many years ago), but a light and superficial look about the band, which it fails because it can’t avoid falling on the legend. Howewer, I enjoyed seeing some images on a large screen, like HWY images, which I only had seen on youtube until that moment, and others images that I hadn’t seen before. I hope you can understand me, because I don’t know if I really write in English, in “spanglish” or something worst. Greetings.
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adam
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Post by adam on Feb 4, 2011 15:44:57 GMT
Your english is great, i live with a Portugese speaker, (my gf) so 'spanglish' (well "portuglish") is somethign i get at home!!
the documentary kinda underlined the stone film really... Olivery himself (KINDA) said "well it's all basically true, i just ran together some of the characters & put a spin on the native indian thing, but it is holywood, but Jim was at many times an out of control alcoholic"
whereas the doc film just said, jim was an out of control alcoholic - but not all the time !!
my fav doc is still the vh1 legends one...
no one ever portrayed jim in a worse light than sugerman... demanding blow jobs off fans in crowded rooms & tormenting all those around him.... wonder how much of that is true?
the recent(ish) revalations from the morrison family are quite telling... how jim did have conatct with his siblings & how there were other musicans & philosophers in the family & how jim approched a friend of his father (in 66) asking for a loan to record a record & the stories of the family sing alongs
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 4, 2011 16:23:31 GMT
The WYS documentary IS the Oliver Stone movie without the tits and acid and with a slightly better actor to play Jim Morrison. DiCillo portrays Jim as indolent during the LA Woman sessions and as a vain preening knob-head obsessed with fame. For me WYS is utter sewage and DiCillo an idiot. He never once grasps that The Doors were the absolute antithisis of the music on display at the time and their importance in the way rock progressed over the next 40 years and whose impact is still felt today. He makes no attempt to understand Morrison as an artist simply comfortable with a one dimensional cardboard cut-out that was cobbled together in a few conversations with Ray and Jampol and by reading NOHGOA. I been doing this shit for 40 years and I still have not figured it out but I have more idea than Tom and Jampol. The crime of that doc is the lost opportunity to tell a real story rather than to tittilate a bunch of idiots too lazy to make the effort most Doors fans do in understanding this great band. I told DiCillo in 2009 on his blog that if he made a 'Doors For Idiots' then he would get slated his response was 'wait till you see the film and you will be surprised'. I was indeed surprised....at how shit it was.
Morrison was never quite as easy to figure as most rock stars were. This guy was not just smart he was erudite, sapient, perspicacious and wise all rolled up in the body of a Greek Icon.
I have never quite come across anyone in nigh on 50 years of listening to this kinda shit who embodies smart as much as that guy in the music field.
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adam
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Post by adam on Feb 4, 2011 16:42:33 GMT
even Robert Plant mentioned Jim positively in his bio on TV the other night... & Robert doesn't ahve pay dues to anyone in rock, as most ppl credit him!!
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Post by casandra on Feb 4, 2011 20:52:01 GMT
Obrigado, Adam The VH1 documentary is quite good. I downloaded it, some Latin American Doors fans, who are very actives, put it with subtitles in Spanish. TheWallsScreamed... Thanks, I'm glad that you find interesting our posts. The problem of WYS is that it took the advantage of the objectivity of the documentary format to provide a pseudo-truth and it is the official version of the band. I think Oliver Stone didn't try to give the absolute truth. He made his look of Jim Morrison and he didn't never say otherwise. After all these years, Manzarek has been saying so much bad about the film, but both have the same opinion about Jim!! Densmore has been more honest and he has always said he liked the movie. Here Stone is telling some things about his relationship with The Doors. Manzarek was a bit problematic. www.sabotagetimes.com/tv-film/oliver-stone-castro-cruise-kilmer-and-me/
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adam
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Post by adam on Feb 4, 2011 22:50:14 GMT
cool link :-)
what the fuck is the bit where he says about meeting pam? how does that work?
i mean he says the script arrives near to jim's death, but meets pam years later, does he mean patricia ;-)
Pamela Morrison
How I co-wrote with Jim Morrison, ha ha! Actually, this sends chills up my spine. Something strange happened to me, and Jim’s wife Pamela was at the centre of it. When Jim was alive, I wrote a script which I sent to him in Paris. I dreamed, as you tend to at that young age, my idol might play the lead role. Then I heard, pretty much the day I thought it would have got to him, that Jim had died. I was shattered. But then years later, when I was preparing for The Doors, I had a meeting with Pamela. She just walked into the office and threw this folder on the table. It was my script that I’d sent Jim, with his annotations and scribbles on it. He’d been going over it, and it was one of the last things he read before he died that day.
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Post by casandra on Feb 5, 2011 10:14:32 GMT
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gizmo
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Post by gizmo on Feb 5, 2011 10:40:23 GMT
it seems that oliver really knew what he was writing about, when you mix pam and patricia *lol* .but i think that each movie made about jim or the doors can't be the truth coz there would be not enough ppl to visit the cinema so the costs of making the movie would be more than the benefits. so they have to create a new, more popular myth. (wich happened in both movies and i even think in biographys)*jim's dead so we can put some extra gravy on the potatoes to let the ppl eat more shit, jim won't complain anymore*. i just realized that i'm not to sure what to believe to be the truth? nogoa was alway's the book to compare other books and movies with, but what can be used as the true story? shitloads of ppl think that oliver stone did a great job and believe that as fact. i guess the truth is hard to find and depends on what you want to believe(just as religion).
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 5, 2011 11:10:29 GMT
Giz I think Stone did a fantastic job in making a populist Hollywood movie that brought in an audience measured in millions. Nothing anyone ever did has promoted the group anywhere near as sucessfully. And it does have a lot of truth in it. Don't forget Manzarek the mouth said the cupboard burning scene was a lie for decades and we now know it was true after Bobby Klein the photograspher who lived next door to Pam confirmed it. For decades NOGOHA was the Doors fan bible and Ray manzarek the high priest of the temple but now we know that Ray is a worthless liar and Danny was used by him to promote Ray in NOHGOA. The Doors movie served it's purpose and did a good job. On the other hand the DiCillo documentary was complete shit and totally misrepresented both Doors and Jim in an attempt to appeal to the same audience as Stone went after. Using the same template Stone used for his film. The religion point you bring up is very relevant as many worship Jim and many worship Ray. And both have a point of view only one cannot promote it being dead. Ray has held sway for over 30 years and it's time he was humbled before he gets away scott free by virtue of dying. The man is a self promoting scumbag liar and a million times worse than Stone or DiCillo. His lies have warped the understanding of Jim and The Doors and set fan against fan. cool link :-) what the fuck is the bit where he says about meeting pam? how does that work? . Is he meaning he dreamt that he met Pam. Because Stone neevr met Pam as far as I am aware.
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gizmo
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Post by gizmo on Feb 5, 2011 12:13:36 GMT
i agree that the stone movie is great and has truth in it , but the way it's filmed gives a verry different view of jim, the doors and the 60's in general. at first i have to say that i haven't got a clue what the 60's where like and cetrainly not america. i'm trying to get an idea of the whole package of the 60's and how they where in holland(you got to start somewhere). the hardest part is an idea of the vibe of the 60's(in america). what where the ppl doing and reacting, how they where feeling and their ideas about (modern) music, poetry ,liveshows drugs and alcohol. i'm almost sure there was a comunity feeling amongst the youth who(must have) felt locked up in their parents past and values. they all wanted to break free and shock the world with their new ideas and values(and what was the reason for that?) that would explain a lot to ppl who where born in the 70's and later. i think that shortage of that info is the reason why oliver stone made the movie like it is(our idea of shocking is completely different to the 60's)
i think that danny suggerman wanted to make a book about the doors, but when asking permision to ray, ray must have said that he wanted to read the book before it went for pressing so that he could check it for mistakes. and so write history as king of the doors and the lie has become (almost) truth. i wonder if ray knows the truth or if he's living his self created lie?
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Post by TheWallsScreamedPoetry on Feb 5, 2011 12:38:30 GMT
I would say Ray is living a self induced lie. Jim cut himself off from the band in mid 1968 and there is a lot of stuff we do not know about all this which people out there do know but do not possess the guts to speak out.
There is a very dark side to the Doors that has as yet not come to light and Ray Manzarek plays a major role in it. Jim chose his friends over his band mates and Ray has attacked them as the faux Doors ever since. John and Robby are too witless to dare to challenge Ray. OK John kicked Ray's ass in court but that was more about money and control than anything else.
There is a side to The Doors we are not seeing. The 60s was not all peace and light. There was a very seedy darkness there as well.
I was just a kid when the summer of love began but I saw how it changed my area. For thebetter I would say as the music did free our minds and allow us to appreciate all manner of stuff. OK the Yanks were embroiled in a war but there was more to the 60s than Vietnam. The world never has and never will revolve round America.
Obviously the drug side was a factor but not everybody in the 60s did drugs. For me the 60s was a way to experience new things and get away from the baggage that came with being born in the 50s. By the time the 70s came around which was my own particular decade I had indeed thrown off the old and was ready to embrace the new. I don't think a decade has come close to having such a worldwide effect on people as the 60s had. I think that is part of the Morrison Mystique in itself as the decade allowed Jim to express himself in a way previous decades would not have. A lot is talked about the youth movement but it really was incredible and even living in a town on the NE coast of England the tremors were felt here. I had a birds eye view of it because I had an older sister who was a hippy chick who hung out with longhairs and bands. I saw the effect The Beatles and Stones had here from 1962 onwards. I watched as music, film and literature exploded. I don't claim I was somehow transformed into a beatnick but I did read a lot more and listen to music with a passion and by the time 1970 came along was rather well educated not by school, which was a drag, but by the brightness of those around me who had experienced the same unshackling of the bonds of the 50s that I had. I have to admit it was an incredible decade and one unlike anything I have experienced. It was the perfect decade for Jim Morrison.
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