Memories of Jim Morrison!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

One cold, gray November day, I was on 57th Street near Carnegie Hall, walking with my head down and cursing the hypocrites who kept me from my deserved fame and fortune. I heard someone call “Heyyyy, Tom” and looked up to see Jim emerging from a movie house. He had just seen a movie version of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake and he was feeling Irish and poetic. We went to the bar of his hotel, the old Great Northern and ordered beer and Irish whiskey.

Soon, we were toilet hugging drunk, and remaining upright seemed to defy the law of gravity, when Ray Manzarek appeared along with one of their managers. They had come to collect him for a concert that evening. I was amazed he was going to do a show. After all the booze, I didn't see how he possibly could perform. He urged me to come along, suggesting I introduce the group and recite some poems. My drunkenness clouded my judgement, and I piled into the back of the limo with Jim and the rest of the band. After driving a few blocks, Morrison had the driver pull over and he dashed into a novelty store, returning with six Brechtian masks, every one a different color. Back in the limo, he handed them out to each of us and we were off. I passed out before we were halfway through the midtown tunnel, only to awake an hour later with an excruciatingly painful need to urinate.

The show was to take place in a dull little town called Danbury, Connecticut, and the driver was none too swift coming out of the chute, and it took longer than necessary to find the place. But he finally figured it out, and I was able to relieve myself.

I looked around and quickly realized we were a long way from 46th Street. It was a new and ugly building, prison-like in its coldness, an all purpose high school auditorium and gymnasium, very distinctly American heartland. Well, that's good, I thought, let Jim carry his dark messages directly to the folks.

But the atmosphere made me apprehensive about the introduction. Jim seemed to sense this and chided me about losing nerve. I was wearing a deceptively expensive looking black fur coat, and with the mask, felt very much out of place.

The band took up their places behind the curtain and I peeked out from the wings, trying to get a fix on the audience. I nearly choked when I saw all these prepubescent runts with their Ma's and Pa's clutching Doors' albums to their heavily beating breasts.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the spotlight. The image of row after row of beaming, clean-cut faces clashed in my head with the more familiar and expected sights of dark, murky, dope-in-the-air, sex-drenched clubs, and I couldn't help thinking we had made a wrong exit on the turnpike.

I rushed through the shortest poem I knew, muttered something about having known the boys from the Los Angeles days, then made a quick check behind the curtain and got the hell out of there. I watched from the wings, flanked by some of the local honchos and their lovely daughters, who must have pulled their parents by the short hairs to gain access. Jim threw himself into his performance, and the kids loved him. They were on their feet throughout, yelling “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” and begging him to sing Light My Fire until he obliged. He was still brilliant and exciting, but for me, much of his magic and dangerous spontaneity were swallowed up by the huge hall.

The ride back was exhausting, my head was pounding and I hadn't eaten all day. It was well after 1 AM when I was deposited on the corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue. Jim and I had not spoken throughout the trip and now, he lifted slowly and nodded at me, saying “See ya next time.” My hangover increased my paranoia, and I worried that he was disappointed by my uninspired beginning.

The limo disappeared into the flowing traffic and I headed down the subway stairs. He was going on to piles of money and great adulation. I was faced with door pounding and job searching. I pondered the ironic reversal of our fates in the past year as I rode down to Greenwich Village on the BMT. As I approached my apartment, I remembered my girlfriend had been waiting for me since early this day. “Christ”, I thought, “What am I going to tell her? She'll never believe I've been doing what I've been doing. Shit! Another problem. Fuck Pam! Fuck Jim! Fuck the Doors!”

Tom Baker from Blue Center Light

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

I dragged my tired tail off an American Airlines 707 in the late spring of 1966 to greet Los Angeles at 11:00 PM Pacific Time, 2:00 AM New York metabolism time, and dashed for the Whisky A Go-Go where Love was performing. Love was one of the great underground rock acts of L.A. - in fact, the only good unsigned act when I began foraging for new groups on behalf of Elektra in the mid 60s.

The Whisky A Go-Go was a dark and cavernous club, not unlike the black hole of Calcutta, but with a cover charge. Near the entrance to the stage stood Love's lead singer, Arthur Lee, who, being numero uno on the underground scene, was enjoying his celebrity by granting his imprimatur to a new group he found worthy. I had never heard of this group, but I stayed through Arthur's set and into the Doors'.

Morrison made no impression whatsoever. I was more drawn to the classical figurings of keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and was attracted to the leanness of the music. The lead singer seemed reclusive and tentative, as if preserving himself. There was nothing that tagged him as special, but there was a subtle invitation to 'play', if you were willing to do so on his terms. It was only later that I sensed Jim's 'game'. I was being tested to see if my interest was real or ephemeral. The Doors had been loosely signed to Columbia and then, after a string of broken promises, let go. It was a real downer.

Clearly, I chose to play, because I kept coming back every evening for the entire week, and on the fifth night, Morrison really moved out in front, and on The Alabama Song and The End it all came together - so much so that I immediately offered the group a contract and went through the agony of a summer trying to nurse them toward signing it, which did not occur until several months later.

My memories of Morrison are distinctly different from my memories of the band, because although on record they were totally integrated, in life they were really two entities - Ray Manzarek-Robby Krieger-John Densmore, and Jim Morrison, separate and apart.

Jim and I were never really close friends, but there was a fundamental trust between us. He sensed that I would serve him and the band best by not being a part of the entourage, by preserving my objectivity, and by being available as needed 'in the clutch.'

During the making of the famous first album I would come by the studio most every evening, after things had well settled in. The band was playing in the large open studio space of Sunset Sound, with Jim in an isolation booth to prevent voice leakage onto the instrumental tracks. It was a perfect metaphor.

By the standards of 1966 the sessions were expensive. I had signed the group for an advance of $5,000 - high in those days - and lavished almost another $5,000 in recording costs, but it was clear from what was happening musically, under the superlative guidance of Paul Rothchild and Bruce Botnick, that important music was being made. I slipped into that studio during the middle of The End, becoming totally caught up in that transcendent moment. As the song came to its end, and the final notes shimmered into silence, the tension in the control room was palpable. God forbid anybody knock over a mike stand or make a noise. We knew magic when it happened.

Morrison was extremely well read, thoughtful, funny, and an absolute devil. He is the only guy I ever knew who could hit a police car - drunk and without a driver's license - and get away with it. There was, in him, an inherent boyish innocence not unlike that of Andy Hardy, who hits a baseball through the Parish window and because of an inner glow is forgiven. And Jim's friends would forgive him most anything. His demons were so near the surface that to call Jim on behavior you would not tolerate in anyone else was to feel you were adding more pressure than he could handle.

I remember sitting with Jim in a bar near the Elektra studios just schmoozing about life and how he wanted to be remembered as a poet - how this rock 'n' roll thing had gotten far beyond his ability to control the public's perception of him. He was acutely uncomfortable, hiding behind unkempt hair, a thick beard and an excess of avoirdupois. With a mischievous snicker he talked about the great joy in life of being "out there - on the very edge", and suggested that to spend that evening trading drinks with Jim one-on-one might be an appropriate way for me to do some edge testing. Knowing Jim was trying to suck me into something that was only going to lead to trouble, I replied, "Jim, being on the edge is terrific. The trick is not to bleed."

Jim was different with everyone, as if he was somehow matching his psyche to yours. I have seen him range from beatific to horrific - smashing a studio IBM electric typewriter with an emergency fire axe, binging our office manager to tears, wondering what SHE had done to HIM - which was in fact nothing. Jim's anger seemed to come in fits, and once the explosion had occurred, a nervous calm took over. The great danger of Jim's anger was that you never knew if it was real, or whether he was putting it on. But you just didn't take those chances.

To get sucked into Jim's entourage, however, was to trade your turf for his, with both of you losers. Besides, I had seen an unsettling side of him. If you adored Jim, as did his lady Pam, he could and would put you down with heartless cruelty and withering sarcasm, toying with you like a cat toys with a ball of yarn. The same if you wanted something from him. He made you jump through hoops. Jim's gifts were his to give, but only on his terms.

At the conclusion of the sixth and final album under our agreement, Jim and I talked about re-signing. To re-sign the Doors, you addressed each of the constituencies discreetly - the lawyer, the manager, Jim and "the boys". Jim listened to my well reasoned argument, his face showing no emotion. And when I had finished, he said, "Jac, make your best offer, and we'll compare it to CBS's." For someone who had been so close to the group, to think that they were even entertaining leaving the label, although perhaps unrealistic, was excruciatingly painful. Jim said it all with a straight face, walked away, looked at me over his shoulder and gave me that smile. I still don't know whether he was teasing or serious. But we did sign the group for an extra album, which became L.A. Woman.

So many memories, escaping with Jim from the Long Island concert at which the Doors played with Simon and Garfunkel, crowds jostling the car and pounding on the windows, with Jim sitting in the back seat, unbelieving yet loving every minute.

Jim drunk and almost unable to come onstage at the Fillmore, getting into a fist fight with his manager and wildly swinging the heavy microphone stand - out of control and out of his world.

The famous "young lion" black and white photography session with Jim at his most feline, appearing to posture outrageously, and the camera capturing the essence and the depth of his sexuality. Two years later, when Jim was more bloated, someone looked at those pictures and asked, "Did he ever really look like that?" And the answer was "Yes, once for twenty minutes."

When all of the Rashomon aspects of the Doors are dissected ad nauseum, one powerful memory lingers and it is more in my heart than in my mind. On February 15, 1968, the doorbell rang in my Los Angeles home. It was the evening of my son Adam's tenth birthday. There was Jim, now a star, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot, clutching an erratically wrapped present for my musically inclined son. He came in, sat quietly with Adam, and showed him how to play the kalimba, an African thumb piano. They sat there for an hour, fully absorbed - two children in their own world.
by Jac Holzman

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Remembering The Lizard King...............Jim's George Washington High Classmates Talk About The Jim Morrison They Knew

Jerry Ainsfield was with the Peace Corps in Liberia when he first heard about Jim Morrison's rock star fame.

NOT EXACTLY TYPICAL

For Ainsfield and others who knew him at GW, Morrison was not exactly the typical
local boy who made good." For one thing, Morrison - who became the leader of the Doors rock group in the '60's - was not all that local. The son of a Naval Officer, Morrison had lived all over the country before coming to Alexandria in 1958, three years before finishing high school. Also, many who knew him were later mystified that Morrison had become a singer, as he had not seemed interested in music during his days at GW.

Some, like Ainsfield were totally unaware of their former classmate's success until it came crashing to their attention.

Speaking in his easy, Virginia flavored voice, Ainsfield described Morrison as a friend he used to "hang out with ... A handsome guy, but quiet and on the shy side. Morrison didn't even sing in high school," he said. "He liked to write poetry and he was a talented artist." Ainsfield said he and others focused instead on the singing abilities of classmate Ellen Cohen, who later became Mama Cass Elliot of the Mama and Papas group. "She had a beautiful voice," he remarked.

Stan Durkee is among those who remember Morrison for his intelligence, his literary brilliance and his enigmatic personality. "Intellectually, Jim was head and shoulders above all the rest of us - he read every book you could imagine," he said. "He inspired me." Durkee said he and Morrison used to go to book stores in Washington to look for works of beat generation authors who intrigued him.

DETACHED

Durkee remembers being in an English class with Morrison while studying James Joyce's Ulysses. "Even the teacher was learning from Morrison's interpretationn of the work." Durkee said, "We all were ... He was sort of an intellectual leader." However, Durkee said, "Nobody really understood Morrison (as a person). He was detached, creative ... Few, if any, people in our class were really close to him."

Durkee, who gave Morrison a ride to school every morning, said Morrison was alienated from his family as well, "He went for weeks without seeing his parents," he said. Although Durkee saw Morrison as someone, "who would have become a dramatic person", he said "it was a shock to everybody that he evloved into 'a teen idol.'"

On the other hand, Durkee was not surprised by accounts of Morrison's temperamental and sometimes bizarre behavior during his performing years. Once during a class, he said, "Jim got really angry and exploded," because a teacher questioned his judgement. "In a sense", Durkee said, "Morrison was rebelling against the 'smugness' and 'mindlessness' of the late '50's. Jim took everything to the max," Durkee said.

WE ALL EAT SMALL DOGS

Patricia Madison, who was also in classes with Morrison, described him as hyper, high IQ and weird. She recalls a time in Spanish class when he wrote, "We all eat small dogs" on the blackboard as a sentence to be translated. Madison also remembers an incident when Morrison brought a rotting fish with him on the bus without air conditioning during a hot summer day to elicit a crowd reaction from the other passengers (which of course, he did.) "Morrison would do things we didn't dare do," Madison remarked. She said once Morrison urinated in his locker, because he didn't feel like using the restroom.

Ainsfield said he believes some of Morrison's acting out in high school was alcohol-related, recalling that Morrison, "liked drinking bourbon." However, Ainsfield said he does not believe Morrison was involved with drugs at that time.

Dick Sparks viewed Morrison as the leader of a "tight little intellectual group who followed him like puppies" and "made fun of other people." Sparks said he did not make the connection between the Morrison of the Doors and the teenager he had known in high school until he read Morrison's obituary in 1971.

Although Tommy Edwards has a distant memory of Morrison "walking down a street in Warwick Village barefoot with a guitar around his neck," he too was surprised to learn of his later fame. Edwards sang in the high school chorus with the future Mama Cass Elliot, and thought that she - if anyone - would be the one to become successful in music, just as Ainsfield thought.

Apparently, neither Edwards nor the others who knew Morrison in high school had any premonition of the musical success he would achieve. When asked if he had seen the current movie about Morrison, (Stone's The Doors), Edwards replied, "No. Thats not the Jim Morrison we remember."
Alexandria Gazette, March 1991

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

A First Encounter
Bill Siddons meets Jim Morrison

I graduated from high school in 1965 and then went to Cal State Long Beach. After Rich started helping with the Doors equipment, he started telling me about them, but I wasn't very interested. I didn't know who the Doors were, 'cause they hadn't had a hit yet. When he offered me a trip to San Francisco, I said 'OK, I'll go.'

We ended up sitting in the audience at this show at the Avalon Ballroom (May 12, 1967), watching this maniac. What I remember is Jim on stage. I wasn't affected one way or the other by meeting him, but when I saw him on stage I was more emotionally gripped and moved and disturbed than I had ever been at any similar type of thing.

I remember thinking, WHAT? What is he saying? What is he doing? I don't get it. And then he said something about 'Awkward instant/And the first animal is jettisoned/Legs furiously pumping/Their stiff green gallop' and I went, 'This guy is completely out of his mind,' But I was moved by it, I could feel it. It was the first time poetry had been a movie to me, the images were so strong that they came to mind in a photo form. I could see the horses jumping off the boat. I could see them drowning.

So what was my first impression of Jim? He scared me to death.


One Afternoon in New York
Joel Brodsky remembers The Young Lion

The famed “Young Lion” photograph of Jim Morrison is probably the most widely used photo of The Doors collection. Joel Brodsky tells his story of the photograph session which produced this famous photo:

Brodsky has taken many of The Doors best known photos. He shot the back cover of the first album, the award winning cover of Strange Days, and the jackets of The Soft Parade and the Greatest Hits LP. In addition, he shot the famous inner sleeve of Strange Days. Brodsky describes that famous session, which yielded the legendary “Young Lion” photo of Morrison.
I always thought it was sort of funny that the pictures of Morrison from that session were the most used. Jim was totally plastered. The session started out normally. We were taking group shots and they were all being very cooperative. The Doors were among the brighter groups I'd shot at that point. They had a visual orientation and seemed to understand the potential of a good photo session. Initially, there seemed to be a little jealously that Morrison was being put so up front in the photos, but basically the others understood that Jim was the sex symbol and an important visual focus for the band.
After we'd done group shots. I shot some individual pictures of each member, saving Morrison for last. I knew I was going to be spending the most time with him, so I didn't want them to have to sit around and wait too long. Well, while this was going on, Jim was drinking quite a bit. So by the time I got to shooting the individual shots of him, Morrison was pretty loose.

The shot on the inner sleeve of the Greatest Hits album was pretty near the end, I think. By that time, he was so drunk he was stumbling into the lights and we had to stop the session. He wasn't a wild drunk - actually he was kind of quiet - but his equilibrium wasn't too terrific. Still, he was great to photograph because he had a very interesting look.

It seemed like a good session to me, and then a week or so later, we ran one of the photos in the Village Voice. The story I've heard is that they got something like ten thousand requests for the picture. You know, Morrison never really looked that way again, and those pictures have become a big part of The Doors' legend. I think I got him at his peak.

Joel Brodsky donated his 32 year old photo of Jim Morrison to a silent auction for the benefit of abused children.
Joel Brodsky, Photographer
ONE AFTERNOON IN NEW YORK: BAM Magazine July 1981

[ensenada]

so is this following article suggested Jim wanted to create a new religion and have jim as the new dionysis? and when did the first church of the doors start? what would they do there? spin doors records and recite lyrics as mantras? sign me up!

There was even a "First Church of the Doors" at one time.

Morrison himself was, by all accounts, a man as brilliant as he was daring. At a young age he had read extensively on shamanism and ancient mythology, including James Frazer's "The Golden Bough" (much of which is about Dionysos); he was also quite taken with Friedrich Nietzsche's passionate vision of Dionysos as portrayed in "The Birth of Tragedy." One of the last books he had been reading before his death was Jane Ellen Harrison's voluminous and challenging "Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion" which is also mostly about Dionysos. It seems to me that Morrison let himself be completely possessed by Dionysos, until the man and the god were irrevocably merged; he carried the torch of his mythic Dionysian vision all the way to his death.

Unfortunately, most people never quite 'got' what he was trying to do at the time, which was religion. Rock critics called him pretentious for taking himself so seriously; few of them knew enough about myth and religion to put the pieces together. Ray Manzarek's recent book "Light My Fire" is a personal history of the Doors, and also talks about Morrison as Dionysos.

Here are just a few quotes from Morrison’s songs and poetry where the dark and Dionysian mystic slips through:

"I call upon the dark hidden gods of the blood..."

"Where is the wine we were promised, the new wine...?"

"We could plan a murder, or start a religion..."

"I promised I would drown myself in mystic heated wine..."

"Let us reinvent the gods, all the myths of the ages; celebrate symbols from deep elder forests..."

"I am a guide to the labyrinth."

[darkstar]

The Founding of
The First Church of The Doors
by Anthony Brian Spurlock

The august and exalted position of High Mojomuck--which no other may rightfully hold until my demise or permanent resignation to a mental hospital--is so darned prestigious that it's certain to become the green envy of dyads, triads, maybe even dozens of people during the decades to come.
Yes, I was in Newsweek magazine. Sure, I battled the pseudo-Christian kook Bob Larson for two hours on an international live radio hook-up to fight for the good name of James Douglas Morrison. Yup, I've been in a few newspapers. And of course, I edit that most coveted of all perennially late magazines, The Deadly Doorknell.

But, still I am constantly asked, "Great One, how did you come to be the spiritual pappy of this here Church of The Doors? And what is the nature of that pseudo-existent thingamajig, anyhoo?"

So, hearken and attend: by request of an illustrious gentleman from Utah, I will spill the magic beans.

Know that I was born in 1958 on the ancient Roman holiday of Lupercalia, a feast so given to fecund and flagellatory excess that we still observe it under the name Valentine's Day.

From the first I was given devoutly to the wielding of dark, sweeping glamours and the building of secret kingdoms. My first ambition (age four?) was to become a Mad Scientist, one of the few ambitions I have achieved--for have I not created a monster? Since then I have been the King of the Vampire Club, Emperor of Mu, Scarlet King of the Penetrated Temple, Magister of the Phoenix Coven (a well-meant attempt), Black Man of the Covenant of Lillith-Lash (a fascinating endeavor), Fantur of the Draugrim of the Secret Flame (comprised of the Three Kindreds of Moriquendi, Cruedain, and Cirithin.) Of course, I continue to be the King of the Pictish Nation in exile, with Kalydon Naddair my co-ruler in Alba.

Some readers might see the above and think, "This guy seems to have been involved in the occult or something." And, brother or sister, you got that right. Fact is I'm a master of the mystic arts. And humble, too!

When I was in the third grade of elementary school, my mother asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said, "I want to go to a grown-up bookstore." She thought that was so darned cute that she packed me up and took me to the center of the great metropolis (ha ha) of Memphis, Tennessee, to a bookstore three stories tall.

(To the tune of "The End"--)

And the salesgirl walked up...

As we walked inside...

"Madam?"

"My son."

"Where are the ESP books?"

"Madam?"

"My son. He wants to...

"BUY SOME ESP BOOKS!!"

Yeah, the third grade was The Magic of Believing by Claude M. Bristol. The fourth grade was Advanced Techniques of Hypnosis by Melvin Powers and An Encyclopedia of Witchcraft edited by Harry E. Wedeck.

By the time I was in high school in the mid-70's I would have considered serious body mutilation if only it could be traded for tutoring and initiation into Wicca, but that was not obtainable in south Texas in those days. (You will recall that Wicca, often called Witchcraft, is a slightly polytheistic Neo-Pagan religion based upon the worship of a Great Mother goddess. Adherents, usually grouped into small units called covens, also believe in psychic powers that can be utilized through the ritual practice called magic.)

If not in Texas, then where?

Thence to California, the land of the fair, and the strong, and the wise!

Wiccans in California are as plentiful as mushrooms (flies?) on horseshit.

I was trained. And I was initiated. But there were rats in paradise. You see, I brought a horrible contagion with me from the hinterlands: the love of great rock music, music with poetry and majesty and the thrill of triumph over the soul-defeating sleepwalk called the workaday world. I was a plague carrier with two germs, the dead Jim Morrison and the living Patti Smith. I infected many, although I suspect I sickened many more.

At one full moon ritual, during a freeform period wherein any individual could add to the ceremony, I recited The Celebration of the Lizard. It seemed so powerful to me that I wanted everyone to feel the wonder of it. Afterwards, my "beloved brothers" asked me why it was that I hated them so much that I would subject them to such evil, disruptive energy.

It was then I first knew for certain that I should be hanging with a different crowd.

The great singer and priestess Patti Smith had taught me that unbending will and lust toward poetry and music could achieve miracles. So I set out to conquer the poetry world and form a rock band. My model in the first case was Ms. (now Mrs.) Smith, and, in the second, The Doors. The Wiccans sniffed their stiff disdain. It was, after all, the late 70's and they were terrified that I might dye my hair and put a safety pin through my face, thus bringing shame upon my entire lineage. Even so, miracles did happen, thanks to many beautiful heroes and eventually, I had a band called E.L.F.

"Boy, you guys sound like The Doors," was the refrain that followed after most of E.L.F.'s (endless stream of) pitiful gigs. But never enough like The Doors to make them come back for more.

After four years the band bailed out. The parting shot was, "Man, get a life. The Doors is like some kind of religion with you!"

That made me think of those two weird dreams I had about Jim Morrison. The first two, the ones I can always remember.

The first dream I ever had about Jim Morrison: I was in the back seat of a convertible car. In the front seat were two people who were supposed to be Danny Sugerman and Jerry Hopkins on their way to do research for the book No One Here Gets Out Alive. We sped through the hours of a dusty, glaring summers day in California desert. At last, out near some isolated old beer-and-gas station, we found the trailer home of the woman who had known Jim Morrison. I let Danny and Jerry do their job while I wandered about the place, half listening, half snooping. At last I found a cheap, beat-up, strings-broken, discarded electric guitar.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Oh, that's Jim's guitar. He wanted to learn guitar for a while."

I fell in love with it instantly and completely and hopelessly. I asked if I could have it, and of course she said no. Soon I was reduced to a kneeling river of gut sorrow. I cried, sobbed, wept, and begged. There are depths of grief that make death look like up to me.

Then she relented! The guitar was mine! Into the car! Wailing down the road, laughter against the jail of life!

Then we slammed into a speeding locomotive and died.

The second dream I had about Jim Morrison: The details are cloudy on this one. I was in the military, though not at war. We were stationed at a big base, stateside. Weird phenomena began occurring and I was the first to form a theory and then a solution to the riddle of the weird occurrences: The simple truth was that the spirit of Jim Morrison was boring its way through from the other side. But no one believed me. That left me in the unhappy position of having to choose between the truth (Jim Morrison) and my duty to obey my superiors. The ultimate result was me holed up in a corner of the "mess" (cafeteria) with tables stacked all about as a barricade and a siege of hostile soldiers surrounding the building. I had no choice but to defend to the death the site at which Morrison would manifest. A shimmering began to appear behind my shoulder. It increased for days. If only I could hold out, Jim Morrison would be returned to the world minus all the weaknesses that hobbled him in the 60's. How did the dream end? All I remember is that Morrison did return.

[darkstar]

"The Doors are like a religion with you." Hmm...

I thought, "Don't people make pilgrimages to his grave? Haven't I seen a picture of Patti Smith sitting in the rain at Morrison's grave, looking like she was about to cry?"

And then a terrible picture formed before my mind's eye: Someone else starting a church of The Doors and me spending the rest of my life kicking myself and pewling along saying, "Well, I thought of it first back in 1984, but I was too mature and rational to do anything about it." That was the last straw! Nobody was going down in history as a more mystically obsessed Doors freak than me, by Jim!

But, what to do?

Well, there was only one thing I could do. I had to make a poster with a mail-in coupon. And some letterhead. And I had to use the word "first" and I had to use the phrase "established in 1984."

Sure, most religions have grander miracles. The burning bush, the Resurrection, bodily ascensions, Saul/Paul knocked off his horse. But for me it was a drawing of Jim Morrison and a coupon that shouted, "I'VE SEEN THE DARK! SIGN ME UP!"

As the following summer (1985) crept upon me, the spirit of Jim Morrison revealed to me that I must start an annual festival to commemorate his death. Thus was born the very first Celebration of the Lizard. Jim had been dead for two-times-seven years at that time (playing strange games with the girls of the island, no doubt). July was the seventh month of the year, as it still is. We held the party on the full moon, at which a man pointed out that there were to be two full moons that July, the second being what is called a "blue moon." On that blue moon, late at night, I got out of bed telling my girlfriend that I couldn't sleep due to chest pains and that I was going to take a bath. Humming "Let's swim to the moon," I stuck my toe in the bath water. That's when the deja vu hit. "Whoa! This is weird," I said, and dashed naked into the living room where I scrawled my last will and testament before daring the bathtub. Presumably, I didn't die that night, although sometimes I wonder.

I sold a few membership cards, mostly to schizophrenics and card collectors, but I couldn't get any further than the cover toward producing a church newsletter. And the poor cover was a mess. As news kept changing out there in the real world, the blurbs for the proposed lead stories kept getting pasted over and rewritten. There was "Trunkful of Morrison Poems Just Found," "Legal Battle Over Morrison Poems," "Patricia Kennealy Bewitches Publishers' Row," "New Book of Morrison Poems Just Published," "Second Morrison Poetry Book." The cover eventually came to look like a group paste-up project from some kindergarten class. I always maintained July 3 as a holiday, but there were many years when the Celebration of the Lizard consisted of no more than myself, a stack of Doors' tapes, and a bottle of whiskey holed up in my room for five or six hours.

Well, time has a way of going by and things have a way of changing until, eventually, a great circle was made and I found myself staying, in 1991, with the same people at the same house in Berkeley wherein I had founded the Church in 1984. I remember standing in the kitchen talking long-distance on the phone to my dad. I was duly admitting to him that, yes, I was still an unemployed bum with delusions of grandeur, when the first ad for Oliver Stone's Doors' movie came on the TV. In mid-sentence my voice jumped an octave and I began shrieking things like, "OH MY GOD! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! THEY DID IT!

On the phone, my father was chanting, "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Are you OK? Are you injured?"

"The Doors! 'Light My Fire.' You don't understand. I'm the founder of The First Church of The Doors. I can't talk now. Omagawd, it's here!"

Now let me explain an odd detail about this place in Berkeley that will illustrate the influence of divine intervention in the founding of the Church. Back in '87 a salesman had caught me on the phone. This annoyingly persistent fellow was dead set on selling me a package of magazine subscriptions at a discount price that I was to render to his firm. When my complaints of poverty had no effect upon him, I conceived the fiendish plan of allowing him to sign me up while fully intending never to pay a cent. I thought it would teach him a little moderation. One of the stupid magazines was Esquire. As time passed with me never paying, the subscriptions ended, one by one. All except Esquire. When I returned four years later, Esquire was still being delivered faithfully to the mail box each month--and going from the mail box straight to the trash can!

Then, in early Spring of 1991, there came the day that I pulled Esquire from the box only to stare straight into the eyes of Jim Morrison. He was the cover story! If it had been displayed only at newsstands I would probably never had seen it (I ignore newsstands).

[darkstar]

The story was a slanderous hatchet job by Mirandi Babitz' evil sister, Eve. Mirandi had been an old buddy of Pam and Jim's. Eve, her sister, had grown up to be the smart-ass token female writer at Esquire, and this article was her chance to be cooler than the fourth most famous attraction in all Paris.

Now, not only does time move in cycles, but it also moves forward (in its own piddling way). Thus it chanced that my Berkeley friends, by 1991, had acquired a modest computer and printer. For those among my readers who have not yet discovered the addictive wonders of desktop publishing, let me explain that one of the absolutely greatest things about modern computers is their ability to quickly produce high quality documents that have the look of expensive typeset printing. So it was with a feeling of great good fortune that I jumped my friends' computer, first composing some new Church letterhead and then whipping out a scathing letter to the editors of Esquire.

Well, brothers and sisters (and all you infidels who haven't sent me $10.00 yet) I didn't realize what a hornets' nest I was stirring up with that letter to Esquire.

Long before I heard a peep from Esquire, I was being interviewed by phone for Newsweek!

Here is my vague theory of how it all went down. Apparently all those chic, important people who work for big New York magazines eat from the same huge feeding troughs. I imagine ferns, classical music or jazz--you know. The noise of all that slurping and bullshitting must be nauseating. The buckets of martinis coming and going in fire- brigade fashion...

So I imagine this writer from Newsweek (Josh Hammer) sidling up to the trough next a stunning blonde letters page girl from Esquire. He flings his necktie over his shoulder so he won't accidentally swallow it down with the Thai beef salad.

"Mona."

"Josh."

(Much grunting and belching. The occasional scream from a waiter too slow at yanking his hands away.)

"Mona, I don't know what I'm going to do."

"What's the problem, Josh?"

"Oh, it's this stupid Doors thing. All of a sudden everything and everybody is Doors, Doors, Doors."

"Hey, tell me about it! He's our cover story this month. And the mail we're getting...uurrp."

"So the editor says, 'Josh, I want the figures, the dollar signs. I want to know how much, where, when, and who. But put the human touch on it.' The frigging deadline is three days away. I'm sick of the goddam Doors."

"Oh, you're sick of The Doors? You should see the letters I have to read. Like the one from The First Church of The Doors. This is, like, their religion. Who farted?"

"Yech. I don't know. Wasn't me. Church of The Doors. It's a joke, right?"

"Hell if I know. Says they've been at it since 1984. At least he can spell and punctuate. Waiter, can we have another bucket of martinis?"

"Say, Mona, could you get me that guy's phone number?"

"Well, Josh, you know that's confidential information. When would you need it?"

"By five tonight."

"No problem."

And so in some such fashion, the High Mojomuck of The First Church of The Doors became the "human touch" in Newsweek's run-down of the financial status of The Doors. The entire first paragraph, to be exact. My favorite parts were when I claimed to have over two hundred members in the church and the final sentence wherein I am quoted saying that Jim Morrison is a force of nature that you can't keep down.

The story ran in the April 8, 1991 issue. Things started popping very quickly after it hit the stands. The very first events were phone calls from ardent Doors freaks Jane Oliver (now deceased) and Rhonna Soubiea--two women who had instantly called the Newsweek offices and forced them to surrender my phone number and who became the first and staunchest members of the "new" revitalized church. Then there was the lady from Infobonn, a German radio news network that broadcasts in most parts of the world. All of this in the first three days after the magazine article appeared. Harper's wanted to look at my (hastily slammed together) magazine, as did The Whole Earth Review.

On the second of July, 1991, there was the live radio telephone debacle with "Christian" evangelist Bob Larson. I've written on that matter elsewhere, so I'll only mention here that Bob makes a lucrative living from panicking the gullible with his fairy tale nightmare rants about a worldwide Satanic conspiracy that wants to kill our children or abuse our daughters for breeding purposes. Oh, also-- if he had a fatal accident I doubt if the world would be much slighted.

Since then it's been just one goofy bumper car nonstop funhouse rollercoaster of a horror freakshow after another. Everything I am (except bald-headed) I owe to Jim Morrison. Which is to say I am an unemployed insufferably arrogant drunken social parasite with the soul of a clown and an occasional luck with words.

"That's probably all well and good," the reader might say, "but why did you start The First Church of The Doors?"

Why, to meet some other Doors fans, of course. And it worked...and I thank you all very, very much.


www.pictdom.org/Mojomuk1.html

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Q - Did you ever meet Jim Morrison?

A - "The Doors were playing a place called Ondine's in New York City. The first time we went to New York City, we played a place called The Phone Booth, which was the place were the Young Rascals held all the attendance records, which was the club they broke out of. We were busy breaking their attendance record. The bar right across the street was called Ondine's. The Doors were there, finishing up their recording. The owners were smart enough to keep one band on while the other band was off, and alternate so you could keep the people in block, 'cause there were many places of entertainment in New York City. They used to come in and stare at us and give us this hard stare when we were on. And we'd go across the street when they were on and look at them like they were nuts. After about the first week of that, I was walking through the crowd and Jim Morrison grabbed me by the arm and goes "You're quite insane you know." I said "Well, thank you. I've seen your act and you wouldn't know insane." Then we laughed and had a few drinks and talked about music."
Jimy Sohns of The Shadows of Knight who had a hit in 1966 with Them’s Gloria!

[ensenada]

good story dude

[sparky]

AL Interviews Patricia Kennealy Morrison
(Patricia Kennealy met Jim Morrison in January 1969 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, the day after the Doors had appeared at Madison Square Garden. A tall, attractive redhead, Patricia was then the editor of Jazz & Pop, an influential rock trade magazine. In June 1970, Jim and Patricia were married in a Celtic handfasting ceremony--an event that Oliver Stone later depicted in his 1991 film, The Doors. After Jim's death, Patricia wrote a memoir, Strange Days; she is also a noted science fiction writer whose latest novel, Blackmantle, was published to wide critical acclaim.


AL: What did you think of the Oliver Stone movie which many people, ourselves included, admired.

PM: You mean the world's biggest music video? Jim Morrison, the man I love, the man I married, is nowhere in that film. What you see is a grotesque, sodden, buffoonish caricature, who could never have written the immortal songs he is supposedly being immortalized for. But the worst sin Oliver Stone committed is that you don't care that Jim Morrison is dead at the end of the film.

AL: What was Jim's attitude toward the Doors? Did it change over time?

PM: At first they were a group of struggling artists all equally together. At the end they were four wealthy superstars struggling with a personal group dynamic that was anything but equal. I think by the time Jim left for Paris, it had become more an office relationship than a four way friendship. Jim told me that he never felt he had much in common with Robby or John, and that they felt the same about him. When Jim left LA in March 1971, he left the Doors as well--whether they knew it or not, whether they believed it or not.

AL: How would you characterize Jim's personality?

PM: He didn't handle pain well. But pain for Jim, as for so many artists, was a source of creativity. I think that he thought if he stopped hurting, he'd stop creating...And he was hurtful to others because he was afraid of being hurt himself. He found it hard to accept love because he had never been given very much of it, and did not think himself worthy of love.

AL: Was Jim self-destructive?

PM: Jim Morrison was most definitely not into destroying himself. That said, I must also say that since Jim was an alcoholic and not always in self-command, his instinct for creative adventuring, that edge-walking side of him, often pushed him into the borderlands of self-destructiveness--and sometimes right over.

AL: What was Jim's attitude his last days in Paris?

PM: I had eight or ten cards and letters from him in the three months he spent there. Some were exalted and joyous and others were veiled in despair. The last letter he wrote me was mailed only a few days before he died. He wrote of how tired he was and how much he missed me. "My side is cold without you..." he told me. The letter was to weep for, and I did, and still do.

AL: Did Jim talk much about Pam?

PM: We hardly ever talked about Pamela Courson. She had nothing to do with us. Jim kept his life very compartmentalized. And yes, I absolutely do believe she killed him, and nothing will ever persuade me otherwise. Not premeditated, perhaps--junkies don't think that far ahead--but in an attempt to hook him along with her, or to control him, or punish him for leaving her, as she knew he was about to do.

AL: After twenty-six years, there is still the Morrison legend.

PM: Jim Morrison was a beautiful soul who had a deep sense of the absurd. To him, the thought of being an icon was repellent. He was one of the great iconoclasts of all time. I think he'd probably just laugh about his icon status--and then set everybody straight in that Southern gentleman way I love him for.

[jym]

admin said:

Q - Did you ever meet Jim Morrison?

A - "The Doors were playing a place called Ondine's in New York City. The first time we went to New York City, we played a place called The Phone Booth, which was the place were the Young Rascals held all the attendance records, which was the club they broke out of. We were busy breaking their attendance record. The bar right across the street was called Ondine's. The Doors were there, finishing up their recording. The owners were smart enough to keep one band on while the other band was off, and alternate so you could keep the people in block, 'cause there were many places of entertainment in New York City. They used to come in and stare at us and give us this hard stare when we were on. And we'd go across the street when they were on and look at them like they were nuts. After about the first week of that, I was walking through the crowd and Jim Morrison grabbed me by the arm and goes "You're quite insane you know." I said "Well, thank you. I've seen your act and you wouldn't know insane." Then we laughed and had a few drinks and talked about music."
Jimy Sohns of The Shadows of Knight who had a hit in 1966 with Them’s Gloria!

Sounds like there's more of the story.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"When I was in formative bands in the 60's I played a lot of Doors tunes and obviously it was Jim that was the face of the band.
He brought something new to lead vocalists, his stage presence, his voice, his lyrics. I remember very well making my own handmade posters for my local band in upstate New York saying something like ………….
"Tonight! The Lost and Found at the Holiday!
Bring your Twentieth Century Fox!"
A friend of mine who was working for Crawdaddy Magazine was visiting and saw the poster and was floored that anyone in this small college town had not only heard of The Doors but was into them. (this would be '66?)
{I bet if you can get your hands on some old Crawdaddy Magazines you'd get tons of interesting info from that era}".

Eric Bloom lead singer and legendary ‘stun’ guitarist from equally legendary New York band ‘The Blue Öyster Cult’ shares a thought on the band with Scorpywag for the 60th Birthday Jim issue.


Eric at Jim's grave in Pere Lachaise during The Blue Öyster Cult’s first European tour November 1975. Thank's to Eric for letting me use his photo.

"When I first met Jim Morrison he had his mind on publishing a book of poetry and was surprised when I told him that big corporate publishers did not do poetry. My guess is that if he were alive today, he'd have found ways to get his poetry to the public and (his other ambition) he'd be directing films and continuing to cause fear and loathing in the hearts of cops and Republicans wherever he went."
Robert Gover writer and friend of Jim Morrison shares a thought on Jim with Scorpywag for the 60th Birthday Jim issue.
.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

When the single ‘Light My Fire’ by The Doors first exploded onto the American airwaves in April 1967 no one could have foreseen the impact these four beach bums from LA’s Venice Beach would have on generations of rockers, punks, grunge artists, Goths, New Romantics and countless other wannabees and posers who take to the stage night after night all across the Globe.
Broadcaster and author Tom Ryan from Melville, New York puts the case for ‘Light My Fire’ and its affect on the emerging generations of teenagers who still embrace The Doors with a mixture of awe and trepidation three decades after the death of their lead singer Jim Morrison.

Light My Fire
The psychedelic phase of pop culture was
focusing on flowers, peace, love, and
brotherhood, but a backlash began to take place that focused on the darker aspects of the movement. On the East Coast, the Velvet Underground recorded noisy sound portraits with sparse, amateurish instrumentation that startled listeners with their imagery of drug addiction and lewd sex.
On the West Coast, the Doors focused their music and lyrics on an obsession with death and narcissistic nihilism. The Velvet Underground remained a cult band during its heyday and has since been considered one of the most influential bands of all time. The Doors reached a level of popularity that exposed them (literally, as in the performance and subsequent arrest of Jim Morrison in Miami, Florida) to a broader audience, making them controversial and provocative in their time, but today their influence is somewhat marginal.
The Doors came together when Jim Morrison shared some of his poetry with his friend Ray Manzarek, who was impressed enough to ask him to form a band. Although he had no writing experience, and, initially, no ambitions as a vocalist, Morrison began writing melodies for his poetry and rehearsed them with Manzarek on keyboards, John Densmore on drums, and two of Manzarek’s brothers on blues harp and guitar. After a while, Manzarek’s brothers decided to walk, thinking Morrison’s songs were a little too spaced-out for their taste, and guitarist Robby Krieger replaced them.
A short-term contract with Columbia records yielded nothing except a few demos, but the band was playing regularly around Los Angeles and acquired a substantial cult following, particularly among women who became entranced by Morrison’s shamanistic tendencies and “lizard king” image.
One night, Arthur Lee, the leader of L.A.’s seminal cult psychedelic group Love, saw the band perform at the Whiskey A-Go-Go and urged the president of his label, Elektra, to see them.
A contract with Elektra soon followed, and the Doors began work on their first album with producer Paul Rothchild.
Their eponymously titled debut album, The Doors, features an idiosyncratic mix of moody blues and sharp, edgy arrangements (the band lacked a bass player), paired with Morrison’s psychological bouillabaisse of wordplay.
The result is an emotionally complex and masterful study in self-obsession. Morrison’s tendency to write overtly portentous lyrics would, over the course of the band’s career, weigh down many of their later albums and render them as false or, even worse, silly.
Before this became a habit, however, the first album sounded fresh – and very different. What’s more, no other singer had previously personified his stage image as convincingly as Morrison.
Through his persona as a leather-clad demigod, the Doors became rock’s first postmodern stylists before the rock movement had even established itself.
“Light My Fire” was written by Robby Krieger, with a few lines added by Morrison (“No time to wallow in the mire…and our love became a funeral pyre” – pretty portentous, wouldn’t you say?).
At its original length of six-and-a-half minutes, the song has a meandering middle section of organ doodles that plods on endlessly and is mindless enough to turn your brain into goo.
Just as you become certain that your melting brain will not withstand the assault, the organ yields to an equally self-indulgent directionless guitar solo. Edited to two-and-a-half minutes for the single release, “Light My Fire” makes its point without causing your eyes to glaze over.
Morrison’s powerful voice sounds both hypnotic and dangerous.
One minute seducing the listener, the next terrorizing them, he plays the song for every drop of drama imaginable.
In 1967’s Summer of Love, “Light My Fire” became an engrossing anthem from the underworld and popularized a side of psychedelic culture that had heretofore gone unacknowledged.

A look at the single that first alerted the world to The Door phenomena by Tom Ryan an author and broadcaster from his book ‘American Hit Radio’

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

This brilliant one from the special features of Ray's film Love Her Madly.

Standing outside the Venice house He, Dorothy and Jim shared in July 1965. A small barbecue set sits on the veranda

The three of us didn't have enough money to buy meat, potatoes, vegetables and all that.
So what we would do is go over to one of the big chain stores and we’d buy a bottle of burgundy that went well with a steak. We’d buy a couple of baked potatoes and some broccoli or whatever or some stuff for a salad.
And that would be all the money we had, you know between the three of us.
That’s all we had….and gee what are we gonna do about the steaks and Morrison would go ‘don’t worry about the steaks man. I’m gonna handle the steaks.’

So it’s like summer it’s like July and he’s wearing something like this. (Ray indicates his large coat.) So he’s put on this coat and we’re standing looking at the steaks saying God these are beautiful look at all this wonderful meat.

Morrison says ‘yup’ grabs a steak and puts it in here (Ray indicates the waist of his trousers) grabs another steak slips it in here (indicates other side of trousers) and very coolly closes his jacket and says ‘well why don’t we leave now I think we have everything we need Ray’.
So the three of us are pushing our cart with a bunch of stuff in there but nothing very expensive and Morrison has got a couple of steaks. We get back up here and light that sucker up and I tell you we didn’t have any money but it sure was good.

[riders610]

Frank Zappa Talks Music, Money and Steve Vai in His First Guitar World Interview From 1982, Part 2

www.guitarworld.com/frank-zappa-talks-music-money-and-steve-vai-his-first-guitar-world-interview-1982-part-2



In part two of Guitar World's first interview with Frank Zappa, he discusses Steve Vai, the high cost of being a band leader and the state of music in 1982.

The late Frank Zappa made his first Guitar World cover appearance with the March 1982 issue, during the magazine's third year of publication. The cover calls him "America's Most Misunderstood Genius," and the original story by John Swenson starts on page 34.

To see a full photo of the first Frank Zappa cover, check out our photo gallery of all six GW covers from 1982.

Here's part two of the Zappa interview. Note that the first question below is from part one, so you can see where we left off.



GUITAR WORLD: Given your current group, is that pretty much what we see is what we get, or do they suggest another group of songs or ... there were some things you played that I had never heard before.

There are other things that are already recorded that you haven't heard on stage, too. Because we did a bunch of recording before we left LA.

What kind of stuff can we expect? Can you describe any of it?

Well, I'll tell you what we've already recorded. A lot of stuff with [One-Time Mother] Roy Estrada. A song called "Truck Driver Divorce," which will probably be the end of country and western music. It's like country music on PCP. And another song called "Willing Suspension of Disbelief," which is a science-fiction extravaganza. It has everything in it about cheap monster movies that wasn't included in the song "Cheepnis."

And another song called "Sex," which is a very nice song. And then there's a straight-ahead Mongolian sing-along song called "No, Not Now." And there's another one called "Viva La Rosa," which is like a jazz song, bossa-nova type. That features Tommy Mars on Hammond organ and recorder. And then there's all the ones that we were doing in the show that you heard that have also been recorded and haven't been released yet.

What was that Jimi Hendrix song?

That's called "Returning Again."

When did you write that?

Two or three years ago. It's got some good words to it.

What's that line about the way they play it on the radio?

"If you listen to the radio and what they play today you can tell right away, all of those assholes really need you. Everybody come back. No one can do it like you used to. If you listen to the radio and what they play today, you can tell right away, all those assholes really need you.

Is that a comment on the fact that The Doors are the second best-selling American group right now?

No, it is just a comment on the fact that as we head and those who make the into the Dark Ages again you will hear only ten songs for the rest of your life. And I think a little variety never hurt.

There is also ... you do really like Hendrix obviously?

Well, yeah. I think that he was really good. Steve loves Hendrix. You know, Steve, he's got tattoos on his body. He's the Stratocaster guy. And I knew Jimi. He came over to my house once. Nice guy. And it's too bad that he met such an early demise.

So there is in a way a kind of tribute to him?

Of course, it's a tribute to anybody who did anything in rock and roll that set the standards for what people are doing now, and often copying in a bad way. You know, to me the original stuff ... it's just like the original rhythm and blues records. There's nothing like it. A lot of those same things are being re-recorded again and recorded cleaner and nicer and better and whatever, faster. But it's not the same. And it's really not New Wave and it's not improved anything. It's just today's freeze-dried version of the mannerisms of another form of music that already happened.

There's a sense in which you play "Whipping Post" as the ultimate joke on encores, because that's the most requested song of all time.

Well, I'll tell you how it happened. We were playing Helsinki, Finland, about six or eight years ago, and in the middle of this very quiet, nice concert hall from the back of the room a voice rings out, "Whipping Post." And I thought, if we only knew it we could blow this guy's socks off. You know, it would be great to just ... sure, fuck you, "Whipping Post" ... all right, here it is. So, when we got Bobbie Martin in the band I said, "He can sing the shit out of 'Whipping Post' and so let's go for it."

What did the other members of your band think when you said...

"God damn right, let's do it." They love it. They enjoy playing it.

Did you similarly like Duane Allman?

I never listened to their music. I like "Whipping Post," though. In fact, I think they even premiered it when we were working together at this pop festival at the baseball stadium in Atlanta years and years and years ago. It was the first time I heard this song and I liked it then, thought it was really good but I am not an Allman Brothers consumer.

But, as a guitarist you were obviously aware of Duane Allman.

Well, I heard him like the same way I hear other things, if it happens to be on the radio when I go someplace. I don't follow it, I don't consume it.

But, you do offer a kind of homage to a famous dead guy who was a great player.

The credit is all his. It's his song. I didn't invent it. It's a great song.

Yet at the same time you are making fun of Jim Morrison, right?

Well, I knew Jim Morrison too. As a matter of fact, my wife knew Jim Morrison when she was a child. They used to play together. In fact, I think she even hit him on the head with a hammer or something. And so, I know all about Jim Morrison. And, as a matter of fact, Herb Cohen tried to manage him at one time. And they were playing around LA when we first started. They were working at the Whiskey Au Go Go and all that stuff.

And so I am pretty well-acquainted with the rise of Jim Morrison. And the thing that was obnoxious about Jim Morrison was when Crawdaddy decided to proclaim him the Lizard King of rock and roll and went on this bizarre rampage. And the type of merchandising that was originally associated with Doors music I thought was really distasteful and stretching the boundaries of what it actually was beyond the realm of credibility.

Okay. So what you are making fun of is the deification of Jim Morrison.

No, I'm not even picking on Jim Morrison. I am talking about the machinery that takes anything and exaggerates it to the point where it's blown out of proportion and the public believes the inflated version of what the reality is. I am a realistic kind of a guy. I just try and look at things the way they are, take them for what they are, deal with them the way they are, and go on to the next case. But Americans thrive on hype and bloated images and bloated everything, and anything that's realistic they turn away from. They want the candy gloss version of whatever it is. And Jim Morrison is only one example of that.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"There was a poignancy to that evening. Elektra had planned an office-warming party for six o'clock on Wednesday, March 3, 1971 to show off the expanded offices and our new Studio A. Jim had dropped by around seven-thirty, "to see," as he said, "what I helped pay for," and then we all went to dinner down the street at the Blue Boar. Jim, who was always fairly quiet in groups, was unusually so that evening, half there and half somewhere else. I could feel finality hanging in the air.

As we left the restaurant, we all said our goodbyes to him. We had enjoyed a lifetime together in the concentrated, blazing arc of rock and roll. Jim and I hugged each other, and then he turned somewhat awkwardly and walked away. I watched and wondered if I would ever see him again."

Jac Holzman
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