Jim Morrison being Jim Morrison!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"Some people surrender their freedom willingly but others are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you were born with. There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature. You imitate what you see."
Jim Morrison

"The Doors weren't very good then. . . The other bands didn't think a whole lot of them. Jimmy's antics were considered extreme even then.
Nobody quite understood what he was up to or why he had to be so brazen at times. I know that he hated to
sing. He didn't think he was any good and didn't like
performing. There was always a part of him that was
self-critical and questioning. As though he felt he was being a sham. It wasn't so much that he would rather do something else. It was as if he was very unhappy inside. It made him so nervous he had to get totally looped. . .I used to wonder what was holding him
up."
Mirandi Babitz

"We'd all hang out after hours at Canter's Deli on Fairfax. Every freak in town and every
band in town. All Zappa's people and all the Doors.
All the Byrds, Arthur Lee with his scarves, Buffalo
Springfield, the Daily Flash, Sons of Adam. We'd exchange acid, stories, girlfriends and sandwiches. Morrison stood out because he was incredibly handsome and, if he wanted to, he could get very loud. Everybody attracted a
different kind of hanger-on, and even then Jim was already attracting the budding litle dark poets and little lost waifs."
Jimmy Greenspoon, keyboardist for Three Dog Night



"The word was out on
the street that everyone had to see this lead singer
because there had never been anything like him . . . with the unnatural grace of someone out of control . . .
He looked like a Greek god gone wrong, with masses
of dark brown curls and a face that sweaty dreams
are made of . . . It was really mind-boggling. There
was no modern sexy American icon at that time and he
instantly became that for me and all the girls I knew and
we never missed them. I saw The Doors play a hundred
times."
Pamela Des Barres

“They had some really wild times, . . . They both
really liked macabre things . . . spiders and black
magic, things like that. They used to scare each other.
They'd play chicken. If somebody got too freaked out
then they would go over to UCLA and get a B12 shot or
whatever it was they were giving people to bring them
down. It was pretty regular that Pam would get too
freaked out. She'd scare him and he'd scare her back too much. He'd do things like turn off all the lights and
creep around outside or pretend he'd been stabbed. They were always seeking that kind of thrill. But they did
very dangerous things too. Like putting the car on the
railraod tracks or driving with their eyes closed down
Mulholland at night while on acid. It was a little tense
being around them sometimes. We were game for a lot of things, but they were a little gamer."
friend and neighbour Mirandi Babitz

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Drawn down the distance
of long cities
riding thru the open
night alone
launching fever & strange carnage
from the back seat.
Rare Jim poem from Doors Tour Book 1969

"The best songs come unasked for. You don't have to think about them . Summer is good for songs. When it's real warm, if you have a sense of freedom, not a lot on your mind, and a feeling there's plenty of time, it just
seems to be a good climate for music."
Jim Morrison

He sauntered over to me from the bar, and I thought
to myself, if this guy can recite the phone book
he's going to sell a million records . . . He was
gorgeous, magnetic . . . whenever he was introduced to
journalists or record company people . . .
and they had their
wives with them, he would always try and conquer the
wife first. And he usually did."
Steve Harris, Vice Pres. Elektra, on his first meeting with Jim at The Ondine


"He is bigger than I had thought, taller too, dressed
in last night's concert clothes of unbleached white
linen peasant shirt, black jeans and black leather
boots. His brown hair is a little lighter than it looks
onstage or in photographs, a deep rich brown with no red in it, shoulder-length and shaggy. The eyes are
blue, and there is a depth in them, none of that
shallow empty washed look blue eyes can so often have. The voice is soft, the smile frequent and charming,
the grin devastating."
Patricia Kennealy on her first glimpse of Morrison

"He said Mailer wanted to turn New York into
another country . . . Jim loved that kind of buffoonery.
He asked me to read and I agreed. I remember we all
sat on barstools. It was Jim, Tom Baker, Seymour
Cassel, Mary Waronov, Ultra Violet, Jamie Sanchez, Jack
Hirschmann (who subbed for Michael McClure), and myself. And Robby Krieger was there noodling notes while we read. Jim did a lot of things like that which nobody knows about. He contributed money to American Indian funds. He
helped out his friends. I think he really wanted to help
people, but he was so beleaguered by pressures it was
difficult for him to do much on a large scale. A lot of
whether it was something humanitarian or creative. He
couldn't move without bumping into a wall of subterfuge
and misinterpretation. Jim couldn't deal with
obstacles with patience. He either dealt with them
heroically or he gave up and it was around the time of the
poetry reading that I sensed he was giving up a lot
more."
Poet Michael C. Ford

"One night we
went to Max's in New York for dinner and Jim didn't
say a word all night. He even pointed out his order
to the waitress. He was acting like a six year old,
making everyone feel uncomfortable. There was another
night at Max's when we were sitting around the table
and he was too stoned to go to the bathroom so he
took an empty wine bottle and pissed into it. He kept
doing it all night. At the end of the evening Jim was
smiling and in good spirits. The waitress was cleaning
the table and he told her that since he couldn't
finish the wine, she could take it home and enjoy it.
The waitress was so thankful - Jim Morrison gave her
something!"
Elektra Publicist Danny Fields.


"Jim regularly visited poets in Venice and he always bought a number of copies of their books and passed them out to his friends.
He contributed money to the LA Art
Squad, mural painters in Venice and Hollywood. They
always needed funds for paint, scaffolding, just to have
lunch. They would turn up at the Doors office bearded
and longhaired, shabby clothes and Jim would empty
out the petty cash or write them a cheque”.
Frank Lisciandro Doors Photographer and Friend.


"Jim arrived without his redheaded girlfriend and we climbed
this rickety old ladder up to where they stored the
old lighting fixtures and stuff. It was very romantic
to my eyes. We had this big jug of Trimar which is
sort of like liquid PCP. I was a virgin at the time
and we never did go all the way, but we were rolling
up there making out like crazy. The lighting was so
diffused and beautiful and I was so high. It was like we
were there for an eternity and all of a sudden I heard
'Light My Fire' being played. I thought it was probably
in my mind or something. But it was being played for
real and Jim heard it and he went, 'Oh my God, I'm
on.' So he clamored down this ladder behind the stage
and threw the curtain back and went on. And I
followed him. I was so high, I didn't know where he was
going. I just followed him onstage. I can still see the
audience looking up at me. I was onstage with The Doors
and I realized I shouldn't have been there. One of
the roadies came and took me offstage. I don't think
I'll ever forget it."
Pamela Des Barres


"I can just look at Ray and know when I’ve gone too far"
Jim Morrison 1969.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"When he did the bridge to 'End Of The Night', he said 'Realms of bliss Realms of light' - I said 'Jim, that's William Blake's 'Songs Of Innocence'.' He said, 'I know, but nobody's busted me yet.The Doors really represented the first time a rock band really tapped into literature, and it worked." -
Michael C. Ford, Los Angeles poet

"He had a madder than usual look in his eyes, though I knew he was sober. At one point Jim turned to me and said, 'Let's start a fire in the balcony or something. Get a riot going.'"
Tom Baker @ The Living Theatre Performances Bovard Auditorium, USC, LA. February 1969.

Early January: Elektra's New Office Party
Jim, Babe Hill, Tom Baker, and Danny Sugerman stand on Pamela's store Themis and watch people go into the party which is to show off the new office. Jim really didn't want to go to the party but finally suggests that he might as well make an appearance since he "paid for the fucking place" and "might as well see where the money went".
Tom Baker, once inside and after the crowd gives Jim a chance to get away, drags Morrison down a hallway and into the corporate office spaces. Tom antagonizes Jim by saying "you paid for all this corporate shit" "you hypocrite, Morrison, you're financing the very authority you claim interest in overthrowing." Jim tells Tom that none of it means anything to him but Tom won't stop. He knows how to get to Jim and finally he does. Jim blows up and pushes Baker over a desk and begins to destroy the office. Soon a bunch of people come in and get him back down the hallway, out the front door and into a limo out front. Vice President of Elektra hollars at the driver to "get him the hell away from here!"

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"I like any reaction I can get with my music. Just anything to get people to think. I mean if you can get a whole room full of drunk, stoned people to actually wake up and think, you're doing something."

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.


"I see myself as an intelligent, sensitive human, with the soul of a clown which forces me to blow it at the most important moments."

When you make your peace with authority, you become authority
Jim Morrison

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Whenever we went to the rock clubs, such as The Whisky or The Experience, Jim would cause a stir as we walked in and the kids gathered around him. Morrison was usually in a semi-conscious stupor and seemed oblivious to the fans. As soon as we sat down, the resident groupies would pounce on him. Sometimes, I would share in the spoil, other times I would be ignored as if I were invisible, and still other times, Jim would be so comatose I would get them all to myself.

One night we went to the grim little Hollywood flat of two of these creatures and sat up til dawn drinking and talking. One girl soon revealed herself to be a practicing junkie, and she brought out plastic vials of pills, blue tablets called New Morphine, a strong synthetic morphine. We crushed them with a tablespoon and sniffed the powder. The high was speedy and euphoric, and Jim became loose and talkative, telling us endless stories about himself, including the story of his body being inhabited by the spirit of an old Indian who died by the side of a New Mexico highway. The junkie offered to let us use her outfit, but we declined. Jim was not inclined to use downers, and hated the thought of using a needle on himself. Aside from this night, I only saw him use cocaine or hallucinogenics.

After awhile, I went to bed in the front room with the junkie and the other girl began to wrestle Jim into her room. He had become somewhat inert and sat with his head on the kitchen table. After a great effort, she got him into her bed and shut the door.

About 10 minutes later, she joined the junkie and me, complaining about Jim's lack of interest. Soon, the three of us were engaged in a robust bout of interchanging sexual positions, and then I passed out, exhausted and content.

I awoke at the crack of noon, alone. I sat in the kitchen drinking instant coffee and smoking cigarettes for about 15 minutes, then curiosity got the best of me and I slowly opened the bedroom door and looked in. The little beggars had abandoned me for Jim and he and the junkie were asleep alongside one another. The other girl was feverishly giving Jim head, trying to pump some life into his pathetically limp dick, looking not unlike a lioness feeding on her fallen prey. She glanced over at me for a moment, then went right back to work. I returned to the kitchen and crushed up another pill.
Tom Baker from Blue Center Light

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Olivia's. A small soul food restaurant at the corner of Ocean Park and Main. A roadside diner that belonged in Biloxi, Mississippi. The place was packed, as usual. The restaurant that Jim later memorialized as the "Soul Kitchen" was full of UCLA film students. It looked like an Amtrak dining car that got stranded at the beach.

A young girl with big brown eyes and long black hair strolled in.

"Hey, Jim, there's that singer, Linda Ronstadt, who lives on Hart Street."

"Yeah. What's the name of her group?"
"The Stone Poneys."
"I hate folk music, but she's cute." He gave her the once-over twice.
The food arrived and we scarfed it down, mumbling about the local music scene in between mouthfuls of chicken-fried steak. My eyes darted around the diner while Jim talked. It was hard to hear him over the buzz of college students and local patrons.
Half an hour later Olivia bellowed, "Lunch is over!" She wore the traditional print apron over a full skirt and had a slight limp in her right leg. Her vibe was warm, but the big black woman whose name was synonymous with soul never let any patrons in at closing time, and she always tried to hustle out the ones who were there. She didn't care about a few extra dollars when she could have some peace. You knew she loved to cook for the people, though.
Her restaurant may be long gone, but the legend lives on in Jim's words:
Well, the clock says it's time to close, now,
I know I have to go, now,
Really like to stay here, all night Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen,
Warm my mind near your gentle stove,
Turn me out and I'll wander, baby,
Stumblin in the neon grove.

"Let's go to the Venice West Cafe tonight," Morrison suggested as we got up to leave. He took one long last pull on his Carta Blanca and I stared out the window at some passing girls.

"Sure," I said, preoccupied with the girls outside. "Never been there." When I couldn't see them anymore I continued, "They still have poetry?"

"I don't know, but we can check it out."

Early that July, I was back driving Jim around Venice in my Singer Gazelle, the European car I'd traded for the Ford. The Gazelle looked exactly like a Hillman Minx, and it got much better gas mileage. With gas selling for thirty-five cents a gallon, a dollar's worth of regular would get me all over town. My dad went with me to make the trade, because I'd never driven a stick. After we lurched out of the used car lot, Dad asked me again if I wanted him to drive. I coughed up twenty-nine dollars for an Earl Scheib paint job and chose the color black after the Stones' song "Paint It Black." The job was so sloppy they even sprayed the tires, but I loved that high-gloss shine.

Jim didn't have a car, but he had interesting friends. They were all a year or two older, and I looked up to them. We went over to Felix Venable's house in the Canals, a sloppy version of Venice, Italy, that had seen its heyday in the 1920s, complete with ducks waddling around. They're still waddling today. Felix looked like an aging surfer who had spent too much time in Mexico, but he was real friendly, loved to party, and the woman he lived with turned me on. She was older - pretty face and nice figure.

After a few hours we paid a visit to Dennis Jacobs, another film student. Dennis lived in a rooftop apartment on Brooks Street, half a block from the ocean. He loved to talk about Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher. I picked up one of Nietzsche's books, The Birth of Tragedy, while Jim and Dennis were talking, and read a couple of paragraphs. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to read a whole book of such double-talk. Dennis seemed crazy, but his zest for life was contagious.

On the outside, Jim seemed to be a relatively normal college student. He was infused with an aggressiveness toward life and women. He also wanted to learn everything there was to know about getting our band on the road and making records.

After a few hours with him when he'd been chain-smoking dope and rapping philosophy, however, another side emerged. Sometimes I was frightened. I'd ask myself, Goddamn, how far down does this guy go? Morrison knew something about life I didn't. His curiosity was insatiable and his reading voracious. I didn't get half of his references, but the passion always came through. "John, did you ever really think about what's on the other side?" he would ask with a strange gleam in his eye.

"What do you mean exactly by 'the other side'?"

"You know. . . the void, the abyss."

"Sure, I've thought about it, but I don't dwell on it." I would laugh sheepishly, trying to defuse the tension.

Then he would be off again on a dark monologue, quoting from poets like Rimbaud and Blake.

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom," he echoed over and over.

Meeting Jim was the death of my innocence.

Fortunately, music was the great equalizer for us. I could tell he admired my ability as a musician and I, his intelligence.

"What did you mean the other night when you said the guitarist was playing outside?" Jim asked as we drove to Hollywood one night.

"He was as far out as you could go without getting outside the chord structure. In other words, he was real loose. You want to get out there where it sounds real free, but not so far that it sounds like you don't know the changes. You can dance over the edge a little. Like Coltrane and Miles. They have a right to go way out there because they have paid their dues; they've made many beautiful mainstream records." Jim acted as if he understood. When I would rap on about Coltrane's music as stream of consciousness "sheets of sound," Jim would listen intently and make literary connections.

"Yeah, right. Like Rimbaud and the 'derangement of the senses'! Hey, would you take me to the Trip tonight? Allen Ginsberg is supposed to show up."

"All right. You know. . . if jazz and poetry are supposed to blend. . . I think we're it!"

"You wanna bet on it?" Jim snapped.

"What?"

Jim pulled a quarter out of his pocket, flipped it up in the air, and then popped it into his mouth.

"Did you swallow that?"

"Yup."

"You're crazy."

"Yup. Uh-huh.



From Riders On The Storm by John Densmore...

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"Philosophy doesn't interest me as much as it used to. I
think the day I finally was forced to realize that no
one in the world really knows any more about what's
going on than any other person, I kind of lost interest
in philosophy as a study of ideas, but philosophy
appreciated from the standpoint of how men in the past have
used words, have used language. That's why for me
poetry is the ultimate art form, because what defines us
as human beings is language. The way we talk is the
way we think, and the way we think is the way we act,
and the way we act is what we are. And so I
appreciate philosophy these days from the standpoint of
poetry, the use of one word next to another word next to
another word. So, philosophy is semantics, I guess."
Jim Morrison 1970

Nov 11th 1969: Drunk & Disorderly
Jim Morrison and Thomas Baker (an actor who
appeared in Andy Warhol's film "I, A Man") are arrested at
the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix,
Arizona, on charges of "drunk and disorderly conduct" and
"interference with a flight crew" upon landing in Phoenix on a
Continental Airlines flight. They are en route to see the
Rolling Stones at the Phoenix Veterans Coliseum that
night. The Captain of Flight 172, Craig A.B. Chapman, is
required to abandon his post three times to go back to the
cabin and attempt to maintain the peace with the
intoxicated passengers. He requests police assistance upon
arrival at the airport. Complaints are filed, and
Morrison and Baker are hauled off to jail. The intoxicated
duo is initially quite unaware of the gravity of the
charges: Public intoxication is a relatively minor
offense, but "interference with a flight crew" is a
federal matter.
The Doors On The Road

On March 28th 1970 Jim Morrison is found guilty of
the Phoenix charges, and faces three months in jail.
Both Jim Morrison and Tom Baker were charged in a
two-count indictment involving two of the three
stewardesses on a Continental Airlines flight from Los Angeles
to Phoenix. Jim and Tom reportedly came to Phoenix
to see a performance by the Rolling Stones.
Testimony disclosed both were drunk when they came aboard
the plane, and that they were served additional
drinks.
U.S. District Court Judge William P. Copple
convicted Morrison at the end of a one-day, nonjury trial

March 26. Tom Baker, a film-maker charged along with
Morrison, was acquitted. Jim will be aquitted the following
month when a testifying stewardess, Shirley Ann Mason
realizes that she had confused Morrison with the more
troublesome Tom Baker.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"We only played with the Doors once, in Seattle, and it seemed like he was screwed up. Morrison went on stage and said 'Fuck you all' which didn't really do anything except make a few
girls scream. Then he hung on the side of the stage and
nearly toppled into the audience, and did all those
things that I suppose were originally sexual things but
as he got dirtier and more screwed up, they just
became bizarre. He was just miles above everyone's head.
It seemed that he realized the Doors were on the way
down. He went on stage with that opinion and
immediately started saying all those strange things which nobody could get into."
"Robert Plant remembers Seattle Pop Festival"
New Musical Express, Apr. 11, 1970

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

In January of 1966 Jim along with pals Phil O'leno and Felix Venables takes off to explore Mexico. Taking thier inspiration from one of the UCLA professors Carlos Casteneda the three set out to discover peyote. But Jim being Jim results in all three bing beaten senseless after Morrison makes advances to a Mexican woman at a traffic light and her male companions chase them out of town and assault them.
Calling it a day they decide to make it back to LA but during the journey Phil takes off on his own leaving Jim and Felix to concoct the rather less than sensible wheeze that they had murdered Phil and buried him in the desert....

Phil O'leno's father is an
attorney who is understandably disconcerted when he
catches wind of the story Jim is circulating about Phil's
death. After attempts to acquire any legitimate
information about his son fail, he reluctantly decides that
the only way to locate Phil is to press assault and
battery charges against Jim. After proceeding with this
lawsuit, the truth is rapidly divulged. Once he is assured
that his son is indeed alive and well, Mr. O'leno
immediately withdraws all charges against Jim.

from The Doors On The Road, Greg Shaw

Not one of Jims more sensible ideas but one that crops up several years later during th HWY filming when he convinces Mike McClure by phone that he had killed a driver he had hitched a ride with....


Jan 28, 1968 - Arrested in Las Vegas
In the parking lot of a Las Vegas, Nevada adult
theatre, Jim taunts a security guard by pretending to
smoke a joint. Guards rush Morrison and his friends and
beat them. When Las Vegas police arrive, they arrest
Morrison and charge him with vagrancy and public
drunkenness.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

May 3rd 1969 @ The Whisky A Go Go
Jim Morrison joins Eric Burdon and the Blues
Image onstage for several songs. Eric Burdon was the
renowned lead singer for the Animals who joined forces
with Robbie Krieger in the early 1990s for some
notable shows featuring several Doors songs.
Regarding Eric Burdon's relationship with Jim, a Melody
Maker interviewer reports....
"I had spent the previous day with Eric Burdon who is alive and unhappy and living in exile in L.A., but seems to have found a 'spiritual' companion in Jim.
Eric has become a much loved 'local' as he would anywhere and I related to Jim how the
owners of the Whisky, apparently afeared of Morrison in
his more boisterous moods, would get Eric to sooth
the savage beast. Eric described himself as feeling
like 'the cow sent in to pacify the bull' on these
occasions.
But Morrison liked Burdon. 'I like anyone who
will get drunk with me for the right reasons in the
right way.'"
The Doors On The Road

May 8, 1971- lunch at the Bar Alexandre

May 8, 1971 - Jim invited Hervé and his
girlfriend Yvonne Fuka for lunch at the Bar Alexandre on
Avenue George V. They talked about films and poetry, and Jim gave Hervé a copy of his An American Prayer
poetry book. Naturally the alcohol was already flowing
freely, and Jim soon began to get violent again. He
shouted at people at adjacent tables, threw cocktail
cherries around, and was drinking liberally the while from a large bottle of cognac. Hervé had his camera on
him and he and Yvonne were busy taking pictures of
Jim's every move. Eventually Morrison threw himself
onto the 'art nouveau' iron bench in front of the
Alexandre, yelling: "Where're you taking me? I don't wanna go!"
Once inside Muller's small apartment again he
continued yelling, waking the neighbors and the caretaker,
who called the police. When the police arrived
though, Jim was already asleep, not to rise again until
late the next evening. A taxi took him back to the Rue
des Beaux Arts, where a furious Pamela was waiting
for him.
Rainer Moddemann

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Action House Long Beach, NY - June 16th 1967
Before the first Action House show. Jim Morrison reportedly instructs the bartender to line up fifteen shots of Jack Daniel's and then drinks them all, one after another, just prior to taking the stage. As the show progresses, he consumes an additional fifteen shots and clearly exhibits the consequences. The club is exceptionally hot before the band begins, and the stage continues to heat up as the show wears on. Finally, as if in premonition of events to come, Jim begins to disrobe during one song, but is interrupted before he can achieve his ultimate goal.
The Action House Long Beach, NY - June 17th 1967
Probably the shortest Doors show ever. At the start of the show, Jim Morrison places the microphone in his mouth and begins to create "unearthly sounds" until the other band members help him off stage. Because it is primarily a dance club, the abbreviated show causes little disturbance
TheDoors On The Road

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]