Post by casandra on Mar 18, 2011 17:40:21 GMT
The Calm Calculus of Reason
A Conversation with Frank Lisciandro
By Steven P. Wheeler
[p. 1]
When it comes to the life of Jim Morrison, there are few people who are acknowledged as true friends of the man as The Lizard King. The three Doors have made their opinions known many times over the past 30 years through documentaries, interviews, and -in the cases of Ray Manzarek and John Densmore- through their own writings.
Yet outside the band’s immediate circle, the number of people who be called Jim’s close friends and confidants can be counted on one hand. Pamela Courson, Babe Hill and Frank Lisciandro are the best known; yet only one of them is available to talk about it. Pamela Courson died in 1974, a mere three years after Morrison; while Jim’s closest friend, Babe Hill, has rarely discussed Jim on the record over the years. Not to mention that his whereabouts today are nearly mysterious as Jim’s death 35 years ago.
Frank Lisciandro, on the other hand, has balanced his film and photography careers with helping Jim to achieve academic respectability as a poet and getting Morrison’s poetry into the mainstream marketplace. Lisciandro was not only instrumental in organizing and cataloguing all of Morrison’s poetry notebooks on behalf of the Estate, he was a driving force behind the release of two volumes of Morrison poetry to the public: “Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 1” in 1989 and “The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 2” in 1991.
And since the 1981 release of blockbuster biography, “No One Here Gets Out Alive” and the sensationalistic Oliver Stone film, “The Doors”, decade later, Lisciandro has found himself battling the purveyors of the seemingly endless string of Morrison Myths by balancing these hyped portrayals of his friend with modest, yet revealing projects of his own.
In answer to the Danny Sugerman/Jerry Hopkins book, which he refers to as “Nothing Here But Lots of Lies”, Lisciandro published the photo “An Hour For Magic” sharing many of his photos and revealing personal stories of his own first-hand experiences with Morrison.
With 1991’s “Morrison: A Feast of Friends”, Lisciandro countered Stone’s cinematic portait by interviewing Jim’s friends from all eras of his life (including Babe Hill) and allowed them to tell their own personal stories without the editorial slants by other Morrison authors.
Lisciandro’s works were the first to bring a more realistic and human side to the Morrison legacy; a portrait that is often at odds with the myths that have overflowed the public’s fountain of knowledge since July 3, 1971.
Throughout it all, Lisciandro is not blind to Morrison’s faults, noting that he “never tried to paint a halo on the guy”, but he has managed to bring Jim Morrison the Man a little further from the shadows. Still, one has to wonder if it’s even possible in this day and age to reveal the real Jim Morrison in the face of the mythological icon that has been created and sold time and time again over the past four decades through a labyrinth of rumors, speculation and distortion which too many unsuspecting fans are willing to accept as facts.
As Lisciandro noted in our earlier 1991 interview, “The stories that have been made up about Jim Morrison outweigh the facts by so much that I don’t know where to begin to mend the fabric of truth because its been so torn apart”.
Born and raised in New York, Frank Lisciandro discovered photography and journalism at young age, and would pursue those avenues in a variety of ways throughout his professional life.
After a stint studying photo-journalism at Michigan State caught the “wander-bug of youth” and took off to Europe with some kindred souls in 1961. It was during this period that Lisciandro began to look at his lifelong love of images and reporting in a different way, and discovered a new passion: filmmaking.
“It was that time in every young man’s life where searching for answers”, Lisciandro says about his year-long European sojourn. “So after returning to New York, I worked for about six months to get some money together and did my due diligence researching all the various film schools.
NYU had an excellent film school, but I wanted to get away from New York”, he says, before noting that he also visited Harvard and met controversial professor Timothy Leary. “I knew about psychedelics, but I hadn’t tried any myself. I was thinking that maybe Dr. Tim would make me one of his research subjects”. In the end, Lisciandro realized the Ivy League price tag was out of reach.
The remaining film school on his list was located at the University of California Los Angeles, more than a stone’s throw away for the Brooklyn-based Yankee fan, but the allure of sunny Southern California and the fact of his grandparents being there helped the decision-making process.
With that, Lisciandro headed west and began classes at the UCLA Film School in January of 1964. The exact same time as another anonymous transfer from Florida State University by the name of James Douglas Morrison.
“The stories that have been made up about Jim Morrison outweigh the facts by so much that I don’t know where to begin to mend the fabric of truth because it’s been so torn apart”
[p. 2]
Cullen from more than a dozen interview sessions that took place between August-November 2006, what follows is the most in depth and lengthy discussion of Jim Morrison that Frank Lisciandro has ever taken part in…
THE UCLA FILM SCHOOL
Let’s start things off at the UCLA campus back at the beginning of 1964 where you would first meet Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison. Back in those days, the UCLA Film School was supposedly more about experimental or avant-garde filmmaking versus the cross-town film school at USC, which was more about helping students learn the Hollywood philosophy and get them jobs in the feature-film industry. Is that an accurate description?
At UCLA, you weren’t discriminated against if you wanted to make Hollywood films. Although most of us didn’t like Hollywood films as much as we liked European films. There were some at UCLA who were into the “Wild Bunch” mentality –the Clint Eastwood shoot-em-up Westerns that were around at the time.
But there were a bunch of us –like Manzarek and I- who loved the Japanese films, the Italian films, and the French films that were coming out the late Fifties and early Sixties, and by the time we were at UCLA, these New Wave films were full flower.
We were all exciting about the future of film. It was truly a time of renaissance of form and format. But there were still people at UCLA who just wanted to make the traditional Hollywood kind of films whereas people like Manzarek, Jim and myself were caught up in the new wave of filmmaking. That doesn’t mean only the new wave of the European filmmakers, but the new wave that was beginning to happen in the States at that time. People like John Cassavettes were doing it breakthrough films like “Shadows” that was made before I went to UCLA. We were all very aware of all that and excited by the possibilities.
“People like Manzarek, Jim and myself were caught up in the new wave of filmmaking”
What about the experimental filmmakers. Was there a sizeable Godard influence at UCLA?
People like Jean-Luc Godard were as experimental as you could possibly be, but their way of doing experimental films was doing it within a theatrical film format. So they weren’t like the shorter experimental film coming out of America. Godard was experimenting with the very essences of what theatrical films were about, we were looking at that and saying “Whoa, he’s doing street photography with hand-head cameras, and he’s improvising and yet he’s using actors, and the stories and kind of cool, and look how he’s cutting this all together”.
We were thrilled by that. We wanted something different in film and this was about as different as you could get. So, yeah, we paid some mind to the experimental filmmakers. I first got into that back in the art house theatrers in New York, especially during my last year in high school when I used to hangout in Greewich Village and I used to see these weird, crazy experimental films.
Morrison Morsels…
How did Jim address his friends?
He used the first names of his friends; whether it was Frank, Babe, Paul, Ray, Robbie, John, Bill, Vince, Leon. But he would also say things like, “Well, you know, man”. I mean, “man” was used and overused during that era [laughs]. But, no, he didn’t use nicknames.
We called him “Jim”. I never ever heard anyone call him “Jimmy”, including during conversations I had with his sister and with Fud Ford who were closest to him when he was young. They never called him “Jimmy”, which just blows up another ridiculous repetition in the Stephen Davis book.
We sometimes called him “Jimbo”, but that was more of a term of friendly fun, rather than any sort of ridicule and it was used very sparingly. He called himself “James Douglas Morrison” on very rare occasions, but no one ever called him, “James”. We just called him “Jim” and he just called us by our first names.
How was the system set up at UCLA? Did the school encourage collaboration with fellow students or was it more about making your own films?
Within the school, we were always working on our projects, but we were talking film with each other. The emphasis of the school was not to do a collaborative project, but to do own project with the help of your classmates.
The most important part of the undergraduate program was the “Saturday Workshop Project” and you had to be there a year before you could get into it. You had to first through Editing 101, Writing 101, Cinematography 101, and the rest of the basics, and when you got all of through those done, you moved through the advanced Editing, Writing and Cinematography courses and if you got through those, you were ready for the Saturday Workshop, which was your first 16mm-sound production.
Funny thing was that it was money out of your pocket because you had to buy the film and have it processed yourself and, ironically, the University then owned your film. That actually ended up being a good preparation for what happens in the real world of filmmaking [laughs].
Since you and Jim arrived at the same time at UCLA, did you collaborate with Jim in the Saturday Workshop?
Jim was in the same Saturday Workshop class that I was, but we weren’t in the same section together. Oddly enough, I was in the same section as Warner Entner, who became a singer and songwriter with the Grass Roots.
Anyway, each class section had five or six people in it, and on each Saturday one of us would shoot our project which we would organize during the term and decide who would be the cameraman, who would do this and who would do that. So we would write these short films, direct them, produce them and edit them, and then present them at the end of the year. It was sort of like the “thesis” project for the undergraduates.
[p. 3]
You’ve talked about sharing a certain philosophy of film with Ray, did you know him well during that period?
I met Ray soon after classes at UCLA. I think that he had already been at UCLA for like six months or so, Ray did his Saturday Workshop a semester before me. He was older than most of the rest of us, he was a graduate student.
But, yeah, I got to know Ray and Dorothy very well and after my first semester at UCLA. I went back to New York and married with my high school sweetheart, Katherine [who would later become the Doors secretary], and brought her back with me to California. We found an apartment in Ocean Park about three or four blocks from where Ray and Dorothy were living.
We had other friends, but since Ray and I were both film school guys, and were a couple and they were a couple, we spent a lot of time together, and we became pretty good friends. We’d go see movies together, we’d have dinner at each other’s house, we’d goof around together. And during that time Ray was playing with Rick & The Ravens. So Katherine and I would go see them play; whether it was in Manhattan Beach or Santa Monica. We got to know Ray’s brothers, too. We were all friends. It was a really close relationship. I thought so anyway.
And Ray also did his Screaming Ray Daniels act, in which he just did a solo blues thing at clubs; which was good too. I mean, Ray’s an incredibly talented guy. He can play, he’s inventive, he knew the blues, he knew lots of different musical forms, he’s a smart guy and he was always entertaining. So we loved hanging out with him and Dorothy.
“During that time Ray was playing with Rick & The Ravens. So Katherine and I would go see them play. We were all friends. It was really close relationship… Ray’s an incredibly talented guy. So we loved hanging out with him and Dorothy”.
What about Jim? Were you close at that time?
I knew Jim a little bit, I knew a lot of the guys who Jim was around during that period, but a lot of those guys were single and liked to go to bars and drink a lot. At that time, I just didn’t have the time or the money to go to bars and drink a lot, and I was newly married. So I wasn’t really part of that crowd socially. There was John DeBella, Felix Venable, Phil Oleno. Those were the guys who were closest to Jim at that time of his life.
I did know Jim, because we had classes together and the classes weren’t that big; the entire film school was like 120 students. So Jim and I knew each other, because we came to UCLA and started at the same time. We took all our beginning classes together. We sat next to or near each other in class, and he was friends with Ray, so I’d see him over at Ray’s at times.
Ray and Dorothy were feeding Jim sometimes, so when Kathy and I would have dinner at their place, once in a while Jim would be there too. It was more of “hey, man, how are you doin’” kind of thing back then and we would talk about different stuff.
How would you describe Jim in those days?
Well, let’s be honest here, when you’re in a classroom, you’re not really focused on some guy in your class. Maybe you notice if a good-looking girl sits to you [laughs], but no, I didn’t go out of my way to see this Jim Morrison guy was up to, ya know?
But I had a handful of conversations with him either in class or around the campus. He seemed to me be rather quiet. He was very enigmatic in those days, I used to talk a lot about Zen Buddhism, psychedelic experiences, music, film, and photography. Whereas Jim was interested in things like Jungian psychology. I just wasn’t interested in that psychological and spiritual thing going on with Zen.
Our conversations were more like, “Did you see the Stones on Ed Sullivan last night? Yeah, man, weren’t they great?” Or “Did you go see the latest Godard film? Yeah, what do you think?”
So when it comes to Jim Morrison at UCLA and what he was really like, I’m not the guy to ask. I was too interested in trying to become a filmmaker and trying to keep up with the rest of the film students. I mean there were some amazingly talented people in that school. Plus, I was recently married, which was a whole new thing for me, and the war was going on and I was trying to figure out how to keep from being drafted, ya know. I didn’t have time to pay attention to Jim or anyone else besides Kathy and myself and our future plans together.
“I did feel really bad for Jim because his film kept breaking in the projector when he presented it… He couldn’t seem to splice two pieces of film together”
Based on what you observed of him at UCLA, what did you think of Jim as a potential filmmaker?
I was actually one of few people at the film school who thought his final project was brilliant; but then again I thought that everybody’s was good. I’m just one of those people who knows and appreciates how difficult filmmaking is, so when someone takes the time and effort to create and produce something like that, I have an appreciation for it. Needless to say, because of that, I may not be the most discerning critic [laughs].
I did feel really bad for Jim because his film kept breaking in the prjector when he presented it at the end of the year in the screening room. He had to keep going back to the editing room and repair the broken parts and bring it back and try again. The poor guy was just not lucky and he was not technically gifted. He couldn’t seem to splice two pieces of film together.
[p. 4]
What about his overall creative abilities…
Did I know that Jim was a creative guy? Yeah, I thought he was a creative guy, but I also thought he was a terrible film technician and he should have tried to overcome that, because that’s what you’re supposed to do in film school, team a craft as well as practice the art form.
He could have asked anybody there to help him. I thought somebody like Dennis Jakobs who had been at the film school for a thousand years, and was friends with Jim, could have helped him. I would have helped him if he asked me, Ray would have helped him, Paul Ferrara would have helped him. There was no reason why he couldn’t have asked someone to sit with him for a half-hour and show him how to do it properly. But as far I know, he never asked for help and no one did help him with the physical editing and it was a disaster.
But it was obvious to me that there was a brilliant eye there and possibly a unique and strong filmmaker based on what we did manage to see of his film. I can’t say that I really understood what he was trying to do with the concept of his student film, but I thought there was a brilliance and a uniqueness in his use of visuals.
During that time at UCLA, among the students, were the conversations always about film? Or were there other communal interests you all shared?
Aside from talking about film, we were also talking music because music was so important at that time, too. I mean Dylan went electric and then suddenly everyone went crazy. The Beatles were happening and the Stones were happening at the time. That was vital to us. Music and film were the common ground, not just for Ray and I, but all the students in the UCLA Film School.
I remember that the first Van Morrison album with Them [their 1965 self-titled a burn] knocked everybody right down to the ground. Nobody could get up from that one. And Ike & Tina Turner were really important and really hot act. It was obvious at that time that a transition was happening. Whether it was made by the Beatles or the Kinks or the Stones or Dylan, it didn’t matter. Music was just incredibly vital to all of us.
OPENING OF THE DOORS
Ironically, by 1965, Ray and Jim had formed a band of their own called the Doors. Were you around them at time?
That was a great summer. I was hanging out at the film school and I was hanging out with friends in Venice. Ray had a house there, so I’d go and watch them rehearse sometimes because we were still hanging around that summer.
And later I saw the Doors at their very first performance on the Sunset Strip. I think it was the early part of ’66. All of film students went to the London Fog on that first night.
“I saw the Doors at their very first performance on the Sunset Strip. I thought Jim was terrible. Shows you how much I know about discovering new talent”.
And what was your initial impression of them onstage?
Well, I thought Jim was terrible. For the most part, he was still pretty shy, so he kept his back to the audience, he really did. I just didn't think he could sing very well. Shows you how much I know about discovering new musical talent [laughs].
A few years later, after we became friends, I told Jim about my first impression of him at that first show, and I said, “I thought you were terrible that night”. I remember he gave me a look that seemed to suggest that he didn’t like the word “terrible” [laughs].
But then I told him he had improved tremendously and he was like a Frank Sinatra crooner who could also sing rock, and I asked him, “What changed?” He just said, “I just kept practicing and I kept practicing, practicing, practicing”. And obviously he had been doing something to improve. If you listen to their first demo and then their first album, there is such a difference and you can hear it. But they rehearsed a lot and they played a lot, too. I guess you can’t really help but improve if there’s the will and the talent, right?
But before the band became stars, you and Kathy went off to Africa with the Peace Corps, right?
Yeah, but before we went off to Africa, we spent four months in Peace Corps training, and by late ’66, we were back in New York for a few weeks before we would head off to Africa, and the Doors were playing at Ondine’s in New York City.
We invited Ray and Dorothy to have dinner with us at Kathy’s parents house and then we went with them to Manhattan and saw one of the shows at Ondine’s. And from what I saw that night, Jim had already improved a great deal. I could see that this was a whole lot better than what I saw at the London Fog.
Jim had the full-on rocker guy thing going, but you could tell that he had been drinking or he was on drugs or something, because he was kind of erratic at that performance. They put on a good show though and the audience seemed to like them, and we were delighted that we got to see them at a really nice club, and then we were off to Africa.
[p. 5]
Even though you saw the improvement in Jim’s performance that night, did you have any sense that he was soon going to be a superstar?
No! Not at all. But while we were in Africa, Ray sent us a press clipping about the band because we were corresponding with him while we were there. So we were kind of astounded to read this press clipping talking about their first album and “Light my fire” being a Number One hit. We couldn’t believe it.
I assume because of your friendship with Ray and Jim that you eventually became a big fan of the band though…
Well, let me say that I appreciated their music, but I was not a confirmed fan. I wasn’t secretive about it or anything. I was pretty open about Dylan being a demagogue to me, and that there were other bands and artists I was much more into. I liked a lot of the Doors’ music, but I just had different musical tastes.
When did you realize that the Doors had really broken through in a big way?
After a year in Africa, we were ready to come home. We went from Togo to France where we stayed for about a month before we came back to the States, I was looking for a job in the French film industry. And one day, we were walking down the Boul Mich and we saw the “Strange Days” album in a record store, must have been sometime in the later part of ’67. We were thrilled for them, especially for Ray, who we considered to be a close friend.
Anyway, we came back to California and found an apartment in Santa Monica, got in touch with Ray and Dorothy, and we went to see the Doors at The Shrine Auditorium must have been at the end of ’67- That might have been the first time I photographed the band onstage. I had my camera with me and started taking pictures. And that’s the first time that I saw that they were a big American band. They had top billing that night [over the Grateful Dead], and there was a light show going on and it was really cool.
Meanwhile, around that time, a friend of mine who was at the film school with me, Jim Kennedy had managed to get a job at a production company and he got me a job there, too.
“While we were in Africa, Ray sent us a press clipping about the band. We were kind of astounded to read about “Light my fire” being a Number One hit. We couldn’t believe it”.
FEAST OF FRIENDS
So you working as a film editor, but at what point did you get professionally involved with the Doors?
The first real job I had with them –the first real paying job with the Doors- was when Paul Ferrara asked me to be one of the camera operators at the Hollywood Bowl concert which was in July of 1968. Paul had been shooting stuff on tour for several months for what was to become the “Feast Of Friends” documentary, and the Hollywood Bowl concert was to be the culmination of all that.
Is that the beginning of how you ultimately got involved with that film?
I probably was the only guy that they knew from film school who was actually working in the film industry at that time. So they asked me to come down and look at all the footage, and asked me what I thought.
Then Ray asked me if I would consider editing it all, because that’s what I was that time; a film editor. I’m sure Paul could have done it, but Paul was busy shooting both stills and film for the band and he was busy with his acting career; so he was probably too busy to sit down and really focus on editing a documentary.
“[For “Feast Of Friends”], they shot all this footage, and they asked me to try putting it all together. What I ultimately had to work with was a very large collection of very dynamic images and scenes that didn’t seem to have any solid core or theme”.
What was your first reaction to all the footage that you were presented with? Was there any semblance of what they were wanting to do with it all?
They shot all this footage, but there was no form or rhyme or reason to it all. So they asked me to try putting it all together and I gave up my day-job to do it, because they had an enormous amount of footage to get through. And back then, you were dealing with 16mm film; so it was a very hands-on process that took hours and hours to do.
I just had to go through everything from scratch and organize it all, and find out where the negative was, then put together a work-print from the neg, and then things aren’t shot with a slate. You have to eyeball it and that took a tremendous amount of time in those days, even today, it takes time.
What we had was a lot of footage where Paul and Babe Hill were just shooting things. Paul knew what he was doing, he was really good at shooting, but they wouldn’t give him any money to hire anybody else and that’s how Babe got pulled into it, because he was Paul’s friend from high school.
So Paul showed Babe how to use the Niagra tape recorded and he went around collecting sound, sometimes it was synched, sometimes it wasn’t. What I ultimately had to work with was a very large and interesting collection of very dynamic images and scenes that didn’t seem to have any solid core or theme.
[p. 6]
But when you were brought into the project, they had to have given you some sort of overall philosophy or direction of what the resulting film was supposed to be, no?
It was supposedly a film about the Doors in America. I didn’t even have a title that time. They had a moviola machine for editing in the backroom of the Doors rehearsal studio, what would later became known as the Doors Workshop, wher Vince Treanor was busy making these monolithic sound systems by hand.
So they hired me to edit all the footage into something, and I was put on the Doors payroll and began working on “Feast Of Friends”, and it was at that time that I began doing more photography of them as well.
Was there room for you to do any photography, since Paul was already doing that for the Doors?
Paul was doing fabulous photography for the Doors, including the album cover “Waiting for the Sun”. Paul and I were friends from back at UCLA, and we were closer back then because in addition to the film school, we both took photography classes the Art Department at UCLA and were in the same class together for two semesters.
So I think Paul enjoyed having me there, because he knew me and I wasn’t someone from the outside, and he knew I could do what they needed me to do. He also knew that I could shoot film and photos, but maybe Paul was kind of protective of the “stills” stuff when I came to the Doors, because he knew that photography was my strong suit and he never really encouraged me to do any photography with the Doors if he was around [laughs].
Morrison Morsels…
What about sports? Was Jim a big sports fan?
Oh yeah. He was definitely into boxing; especially Muhammad Ali’s career. He thought there was something really special about Ali; we all did. We always tried to catch the heavyweight championship fights on the biggest screen we could find around town.
Jim followed football too. Babe was a big football fan, so that was just another thing those two had in common. I like football, but I’ve always been more of a baseball fan; Jim never showed much interest in baseball. He did follow football though and the Rams were a big favorite in L. A. back in those days.
Back to the “Feast Of Friends” documentary, so you’re saying that there was no outline or plan for the film when you began the editing process?
I never saw an outline, I never saw a plan, I never saw anything written down. If there was one, it was completely out the window by the time I came on the scene [laughs].
With that said, there are two ways to make a documentary film. There’s the gathering of the evidence, but you can do that without a formal plan. I mean, it doesn’t look like D. A. Pennebaker had much of a plan when he did the Dylan film [“Don’t Look Back”]. He went to London with Dylan, but he didn’t know what was gonna happen. He brought back the footage and put it all together.
Then there’s the other kind of documentary film, where it’s somewhat scripted to where you have an overall sense of where you’re going to go with it. So there are different ways to approach it, and each are equally acceptable.
But, in answer to your question, no. I never saw any kind of outline or plan, and certainly when I was putting it together, everything was open. I mean Paul and I literally invented scenes, based on the footage, or lack thereof. I’d say. “Look how these shots work together”, and he’d say, “Let’s add this”. So, yes, we collaborated at the beginning of the editing, but Paul was busy with other stuff, he was wanting to be an actor and had an agent and was going on these road trips with the Doors. He just had multiple things going on at the time.
“Jim was embracing everything about “Feast Of Friends”. He wouldn’t have made a good editor though, because he could find something to like in almost every shot”.
Did you ever get a sense of how the seeds of that film project were planted?
When it comes to “Feast Of Friends”, I think that Paul had kind of enthused the Doors into doing this project. It was Paul’s enthusiasm about it, and the fact that Ray and Jim were interested in film and had some money to do something about it. So Paul got to be the filmmaker and he brought me in to try and put it all together as a creative film editor.
Despite the randomness and incomplete footage you had to work with, there are some amazing scenes and sequences that were shot and put together. Can you go through any of the thought process that you went through during the editing?
Well, for instance, there’s the sequence for “Moonlight drive” which came about because I just loved how so many of the shots were in shadow, heavily shadowed with spotlights. So I began gathering all those types of images together from the various concerts and started putting it all together with the song, because we didn’t have a soundtrack.
What about Jim’s involvement in the project? Did he show much interest or get involved with the editing process?
Jim was embracing everything about “Feast Of Friends”. He was enthused about it, he was helpful and the enjoyed watching things when I was cutting it. He wouldn’t have made a good editor though, because he could find something to like in almost every shot. Like when we were working on “HWY”, it was hard to cut things out because he liked everything [laughs].
But Jim would see things that I didn’t see sometimes, and he’d point things out to me. He would make suggestions, especially when it came to the nuances of a song that was being used. Like with the “Moonlight Drive” sequences, he would say, “No, the rhythm of the song is too fast, you need speed up the images to match it”.
Did he come to me with full ideas for scenes or anything like that? No. But he did have a real interest in what I was doing and what the ultimate result was going to be. I also think his overview of the project itself was different than mine. I think his idea was that we would release this film and it would be shown at some film festivals and maybe on PBS, and that it would help promote the band, and Jim was definitely onboard with that.
[p. 7]
THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL
There seems to be this idea that “Feast Of Friends” had this huge budget behind it, but with the multi-camera set-up and sound recording that was involved with the Hollywood Bowl concert, one would think that maybe 70-75% of the entire project’s budget was blown on just that one single concert?
I think you’re about right, but I wouldn’t say “blown”. The Hollywood Bowl show was the only time we had sync-sound for the entire concert, because Elektra had the mobile recording truck there. Paul and I were the two main cameramen, and they hired three other people to shoot from three other cameras, one of which was a slo-mo camera.
One of those cameramen was Harrison Ford, right?
No, I seem to remember that he was involved, he might have been a film-loader, but not a cameraman.
The shoot at the Hollywood Bowl was a very stressful experience. We had to deal with the regulations of the Bowl in terms of filming. Elektra had their recording truck there to make sure all the sound was working, so I was pretty focused on what I needed to do which was to shoot 16mm film, and try to shoot a few stills which I also did.
My camera was the one right in front of the stage to Jim’s left. So much of what people have seen of that concert from my camera, all those close-up and profiles of Jim at the microphone. The big problem was that Paul’s camera wasn’t sync all the time, and he had the best vantage point. He was squarely in the front-center shooting straight down to the stage, so he could cover the whole stage. Whereas my job was to shoot Jim in medium close-up and follow him around, and shoot Ray and Robbie whenever I could. But Jim stayed at the microphone pretty much the whole time that night, so I didn’t have to try and follow him, except when he danced and I’d pull-out to a wide angle and try to keep him in view.
What did you think of their performance that night?
Do I think they gave a good performance that night? I have no idea, because I didn’t see it, ya know what I mean? I was so focused on what I was doing that the whole night was a blur. But that always happens, even when I’m just shooting stills at a concert, you’re so in the moment of what you’re doing, you can be oblivious to the bigger picture, so to speak.
“[“Feast Of Friends”] wasn’t a concert film and was never supposed to be. They were saying that the film was about “The Doors in America in the Sixties during the time of upheaval, revolution, war” and all that stuff. That’s what the film was supposed to be about”.
The major criticism about “Feast Of Friends” coming from a new generation of fans seems to center on the fact that, other than the Hollywood Bowl performance of “The End”, there were no full performances in the film…
Well, that’s because it wasn’t a concert film and was never supposed to be I remember talking to Ray and Paul –this is before Jim got involved at the editing stage- and they were saying that the film was about “The Doors in America in the Sixties during the time of upheaval, revolution, war”, and all that stuff. That’s what the film was supposed to be about.
And it starts out with the Hells Angels following this limousine with a long-haired guy inside of it who has the Hells Angels as bodyguards. He’s like a rebel leader in that sense, and then you have the limo arrive somewhere and a girl reaches in the window and grabs the crotch of this new leader. I mean the irony and the absurdity of that yuxtaposition of realities was very appealing to me [laughs].
But, look, I only had the footage to work with that I had to work with. I did put the voiceover of the guy talking about the Vietnam War during the scene where the band is on monorail. That was an attempt to put them in the midst of the Vietnam War, but I’m not sure that the people even got that, but that’s what that was about.
My thought was that it was the Doors in America in the Sixties, so that’s what I tried to do, but it reached a point where the Doors didn’t want to spend any money on the film, and then it came down to the producer’s bottom line, “try to put it together as soon as possible and we’re done”.
[p. 8]
“With “Feast Of Friends”, it was supposed to be a visual representation of the Doors that reflected the Doors music, which was anything but ordinary from a musical standpoint”.
Did you ever approach the band about trying to flesh out the film with additional footage?
Well, I put my ideas on the table, whether through talking with Ray or Jim or Paul, I think I even came up with the name of the film, “Feast Of Friends”.
But you have to realize that, at the time, these guys were the Number One band of America, they had other things on their mind. This film was a very, very small part of what was going with them. They didn’t have time to spend on this little film documentary film. I mean, Ray would pop in every now and then and look at a scene, but after the Hollywood Bowl was shot, I don’t think any cameras were turned on again.
What about the amount of footage that hasn’t been seen. Outside the fifteen-minute Hollywood Bowl performance of “The End” at the end of the film, that leaves about 30 minutes of footage that used. Any estimates on how much overall footage exists?
Other than the Hollywood Bowl footage, I would estimate that we used a ratio of about 8-to-1 or 10-to-1.
So maybe four hours of footage that wasn’t used at the time for “Feast”, but probably most of that footage has been re-purposed over the years, including actual scenes you cut for “Feast”…
I like that word, “re-purposed” [laughs]. I don’t know how much was used in those video projects. People have sent ‘em to me, but I don’t look at them. From what little I have seen there are definitely shots from “Feast Of Friends” and they are cut together in ways that don’t have any context.
Then again, Ray’s a better filmmaker than that, so I suppose if I were to sit down and look at those video projects without prejudice, I’d probably find them to have a little more coherence. I will say that, at one point in the past, I got a little pissed off about not getting credited for any of the work that I did or for the scenes that I had originally put together for “Feast” that were appearing in other videos without any credit to me.
“Jim stood there listening to us present our case, and told us to go ahead and complete the project. He would handle the others guys in the band”.
As for the film itself, what is your most objective take on “Feast of Friends”?
I haven’t seen it in at least a half-dozen years and it’s hard to take yourself totally out of the equation and look at it from a completely objective point of view. Surely, it could have been a better film. Certainly, it could have had a little bit more cohesion.
Then again with “Feast Of Friends”, we were trying to use new forms of filmmaking and that was certainly one of the reasons that we structured it without a beginning, middle and end. It was supposed to be a visual representation of the Doors in America in a way that reflected the Doors music, which was anything but ordinary from a musical standpoint.
Sure it could have been a better film if it had a bit more budget and if it had a little more organization and planning done at the beginning perhaps. But that’s all hindsight. Paul was carrying all the weight of that project on his shoulders until I came along and I think he was more than willing to pass some of that weight onto my shoulders. I think he needed someone else involved on a professional level.
By the time Jim got involved and showed an interest in the film and became somewhat protective of it, the guys in the band were seeing that they had spent $40.000 on it and decided they didn’t want to put any more money into it, and that was almost the end of the creative process, because they wanted to pull the plug and leave the film unfinished.
In the end, Paul and I went to Jim and asked that we be given enough money to finish the editing and do a sound mix and at least make a release point. I can remember that day as clearly as any from those days. Jim stood there listening to us present our case, and in the end told us to go ahead and complete the project. He would handle the others guys in the band.
Sticking with the film stuff for a minute, there are stories of Jim being courted by the Hollywood industry, but he torpedoed any chance of that by alienating producers, directors, agents and actors with a cocky attitude towards filmmaking that many Hollywood veterans felt he had yet to prove…
I just didn’t see that type of behavior from Jim in these situations. Jim was much more passive than actively hostile to people. So rather than become abusive or cop an attitude, he’d get drunk and screw it up that way. And that was his way of ducking out of situations that frustrated him.
I think he had a problem with authority and perhaps people with strong fathers do. That’s one of the things Jim and I had in common, we both had strong fathers. So we both shared this kind of “On The Road” attitude about authority figures.
[p. 9]
THE MORRISON FAMILY
Surely, as close as you two were, you both discussed your families. What did Jim ever say to you about his parents or his siblings?
He wouldn’t talk about it. He didn’t talk about his family. We knew that he had a family, we knew that his father was an admiral in the navy. He talked more about his brother and sister than he did about his mother and father. I really didn’t know much about either of his fathers, either Steve or Clara because he just didn’t talk about them.
He did talk about moving from place to place when he was growing up, but it was always more about his journey than his family. He never said anything like his parents were mean to him or they were strict with him or they beat him or anything like that. He did express a great deal of affection for both his sister and brother, but he just didn’t discuss his parents. He didn’t express any hostility about his parents either. He just didn’t talk about them.
Morrison Morsels…
What about Jim’s taste in music. Who were some of his favorite artists?
At parties, he would want people to put on either Elvis or the Beach Boys. Those were the two he always asked for, but he also really loved Miles Davis. He thought Miles Davis was far-out, genius dud who kept pushing the envelope and reinventing himself. And that was the period when Davis was doing albums like “Bitches Brew” [released in 1969]. I’m an enormous fan of Miles Davis’ Fifties stuff, like “Kind Of Blue”, but Jim was into Miles’s Sixties stuff in a big way.
Jim really did like jazz and talked fondly of it. We went to the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach to see some shows and he really appreciated the jazz acts there.
As for the more rocks acts, I remember this one time we were driving around and Dylan’s song “And Dogs Run Free” from his latest album, “New Morning”, came on. And it was funny that this amazingly abstract, jazzy song with almost spoken poetry was on the radio. I remember Jim smiling and saying, “Only Dylan could get that played on the radio”. The song is brilliant in some ways, and it’s ironic too; and Jim was honoring Dylan’s power as an artist that he could make something so out of the mainstream and still get it played on rock station.
Jim also really liked the Rolling Stones. He wasn’t really into the Beatles that much. He was more into bluesy style of the Stones than what the Beatles were doing. He never talked about either Pink Floyd or Zeppelin with me, and we talked about music all the time.
He did like Cream and we were all knocked out by “Disraeli Gears”. I don’t remember exactly what he said about it, but I do remember him making numerous remarks about how much he enjoyed that album.
But Jim really, really loved the Beach Boys, and he loved Elvis. We even went and saw Elvis in Miami during a break from Jim’s trial. It was Elvis during the dreadful period, ya know with the giant martian collars on those capes. We went to see the show we all enjoyed it immensely.
Maybe some people might find it strange that Jim was a huge Elvis and Beah Boys fan, but Jim heard something in their music that he enjoyed.
What about Jim saying that his parents were dead in that first press release? Why do you think he did that?
Based on what I know now, I think the situation with his parents was a complex one because by the time he had graduated from UCLA. I believe that he saw himself as an independent person. And because of that, he didn’t want their support, didn’t want their advice and didn’t want their help. But the problem is that everything Jim did, or her sister did, or his brother did, or his mother did, was reflected in his father’s service record. And Jim being considerate person that I knew him to be, I think him saying that his parents were dead might have been a way to distance himself –and even protected them- from his anti-authority, rock&roll fame.
Did Jim ever see his parents when you knew him?
As far as I know, from the time the Doors first played the London Fog to the time Jim died, he never saw either one of them. And I was with him in San Diego, near where his parents lived, a couple of times but he didn’t go to see them either of those times; it was just something that was off the agenda.
He had his own personal reasons, but I don’t think they necessarily had anything to do with hatred or disdain for them. From all the conversations that I had with Jim over the years when we were together, you would think that I would have come away with some sense of hostility towards his parents, if there was indeed some. But I never ever got that from him and I think it would have come up in some way, but it never did.
THE NEXT WHISKEY BAR
In terms of Jim’s childhood, there have been studies done about children who constantly move form place to place in their formative years which suggest that some of these people go on to create personality masks as a sort of defense mechanism to help combat the sorrow of continually leaving friends behind. Do you think that type of thing could explain the different versions of him that are described by different people?
Jim was a cahmaleon at times, but I think there were basically just two sides of Jim: the sober Jim and the drank Jim. I really think he was two people when you break it down like that, and most people outside of his circle of friends tended to see the Jim who was inebriated. It was rare for Jim to be onstage or in public places taking a drink.
And I know this for a fact, that Jim could get drunk on one or two drinks. But he would keep on drinking. He was an alcoholic, so he had an alcoholic personality and he had a sober personality. Looking back, I can only clearly see that he was two different people.
How did the “drunk Jim” tend to manifest himself?
When Babe and I were out with him and he was drunk, I could still see the sober Jim in there. But I also saw how he interacted with other people when he was drunk. I think he trusted Babe and I enough not to build a wall of hostility around himself; a wall that he did have in place for other people at times.
There was definitely another guy inside of him that came out sometimes when he was drunk, a guy who was very, very different from the sober guy. The sober Jim Morrison was such a appealing dude, and such a gentle and considerate person, that it was hard to believe that he could become somebody else when he drank.
However, you also have to understand that this “drunk Jim” wasn’t always this hostile guy. Sometimes he was absolutely hilariously funny when he drank, sometimes he was charming and witty, and he loved to play the fool for laughs at times. But there were others times, when he was drinking, where he could become really obnoxious and rowdy.
I’ve heard stories about things he did with other people, but it didn’t happen with his close friends. Maybe he was more comfortable with us, or… I don’t know why, I can only tell you what I witnessed and what I know first-hand from spending a lot of time with the guy over the last years of his life. There were times when I saw him get drunk and obnoxious, but a vast, vast majority of the time he was more playful and just social when he was drunk.
[p. 10]
“I just never felt that [Jim] was playing games with my head at all, I never once felt that way, I did see him manipulate or try a situation to screw with people. But then again, from my experience, these were usually people who had it coming.
Bill Siddons once told me that Jim loved to push people’s buttons. Were you ever on the receiving end of that?
I could be in complete denial about this, but I don’t remember him having a go at me like that. Maybe he did, but if he did I haven’t carried it around with me to cause to question our friendship. He seemed to have a respect that he extended to Kathy and I.
He even borrowed our line that he used at the end of one his songs, “Wild Child”: “remember when we were in Africa” [laughs]. We used to say that line all the time in conversations, “oh yeah, remember when we were in Africa”. I guess Jim heard it enough and liked it enough to give us a wink and put it in one of his songs.
But back to my promise here. Jim was a guy was two different people: one was a sober person and one was the drunk person. It would be impossible to be with Jim as I was and not see both sides of him. If you didn’t want to be with the drunk Jim, you would have to set your clock to certain hours of the day to be with him.
But just never felt that he was playing games with my head at all, never. I never once felt that way, but I did see him manipulate or try to use a situation with people: But then again, from my experience, these were usually people who had it coming [laughs].
Any people in particular?
People like Tom Baker, who was the biggest button-pusher of anyone. I ver met, including Jim. I mean Tom would provoke people in any situation at any time to try and get a rise out of them. I got along pretty good with Tom, but he was very obnoxious a lot of time. He would just keep pushing people’s buttons until he found the one that would trigger you to react, and he would do it with Morrison. And Jim would do it to him. I’m sure that Jim did that kind of thing to people like John Densmore too, because Densmore was an easy target for Jim. But it wasn’t his normal MO with people.
It’s a complicate thing to talk about, because I spent many a time with Jim where he would be the nicest guy in the world, whether we were with a bunch of college kids at a houseparty when we were in Atlanta, or when we had a dinner at Laurence Harvey’s house with the cream of the Hollywood elite; and us dressed up like hippies.
The other thing about being with Jim was that I was never his bodyguard or mother. I was a friend and an associate. My attitude was: if he gets into trouble, I’ll jump in and help him, but I wasn’t spending my time wondering what Jim was doing or keeping my eye on him. I was doing my own thing: meeting people, having interesting conversations, and doing what normal people do in social situations.
“Jim could turn the charm on and off. When he was drunk, he probably turned it on and off to a lesser degree, but he still could and did”.
When it comes to Jim’s drinking, I guess the difference is how that is depicted in the Stone movie or in various books. There seems to be a sensationalistic twist that comes from those presentations that makes one wonder how anyone could be friends with a person like that…
Jim is not a sympathetic character in the Stone film. He’s no a sympathetic character in the stupid Stephen Davis book, and he’s not a sympathetic character in “No One Here Gets Out Alive”.
Jim could turn the charm on and off, as most of us can. When he was drunk, he probably turned it on and off to a lesser degree, but he still could and did.
I just think alcoholics are too complex to really try and pin down; they’re too slippery. Anyone who engages in substance abuse spends a lot of time reconstructing reality for themselves, so how can you really know who a person really is when they’re always reconstructing their own reality.
I believe that a lot of the answers to the questions of who Jim was are contained in his poetry. But it’s hard to get a clear image through his poetry because there are always like three or four mirrors working. But there are some rather direct lines that he wrote as well, like “I drink so I can talk to assholes/This include me”.
A Conversation with Frank Lisciandro
By Steven P. Wheeler
[p. 1]
When it comes to the life of Jim Morrison, there are few people who are acknowledged as true friends of the man as The Lizard King. The three Doors have made their opinions known many times over the past 30 years through documentaries, interviews, and -in the cases of Ray Manzarek and John Densmore- through their own writings.
Yet outside the band’s immediate circle, the number of people who be called Jim’s close friends and confidants can be counted on one hand. Pamela Courson, Babe Hill and Frank Lisciandro are the best known; yet only one of them is available to talk about it. Pamela Courson died in 1974, a mere three years after Morrison; while Jim’s closest friend, Babe Hill, has rarely discussed Jim on the record over the years. Not to mention that his whereabouts today are nearly mysterious as Jim’s death 35 years ago.
Frank Lisciandro, on the other hand, has balanced his film and photography careers with helping Jim to achieve academic respectability as a poet and getting Morrison’s poetry into the mainstream marketplace. Lisciandro was not only instrumental in organizing and cataloguing all of Morrison’s poetry notebooks on behalf of the Estate, he was a driving force behind the release of two volumes of Morrison poetry to the public: “Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 1” in 1989 and “The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 2” in 1991.
And since the 1981 release of blockbuster biography, “No One Here Gets Out Alive” and the sensationalistic Oliver Stone film, “The Doors”, decade later, Lisciandro has found himself battling the purveyors of the seemingly endless string of Morrison Myths by balancing these hyped portrayals of his friend with modest, yet revealing projects of his own.
In answer to the Danny Sugerman/Jerry Hopkins book, which he refers to as “Nothing Here But Lots of Lies”, Lisciandro published the photo “An Hour For Magic” sharing many of his photos and revealing personal stories of his own first-hand experiences with Morrison.
With 1991’s “Morrison: A Feast of Friends”, Lisciandro countered Stone’s cinematic portait by interviewing Jim’s friends from all eras of his life (including Babe Hill) and allowed them to tell their own personal stories without the editorial slants by other Morrison authors.
Lisciandro’s works were the first to bring a more realistic and human side to the Morrison legacy; a portrait that is often at odds with the myths that have overflowed the public’s fountain of knowledge since July 3, 1971.
Throughout it all, Lisciandro is not blind to Morrison’s faults, noting that he “never tried to paint a halo on the guy”, but he has managed to bring Jim Morrison the Man a little further from the shadows. Still, one has to wonder if it’s even possible in this day and age to reveal the real Jim Morrison in the face of the mythological icon that has been created and sold time and time again over the past four decades through a labyrinth of rumors, speculation and distortion which too many unsuspecting fans are willing to accept as facts.
As Lisciandro noted in our earlier 1991 interview, “The stories that have been made up about Jim Morrison outweigh the facts by so much that I don’t know where to begin to mend the fabric of truth because its been so torn apart”.
Born and raised in New York, Frank Lisciandro discovered photography and journalism at young age, and would pursue those avenues in a variety of ways throughout his professional life.
After a stint studying photo-journalism at Michigan State caught the “wander-bug of youth” and took off to Europe with some kindred souls in 1961. It was during this period that Lisciandro began to look at his lifelong love of images and reporting in a different way, and discovered a new passion: filmmaking.
“It was that time in every young man’s life where searching for answers”, Lisciandro says about his year-long European sojourn. “So after returning to New York, I worked for about six months to get some money together and did my due diligence researching all the various film schools.
NYU had an excellent film school, but I wanted to get away from New York”, he says, before noting that he also visited Harvard and met controversial professor Timothy Leary. “I knew about psychedelics, but I hadn’t tried any myself. I was thinking that maybe Dr. Tim would make me one of his research subjects”. In the end, Lisciandro realized the Ivy League price tag was out of reach.
The remaining film school on his list was located at the University of California Los Angeles, more than a stone’s throw away for the Brooklyn-based Yankee fan, but the allure of sunny Southern California and the fact of his grandparents being there helped the decision-making process.
With that, Lisciandro headed west and began classes at the UCLA Film School in January of 1964. The exact same time as another anonymous transfer from Florida State University by the name of James Douglas Morrison.
“The stories that have been made up about Jim Morrison outweigh the facts by so much that I don’t know where to begin to mend the fabric of truth because it’s been so torn apart”
[p. 2]
Cullen from more than a dozen interview sessions that took place between August-November 2006, what follows is the most in depth and lengthy discussion of Jim Morrison that Frank Lisciandro has ever taken part in…
THE UCLA FILM SCHOOL
Let’s start things off at the UCLA campus back at the beginning of 1964 where you would first meet Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison. Back in those days, the UCLA Film School was supposedly more about experimental or avant-garde filmmaking versus the cross-town film school at USC, which was more about helping students learn the Hollywood philosophy and get them jobs in the feature-film industry. Is that an accurate description?
At UCLA, you weren’t discriminated against if you wanted to make Hollywood films. Although most of us didn’t like Hollywood films as much as we liked European films. There were some at UCLA who were into the “Wild Bunch” mentality –the Clint Eastwood shoot-em-up Westerns that were around at the time.
But there were a bunch of us –like Manzarek and I- who loved the Japanese films, the Italian films, and the French films that were coming out the late Fifties and early Sixties, and by the time we were at UCLA, these New Wave films were full flower.
We were all exciting about the future of film. It was truly a time of renaissance of form and format. But there were still people at UCLA who just wanted to make the traditional Hollywood kind of films whereas people like Manzarek, Jim and myself were caught up in the new wave of filmmaking. That doesn’t mean only the new wave of the European filmmakers, but the new wave that was beginning to happen in the States at that time. People like John Cassavettes were doing it breakthrough films like “Shadows” that was made before I went to UCLA. We were all very aware of all that and excited by the possibilities.
“People like Manzarek, Jim and myself were caught up in the new wave of filmmaking”
What about the experimental filmmakers. Was there a sizeable Godard influence at UCLA?
People like Jean-Luc Godard were as experimental as you could possibly be, but their way of doing experimental films was doing it within a theatrical film format. So they weren’t like the shorter experimental film coming out of America. Godard was experimenting with the very essences of what theatrical films were about, we were looking at that and saying “Whoa, he’s doing street photography with hand-head cameras, and he’s improvising and yet he’s using actors, and the stories and kind of cool, and look how he’s cutting this all together”.
We were thrilled by that. We wanted something different in film and this was about as different as you could get. So, yeah, we paid some mind to the experimental filmmakers. I first got into that back in the art house theatrers in New York, especially during my last year in high school when I used to hangout in Greewich Village and I used to see these weird, crazy experimental films.
Morrison Morsels…
How did Jim address his friends?
He used the first names of his friends; whether it was Frank, Babe, Paul, Ray, Robbie, John, Bill, Vince, Leon. But he would also say things like, “Well, you know, man”. I mean, “man” was used and overused during that era [laughs]. But, no, he didn’t use nicknames.
We called him “Jim”. I never ever heard anyone call him “Jimmy”, including during conversations I had with his sister and with Fud Ford who were closest to him when he was young. They never called him “Jimmy”, which just blows up another ridiculous repetition in the Stephen Davis book.
We sometimes called him “Jimbo”, but that was more of a term of friendly fun, rather than any sort of ridicule and it was used very sparingly. He called himself “James Douglas Morrison” on very rare occasions, but no one ever called him, “James”. We just called him “Jim” and he just called us by our first names.
How was the system set up at UCLA? Did the school encourage collaboration with fellow students or was it more about making your own films?
Within the school, we were always working on our projects, but we were talking film with each other. The emphasis of the school was not to do a collaborative project, but to do own project with the help of your classmates.
The most important part of the undergraduate program was the “Saturday Workshop Project” and you had to be there a year before you could get into it. You had to first through Editing 101, Writing 101, Cinematography 101, and the rest of the basics, and when you got all of through those done, you moved through the advanced Editing, Writing and Cinematography courses and if you got through those, you were ready for the Saturday Workshop, which was your first 16mm-sound production.
Funny thing was that it was money out of your pocket because you had to buy the film and have it processed yourself and, ironically, the University then owned your film. That actually ended up being a good preparation for what happens in the real world of filmmaking [laughs].
Since you and Jim arrived at the same time at UCLA, did you collaborate with Jim in the Saturday Workshop?
Jim was in the same Saturday Workshop class that I was, but we weren’t in the same section together. Oddly enough, I was in the same section as Warner Entner, who became a singer and songwriter with the Grass Roots.
Anyway, each class section had five or six people in it, and on each Saturday one of us would shoot our project which we would organize during the term and decide who would be the cameraman, who would do this and who would do that. So we would write these short films, direct them, produce them and edit them, and then present them at the end of the year. It was sort of like the “thesis” project for the undergraduates.
[p. 3]
You’ve talked about sharing a certain philosophy of film with Ray, did you know him well during that period?
I met Ray soon after classes at UCLA. I think that he had already been at UCLA for like six months or so, Ray did his Saturday Workshop a semester before me. He was older than most of the rest of us, he was a graduate student.
But, yeah, I got to know Ray and Dorothy very well and after my first semester at UCLA. I went back to New York and married with my high school sweetheart, Katherine [who would later become the Doors secretary], and brought her back with me to California. We found an apartment in Ocean Park about three or four blocks from where Ray and Dorothy were living.
We had other friends, but since Ray and I were both film school guys, and were a couple and they were a couple, we spent a lot of time together, and we became pretty good friends. We’d go see movies together, we’d have dinner at each other’s house, we’d goof around together. And during that time Ray was playing with Rick & The Ravens. So Katherine and I would go see them play; whether it was in Manhattan Beach or Santa Monica. We got to know Ray’s brothers, too. We were all friends. It was a really close relationship. I thought so anyway.
And Ray also did his Screaming Ray Daniels act, in which he just did a solo blues thing at clubs; which was good too. I mean, Ray’s an incredibly talented guy. He can play, he’s inventive, he knew the blues, he knew lots of different musical forms, he’s a smart guy and he was always entertaining. So we loved hanging out with him and Dorothy.
“During that time Ray was playing with Rick & The Ravens. So Katherine and I would go see them play. We were all friends. It was really close relationship… Ray’s an incredibly talented guy. So we loved hanging out with him and Dorothy”.
What about Jim? Were you close at that time?
I knew Jim a little bit, I knew a lot of the guys who Jim was around during that period, but a lot of those guys were single and liked to go to bars and drink a lot. At that time, I just didn’t have the time or the money to go to bars and drink a lot, and I was newly married. So I wasn’t really part of that crowd socially. There was John DeBella, Felix Venable, Phil Oleno. Those were the guys who were closest to Jim at that time of his life.
I did know Jim, because we had classes together and the classes weren’t that big; the entire film school was like 120 students. So Jim and I knew each other, because we came to UCLA and started at the same time. We took all our beginning classes together. We sat next to or near each other in class, and he was friends with Ray, so I’d see him over at Ray’s at times.
Ray and Dorothy were feeding Jim sometimes, so when Kathy and I would have dinner at their place, once in a while Jim would be there too. It was more of “hey, man, how are you doin’” kind of thing back then and we would talk about different stuff.
How would you describe Jim in those days?
Well, let’s be honest here, when you’re in a classroom, you’re not really focused on some guy in your class. Maybe you notice if a good-looking girl sits to you [laughs], but no, I didn’t go out of my way to see this Jim Morrison guy was up to, ya know?
But I had a handful of conversations with him either in class or around the campus. He seemed to me be rather quiet. He was very enigmatic in those days, I used to talk a lot about Zen Buddhism, psychedelic experiences, music, film, and photography. Whereas Jim was interested in things like Jungian psychology. I just wasn’t interested in that psychological and spiritual thing going on with Zen.
Our conversations were more like, “Did you see the Stones on Ed Sullivan last night? Yeah, man, weren’t they great?” Or “Did you go see the latest Godard film? Yeah, what do you think?”
So when it comes to Jim Morrison at UCLA and what he was really like, I’m not the guy to ask. I was too interested in trying to become a filmmaker and trying to keep up with the rest of the film students. I mean there were some amazingly talented people in that school. Plus, I was recently married, which was a whole new thing for me, and the war was going on and I was trying to figure out how to keep from being drafted, ya know. I didn’t have time to pay attention to Jim or anyone else besides Kathy and myself and our future plans together.
“I did feel really bad for Jim because his film kept breaking in the projector when he presented it… He couldn’t seem to splice two pieces of film together”
Based on what you observed of him at UCLA, what did you think of Jim as a potential filmmaker?
I was actually one of few people at the film school who thought his final project was brilliant; but then again I thought that everybody’s was good. I’m just one of those people who knows and appreciates how difficult filmmaking is, so when someone takes the time and effort to create and produce something like that, I have an appreciation for it. Needless to say, because of that, I may not be the most discerning critic [laughs].
I did feel really bad for Jim because his film kept breaking in the prjector when he presented it at the end of the year in the screening room. He had to keep going back to the editing room and repair the broken parts and bring it back and try again. The poor guy was just not lucky and he was not technically gifted. He couldn’t seem to splice two pieces of film together.
[p. 4]
What about his overall creative abilities…
Did I know that Jim was a creative guy? Yeah, I thought he was a creative guy, but I also thought he was a terrible film technician and he should have tried to overcome that, because that’s what you’re supposed to do in film school, team a craft as well as practice the art form.
He could have asked anybody there to help him. I thought somebody like Dennis Jakobs who had been at the film school for a thousand years, and was friends with Jim, could have helped him. I would have helped him if he asked me, Ray would have helped him, Paul Ferrara would have helped him. There was no reason why he couldn’t have asked someone to sit with him for a half-hour and show him how to do it properly. But as far I know, he never asked for help and no one did help him with the physical editing and it was a disaster.
But it was obvious to me that there was a brilliant eye there and possibly a unique and strong filmmaker based on what we did manage to see of his film. I can’t say that I really understood what he was trying to do with the concept of his student film, but I thought there was a brilliance and a uniqueness in his use of visuals.
During that time at UCLA, among the students, were the conversations always about film? Or were there other communal interests you all shared?
Aside from talking about film, we were also talking music because music was so important at that time, too. I mean Dylan went electric and then suddenly everyone went crazy. The Beatles were happening and the Stones were happening at the time. That was vital to us. Music and film were the common ground, not just for Ray and I, but all the students in the UCLA Film School.
I remember that the first Van Morrison album with Them [their 1965 self-titled a burn] knocked everybody right down to the ground. Nobody could get up from that one. And Ike & Tina Turner were really important and really hot act. It was obvious at that time that a transition was happening. Whether it was made by the Beatles or the Kinks or the Stones or Dylan, it didn’t matter. Music was just incredibly vital to all of us.
OPENING OF THE DOORS
Ironically, by 1965, Ray and Jim had formed a band of their own called the Doors. Were you around them at time?
That was a great summer. I was hanging out at the film school and I was hanging out with friends in Venice. Ray had a house there, so I’d go and watch them rehearse sometimes because we were still hanging around that summer.
And later I saw the Doors at their very first performance on the Sunset Strip. I think it was the early part of ’66. All of film students went to the London Fog on that first night.
“I saw the Doors at their very first performance on the Sunset Strip. I thought Jim was terrible. Shows you how much I know about discovering new talent”.
And what was your initial impression of them onstage?
Well, I thought Jim was terrible. For the most part, he was still pretty shy, so he kept his back to the audience, he really did. I just didn't think he could sing very well. Shows you how much I know about discovering new musical talent [laughs].
A few years later, after we became friends, I told Jim about my first impression of him at that first show, and I said, “I thought you were terrible that night”. I remember he gave me a look that seemed to suggest that he didn’t like the word “terrible” [laughs].
But then I told him he had improved tremendously and he was like a Frank Sinatra crooner who could also sing rock, and I asked him, “What changed?” He just said, “I just kept practicing and I kept practicing, practicing, practicing”. And obviously he had been doing something to improve. If you listen to their first demo and then their first album, there is such a difference and you can hear it. But they rehearsed a lot and they played a lot, too. I guess you can’t really help but improve if there’s the will and the talent, right?
But before the band became stars, you and Kathy went off to Africa with the Peace Corps, right?
Yeah, but before we went off to Africa, we spent four months in Peace Corps training, and by late ’66, we were back in New York for a few weeks before we would head off to Africa, and the Doors were playing at Ondine’s in New York City.
We invited Ray and Dorothy to have dinner with us at Kathy’s parents house and then we went with them to Manhattan and saw one of the shows at Ondine’s. And from what I saw that night, Jim had already improved a great deal. I could see that this was a whole lot better than what I saw at the London Fog.
Jim had the full-on rocker guy thing going, but you could tell that he had been drinking or he was on drugs or something, because he was kind of erratic at that performance. They put on a good show though and the audience seemed to like them, and we were delighted that we got to see them at a really nice club, and then we were off to Africa.
[p. 5]
Even though you saw the improvement in Jim’s performance that night, did you have any sense that he was soon going to be a superstar?
No! Not at all. But while we were in Africa, Ray sent us a press clipping about the band because we were corresponding with him while we were there. So we were kind of astounded to read this press clipping talking about their first album and “Light my fire” being a Number One hit. We couldn’t believe it.
I assume because of your friendship with Ray and Jim that you eventually became a big fan of the band though…
Well, let me say that I appreciated their music, but I was not a confirmed fan. I wasn’t secretive about it or anything. I was pretty open about Dylan being a demagogue to me, and that there were other bands and artists I was much more into. I liked a lot of the Doors’ music, but I just had different musical tastes.
When did you realize that the Doors had really broken through in a big way?
After a year in Africa, we were ready to come home. We went from Togo to France where we stayed for about a month before we came back to the States, I was looking for a job in the French film industry. And one day, we were walking down the Boul Mich and we saw the “Strange Days” album in a record store, must have been sometime in the later part of ’67. We were thrilled for them, especially for Ray, who we considered to be a close friend.
Anyway, we came back to California and found an apartment in Santa Monica, got in touch with Ray and Dorothy, and we went to see the Doors at The Shrine Auditorium must have been at the end of ’67- That might have been the first time I photographed the band onstage. I had my camera with me and started taking pictures. And that’s the first time that I saw that they were a big American band. They had top billing that night [over the Grateful Dead], and there was a light show going on and it was really cool.
Meanwhile, around that time, a friend of mine who was at the film school with me, Jim Kennedy had managed to get a job at a production company and he got me a job there, too.
“While we were in Africa, Ray sent us a press clipping about the band. We were kind of astounded to read about “Light my fire” being a Number One hit. We couldn’t believe it”.
FEAST OF FRIENDS
So you working as a film editor, but at what point did you get professionally involved with the Doors?
The first real job I had with them –the first real paying job with the Doors- was when Paul Ferrara asked me to be one of the camera operators at the Hollywood Bowl concert which was in July of 1968. Paul had been shooting stuff on tour for several months for what was to become the “Feast Of Friends” documentary, and the Hollywood Bowl concert was to be the culmination of all that.
Is that the beginning of how you ultimately got involved with that film?
I probably was the only guy that they knew from film school who was actually working in the film industry at that time. So they asked me to come down and look at all the footage, and asked me what I thought.
Then Ray asked me if I would consider editing it all, because that’s what I was that time; a film editor. I’m sure Paul could have done it, but Paul was busy shooting both stills and film for the band and he was busy with his acting career; so he was probably too busy to sit down and really focus on editing a documentary.
“[For “Feast Of Friends”], they shot all this footage, and they asked me to try putting it all together. What I ultimately had to work with was a very large collection of very dynamic images and scenes that didn’t seem to have any solid core or theme”.
What was your first reaction to all the footage that you were presented with? Was there any semblance of what they were wanting to do with it all?
They shot all this footage, but there was no form or rhyme or reason to it all. So they asked me to try putting it all together and I gave up my day-job to do it, because they had an enormous amount of footage to get through. And back then, you were dealing with 16mm film; so it was a very hands-on process that took hours and hours to do.
I just had to go through everything from scratch and organize it all, and find out where the negative was, then put together a work-print from the neg, and then things aren’t shot with a slate. You have to eyeball it and that took a tremendous amount of time in those days, even today, it takes time.
What we had was a lot of footage where Paul and Babe Hill were just shooting things. Paul knew what he was doing, he was really good at shooting, but they wouldn’t give him any money to hire anybody else and that’s how Babe got pulled into it, because he was Paul’s friend from high school.
So Paul showed Babe how to use the Niagra tape recorded and he went around collecting sound, sometimes it was synched, sometimes it wasn’t. What I ultimately had to work with was a very large and interesting collection of very dynamic images and scenes that didn’t seem to have any solid core or theme.
[p. 6]
But when you were brought into the project, they had to have given you some sort of overall philosophy or direction of what the resulting film was supposed to be, no?
It was supposedly a film about the Doors in America. I didn’t even have a title that time. They had a moviola machine for editing in the backroom of the Doors rehearsal studio, what would later became known as the Doors Workshop, wher Vince Treanor was busy making these monolithic sound systems by hand.
So they hired me to edit all the footage into something, and I was put on the Doors payroll and began working on “Feast Of Friends”, and it was at that time that I began doing more photography of them as well.
Was there room for you to do any photography, since Paul was already doing that for the Doors?
Paul was doing fabulous photography for the Doors, including the album cover “Waiting for the Sun”. Paul and I were friends from back at UCLA, and we were closer back then because in addition to the film school, we both took photography classes the Art Department at UCLA and were in the same class together for two semesters.
So I think Paul enjoyed having me there, because he knew me and I wasn’t someone from the outside, and he knew I could do what they needed me to do. He also knew that I could shoot film and photos, but maybe Paul was kind of protective of the “stills” stuff when I came to the Doors, because he knew that photography was my strong suit and he never really encouraged me to do any photography with the Doors if he was around [laughs].
Morrison Morsels…
What about sports? Was Jim a big sports fan?
Oh yeah. He was definitely into boxing; especially Muhammad Ali’s career. He thought there was something really special about Ali; we all did. We always tried to catch the heavyweight championship fights on the biggest screen we could find around town.
Jim followed football too. Babe was a big football fan, so that was just another thing those two had in common. I like football, but I’ve always been more of a baseball fan; Jim never showed much interest in baseball. He did follow football though and the Rams were a big favorite in L. A. back in those days.
Back to the “Feast Of Friends” documentary, so you’re saying that there was no outline or plan for the film when you began the editing process?
I never saw an outline, I never saw a plan, I never saw anything written down. If there was one, it was completely out the window by the time I came on the scene [laughs].
With that said, there are two ways to make a documentary film. There’s the gathering of the evidence, but you can do that without a formal plan. I mean, it doesn’t look like D. A. Pennebaker had much of a plan when he did the Dylan film [“Don’t Look Back”]. He went to London with Dylan, but he didn’t know what was gonna happen. He brought back the footage and put it all together.
Then there’s the other kind of documentary film, where it’s somewhat scripted to where you have an overall sense of where you’re going to go with it. So there are different ways to approach it, and each are equally acceptable.
But, in answer to your question, no. I never saw any kind of outline or plan, and certainly when I was putting it together, everything was open. I mean Paul and I literally invented scenes, based on the footage, or lack thereof. I’d say. “Look how these shots work together”, and he’d say, “Let’s add this”. So, yes, we collaborated at the beginning of the editing, but Paul was busy with other stuff, he was wanting to be an actor and had an agent and was going on these road trips with the Doors. He just had multiple things going on at the time.
“Jim was embracing everything about “Feast Of Friends”. He wouldn’t have made a good editor though, because he could find something to like in almost every shot”.
Did you ever get a sense of how the seeds of that film project were planted?
When it comes to “Feast Of Friends”, I think that Paul had kind of enthused the Doors into doing this project. It was Paul’s enthusiasm about it, and the fact that Ray and Jim were interested in film and had some money to do something about it. So Paul got to be the filmmaker and he brought me in to try and put it all together as a creative film editor.
Despite the randomness and incomplete footage you had to work with, there are some amazing scenes and sequences that were shot and put together. Can you go through any of the thought process that you went through during the editing?
Well, for instance, there’s the sequence for “Moonlight drive” which came about because I just loved how so many of the shots were in shadow, heavily shadowed with spotlights. So I began gathering all those types of images together from the various concerts and started putting it all together with the song, because we didn’t have a soundtrack.
What about Jim’s involvement in the project? Did he show much interest or get involved with the editing process?
Jim was embracing everything about “Feast Of Friends”. He was enthused about it, he was helpful and the enjoyed watching things when I was cutting it. He wouldn’t have made a good editor though, because he could find something to like in almost every shot. Like when we were working on “HWY”, it was hard to cut things out because he liked everything [laughs].
But Jim would see things that I didn’t see sometimes, and he’d point things out to me. He would make suggestions, especially when it came to the nuances of a song that was being used. Like with the “Moonlight Drive” sequences, he would say, “No, the rhythm of the song is too fast, you need speed up the images to match it”.
Did he come to me with full ideas for scenes or anything like that? No. But he did have a real interest in what I was doing and what the ultimate result was going to be. I also think his overview of the project itself was different than mine. I think his idea was that we would release this film and it would be shown at some film festivals and maybe on PBS, and that it would help promote the band, and Jim was definitely onboard with that.
[p. 7]
THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL
There seems to be this idea that “Feast Of Friends” had this huge budget behind it, but with the multi-camera set-up and sound recording that was involved with the Hollywood Bowl concert, one would think that maybe 70-75% of the entire project’s budget was blown on just that one single concert?
I think you’re about right, but I wouldn’t say “blown”. The Hollywood Bowl show was the only time we had sync-sound for the entire concert, because Elektra had the mobile recording truck there. Paul and I were the two main cameramen, and they hired three other people to shoot from three other cameras, one of which was a slo-mo camera.
One of those cameramen was Harrison Ford, right?
No, I seem to remember that he was involved, he might have been a film-loader, but not a cameraman.
The shoot at the Hollywood Bowl was a very stressful experience. We had to deal with the regulations of the Bowl in terms of filming. Elektra had their recording truck there to make sure all the sound was working, so I was pretty focused on what I needed to do which was to shoot 16mm film, and try to shoot a few stills which I also did.
My camera was the one right in front of the stage to Jim’s left. So much of what people have seen of that concert from my camera, all those close-up and profiles of Jim at the microphone. The big problem was that Paul’s camera wasn’t sync all the time, and he had the best vantage point. He was squarely in the front-center shooting straight down to the stage, so he could cover the whole stage. Whereas my job was to shoot Jim in medium close-up and follow him around, and shoot Ray and Robbie whenever I could. But Jim stayed at the microphone pretty much the whole time that night, so I didn’t have to try and follow him, except when he danced and I’d pull-out to a wide angle and try to keep him in view.
What did you think of their performance that night?
Do I think they gave a good performance that night? I have no idea, because I didn’t see it, ya know what I mean? I was so focused on what I was doing that the whole night was a blur. But that always happens, even when I’m just shooting stills at a concert, you’re so in the moment of what you’re doing, you can be oblivious to the bigger picture, so to speak.
“[“Feast Of Friends”] wasn’t a concert film and was never supposed to be. They were saying that the film was about “The Doors in America in the Sixties during the time of upheaval, revolution, war” and all that stuff. That’s what the film was supposed to be about”.
The major criticism about “Feast Of Friends” coming from a new generation of fans seems to center on the fact that, other than the Hollywood Bowl performance of “The End”, there were no full performances in the film…
Well, that’s because it wasn’t a concert film and was never supposed to be I remember talking to Ray and Paul –this is before Jim got involved at the editing stage- and they were saying that the film was about “The Doors in America in the Sixties during the time of upheaval, revolution, war”, and all that stuff. That’s what the film was supposed to be about.
And it starts out with the Hells Angels following this limousine with a long-haired guy inside of it who has the Hells Angels as bodyguards. He’s like a rebel leader in that sense, and then you have the limo arrive somewhere and a girl reaches in the window and grabs the crotch of this new leader. I mean the irony and the absurdity of that yuxtaposition of realities was very appealing to me [laughs].
But, look, I only had the footage to work with that I had to work with. I did put the voiceover of the guy talking about the Vietnam War during the scene where the band is on monorail. That was an attempt to put them in the midst of the Vietnam War, but I’m not sure that the people even got that, but that’s what that was about.
My thought was that it was the Doors in America in the Sixties, so that’s what I tried to do, but it reached a point where the Doors didn’t want to spend any money on the film, and then it came down to the producer’s bottom line, “try to put it together as soon as possible and we’re done”.
[p. 8]
“With “Feast Of Friends”, it was supposed to be a visual representation of the Doors that reflected the Doors music, which was anything but ordinary from a musical standpoint”.
Did you ever approach the band about trying to flesh out the film with additional footage?
Well, I put my ideas on the table, whether through talking with Ray or Jim or Paul, I think I even came up with the name of the film, “Feast Of Friends”.
But you have to realize that, at the time, these guys were the Number One band of America, they had other things on their mind. This film was a very, very small part of what was going with them. They didn’t have time to spend on this little film documentary film. I mean, Ray would pop in every now and then and look at a scene, but after the Hollywood Bowl was shot, I don’t think any cameras were turned on again.
What about the amount of footage that hasn’t been seen. Outside the fifteen-minute Hollywood Bowl performance of “The End” at the end of the film, that leaves about 30 minutes of footage that used. Any estimates on how much overall footage exists?
Other than the Hollywood Bowl footage, I would estimate that we used a ratio of about 8-to-1 or 10-to-1.
So maybe four hours of footage that wasn’t used at the time for “Feast”, but probably most of that footage has been re-purposed over the years, including actual scenes you cut for “Feast”…
I like that word, “re-purposed” [laughs]. I don’t know how much was used in those video projects. People have sent ‘em to me, but I don’t look at them. From what little I have seen there are definitely shots from “Feast Of Friends” and they are cut together in ways that don’t have any context.
Then again, Ray’s a better filmmaker than that, so I suppose if I were to sit down and look at those video projects without prejudice, I’d probably find them to have a little more coherence. I will say that, at one point in the past, I got a little pissed off about not getting credited for any of the work that I did or for the scenes that I had originally put together for “Feast” that were appearing in other videos without any credit to me.
“Jim stood there listening to us present our case, and told us to go ahead and complete the project. He would handle the others guys in the band”.
As for the film itself, what is your most objective take on “Feast of Friends”?
I haven’t seen it in at least a half-dozen years and it’s hard to take yourself totally out of the equation and look at it from a completely objective point of view. Surely, it could have been a better film. Certainly, it could have had a little bit more cohesion.
Then again with “Feast Of Friends”, we were trying to use new forms of filmmaking and that was certainly one of the reasons that we structured it without a beginning, middle and end. It was supposed to be a visual representation of the Doors in America in a way that reflected the Doors music, which was anything but ordinary from a musical standpoint.
Sure it could have been a better film if it had a bit more budget and if it had a little more organization and planning done at the beginning perhaps. But that’s all hindsight. Paul was carrying all the weight of that project on his shoulders until I came along and I think he was more than willing to pass some of that weight onto my shoulders. I think he needed someone else involved on a professional level.
By the time Jim got involved and showed an interest in the film and became somewhat protective of it, the guys in the band were seeing that they had spent $40.000 on it and decided they didn’t want to put any more money into it, and that was almost the end of the creative process, because they wanted to pull the plug and leave the film unfinished.
In the end, Paul and I went to Jim and asked that we be given enough money to finish the editing and do a sound mix and at least make a release point. I can remember that day as clearly as any from those days. Jim stood there listening to us present our case, and in the end told us to go ahead and complete the project. He would handle the others guys in the band.
Sticking with the film stuff for a minute, there are stories of Jim being courted by the Hollywood industry, but he torpedoed any chance of that by alienating producers, directors, agents and actors with a cocky attitude towards filmmaking that many Hollywood veterans felt he had yet to prove…
I just didn’t see that type of behavior from Jim in these situations. Jim was much more passive than actively hostile to people. So rather than become abusive or cop an attitude, he’d get drunk and screw it up that way. And that was his way of ducking out of situations that frustrated him.
I think he had a problem with authority and perhaps people with strong fathers do. That’s one of the things Jim and I had in common, we both had strong fathers. So we both shared this kind of “On The Road” attitude about authority figures.
[p. 9]
THE MORRISON FAMILY
Surely, as close as you two were, you both discussed your families. What did Jim ever say to you about his parents or his siblings?
He wouldn’t talk about it. He didn’t talk about his family. We knew that he had a family, we knew that his father was an admiral in the navy. He talked more about his brother and sister than he did about his mother and father. I really didn’t know much about either of his fathers, either Steve or Clara because he just didn’t talk about them.
He did talk about moving from place to place when he was growing up, but it was always more about his journey than his family. He never said anything like his parents were mean to him or they were strict with him or they beat him or anything like that. He did express a great deal of affection for both his sister and brother, but he just didn’t discuss his parents. He didn’t express any hostility about his parents either. He just didn’t talk about them.
Morrison Morsels…
What about Jim’s taste in music. Who were some of his favorite artists?
At parties, he would want people to put on either Elvis or the Beach Boys. Those were the two he always asked for, but he also really loved Miles Davis. He thought Miles Davis was far-out, genius dud who kept pushing the envelope and reinventing himself. And that was the period when Davis was doing albums like “Bitches Brew” [released in 1969]. I’m an enormous fan of Miles Davis’ Fifties stuff, like “Kind Of Blue”, but Jim was into Miles’s Sixties stuff in a big way.
Jim really did like jazz and talked fondly of it. We went to the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach to see some shows and he really appreciated the jazz acts there.
As for the more rocks acts, I remember this one time we were driving around and Dylan’s song “And Dogs Run Free” from his latest album, “New Morning”, came on. And it was funny that this amazingly abstract, jazzy song with almost spoken poetry was on the radio. I remember Jim smiling and saying, “Only Dylan could get that played on the radio”. The song is brilliant in some ways, and it’s ironic too; and Jim was honoring Dylan’s power as an artist that he could make something so out of the mainstream and still get it played on rock station.
Jim also really liked the Rolling Stones. He wasn’t really into the Beatles that much. He was more into bluesy style of the Stones than what the Beatles were doing. He never talked about either Pink Floyd or Zeppelin with me, and we talked about music all the time.
He did like Cream and we were all knocked out by “Disraeli Gears”. I don’t remember exactly what he said about it, but I do remember him making numerous remarks about how much he enjoyed that album.
But Jim really, really loved the Beach Boys, and he loved Elvis. We even went and saw Elvis in Miami during a break from Jim’s trial. It was Elvis during the dreadful period, ya know with the giant martian collars on those capes. We went to see the show we all enjoyed it immensely.
Maybe some people might find it strange that Jim was a huge Elvis and Beah Boys fan, but Jim heard something in their music that he enjoyed.
What about Jim saying that his parents were dead in that first press release? Why do you think he did that?
Based on what I know now, I think the situation with his parents was a complex one because by the time he had graduated from UCLA. I believe that he saw himself as an independent person. And because of that, he didn’t want their support, didn’t want their advice and didn’t want their help. But the problem is that everything Jim did, or her sister did, or his brother did, or his mother did, was reflected in his father’s service record. And Jim being considerate person that I knew him to be, I think him saying that his parents were dead might have been a way to distance himself –and even protected them- from his anti-authority, rock&roll fame.
Did Jim ever see his parents when you knew him?
As far as I know, from the time the Doors first played the London Fog to the time Jim died, he never saw either one of them. And I was with him in San Diego, near where his parents lived, a couple of times but he didn’t go to see them either of those times; it was just something that was off the agenda.
He had his own personal reasons, but I don’t think they necessarily had anything to do with hatred or disdain for them. From all the conversations that I had with Jim over the years when we were together, you would think that I would have come away with some sense of hostility towards his parents, if there was indeed some. But I never ever got that from him and I think it would have come up in some way, but it never did.
THE NEXT WHISKEY BAR
In terms of Jim’s childhood, there have been studies done about children who constantly move form place to place in their formative years which suggest that some of these people go on to create personality masks as a sort of defense mechanism to help combat the sorrow of continually leaving friends behind. Do you think that type of thing could explain the different versions of him that are described by different people?
Jim was a cahmaleon at times, but I think there were basically just two sides of Jim: the sober Jim and the drank Jim. I really think he was two people when you break it down like that, and most people outside of his circle of friends tended to see the Jim who was inebriated. It was rare for Jim to be onstage or in public places taking a drink.
And I know this for a fact, that Jim could get drunk on one or two drinks. But he would keep on drinking. He was an alcoholic, so he had an alcoholic personality and he had a sober personality. Looking back, I can only clearly see that he was two different people.
How did the “drunk Jim” tend to manifest himself?
When Babe and I were out with him and he was drunk, I could still see the sober Jim in there. But I also saw how he interacted with other people when he was drunk. I think he trusted Babe and I enough not to build a wall of hostility around himself; a wall that he did have in place for other people at times.
There was definitely another guy inside of him that came out sometimes when he was drunk, a guy who was very, very different from the sober guy. The sober Jim Morrison was such a appealing dude, and such a gentle and considerate person, that it was hard to believe that he could become somebody else when he drank.
However, you also have to understand that this “drunk Jim” wasn’t always this hostile guy. Sometimes he was absolutely hilariously funny when he drank, sometimes he was charming and witty, and he loved to play the fool for laughs at times. But there were others times, when he was drinking, where he could become really obnoxious and rowdy.
I’ve heard stories about things he did with other people, but it didn’t happen with his close friends. Maybe he was more comfortable with us, or… I don’t know why, I can only tell you what I witnessed and what I know first-hand from spending a lot of time with the guy over the last years of his life. There were times when I saw him get drunk and obnoxious, but a vast, vast majority of the time he was more playful and just social when he was drunk.
[p. 10]
“I just never felt that [Jim] was playing games with my head at all, I never once felt that way, I did see him manipulate or try a situation to screw with people. But then again, from my experience, these were usually people who had it coming.
Bill Siddons once told me that Jim loved to push people’s buttons. Were you ever on the receiving end of that?
I could be in complete denial about this, but I don’t remember him having a go at me like that. Maybe he did, but if he did I haven’t carried it around with me to cause to question our friendship. He seemed to have a respect that he extended to Kathy and I.
He even borrowed our line that he used at the end of one his songs, “Wild Child”: “remember when we were in Africa” [laughs]. We used to say that line all the time in conversations, “oh yeah, remember when we were in Africa”. I guess Jim heard it enough and liked it enough to give us a wink and put it in one of his songs.
But back to my promise here. Jim was a guy was two different people: one was a sober person and one was the drunk person. It would be impossible to be with Jim as I was and not see both sides of him. If you didn’t want to be with the drunk Jim, you would have to set your clock to certain hours of the day to be with him.
But just never felt that he was playing games with my head at all, never. I never once felt that way, but I did see him manipulate or try to use a situation with people: But then again, from my experience, these were usually people who had it coming [laughs].
Any people in particular?
People like Tom Baker, who was the biggest button-pusher of anyone. I ver met, including Jim. I mean Tom would provoke people in any situation at any time to try and get a rise out of them. I got along pretty good with Tom, but he was very obnoxious a lot of time. He would just keep pushing people’s buttons until he found the one that would trigger you to react, and he would do it with Morrison. And Jim would do it to him. I’m sure that Jim did that kind of thing to people like John Densmore too, because Densmore was an easy target for Jim. But it wasn’t his normal MO with people.
It’s a complicate thing to talk about, because I spent many a time with Jim where he would be the nicest guy in the world, whether we were with a bunch of college kids at a houseparty when we were in Atlanta, or when we had a dinner at Laurence Harvey’s house with the cream of the Hollywood elite; and us dressed up like hippies.
The other thing about being with Jim was that I was never his bodyguard or mother. I was a friend and an associate. My attitude was: if he gets into trouble, I’ll jump in and help him, but I wasn’t spending my time wondering what Jim was doing or keeping my eye on him. I was doing my own thing: meeting people, having interesting conversations, and doing what normal people do in social situations.
“Jim could turn the charm on and off. When he was drunk, he probably turned it on and off to a lesser degree, but he still could and did”.
When it comes to Jim’s drinking, I guess the difference is how that is depicted in the Stone movie or in various books. There seems to be a sensationalistic twist that comes from those presentations that makes one wonder how anyone could be friends with a person like that…
Jim is not a sympathetic character in the Stone film. He’s no a sympathetic character in the stupid Stephen Davis book, and he’s not a sympathetic character in “No One Here Gets Out Alive”.
Jim could turn the charm on and off, as most of us can. When he was drunk, he probably turned it on and off to a lesser degree, but he still could and did.
I just think alcoholics are too complex to really try and pin down; they’re too slippery. Anyone who engages in substance abuse spends a lot of time reconstructing reality for themselves, so how can you really know who a person really is when they’re always reconstructing their own reality.
I believe that a lot of the answers to the questions of who Jim was are contained in his poetry. But it’s hard to get a clear image through his poetry because there are always like three or four mirrors working. But there are some rather direct lines that he wrote as well, like “I drink so I can talk to assholes/This include me”.
