Post by kristyob on May 12, 2011 19:06:12 GMT
Here is the recent interview I did with Paul. Thanks to Alex for inspiring some great questions (which unfortunately Paul didn't know the answer to) and helping with research (which was greatly aided by Darkstar's database!!)
1. In your book, you wrote that “we often thought Felix knew which way to go but it proved to be wrong many times and we had to learn to listen to ourselves.” What kind of things did he profess to know about life that ended up being wrong?
Felix was a drug using alcoholic and it looked attractive for awhile. He also was very well read and that attracted Jim as well as others. He was older than the rest of us and some followed because of it. But in the end he died of liver damage at a young age.
2. How did LSD change Jim’s personality?
We were all people that had been beyond everyday consciousness; we all changed at roughly the same time. It was like a pact or being part of a secret experiment. We became Huxley, Blake, Rimbaud, Kodak, Truffaut, and stoned immaculate all at the same time. The future was not important. It was a fun experiment.
3. Do you still believe LSD is a viable gateway to a spiritual understanding?
I don’t think it leads to spiritual understanding. It just opens up the horizon and the mind to the possibilities that may exist, spiritual or otherwise.
4. Did Jim take film and school seriously?
There were two sides to film school, one was the technical side and the other was the aesthetic side. Jim was heavy into the text, the visual experience. The technical side was not his strong suit.
5. Mary Werbelow is described in your book as being a somewhat strange person. Have you read the interview done with her a few years ago by the Saint Petersburg Times and if so, what do you think about it?
I thought it was a miracle that anyone got her to tell her story. It is the truth according to what I know. I made contact with her when I was writing my book and went to see her a few times. I don’t think she was happy with my first draft of my book that I let her read. I haven’t seen her for a few years.
6. When did Jim break up with her? Was it right before he spent the famed summer on the rooftop?
I think Jim started breaking up with her soon after film school began …I think when he started be a singer in a rock band she gave him some kind of ultimatum about his wild dream and he chose music.
7. Mary says that she always intended to get back with Jim, she just needed to find her own identity first. But you shared a story of Jim, years later, refusing to send her money while she was in India. Would you say it was true that she broke his heart and that pain inspired him to write the songs on the rooftop?
I think it is fair to assume his relationship with Mary along with other pain that he had met, inspired him to write. I think it is true with all writers. They draw on the life around them to create. One line sticks out in “The End” – ‘you’ll never follow me’. I think he had understood her search for her own identity.
8. Ray and Robbie claim that Jim was impatient for fame; that it never came soon enough for him. Was there ever a point when he was satisfied and happy to be well known?
I think the moment of enjoyment was fast compared to the beginning and the end which went on and on. First the starving and hard work, then at the end the alcoholism and the trial. In between the Flash of Eden. He was smothered with affection and sex. He was very popular and that was reassuring to someone who just learned to sing.
9. What did fame mean to him and when did it stop becoming fun for him?
When he was expected to create the same magic over and over, getting more drunk and crazy at the same time. I think he finally understood that he was imitating himself. The audience wanted him to go insane every night he performed.
10. Almost no one around Jim got his drinking (as you explained in ‘Flash of Eden’) as a quest to get to the core of the unconscious mind. It was ‘infringing on their music and business life’. Would you say this was true from the very beginning or only when The Doors started to make money and become public figures?
Jim didn’t drink in the beginning. The Doors first managers Asher and Dan accompanied Jim before the concerts and I think they taught him how to drink to calm himself down before the shows. Toward the end of the Doors’ lifetime Jim had become an alcoholic and this caused him to infringe on everything.
11. Was Morrison a spiritual person? Where did he find inspiration?
I would say he was less spiritual than he was a dark poet willing to find the church of his soul on his own.
12. Do you think he really considered himself a shaman?
No I don’t think he thought about it as much as he just lived it.
1. In your book, you wrote that “we often thought Felix knew which way to go but it proved to be wrong many times and we had to learn to listen to ourselves.” What kind of things did he profess to know about life that ended up being wrong?
Felix was a drug using alcoholic and it looked attractive for awhile. He also was very well read and that attracted Jim as well as others. He was older than the rest of us and some followed because of it. But in the end he died of liver damage at a young age.
2. How did LSD change Jim’s personality?
We were all people that had been beyond everyday consciousness; we all changed at roughly the same time. It was like a pact or being part of a secret experiment. We became Huxley, Blake, Rimbaud, Kodak, Truffaut, and stoned immaculate all at the same time. The future was not important. It was a fun experiment.
3. Do you still believe LSD is a viable gateway to a spiritual understanding?
I don’t think it leads to spiritual understanding. It just opens up the horizon and the mind to the possibilities that may exist, spiritual or otherwise.
4. Did Jim take film and school seriously?
There were two sides to film school, one was the technical side and the other was the aesthetic side. Jim was heavy into the text, the visual experience. The technical side was not his strong suit.
5. Mary Werbelow is described in your book as being a somewhat strange person. Have you read the interview done with her a few years ago by the Saint Petersburg Times and if so, what do you think about it?
I thought it was a miracle that anyone got her to tell her story. It is the truth according to what I know. I made contact with her when I was writing my book and went to see her a few times. I don’t think she was happy with my first draft of my book that I let her read. I haven’t seen her for a few years.
6. When did Jim break up with her? Was it right before he spent the famed summer on the rooftop?
I think Jim started breaking up with her soon after film school began …I think when he started be a singer in a rock band she gave him some kind of ultimatum about his wild dream and he chose music.
7. Mary says that she always intended to get back with Jim, she just needed to find her own identity first. But you shared a story of Jim, years later, refusing to send her money while she was in India. Would you say it was true that she broke his heart and that pain inspired him to write the songs on the rooftop?
I think it is fair to assume his relationship with Mary along with other pain that he had met, inspired him to write. I think it is true with all writers. They draw on the life around them to create. One line sticks out in “The End” – ‘you’ll never follow me’. I think he had understood her search for her own identity.
8. Ray and Robbie claim that Jim was impatient for fame; that it never came soon enough for him. Was there ever a point when he was satisfied and happy to be well known?
I think the moment of enjoyment was fast compared to the beginning and the end which went on and on. First the starving and hard work, then at the end the alcoholism and the trial. In between the Flash of Eden. He was smothered with affection and sex. He was very popular and that was reassuring to someone who just learned to sing.
9. What did fame mean to him and when did it stop becoming fun for him?
When he was expected to create the same magic over and over, getting more drunk and crazy at the same time. I think he finally understood that he was imitating himself. The audience wanted him to go insane every night he performed.
10. Almost no one around Jim got his drinking (as you explained in ‘Flash of Eden’) as a quest to get to the core of the unconscious mind. It was ‘infringing on their music and business life’. Would you say this was true from the very beginning or only when The Doors started to make money and become public figures?
Jim didn’t drink in the beginning. The Doors first managers Asher and Dan accompanied Jim before the concerts and I think they taught him how to drink to calm himself down before the shows. Toward the end of the Doors’ lifetime Jim had become an alcoholic and this caused him to infringe on everything.
11. Was Morrison a spiritual person? Where did he find inspiration?
I would say he was less spiritual than he was a dark poet willing to find the church of his soul on his own.
12. Do you think he really considered himself a shaman?
No I don’t think he thought about it as much as he just lived it.