Post by darkstar3 on Jul 3, 2011 12:05:07 GMT
Tallahassee Democrat News
By Mark Hinson, Democrat Senior Writer
July 3 2011 2:00AM
Mark Hinson: What would have happened if the Lizard King had lived?
Rock singer Jim Morrison died 40 years ago today in Paris, France.
Or did he?
Some fans still believe that Morrison — a Florida boy, former Florida State University student, lead singer for The Doors, self-appointed Lizard King, puffed-up poet, one-time fugitive from Sunshine State justice — faked his death in 1971 so he could escape the hassles of fame. You know, because riches and privilege are such a drag. Plus, there is just no way Morrison, who was the cursed rock-star age of 27 when he hit Paris, could have died after a bender that included enough beer, hard liquor and heroin to kill a rugby team of Rasputins.
Morrison was back in the news in December when Florida's exquisitely tanned Gov. Charlie Crist issued a posthumous pardon for the singer. The pardon arrived 40 years after Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure following a boozy and profanity-spewing Doors concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami.
If Gov. Rick Scott had been in office when the pardon was handed down, do you think Morrison would have been exhumed and given a drug test before he was cleared?
During Morrison's school days around Tallahassee in 1962 and 1963, he was a pretty decent student who got mostly A's and B's in theater and psychology. He also appeared in a student production of Harold Pinter's dark play "The Dumbwaiter" and acted in a canned promotional film for FSU.
According to the book "Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison," Morrison roomed with five fellow students in a house near the FSU campus at Palm Court off Macomb Street. The roomies booted Morrison out after one term because he was too loud and too much of a hell-raiser. The San Francisco classical pianist Daniell Revenaugh, who owns rental property in Tallahassee, said he still has the front door from that old house. It's the Doors' door — get it?
"(Morrison) hung around with a bohemian crowd — people who liked to wear pants with holes in them. Jim posed as a model for the art department, and they would all sell blood to the Red Cross to get a few bucks," Morrison classmate Gerry McClain said in an interview with the "American Legends" website. "Once, I saw Jim go around the college coffee shop eating scraps off tables. I felt he and the others were living an image (of) the starving young artist."
The future crooner of "Horse Latitudes" and "Crawling King Snake" also liked to taunt the campus jocks. Morrison got arrested on Sept. 28, 1963 — and had his iconic Tallahassee mug shot taken — after he allegedly got blotto at an FSU football game, jeered at the players, mocked fans, stole an umbrella and swiped a police helmet from a parked cruiser. Go 'Noles!
The charges were eventually dropped and Morrison headed off to UCLA, Los Angeles and rock superstardom. No word whether Morrison returned the bumbershoot to its rightful owner, though it may be one of the reasons that umbrellas are still not permitted inside Doak Campbell Stadium on game days.
Home, Mr. Mojo
These days, Morrison remains a popular draw.
His grave in Division 6 of Pere-Lachaise Cemetery is one of the top (and unofficial) tourist attractions in Paris. The Lizard King began his dirt nap alongside other famous folks such as warbling French icon Edith Piaf, long-winded scribbler Marcel Proust, Karl Marx's suicidal daughter, one-legged actress Sarah Bernhardt and snarky ol' Oscar Wilde.
As soon as he was put in the ground, Doors fans from around the world began showing up at his final resting place to party like rock stars. The mourners smoked dope, drank liquor, left awful poetry, scrawled graffiti all over the place and, in 1990, stole the headstone that was carved to look like Morrison. Even in death, the Lizard King was a rowdy neighbor but, this time around, his roommates can't take a vote and kick him out.
Every year or two, an Internet rumor circulates saying the French officials have had enough. They are going to evict Monsieur Morrison from Pere-Lachaise. Dig him up, and ship him home. Au revoir, le Roi Lee-zard.
Heck, they should uproot and re-bury our wayward Florida native down at Doak Campbell Stadium next to the Bobby Bowden colossus. Imagine the tourist dollars the shrine would attract. And who wouldn't want to buy a collectible Lizard King key chain or a T-shirt that reads: "We're Off To See The Lizard (King)"?
Newsweek recently speculated what would have happened if Princess Diana, who would have turned 50 this month, had not met her maker in Paris, too. The magazine used computers to concoct a creepy photo of Princess Di and new Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton, her future daughter-in-law, walking side by side while wearing some very stylish outfits.
Using Newsweek as inspiration and an excuse to play the "what if?" game, here's what might have happened if Morrison had not died in France while he wasn't wearing any pants:
1972: A sheepish Morrison re-emerges in his home state of Florida. During a press conference, he apologizes for all the fuss but adds, "The dead Indian who jumped into my soul when I was a kid on vacation in New Mexico really wanted to go check out the cave paintings at the Lascaux Caves in the south of France. And when he makes up his mind about something, you can't talk him out of it."
1973: Morrison is sentenced to a year in jail in Dade County over the whole Dinner Key concert fiasco. After two months, he is pardoned by Gov. Reubin Askew. The governor quips, "I think he learned his lesson, but I'm still not going to pardon him for 'The Soft Parade.' That album was lame-o." The jail stint produces a poetry book titled "Weird Scenes Inside The Mess Hall Line." Sample: "An angel runs/Thru the sudden light/Screaming aloud/"Not Shepherd's Pie again tonight!"
1975: After years of refusing to license The Doors' music for TV commercials, Morrison shocks fans by becoming the spokesman for the Morrison Cafeterias chain. A bloated Morrison even agrees to TV spots showing the singer belting "Hello, I Love You" to a slice of pecan pie.
1976: The disco craze finds Morrison re-recording "The End" with Stars on 45, a novelty disco group from the Netherlands. Morrison spices up the lyrics thusly: "The killer awoke before dawn, he put his disco boots on/He took a face from the ancient gallery/And he boogie-oogie-oogied on down the hall."
1985: Morrison turns down the role of Dr. Emmett Brown in the runaway hit "Back to the Future." The part memorably goes to Christopher Lloyd. "I didn't want people to think I was a weirdo," Morrison tells friends.
1991: After watching Oliver Stone's biopic "The Doors," Morrison asks, "Did I really ruin Thanksgiving every year?"
1993: During The Doors' induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Morrison repeatedly refers to keyboardist Ray Manzarek as Ray Milland. When all the original Doors reunite to perform "Light My Fire," Morrison shocks fans by inviting Jose Feliciano to the stage to sing instead.
1994: Rehab.
2000: Aging hippies protest when Morrison offers The Doors song "The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat)" to presidential candidate George W. Bush as his campaign theme. "It was a nice gesture," Bush says. "Besides, I really like the macaroni and cheese down at his cafeterias."
2005: Tweeners are left scratching their heads when Morrison appears on an episode of the Disney Channel's "That's So Raven" to sing "You're Lost Little Girl" to star Raven-Symone. Later, Raven-Symone comments, "That old dude smelled like Vienna sausage and dryer lint."
2010: When Twitter becomes all the rage, Morrison opens an account under the urging of rapper Kanye West. His first tweet is: "Dating models I had to learn to like small dogs and cigarettes." Strangely, that is also the first tweet sent by the pope in 2011.
www.tallahassee.com/article/20110703/LIVING/107030307/Mark-Hinson-What-would-happened-Lizard-King-had-lived-
By Mark Hinson, Democrat Senior Writer
July 3 2011 2:00AM
Mark Hinson: What would have happened if the Lizard King had lived?
Rock singer Jim Morrison died 40 years ago today in Paris, France.
Or did he?
Some fans still believe that Morrison — a Florida boy, former Florida State University student, lead singer for The Doors, self-appointed Lizard King, puffed-up poet, one-time fugitive from Sunshine State justice — faked his death in 1971 so he could escape the hassles of fame. You know, because riches and privilege are such a drag. Plus, there is just no way Morrison, who was the cursed rock-star age of 27 when he hit Paris, could have died after a bender that included enough beer, hard liquor and heroin to kill a rugby team of Rasputins.
Morrison was back in the news in December when Florida's exquisitely tanned Gov. Charlie Crist issued a posthumous pardon for the singer. The pardon arrived 40 years after Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure following a boozy and profanity-spewing Doors concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami.
If Gov. Rick Scott had been in office when the pardon was handed down, do you think Morrison would have been exhumed and given a drug test before he was cleared?
During Morrison's school days around Tallahassee in 1962 and 1963, he was a pretty decent student who got mostly A's and B's in theater and psychology. He also appeared in a student production of Harold Pinter's dark play "The Dumbwaiter" and acted in a canned promotional film for FSU.
According to the book "Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison," Morrison roomed with five fellow students in a house near the FSU campus at Palm Court off Macomb Street. The roomies booted Morrison out after one term because he was too loud and too much of a hell-raiser. The San Francisco classical pianist Daniell Revenaugh, who owns rental property in Tallahassee, said he still has the front door from that old house. It's the Doors' door — get it?
"(Morrison) hung around with a bohemian crowd — people who liked to wear pants with holes in them. Jim posed as a model for the art department, and they would all sell blood to the Red Cross to get a few bucks," Morrison classmate Gerry McClain said in an interview with the "American Legends" website. "Once, I saw Jim go around the college coffee shop eating scraps off tables. I felt he and the others were living an image (of) the starving young artist."
The future crooner of "Horse Latitudes" and "Crawling King Snake" also liked to taunt the campus jocks. Morrison got arrested on Sept. 28, 1963 — and had his iconic Tallahassee mug shot taken — after he allegedly got blotto at an FSU football game, jeered at the players, mocked fans, stole an umbrella and swiped a police helmet from a parked cruiser. Go 'Noles!
The charges were eventually dropped and Morrison headed off to UCLA, Los Angeles and rock superstardom. No word whether Morrison returned the bumbershoot to its rightful owner, though it may be one of the reasons that umbrellas are still not permitted inside Doak Campbell Stadium on game days.
Home, Mr. Mojo
These days, Morrison remains a popular draw.
His grave in Division 6 of Pere-Lachaise Cemetery is one of the top (and unofficial) tourist attractions in Paris. The Lizard King began his dirt nap alongside other famous folks such as warbling French icon Edith Piaf, long-winded scribbler Marcel Proust, Karl Marx's suicidal daughter, one-legged actress Sarah Bernhardt and snarky ol' Oscar Wilde.
As soon as he was put in the ground, Doors fans from around the world began showing up at his final resting place to party like rock stars. The mourners smoked dope, drank liquor, left awful poetry, scrawled graffiti all over the place and, in 1990, stole the headstone that was carved to look like Morrison. Even in death, the Lizard King was a rowdy neighbor but, this time around, his roommates can't take a vote and kick him out.
Every year or two, an Internet rumor circulates saying the French officials have had enough. They are going to evict Monsieur Morrison from Pere-Lachaise. Dig him up, and ship him home. Au revoir, le Roi Lee-zard.
Heck, they should uproot and re-bury our wayward Florida native down at Doak Campbell Stadium next to the Bobby Bowden colossus. Imagine the tourist dollars the shrine would attract. And who wouldn't want to buy a collectible Lizard King key chain or a T-shirt that reads: "We're Off To See The Lizard (King)"?
Newsweek recently speculated what would have happened if Princess Diana, who would have turned 50 this month, had not met her maker in Paris, too. The magazine used computers to concoct a creepy photo of Princess Di and new Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton, her future daughter-in-law, walking side by side while wearing some very stylish outfits.
Using Newsweek as inspiration and an excuse to play the "what if?" game, here's what might have happened if Morrison had not died in France while he wasn't wearing any pants:
1972: A sheepish Morrison re-emerges in his home state of Florida. During a press conference, he apologizes for all the fuss but adds, "The dead Indian who jumped into my soul when I was a kid on vacation in New Mexico really wanted to go check out the cave paintings at the Lascaux Caves in the south of France. And when he makes up his mind about something, you can't talk him out of it."
1973: Morrison is sentenced to a year in jail in Dade County over the whole Dinner Key concert fiasco. After two months, he is pardoned by Gov. Reubin Askew. The governor quips, "I think he learned his lesson, but I'm still not going to pardon him for 'The Soft Parade.' That album was lame-o." The jail stint produces a poetry book titled "Weird Scenes Inside The Mess Hall Line." Sample: "An angel runs/Thru the sudden light/Screaming aloud/"Not Shepherd's Pie again tonight!"
1975: After years of refusing to license The Doors' music for TV commercials, Morrison shocks fans by becoming the spokesman for the Morrison Cafeterias chain. A bloated Morrison even agrees to TV spots showing the singer belting "Hello, I Love You" to a slice of pecan pie.
1976: The disco craze finds Morrison re-recording "The End" with Stars on 45, a novelty disco group from the Netherlands. Morrison spices up the lyrics thusly: "The killer awoke before dawn, he put his disco boots on/He took a face from the ancient gallery/And he boogie-oogie-oogied on down the hall."
1985: Morrison turns down the role of Dr. Emmett Brown in the runaway hit "Back to the Future." The part memorably goes to Christopher Lloyd. "I didn't want people to think I was a weirdo," Morrison tells friends.
1991: After watching Oliver Stone's biopic "The Doors," Morrison asks, "Did I really ruin Thanksgiving every year?"
1993: During The Doors' induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Morrison repeatedly refers to keyboardist Ray Manzarek as Ray Milland. When all the original Doors reunite to perform "Light My Fire," Morrison shocks fans by inviting Jose Feliciano to the stage to sing instead.
1994: Rehab.
2000: Aging hippies protest when Morrison offers The Doors song "The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat)" to presidential candidate George W. Bush as his campaign theme. "It was a nice gesture," Bush says. "Besides, I really like the macaroni and cheese down at his cafeterias."
2005: Tweeners are left scratching their heads when Morrison appears on an episode of the Disney Channel's "That's So Raven" to sing "You're Lost Little Girl" to star Raven-Symone. Later, Raven-Symone comments, "That old dude smelled like Vienna sausage and dryer lint."
2010: When Twitter becomes all the rage, Morrison opens an account under the urging of rapper Kanye West. His first tweet is: "Dating models I had to learn to like small dogs and cigarettes." Strangely, that is also the first tweet sent by the pope in 2011.
www.tallahassee.com/article/20110703/LIVING/107030307/Mark-Hinson-What-would-happened-Lizard-King-had-lived-