Washington City Paper - June 18 2004
AND HE WALKED ON DOWN THE HALL...to Spanish Class
Remembering Jim Morrison's strange days as a Northern Virginia
high-
schooler
By Michael Little
Washington City Paper - June 18 2004
In his official Elektra Records biography from 1967, Doors frontman
Jim Morrison defiantly proclaimed himself "primarily an American,
second, a Californian, third, a Los Angeles resident." But before
the rock god arrived in the City of Night, he resided in Beverley
Hills—the Beverley Hills neighborhood of Alexandria, Va., that
is.
The son of two U.S. Navy employees, James Douglas Morrison spent 33
formative months on the west bank of the Potomac, living with his
family on upper-crusty Woodland Avenue from December 1958 to the
August following his graduation from George Washington High School,
in 1961.
These are the dark years of Morrison's journey to the end of the
night, a period that has gone largely unexamined by the singer's
legions of hagiographers. But not Mark Opsasnick. Last week, the
tireless chronicler of Washington-area rock 'n' roll history
posted
news of his latest project on his Web site, http://www.capitolrock.com: a
book titled The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim
Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia.
Startled by the lack of information on Mr. Mojo Risin's
high-school
years in the 15 or so available books on the man—and convinced
that "something, some formative experience, occurred during his
D.C.
years that influenced his music and poetry"—Opsasnick began this
past February to interview Morrison's former classmates at George
Washington and others who knew him during his stay in the Old
Dominion. The 42-year-old Prince George's County resident has, he
says, uncovered "a lot of good stories—a wealth of previously
unpublished information on the young Jim Morrison."
Opsasnick hopes to publish The Lizard King in late 2005. In the
meantime, how about a little quiz? It's simple: Just see if you
can
figure out which of the fantastic exploits below will actually be
appearing in the book. The answer is on Page 149, but no breaking on
through (to the other side) to peek beforehand. OK, wild child?
Morrison spent the summer of 1959 caddying at the Belle Haven
Country Club, according to one retired groundskeeper, who related
how "nobody could chase down a lost ball like that boy. He just
had
a nose for it." That talent, however, didn't please all of
the
club's members. "One day a fellow come huffing into the
clubhouse,
all perturbed about losing his caddy to a lost ball," the
groundskeeper recalled. "I had to take the boy aside. I said,
`Son,
what are you doing out there? What exactly is it you're trying to
prove?' And he said to me—I'll never forget it—he
said, `I want to
hear a butterfly scream.'"
One George Washington High classmate remembered Morrison as "sexy
and dangerous—a total rebel." She recalled, for instance, an
evening
at the Alexandria Bowling Center when Morrison, who would later
declare himself interested "in anything about revolt, disorder,
chaos—especially activity that seems to have no meaning,"
brazenly
persisted in crossing the foul line, sometimes "by a foot or
more."
The 15-year-old, she said, also "liked to shake the candy
machines
in the hope that something would fall down." Finally, she
described
Morrison as "a sore loser": "That's when I realized
the foul-line
thing wasn't rebelling—it was cheating."
A few acquaintances vividly recalled Aug. 16, 1960, as the day
Morrison assumed the mantle of poète maudit of Northern Virginia.
That evening, Morrison and some friends enjoyed the all-you-can-eat
clams special at the now-defunct Beachcomber Restaurant. Afterward,
something in young Jim snapped. Scaling a telephone pole, he
commenced, in one former friend's words, "to spout some lame
beatnik
shit about `great golden copulations.'" Rushed to a nearby
hospital,
Morrison—who declared to doctors that he "saw God on that
telephone
pole"—was diagnosed with a severe case of food poisoning.
Nonetheless, the vision sent Morrison into a monthlong shellfish
binge, during which he frequently bragged, "I eat more mollusk
than
a man ever seen."
In high school, Morrison's mordant sense of humor was already on
full display. One day when a teacher asked how her students
"would
solve the problem of infants starving around the world,"
Morrison's
hand flew up. "Jim?" asked the teacher, an elderly and
genteel
Southerner. "Kill the children." After a long and
uncomfortable
silence, the teacher wailed, "Jim! We can't kill the little
children!" Hilarity, naturally, ensued. And a fellow Spanish
student
remembered how, upon being asked to write a sentence on the board to
be translated, a straight-faced Morrison scribbled this bit of
pre–<br>Lords and the New Creatures absurdism: "We all eat small
dogs."
One George Washington classmate reminisced about one time when
Morrison had to take a leak. The future rock star didn't feel up to
a trip to the restroom, the classmate recalled, so he urinated in
his locker.
Though his fellow students often marveled at the Rimbaud-reading
Morrison's intellectual capabilities, none of them thought
he'd
become a famous pop star. "I saw him with an acoustic guitar
once,"
said one. "But he wasn't playing it—he was just kind of
holding it."
In fact, the teenage Morrison didn't even own a record player,
and
he seemed much more interested in becoming an actor than a
singer. "He used to hang out at the Hollywood Grill,"
recalled
another old classmate. "He liked to pretend the Hollywood Grill
was
really in Hollywood. He'd sit there for hours in his dark
sunglasses, trying to appear brooding. I think he was waiting to be
discovered." Ultimately, he was—by a truant officer. CP
The solution to "And He Walked on Down the Hall...to Spanish Class":
The reminiscences about Jim Morrison's treating his locker like a
men's room, messing about in Spanish class, and suggesting to kill
off the world's starving infants are true. We invented the items
about caddying, bowling, eating seafood, and the Hollywood Grill
(except for the bit about the record player, which is true).
Source:
www.washingtoncitypaper.com/cgi-bin/Archive/abridged2.bat?LizardKingWasHere-book.htm
D.C. Rock and Roll Website
Interview with Mark Opsasnick
Mark Opsasnick is putting the final touches on his much
anticipated new book about Jim Morrison's formative
years in Alexandria Virginia.
Melissa:
Talking to Mark Opsanick about his new book “The Lizard King was Here:
The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia,” which is a history of
Jim Morrison’s life in the Washington DC area.
Mark, could you give some idea
about when the public can expect to get a hold of your book?
Mark:
This weekend I finished up Chapter14 so I only have one chapter to go.
That’ the rough draft. Once the rough draft is done, I have to start editing and checking the facts. What I do is print out each chapter, read it, make some
corrections… it takes about a week to do each chapter… so another 15 weeks or so will take me to about January 1st. I’m pretty much right on schedule. I want to finish Chapter 15 by September 1st. I’ll have September, October, November, and December to edit the thing and fix it up so it should be ready by the end of the year. It’s a big project, and now I’m pretty much near the end of the road with it.
Melissa:
When did you start to writ The Lizard King was here?
Mark:
February 1st 2004, so it’s going to be almost two full years that it took me to do all the research and the interviews and writing. If I didn't’t have to work full time. It certainly would have been much quicker, but such is not the case. For a part time project, two years is along time. I think Capitol Rock was three full years ….
Actually Capitol Rock was four years.. so it didn't’t take me as long as Capitol Rock, but it still took me a long time to get this thing to the point where I’m at now.
Melissa:
I imagine that you had collected some of data about Jim Morrison along
the way while you were writing Capitol Rock .
Mark:
Yes which leads right in to how I basically got started on the project. I had always been a Doors Fan. This is going back to when I was ten-years-old, reading
magazines like Creem and Circus and Rolling Stone at the Greenbelt Library. The first band I was really interested in, besides the Beatles, was Alice Cooper. But the Doors - I was a big fan of as well. I never knew anything about where they came from. I don’t remember in any of those early magazine articles any mention of Morrison being from the Washington DC area. So I was oblivious to that.
Melissa:
That’s so typical of any rock and roll person from the DC area
Mark:
They just get ignored.
Melissa:
Think about Jorma Kakonan and Jack Casady. They will be playing in the area soon. Most people wouldn’t think of them as being part of the DC music scene. I guess they tie them selves back to there DC roots now, but most people would automatically associate them with the Jefferson Airplane.
Mark:
I told people when Capitol Rock came out that I had an interview with Jack Casady and they said, “That’s nice, why?”
I said, “Casady grew up in DC,” and people didn’t even believe me. They said, “No, he was in San Francisco with the Jefferson Airplane.” I had to educate them
that Casady had a long history here in Washington DC. He grew up here and went all the way through Wilson High School and so forth.
Now the thing with Jim Morrison – I was in college down in North Carolina when the book “No One Here Gets Out Alive” came out. That’s the first biography about Jim
Morrison ever written. They briefly touch upon the fact that Jim Morrison lived in Alexandria and attended George Washington High School and that is the first time. I found out about it. I didn’t pay much attention to it after that.
I started researching Capitol Rock in 1993 and over the course of the next four years, during my interviews, I talked with a number of people who mentioned that
Morrison had spent time in Northern Virginia. It was always; they weren’t really giving me facts, but rather asking me questions. It was like “Well, Jim Morrison
grew up in Northern Virginia didn’t he?” “Was he involved with any bands at that time?” “Was he involved with local music at all?”
Nobody really knew any of that. I didn’t know. I kind of filed that away. I made notes about people who had asked me about Morrison. A couple of people had seen the Doors play at the Alexandria Roller Rink in 1967 and they kind of prefaced that with asking about Morrison’s time in Alexandria.
As books on the Doors came out, all the way up to 2004, I think I have read twenty different biographies on Jim Morison, There are actually a couple more that were printed in Europe that haven’t been published here. There are close to two dozen lengthy books on Jim Morrison and the Doors that basically give their stories, and without exception they all basically skip right over the time Jim Morrison spent in
Alexandria, Virginia, and the DC area.
They acknowledge that he lived in the DC area for almost three years, but they don’t go in to any details at all. Only one or two books even bothered to interview a friend of his from high school. But they really kind of ignored the whole DC area, and what roll that played in his life.
So Being a Doors fan, I reach a point where it just fell into place. Capitol Rock was finished with, and some of my other projects were over with, and it was always in
the back of my mind to find out more about Morrison’s time in Alexandria, Virginia. So I came up with an idea to explore what had influenced Morrison in his teen
years - what happened to him, what did he experience in his high school years that may have influenced his later lyrics writing and poetry and so fourth. I got
started on the book on February 1, 2004. I started interviewing, tracking down his former high school friends. Thus far I am just about finished. I think I have
interviewed over 150 people and this includes forty-two of his former classmates from the Class of 1961 at George Washington High School.
I had a list of about fifteen people that I thought were closest to Jim at that time. Of that fifteen I managed to track down interview fourteen of them.
The only person I couldn’t get was Tandy Martin, his girlfriend at the time who now lives in Peru. But she has only ever given one interview, so I didn't’t expect to get
a hold of her. But I had a great success in locating the people who knew him well. It is certainly going to be a great deal of information that has never been
published before.
Melissa:
That sounds fantastic.
Mark:
That’s basically it in a nutshell. I think the most interesting aspect of this project is to examine the nightclubs where Jim Morrison hung out. I didn’t go into
this project with any expectations of finding anything specific that inspired Jim to become a rock star in the DC area, but now that the project is over there are bits
and pieces, and a number of factors came into play during his existence here that may have influenced his decision to go into performance art, a combination of
poetry and music, and his vocal performances as front man with the Doors.
I think one of the things he did while he was in this area was attend a number of nightclubs in Washington DC and also one in particular down Richmond Highway,
south of Alexandria, called the Club Log Tavern.
Melissa:
Yea, that name sounds familiar. I grew up in south Alexandria.
Mark:
That was actually built in 1938 and it existed as the Club Log Tavern until about1965; then it switched owners and became the 1320 Club.
Melissa:
Oh yea, people use to hang out there when I was in high school.
Mark:
That club had an interesting history and I talked at length with Billy Hancock about it. I found ads in the Washington Post from 1939 through 1950’s for this
place. It started off the Club Log Tavern and it had orchestras and big bands and pop singers in the 1930’s and 1940’s. In the 1950’s it went towards country music and around 1958 or so they had a change in ownership and a gentleman named Carl Simpson bought the club and he brought in rock and roll bands. The first rock and roll band he brought in to the Club Log Tavern was Ronnie and the Off Beats. The lead guitarist was Danny Gatton the keyboard player was Dick Hintze and the lead singer was Ronnie MacDonald, who was involved with Jorma Kakonan and Jack Casady when they were all in a band called the Triumphs
during their earlier teen years. They were playing there and Jim Morrison would go to the club and watch this band perform.
Melissa:
That is so wild.
Mark:
I had one of Jim Morrison’s former classmates, a woman he had been friends with, and she told me some stories about Jim Morrison in the Club Log Tavern that will be in the book. Also, Ron MacDonald remembered Morrison. I
have some extensive interviews with Ron because Morrison would come up and talk to him on the breaks. He remembers Morrison at the club, scribbling in his
notebooks. Its very interesting . According to Ron MacDonald, Morrison may have taken some of his mannerisms from Ronnie and the Offbeats. Another interesting thing is that Ronnie and the Offbeats performed a lot of Bo Diddley tunes including “Who Do You Love”, and later on the Doors would perform ”Who Do You Love” on stage. It was rare, but one of the places they did that song was at the Alexandria Roller Rink in 1967, one of the very few times they played that song live. I tend to think it was Morrison’s way of paying homage to his roots at the Club Log Tavern. I could be wrong on that, but it seems like a connection.
Aside from the Club Log Tavern, there were three places in DC where Jim Morrison hung out:
Bohemian Taverns, which is still there, Harrigan’s Restaurant in SW which from 1959-1961 was a hangout for beatniks and artists, and the other one which was
very influential was called Coffee ‘n Confusion. That was really Washington DC’s premiere beatnik hang out at the time. They didn’t serve alcohol, they only served
coffee and tea, and they had poetry readings.
Jim Morrison actually went there often and it was there that he gave his first public poetry reading and I’ve interviewed friends of his who were there on that particular evening. The very first instance of him giving his performance art was at this beatnik coffeehouse called Coffee ‘n Confusion and it was down at 10th and K streets. The building was torn down in 1969 and now it’s former site just a vacant parking lot. I think his experiences there were very influential in him later taking the stage and becoming a front man with the doors. It certainly spurred his interest in poetry and the arts and so fourth.
I go into great detail in all these matters and my conclusion is of course that there were some pretty significant experiences he embarked on when he was living in Alexandria that later defined his roll as a poet, artist, and rock and roll singer.
Melissa:
How about the Georgetown scene? Was he into that at all?
Mark:
Yes, but from all indications, not as much. There were two night clubs in Georgetown he and his friends would go down and hang out at. M Street in Georgetown in 1961 was nothing at all like it is today. It was a main commercial avenue, but they didn't’t have rock and roll music there.
Melissa:
Mostly country at that time?
Mark:
Pretty much - country and folk music. The two places he hung out at were the Silver Dollar, which is still there today, but it is the Bistro Francais Restaurant, it’s a French restaurant now. The Silver Dollar at the time actually had folk singers in there and they had those hootenanny things with folk musicians. That
was in ’60 and ’61. Then it went into country music for a few years. Then in ’66 it went to rock and roll when Roy Buchanan went in there. Morrison was known to
hang out there around 1960. I don’t think it was one of his favorite places. His girl friend Tandy Martin would go there for the folk music and he would go along with
her. The other place Morrison was in at least a few times was Mac’s at 34th and M, across from the Cellar Door. It was actually called Mac’s Pipe and Drum restaurant at the time. They didn’t actually have music at the time; it was just this really weird neighborhood beatnik hangout. That’s how it was described to me. The old Georgetown brigade, all the old beatniks would hangout there.
In the mid ‘60’s they brought in live music and they changed it from Mac’s Pipe and Drum Restaurant to just Mac’s and then in the late 60’s they changed ownership and it became New Mac’s and was a rock and roll joint.
Melissa:
Yes, that’s when Billy Hancock was playing there, as New Mac’s.
Mark:
Yes, It became quite a rock and roll stronghold in the late ‘60’s. I know the Mad Hatter’s played there a long time, the Fallen Angels played there a while,
different hard rock bands. The old Mac’s, that building was put up in the 1800’s and it was a number of different businesses, but by 1910 it was already a
restaurant. It became Mac’s around 1959. Before that it was the Gem Lunch Room. It did become Mac’s in 1959 and it was a weird beatnik beer joint and
Morrison did hang out in there.
Melissa:
Did Jim Morrison have anything to do with the Mugwumps scene?
Mark:
You know, in the Mugwumps both John Phillips and Cass Elliot had both attended George Washington High School but they never crossed paths. John
Phillips was, I think class of ’54 and Cass Elliott, whose real name was Ellen Cohen, she would have been George Washington Class of ’60, but she left after
her sophomore year and moved to Baltimore, so she didn’t have a chance to know Morrison. The thing is Jim Morrison was not really involved in any local music.
There were no real local bands playing Georgetown at that point. Really what built up Georgetown was the British invasion of ’64 and that’s when every thing
exploded and of course Morrison was gone by that time. Jim Morrison did hang out in Georgetown, and there were a couple of places around DuPont Circle as well – the Brickskeller which is still there, and the Ben Bow restaurant, which is no longer there.
Melissa:
I remember the Ben Bow. I knew someone who lived above it in the ‘70’s.
Mark:
Those places weren’t so much live music venues, they were just places he and his buddies would go. There were a lot of places on 14th street where Morison hung out too. There are stories that Morrison went to Rands, the Hayloft and Casino Royal and places like that to see bands play, but certainly the places he was really enamored with were Coffee ‘n Confusion, Bohemian Caverns, and Harrigan’s Restaurant which was down on the waterfront in Southwest I also had
one of his old friends tell me that they would go to upper 14ths street – to 14th and U to the black jazz clubs. Places like the Colt Lounge, the Spa, the Village
Note - which latter became the Jazzarama. That was all around 1960-1961. Jim Morrison had found out about these jazz nightclubs by going to Bohemian
Caverns and he loved to explore that whole corridor.that was at 11th and U Streets and then he just walked down to 14th an U and he would check out the jazz nightclubs in that area.
That whole area was like no man’s land for white high school kids at the time. You can see he was pretty fearless.
Melissa:
My brother had a job working for DC Transit back at that time, checking the buses arrival times and he had to be down there. I heard some pretty wild stories about that area.
Mark:
Recently I had to go down there to 14th and T, because I am writing about that whole area and how Morison visited these clubs, and I wanted to find out what
they are today. So I went down there, got off at the U street metro and I was shocked because that whole area is changing into Georgetown. The last time I
was there, there was nothing but old boarded up buildings up and down 14th Street, and now there are all kinds of new businesses there. It’s verycosmopolitan now. I walked down 14th to P Street, then I walked all the way down to 20th street to Dupont Circle, and P Street, which use to be pretty rough in that area around 14th and P and 15th and P, is now all built up. There’s Starbucks and Cosi, and these coffee shops and bars and restaurants all over.
Melissa:
That whole area around the MCI center is just like that too.
Mark:
Oh yeah, I’m down there every Saturday, going to the Martin Luther King Library. They just knocked down the whole 9th street strip. You see, back during the 1940’s and 1950’s and even up to about 1965 9th Street was like Washington DC‘s Time Square. All the way up from 9th and Pennsylvania to 9th and M, there was a stretch there where it was all peep shows and porno movie
theaters and cheap used bookstores and arcades, I mean there was a big prostitution stretch and there was a big drug stretch. I talked to Andy Morrison,
Jim Morrison’s younger brother, and he told me that they used to go walking around there and go to the used bookstores. That was when it was at its most
intense period –1960. It really was like a Time Square atmosphere. I walked that whole stretch just a couple of weeks ago and it’s all been torn down. It’s all high-
rise office buildings, these ten and eleven-story office buildings. There isn’t one single business left from its heyday. That tells you how much the downtown area
has been torn up. The city has changed very much since the days when Jim Morrison would go walking around downtown. He would take the bus from
Alexandria into Washington DC, get off at 12th and Penn and just start walking. He would check out the bookstores during the daytime and make notes on where the nightclubs were. I think he walked the entire city pretty much. Then he’d get his friends to take him back to these nightclubs at night. I think that definitely had a pretty strong influence on him. He would do the same kind of thing when he went
away to college, both down in Florida and out in Los Angeles. When he took the stage with the Doors he had had a little bit of experience from being on stage
doing the poetry reading at Coffee ‘n Confusion in Washington, D.C.
Melissa:
That’s pretty wild. It gives much more of an insight in to the character of Jim Morrison. My general impression of him has always been of this extreme narcissism. I guess my opinion is mainly shaped by the movie, “The Doors.”
Mark:
That’s what has influenced people’s perceptions. The movie, these biographies that focus on Jim the wildman, Jim the drunk, Jim the rock and roll star, his female conquests and that sort of thing. The fact is he was an extremely intelligent, very creative person. He had his personality quirks, and he did do a lot of things alone, but contrary to popular opinion, he also had a lot of friends in high school and did a lot of normal things too. During the week he’d spend time in his bed room reading and drawing, that sort of thing, but on weekends he loved to go into DC and explore. That would be both on the week ends during the day and
when he could he’d go in the evening with his friends and visit some of these nightclubs as well. I think Morrison was fascinated with what Washington, DC had
to offer in terms of entertainment and nightclubs.
Melissa:
Well it was his introduction to culture.
Mark:
Oh absolutely. He would go to the Dupont Theater, which was on Connecticut Avenue just below Dupont Circle, and the Playhouse Theater on 15th Street. He’d go see these movies by Serge Eisenstein and Francois Truffaut, the French symbolist filmmakers. He would go see all these films that kind of spurred his love of cinema. All these things had there origins here in Washington DC while he was living in Alexandria.
Melissa:
I could see how he would be attracted to Paris, from the similarity to DC.
Mark:
All of his favorite filmmakers were French and some of his favorite authors were as well. His favorite poet was Arthur Rimbaud.
Melissa:
The thing about DC is that it is such a mixture. You have a very strong international thing, the country,bluegrass, the black- jazz and soul music. I mean where else is that possible?
Mark:
The thing I have discovered doing my books “Capitol Rock” and “The Lizard King Was Here” is that within the music scene in Washington, one particular type
of music would be very intense for a period of time and then it would always change. I mean, country music was always popular up until the time of the riots in
1968. Up to that time there were a couple of bluegrass clubs that were very popular like the Shamrock on M Street in Georgetown and the Pine Tavern on
Massachusetts Avenue. There were rock and roll nightclubs all over the city, especially in Georgetown and the area of 14th Street, and then you had a mixture of country and rock at places like the Ozarks, Vinnie’s and the Famous, all of which featured Link Wray and the Raymen at different times. Over in Southeast DC you had places like the 1023 Club, the Shanty, the Beehive, and the Stagecoach, which booked some strange combinations of country and rock
bands. Then, in the blink of an eye, you had the riots in 1968, and it was all over with. A bit later in the early seventies heavy rock and roll moved into the local
nightclubs and then in the late 1970’s there was the punk rock movement. Almost any style of music has had its moment in DC. It seems to come and go in waves.
Melissa:
I hope we are in for another one. Thank you, Mark. As always, talking with you has been extremely interesting. I am looking forward to having the chance
to read you new book, “The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia.”
www.dc-rock-and-roll.org/The Lizard King Was Here:
The Life amd Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia
The Lizard King Was Here is an in-depth study of a greatly overlooked period in the mercurial life of Jim Morrison, the late poet and lyricist-vocalist of the rock and roll band “The Doors” who died at the young age of 27 in 1971. Examining Morrison’s life from January 1959 to August 1961 – the years he resided in Alexandria, Virginia and attended George Washington High School – author Mark Opsasnick searches for and uncovers a vast array of his subject’s life experiences that served to influence his later poetry, lyrics, and performance art with the Doors. More than 150 individuals were interviewed for this unique project, including more than five-dozen former George Washington High classmates of Morrison’s who provided detailed memories of their lost contemporary. The end result is a fresh look at the most formative period in the life of one of rock and roll’s greatest superstars. Dedicated fans of Jim Morrison will be enthralled with “The Lizard King Was Here.” Status: The rough draft of The Lizard King Was Here has been completed and the manuscript is currently being edited and prepared for post-production art work.
Status: The projected release date for this book is October 31, 2006
www.capitolrock.com/books_04.htmlALUMNI WEBPAGE
George Washington High School
Jefferson Davis Highway (Route 1)
Alexandria Virginia
Jim Morrison, GWHS Class of '61, was a member of the music group called the "Doors" during the late 60s. This is his story.
James (Jim) Douglas Morrision, ‘61
Born on December 12, 1943 and died on July 3, 1971 at age 27
Jim Morrison, a member of the "Doors", was handsome with a gentle, innocent look. His genuinely shy manner and soft, quiet voice was in direct contrast to the always drunk and/or stoned satyr who sang with such strident urgency, as he appeared onstage. Jim's grade school ambition was to become a writer. His idols were poets and joumalists including Rimbaud, Keats and Jack Kerouac.
As a student Jim excelled in text work and reference work, devouring knowledge in areas of history, science, psychology, english and the arts, but was troublesome in class. He learned to make friends fast and not get too close as his father being an Admiral in the navy and a career man, moved around the country frequently.
Jim went on to get a degree in Cinematography and actually made a movie. The film was greeted by a minority as a masterpiece and by several professors as the worst film they had ever seen. "Wierd" would have been a more appropriate description. Not long after that he bumped into an old class mate, Ray Manzerak, and decided to join Ray's band 'Screamin ' Ray Daniels ' _ and try out some of his Iyrics. After a reshuffle in the band Ray and Jim with Robbie Krieger and John Densmore formed The Doors.
They called themselves The Doors after Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors Of Perception' and worked for six months ending up at the most important rock club in Los Angeles, Wiskey a Go Go. By this time Jim was singing his own heady material and The Doors were fast gaining a loyal core of fans.
One night Electra Record Company's president Jac Holzman, and producer Paul Rothschild, dropped in at the club and signed the band, on the spot, for ten thousand dollars. That summer of 1967 their first album 'The Doors' was released and immediately hailed as a masterpiece. 'Light My Fire' the single off the album was a smash hit. Their next album 'Strange Days ' solidified The Doors ' success. _With two albums in the top ten, headline concerts causing riots and hit singles, Jim achieved his aim of becoming hero and controversial spokesman, blending poetry and insanity.
The Doors became myth makers, the group who sang about sex, doom, the revolution and death, and Jim a performer of enormous capabilities. With his picture on the cover of practically all teen magazines in America, and heralded 'The King of Acid Rock', 'The King of Orgasmic Rock ', 'The Ultimate Barbie Doll ' and 'The Lizard King' Jim was every girl's dream and every boy's self image.
Jim was becoming notorious for his drug taking, taking and fast living and by the time The Doors third album 'Waiting For The Sun' came out, his popularity had begun to wane as his fans watched him become drunker and fatter.
Arrests after The Doors' Miami concert of March 2nd 1969 for "lewd and lascivious behaviour" sparked a nation wide ban on the group, resulting in exclusion from 16 states, and Jim began to rebel against the image he had created, shedding his leathers in fear of another bust. Twelve previous arrests had not left their mark, but this was the first time his arrest had serious repercussions.
Their next album 'The Soft Parade'released in the summer of 1969 did not make the impact of the earlier albums and although 'Morrison Hotel' released in early 1970 redeemed them somewhat, the future of The Doors was at best, uncertain.
Jim was not unaware of his own absurdity and the Iyrics of 'Absolutely Live' (1970) belie his disillusionment .... "Dead cat in a top hat, Thinks he's an aristocrat That's crap". With the finish of the bluesy and intermittently successful album 'L.A. Woman', Morrison headed for Paris. He was probably looking for renewed inspiration in the birth place of French symbolist poetry and_surrealism.
So Jim met his partner Pamela in Paris and his restless soul finally found peace when he died in his bath tub on July 3rd, 1971. Speculations as to the cause of his death abound and their are some who even proclaim that he is still alive.
Before he went to France he had recorded a legacy to Doors fans and the world at large with some of his poetry.
In 1978 the remaining Doors' members, Ray Manzerak, Robbie Krieger and John Densmore got together and put his poetry to music for the latest album 'An American Prayer' In it Jim seems to be prophesing his own death and welcoming it, through lines such as:
"Death makes angels of us all & gives us wings
Where we had shoulders smooth as raven's claws
No more money, no more fancy dress
This other Kingdom seems by far the best
until its other jaw reveals incest
& loose obedience to a vegetable law
I will not go
Prefer a Feast of Friends
To the Giant Family. "
November 5, 2002.
gwaa.acps.k12.va.us/st~stories.htmlGeorge Washington High School Alumni
gwaa.acps.k12.va.us/main.shtml#LinksSurrounding Area Photo Page:
gwaa.acps.k12.va.us/album.htmREMEMBERING THE LIZARD KING - CLASSMATES TALK ABOUT THE JIM MORRISON THEY KNEW
by: Sandy Barnes
Alexandria Virginia "Gazette Packet" News
March 21 1991
Jerry Ainsfield was with the Peace Corps in Liberia when he first heard about Jim Morrison's rock star fame. A friend had written Ainsfield about his former high school buddy, who was featured in the May 1967 issue of Life Magazine. "I went all over the place trying to find that issue of Life in Liberia," Ainsfield said. Before that he had lost track of Morrison with whom he had graduated from George Washington High School in 1961.
NOT EXACTLY TYPICAL
For Ainsfield and others who knew him at GW, Morrison was not exactly the typical "local boy who made good." For one thing, Morrison - who became the leader of the Doors rock group in the '60's - was not all that local. The son of a Naval Officer, Morrison had lived all over the country before coming to Alexandria in 1958, three years before finishing high school. Also, many who knew him were later mystified that Morrison had become a singer, as he had not seemed interested in music during his days at GW. Some, like Ainsfield were totally unaware of their former classmate's success until it came crashing to their attention.
Now, 20 years after his death, interest in the young man who became known as the "Lizard King" has been rekindled with the recent release of "The Doors," an Oliver Stone film centered on Morrison's life.
Speaking in his easy, Virginia-flavored voice, Ainsfield
described Morrison as a friend he used to "hang out
with...a handsome guy, but quiet and on the shy side.
Morrison didn't even sing in high school," he said. "He
liked to write poetry and he was a talented artist."
Ainsfield said he and others focused instead on the singing abilities of classmate Ellen Cohen who later became Mama Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas group. ("She had a beautiful voice," he remarked.)
Stan Durkee is among those who remember Morrison for his intellegence, his literary brillance and his enigmatic personality. "Intellectually, Jim was head and shoulders above all of us - he read every book you could imagine," said Durkee. "He inspired me." Durkee said he and Morrison used to go to book stores in Washington to look for works of beat generation authors who intrigued him.
Durkee remembers being in an English class with
Morrison while studying James Joyce's "Ulysses." "Even the teacher was learning from Morrison's interpretation of the work," Durkee said. "We all were...He was sort of
an intellectual leader."
However, Durkee said, "Nobody really understood Morrison (as a person). He was detached, creative...Few if any, people in our class were really close to him." Durkee, who gave Morrison a ride to school every morning, said Morrison was
alienated from his family as well. "He went for weeks
without seeing his parents," he said. Although Durkee saw Morrison as someone "who would have become a dramatic person," he said it was "a shock to everybody" that he evolved into "a teen idol." On the other hand, Durkee was not surprised by accounts of Morrison's tempermental and sometimes bizarre behavior during his performing years. Once during a class, he said, "Jim got really angry and exploded" because a teacher questioned his judgement. In a sense, Durkee said, Morrison was rebelling against the "smugness" and "mindlessness" of the late 50s. "Jim took everything to the max," said
Durkee.
WE ALL EAT SMALL DOGS
Patricia Madison, who was also in classes with Morrison, described him as "hyper, high IQ and weird." She recalls a time in Spanish class when he wrote, "We all eat small dogs" on the blackboard as a sentence to be translated. Madison also remembers an incident when Morrison brough rotting fish with him on a bus without air conditioning during a hot summer day to elicit a reaction from the other passengers (which of course, he did). "Morrison would do things we didn't dare do," Madison remarked. She said once Morrison urinated in his locker, because he
didn't feel like using the restroom.
Ainsfield said he believes some of Morrison's acting out in high school was alcohol-related, recalling that Morrison "liked drinking bourbon." However, Ainsfield said he does not believe Morrison was involved with drugs at that time.
Dick Sparks viewed Morrison as the leader of a "tight little intellectual group who followed him like puppies" and "made fun of other people." Sparks said he did not make the connection between the Morrison of the Doors and the teenager he had known in high school until he read Morrison's obituary in 1971.
Although Tommy Edwards has a distant memory of Morrison, "walking down a street in Warwick Village barefoot with a guitar around his neck," he too was surprised to learn of his later fame. Edwards sang in the high school chorus with the future Mama Cass Elliot, and thought that she - if anyone - would be the one to become sucessful in music, just as Ainsfield thought. Apparently, neither Edwards nor the others who knew Morrison in high school had any premonition of the musical success he would achieve. Still, Morrison is remembered by his classmates, if perhaps for different reasons.
When asked if he had seen the current movie about Morrison, Edwards replied, "No. That's not the Jim Morrison we remember."
