Post by darkstar on Jul 2, 2005 13:51:35 GMT
THE UNDERGROUND ADVENTURES OF JIM MORRISON
By Lewis Grossberger
Esquire Magazine – The Second Coming Of Jim Morrison
March 1991
I'm not going to lie about this, I'm not going to tell you I
visited the grave of Jim Morrison because I was haunted by his
mystical sexual poetry of the polymorphous perverse, his apocalyptic
vision of breaking the shackles of humdrum quotidian reality to
attain a transcendent vision of freedom glimpsed but yet unknown.
No, it was because I was running out of tourist attractions. By my
fourth visit to Paris, I'd done the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the
Pompidou, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees, the
Luxenbourg Gardens, Longehamp and Napoleon's tomb.
I'd even done the Catacombs, which were a disappointment:
basically
a dank hole full of bones. True the sheer number of bones is
impressive, and the anal-compulsive neatness with which they are
stacked is hilarious, but after the first million or two, bones –<br>even French bones – tend to get a little repetitious.
Somebody said, Well, if you want to see death handled more
artistically, you ought to take in Pere Lachaise, Paris' 188-year
old cemetery. Beautiful place. And the scene at Jim Morrison's
grave
alone is worth the trip.
Beautiful is was, morbidly beautiful, a walled, hilly, brooding old
Charles Addams necropolis where hundreds of black cats roamed under
a gray drizzly sky. No tombstone town, Pere Lachaise. It's
choclablock with mausoleums: mossy, cobwebbed little stone cabanas
fronting the river Styx.
They had stained glass windows, and inside I could see an altar
containing little religious statues, dried up flowers, and
occasional wonderful touches, like the handwritten inscription of a
framed photo of a rueful countess who arrived in 1933:
ALAS! I WAS NOT MEANT TO BE DEAD!
At the entrance you get a map that shows where to find the stars in
permanent residence: Piaf, Proust, Balzac, Bizet, Choplin, Rossini,
Modigliant, Gertrude Stein, Simone Signoret, Oscar Wilde…….and
Jim
Morrison.
Despite the map and occasional chalk scrawlings on tombs (JIM), I
was getting a little lost. Then I saw an unmistakable signpost, a
girl with pink hair, and I knew I was on the right track. Next, I
stopped an American kid in jeans, "Follow the noise," he
said, when
I asked directions.
The noise led straight to the grave. It came from two workman using
a water blasting machine to clean marble. Turned out that
Morrison's
monument – a simple horizontal slab bearing just his name and
every
mausoleum in sight were slathered with Morrison related graffiti.
JIM – ARE YOU REALLY HERE?
YOU ARE MY ONLY FRIEND TILL THE END OF MY LIFE.
WHEN YOU DIED THE MUSIC'S OVER.
But the music wasn't over, not around Jim. Every other place in
Pere
Lachaise had an air of peace and solitude. Here a dozen people were
clustered, some looking as though they'd come straight from a
Doors
concert. Despite the minor inconvenience of being dead, Jim Morrison
was still pulling them in.
By Lewis Grossberger
Esquire Magazine – The Second Coming Of Jim Morrison
March 1991
I'm not going to lie about this, I'm not going to tell you I
visited the grave of Jim Morrison because I was haunted by his
mystical sexual poetry of the polymorphous perverse, his apocalyptic
vision of breaking the shackles of humdrum quotidian reality to
attain a transcendent vision of freedom glimpsed but yet unknown.
No, it was because I was running out of tourist attractions. By my
fourth visit to Paris, I'd done the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the
Pompidou, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees, the
Luxenbourg Gardens, Longehamp and Napoleon's tomb.
I'd even done the Catacombs, which were a disappointment:
basically
a dank hole full of bones. True the sheer number of bones is
impressive, and the anal-compulsive neatness with which they are
stacked is hilarious, but after the first million or two, bones –<br>even French bones – tend to get a little repetitious.
Somebody said, Well, if you want to see death handled more
artistically, you ought to take in Pere Lachaise, Paris' 188-year
old cemetery. Beautiful place. And the scene at Jim Morrison's
grave
alone is worth the trip.
Beautiful is was, morbidly beautiful, a walled, hilly, brooding old
Charles Addams necropolis where hundreds of black cats roamed under
a gray drizzly sky. No tombstone town, Pere Lachaise. It's
choclablock with mausoleums: mossy, cobwebbed little stone cabanas
fronting the river Styx.
They had stained glass windows, and inside I could see an altar
containing little religious statues, dried up flowers, and
occasional wonderful touches, like the handwritten inscription of a
framed photo of a rueful countess who arrived in 1933:
ALAS! I WAS NOT MEANT TO BE DEAD!
At the entrance you get a map that shows where to find the stars in
permanent residence: Piaf, Proust, Balzac, Bizet, Choplin, Rossini,
Modigliant, Gertrude Stein, Simone Signoret, Oscar Wilde…….and
Jim
Morrison.
Despite the map and occasional chalk scrawlings on tombs (JIM), I
was getting a little lost. Then I saw an unmistakable signpost, a
girl with pink hair, and I knew I was on the right track. Next, I
stopped an American kid in jeans, "Follow the noise," he
said, when
I asked directions.
The noise led straight to the grave. It came from two workman using
a water blasting machine to clean marble. Turned out that
Morrison's
monument – a simple horizontal slab bearing just his name and
every
mausoleum in sight were slathered with Morrison related graffiti.
JIM – ARE YOU REALLY HERE?
YOU ARE MY ONLY FRIEND TILL THE END OF MY LIFE.
WHEN YOU DIED THE MUSIC'S OVER.
But the music wasn't over, not around Jim. Every other place in
Pere
Lachaise had an air of peace and solitude. Here a dozen people were
clustered, some looking as though they'd come straight from a
Doors
concert. Despite the minor inconvenience of being dead, Jim Morrison
was still pulling them in.