Post by darkstar on Mar 8, 2006 22:43:02 GMT
I noticed a posting on the LL about a supposed lease expiration on Jim's grave that was supposedly renewed at sometime or another. The article from Newsweek Magazine published in 1998 should answer any questions concerning the rumor of a lease on Jim's grave. Hope this information helps answer any questions.
MORRISON BONEYARD: STRANGE DAYS
By: Scott Johnson
Newsweek Magazine
January 19 1998
On weekends and most weekday afternoons in Paris's
Pere Lachaise cemetery, a small group of mostly
elderly people gather around the grave of French painter Ingres. Bearing documents and photos, the group researches the history of the cemetery in an effort to save hundreds of tombs endangered by years of neglect. Madame Colinette, one of the Pere Lachaise's most passionate devotees and the unofficial leader of the group, points out the sparkling new white and gold headstone of the Marquise de Coislin, Louis XV's lover. She leans against it and smiles an affectionate proprietary smile.
This is one that Madame Colinette (now called
"Coislinette" around the cemetery) was able to save. Others are of such historical signficance that no one will
touch them. Others are....problems.
Madame Colinette has been around Pere Lachaise for so long that she actually remembers rocker Jim Morrison's funeral in 1971. It was summer, and she was passing through the sixth division of the cemetery. There were only a few people in attendance. She'd never heard of this American man. She moved on.
Only later, when the pilgrims began to come, did she realize what she had seen.
More than any other grave in the cemetery, this one
holding the remains of the lead singer from the 60's rock
group The Doors, is a public attraction, and sometimes
a public disgrace. For decades, now, it has been
the subject of debate, diatribes, cult-like
ceremonies and police surveillance. Rumors constantly
circulate that it will be removed, that Jim will rise from
the dead to fly (in a tightly sealed box, one
presumes) back to the United States.
Of the more than 1.7 million vistors to the
cemetery each year, more than a third come to see Morrison specifically; this creates a lot of extra tourist revenues for the city of Paris as well as alot of problems for the cemetery. Between 1989 and 1992 the tomb became the site of an extremely heavy drug trade, the cemetery was forced to post three guards. Vistors were asked to move on after only five minutes. In 1991, a rioting crowd threw bottles over the walls, started fires and smashed a car into the cemetery gate chanting, "break on through" and "light my fire." To break up the demo, riot police used tear gas. Now, when you visit the grave there are two guards posted round the clock, and if you raise your head you might hear the whir of two survillance cameras constantly taking pictures.
Rest in peace? Not quite. And yet those most closely
involved with the tomb insist that there are no plans to
move Morrison. The Morrison family lawyer, Christopher
J. Mesnooh, claims the rumors of exhumation, "have
no basis in fact." If the family were planning to
dig him up, Mesnooh points out, they would not have
bought the cemetery a high pressure cleaning machine to water-blast the graffiti.
Because Morrison's grave was purchased a'perpetuite - for eternity - the only people who may interfere with it are family members. In a somewhat lawyer-like fashion, the cemetery has adopted the position that they cannnot even comment on the future of the grave because they have no juridical power over it. "The question doesn't even come up," says Natalie Delapraye, a spokeswoman at the graveyard, "and even if we wanted to, we couldn't do anything about his or any of the sites here. We just don't have the power." But such tact about the departed Door
is not so apparent around the small offices of the
local administration building. "He creates too many
security problems, we have no desire to see him stay,"
said one clerk.
The Morrison lawyer, Mesnooh, is unfazed by such hostility. "All the problems are going to diminish," he adds, "the dignity is going to grow." Nor is Jim's the only grave to draw passionate cultists. As spokeswoman Delapraye puts it, "Oscar Wilde
had his scandalous hours in the cemetery as well."
Nevertheless, she admits that if a guard strays from the site even for an hour, there will almost certainly be some sort of graffiti upon his return.
Madame Colinette, the self-appointed savior of the dead, understands all of this, of course. She spread a collection of documents on the flat stone of an unmarked tomb, using it as a makeshift desk. Jim "was a sacred monster" she says, poring over pictures of a bust that was sculpted by a Yugoslavian fan several years ago. "They have to let him stay where he is." The others in the group begin to nod their heads, and then as a few autumn leaves whip across the tops of the old stones, the voices start up again. One man disagrees. Another raises his cane in protest. The question of Jim's
remains just won't die.
MORRISON BONEYARD: STRANGE DAYS
By: Scott Johnson
Newsweek Magazine
January 19 1998
On weekends and most weekday afternoons in Paris's
Pere Lachaise cemetery, a small group of mostly
elderly people gather around the grave of French painter Ingres. Bearing documents and photos, the group researches the history of the cemetery in an effort to save hundreds of tombs endangered by years of neglect. Madame Colinette, one of the Pere Lachaise's most passionate devotees and the unofficial leader of the group, points out the sparkling new white and gold headstone of the Marquise de Coislin, Louis XV's lover. She leans against it and smiles an affectionate proprietary smile.
This is one that Madame Colinette (now called
"Coislinette" around the cemetery) was able to save. Others are of such historical signficance that no one will
touch them. Others are....problems.
Madame Colinette has been around Pere Lachaise for so long that she actually remembers rocker Jim Morrison's funeral in 1971. It was summer, and she was passing through the sixth division of the cemetery. There were only a few people in attendance. She'd never heard of this American man. She moved on.
Only later, when the pilgrims began to come, did she realize what she had seen.
More than any other grave in the cemetery, this one
holding the remains of the lead singer from the 60's rock
group The Doors, is a public attraction, and sometimes
a public disgrace. For decades, now, it has been
the subject of debate, diatribes, cult-like
ceremonies and police surveillance. Rumors constantly
circulate that it will be removed, that Jim will rise from
the dead to fly (in a tightly sealed box, one
presumes) back to the United States.
Of the more than 1.7 million vistors to the
cemetery each year, more than a third come to see Morrison specifically; this creates a lot of extra tourist revenues for the city of Paris as well as alot of problems for the cemetery. Between 1989 and 1992 the tomb became the site of an extremely heavy drug trade, the cemetery was forced to post three guards. Vistors were asked to move on after only five minutes. In 1991, a rioting crowd threw bottles over the walls, started fires and smashed a car into the cemetery gate chanting, "break on through" and "light my fire." To break up the demo, riot police used tear gas. Now, when you visit the grave there are two guards posted round the clock, and if you raise your head you might hear the whir of two survillance cameras constantly taking pictures.
Rest in peace? Not quite. And yet those most closely
involved with the tomb insist that there are no plans to
move Morrison. The Morrison family lawyer, Christopher
J. Mesnooh, claims the rumors of exhumation, "have
no basis in fact." If the family were planning to
dig him up, Mesnooh points out, they would not have
bought the cemetery a high pressure cleaning machine to water-blast the graffiti.
Because Morrison's grave was purchased a'perpetuite - for eternity - the only people who may interfere with it are family members. In a somewhat lawyer-like fashion, the cemetery has adopted the position that they cannnot even comment on the future of the grave because they have no juridical power over it. "The question doesn't even come up," says Natalie Delapraye, a spokeswoman at the graveyard, "and even if we wanted to, we couldn't do anything about his or any of the sites here. We just don't have the power." But such tact about the departed Door
is not so apparent around the small offices of the
local administration building. "He creates too many
security problems, we have no desire to see him stay,"
said one clerk.
The Morrison lawyer, Mesnooh, is unfazed by such hostility. "All the problems are going to diminish," he adds, "the dignity is going to grow." Nor is Jim's the only grave to draw passionate cultists. As spokeswoman Delapraye puts it, "Oscar Wilde
had his scandalous hours in the cemetery as well."
Nevertheless, she admits that if a guard strays from the site even for an hour, there will almost certainly be some sort of graffiti upon his return.
Madame Colinette, the self-appointed savior of the dead, understands all of this, of course. She spread a collection of documents on the flat stone of an unmarked tomb, using it as a makeshift desk. Jim "was a sacred monster" she says, poring over pictures of a bust that was sculpted by a Yugoslavian fan several years ago. "They have to let him stay where he is." The others in the group begin to nod their heads, and then as a few autumn leaves whip across the tops of the old stones, the voices start up again. One man disagrees. Another raises his cane in protest. The question of Jim's
remains just won't die.