Hi, fyi, and a question

[mikejahn]

Hi,

I'm Mike Jahn, the guy who wrote the first Doors book, "Jim Morrison and the Doors" An Unauthorized Book." There's an interview with me else where on this site.

I registered here so I can drop by now and t hen to see what's up. I get crazy with other stuff and forget to check in. Don't take it personally if you ask me something and I don't respond. I'm tied up with my site, "Tales of the Ancient Rocker," www.geocities.com/theancientrocker. I have a big thing about to happen there now.
Drop by sometime.

Anyway, some more thoughts about Jim and Miami. Why did he fly to Paris, presumably to avoid going to jail? Florida was the Deep South. It was 1969. Only five years earlier Civil Rights demonstrators were being clubbed and attacked by assault dogs all over the Deer South. Ten years before blacks were being lynched, beaten up, whatever, for sins such as flirting with a white woman (which could get you killed) or refusing to step into the gutter and allowing a white man to pass on the sidewalk.

Five years before was yesterday. What happened five years ago from now, in 2005? D21C was forming, right? Al Gore was about to run against Bush II for president.

Florida was Jim's home town. He knew all too well what would happen to what the cops thought was this "long haired hippie big shot sex offender [exposing yourself is often considered that]" in a Florida jail. I would have fled too, but not to Paris. Maybe Puerto Mahon, in the Baleiric Islands north of Ibiza, where my Spanish ancestors came from. Actually, Rio is closer.

One strange thing in the Doors movie about the Miami indicent. Whatshisface the act or playing Jim ... I have neither time nor patients for Hollywood ... was wearing white jockey shorts. Excuse me? In 1969 in the rock and roll world, it was considered not only uncool, but weird, to wear underwear at all. Morrison wearing white jockey shorts? I don't think so.

Another thing. I wrote my Doors book in a white heat between February and, say, August of 1968. In that time occurred the King and Robert Kennedy assassinations, the riots at campuses across the land, the riots in urban America, the Tet offensive, the "police riot" at the Democratic National Convention where cops clubbed demonstrators (and don;'t tell me that Jim wasn't thinking of THAT when he split for Paris). I was a part time grad student at Columbia and, during the night of "the bust," where NYPD's Tactical Police Force, got chased across South Field on campus by a cop waving a club and only got away by diving over the hedge in front of the School of Journalism, where I landed on my ass at the foot of the statue of Alexander Hamilton.

By the way, there a bunch of us old-timers in NYC who have trouble seeing cops as heroes. These memories linger. It takes some trying.

By the time I finished the Doors book I had been classified IA, making me liable to be drafted and sent to Vietnam to get shot at.

Why am I offering this history? I'm trying to shed some light on why he ran to Paris. Does anyone know what Jim's draft status was around the time of Miami? It would be really interesting to know. If he was afraid of being drafted on top of everthing else, he would have been really nuts. I remember how crazy and desperate the draft made ME after everything else that happened in 1968. Also, the whole issue of the draft brings up Jim's relationship with his father, Admiral Morrison, and we already know from "The End" that it could have been tricky.

He couldn't turn to his father for help in ducking the draft, could he, after "The End?"

No wonder the guy freaked and fled in a cloud of heroin.

Anyway, I put those thoughts on the table and will check back in a day or so. In the meantime, drop in at www.geocities.com/theancientrocker and see what else I'm up to.

Glad to be here.

Mike Jahn

[stuart]

Welcome to the board Mike, great to have you posting here.

My own personal thoughts on jim's move to paris is that it was a mix of wanting to move to a creative, literate land and to get away from all the legal drama regarding miami.

Thoughts Folks?.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Hi Mike ....cool to have you here mate and I for one have loved yer book for 30 odd years.....since I bought it brand new for 50p....$1 in todays money!!
I put this topic in the Jim section so it will get seen by more people.....

Its said in some books on the subject that Morrisons draft status was 'Z' but nobody seems to know what 'Z' was......
maybe he was in line to be a general?
Over the years i have come to the conclusion that the biggest thing he wanted away from were The Doors themselves....and the further away the better!
He had drifted away from them especially Ray from late 1967/early 1968 and was more comfortable with his drinking/film-making pals than his band who he saw as workmates and no longer as friends after he saw they wanted to sell him out to Buick.
Having to drag his ass on stage and sing Light My Fire to a bunch of baying teens who did not care a hoot that he wrote poetry must have depressed the arce of him so completing his obligation to Elektra made him 'free' and he was off like a shot to Europe.

The guy was an artist not a pop star....no wonder he became a drunk!....

Val Kilmer used a 'butt' double in the movie hence the boxer shorts...Kathleen Quinlan who played the Patricia character was not amused as she did the scene starkers.......


Interview with Mike on Scorpywag....
homepage.ntlworld.com/doors4scorpywag/page38.html

Nice excerpt from Mike's book I transcribed for Doors Talk.....
newdoorstalk.proboards43.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1103741755

[mikejahn]

thanks to you guys for writing to me. see, the depth of my lack of understanding of how these chat rooms work is that I didn't know I was supposed to stick around. I'm PC literate and can do my own sites using Notepad only, but I simply can't grasp how chat rooms work. It must be a deep psychological flaw.

To answer one question, Yep, the Doors stopped cooperating with me. Actually, the only cooperating they DID was letting me come into the studio that one time. I had to wing it on the rest of the book. Fortunately, I'm a pretty good improviser. And the Doors were about emotion anyway, not so much facts.

I'm gonna run and paste this onto the bulletin board/whatever it is.

I don't think I did a very good job of that. I'm gonna go read another of the emails I got and return.

adieu for now.

[mikejahn]

I never heard of a "z" draft classification. I was IY, finally, which is less than a 4F in terms of draft avoidance. I was only IA for a bit, but that was a hell of a scary time.

In terms of Jim's moving away from the Doors, didn't Nico kind of hijack him for a while? That could have contributed to the allure of Paris/Europe in general.

mike

[mikejahn]

I get your point about Jim wanting to move away from the rest of the Doors. In another life, and under the byline Michael Jahn, I'm an award winning fiction writer. I know something about words. And it's VERY HARD to write interesting words within the constraints imposed by a rock song. By any song. I keep coming back to what L. Cohen did with "Famous Blue Raincoat" and S. Sondheim did with "Send in the Clowns." The ability to write sensitive, meaningful words within any rigid musical form is rare. I suppose that once you become famous it's even harder.

"Celebration of the Lizard" reads well on paper but not as a piece of music (with the exception of "Not toTouch the Earth," which is wonderful). You can;t always fit music to lyrics. Morrison was probably better off as a poet.

Plus being a pop star makes you instantly dismissable by the smart, intelligent artists you want respect from.

Last summer I tried to get all the way through "Ulysses," this time reading it the correct way (out loud, slowly, to myself, savoring the way the words worked together.) It's amazing stuff, worthy of its legend, but you could never stick music to it.


Got to log off and do something. My wife has locked herself out of the house AND car and it's 20 (F) out.

mike

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Been a while since I read it but I think Johns book ROTS mentions a 'Z' rating but Morrison never told anyone what he did to earn it... ;D

I think Robby acted stoned John said he was gay and they took one look at Ray thought he was a total arce and decided not to bother......

Just checked it out...page 57 of ROTS

John acted like a girl and got 1Y and when he went to pick up Jim he was told by Morrison that he'd been given a Z uncannily enough on
14th July Bastille Day

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Featured in the Rock & Roll Hall Of fame exibit was a correspondance between Floridas parole board and the Admiral and it makes you wonder if Jim had in fact been trying to heal the rift with mom an dad. ?

Letter to his Father 24-9 1970 from the Florida Probation and Parole Commission District Office

Admiral George Morrison,

I am presently conducting a pre-sentence investigation on your son. As you are probably aware, Jim has been found guilty of indecent exposure and profanity in Dade County. Jim tells me that it has been 2 or 3 years since he last had any contact with you. I would very much appreciate any comments that you would care to make regarding your son's behavior and his present situation to include in my investigation.
The sentence date has been set for Oct. 30, 1970.
Thank you very much, Robert Disher


The Admirals reply.....
Thank you for your letter of September 30. I appreciate this opportunity to comment on my son Jim. I saw him last about 5 years ago during his senior year at UCLA. He was successfully completing his fourth year of college. As in all his academic work through grade school, high school, and college, he was an excellent student. While he had always been an intellectual rebel, he had always obeyed and respected authority. In 1965 I began a two-year assignment in England. Although I invited him to join us in London after graduating, he declined to start his own career. Since that time he has been completely independent of me financially and in every other way.
We have very little contact with him since that time due partly to the physical separation and partly because of some criticism from me.
While in London, I was called by an old friend in California who had been approached by Jim for a loan to finance his first record. Concerned by his appearance, particularly his long hair, the friend called me. I, in turn, wrote Jim a letter severely criticizing his behaviour and strongly advised him to give up any idea of singing or any connection with a music group because of what I considered to be a complete lack of talent in this direction. His reluctance to communicate with me again is to me quite understandable.
Since returning to the United States I have on several occasions made an effort to contact him. On time I was successful in talking with him by telephone. Our conversation was quite pleasant and I congratulated him on his first gold album, but nothing of consequence was discussed. We have had no direct contact since that time.
However, while we all lived in California in 1969, Jim's younger brother and sister visited with him frequently and got along famously as they always did during their childhood days at home. Also an old friend of ours had dinner with Jim in LA several months ago and reported to us that he was the 'same ol' Jim'.
I have followed his career with a mixture of amazement and in the case of Miami, great concern and sorrow. While I obviously am not a judge of modern music, I view his success with pride. Based on my knowledge of Jim through his twenty first year, I firmly believe that his performance in Miami was a grave mistake and not in character. I will always follow his progress with the greatest of interest and concern and stand ready to assist him in any way, should he ask? Thank you again for this opportunity to affirm my conviction that Jim is fundamentally a respectable citizen.
Very truly yours,
G.S.Morrison, Rear Admiral USN
1327 South Globe Road, Arlington, Virginia 22204


The Admiral does show a touching bit of honesty in the letter and although I have no doubt you would NOT see dad freaking out at the Fillmore West I wonder if he was in a way a little proud of his Jim!?

Obviously not for being int he shit with the MAN but for his success artistically....