“That's what real love amounts to -
letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend
to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love
your pretense. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing
is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They
love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to
remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most
precious possession.”
-Jim Morrison, Poet and Singer, (December
8th, 1943 – July 3rd, 1971)
In the early 1990s I discovered
Jim Morrison, the poet. I’d been
listening to The Doors for as long as I can remember but was unaware of their
history or of the enigmatic persona of their front man. The above quote really says a lot about who
Jim really was. Military brat, film
student, self- inflated rock star on the outside but inside he was equal parts
poet and soft passion. At least, after
all of the reading and research and listening I did, that is the conclusion I’ve
drawn.
Jim Morrison mesmerized the young
budding writer in me. He was exciting,
sharp-tongued and had all of these uninhibited perceptions. His approach to writing was inspired and the
outcome riotously esoteric. I was elated
reading his work. It was dark, portentous
and at times thoughtful depending on the subject. Here was a guy who on sight, looked rebellious
with his swaggering attire and long shaggy hair but who on the inside was a
soft parade of poetics and phrases. He
was a paradox and I was bewitched as so many others were. Morrison possessed a strange litany of
qualities whereby he could draw you in even if you insisted on being repulsed by
his lack of regard for authority or spewing his licentious obscenities. There was something about him that was irresistible,
even at his worst.
In 1947, when here was just four
years old, Jim allegedly witnessed a bloody car accident on a desert highway
where a family of Native Americans were either injured or killed. Bleeding in the road, it is believed to have
made quite an impression on him because in later interviews he suggests that
the spirits of those Natives jumped into his soul, transferring shaman-like
powers that he carried with him in his rock and roll guise.
The man, who claimed that some of
the worst mistakes of his life were haircuts, loved the romantic verses of
William Blake just as much as the contemporary revolution of the Beat Poets in Kerouac
and Ginsberg etc. He spent some time in
LA film school, became bored with it but opted to stay enrolled to avoid being
drafted for the army. Later, he shared
some of his fanciful writing with a soon to be Doors member on Venice Beach,
words that he’d written on a rooftop and from there the band formed and they
gradually made the climb atop the rock world with their distinct brand of psychedelic
ear candy.
Ultimately, Jim wanted to be and was a poet first. He wanted to be heard, for people to absorb
his thoughts and writings. He became a
rock representation by default and instead of being known for his true poet
self, he became better known for his dark lyrics and eccentric stage
presence. The poet started his music
tenure singing shyly with his back to the crowd and then conjured up enough
mojo to turn the world on its axis when he finally delivered his face. As the band became more famous, Morrison’s
private life and public persona started to rapidly spiral out of control. Morrison lost his true essence to his
alcoholism and drug addictions and his infamous womanizing, all of which led to
violent onstage outbursts that provoked the ire of cops and club-owners
wherever he went and ultimately led to obscenity charges in December 1967. He was backstage, blitzed and fraternizing
with a young woman, the police came upon the couple, Jim ignored orders to
disperse and so the policed sprayed him with mace to get him moving. This episode caused his temper to flare to
new heights and he bound onstage and delivered a profane diatribe that induced
a riot to break out and led to his arrest on obscenity charges. He was considered a menace. Not well liked by law officials and his
audience were growing impatient with his antics.
By 1969, his svelte form bulged
from excessive drinking forcing him to trade his primal leather pants and Concho
belts for more comfortable clothing, slacks, jeans and t-shirts. His puffy face was covered by a thick beard
and mustache. The Lizard King who could
do anything was growing weary, frustrated with the LA music scene. He packed up with Pamela (the woman with whom
he had a tumultuous on again off again romance with and ultimately bequeathed
his entire estate to) and moved to Paris in March 1971. Plans for a future Doors record was rumored
but Jim needed a much needed amnesty from the rock and roll lifestyle.
The Doors record that was
planned, a blues record never did happen because Jim passed away in a Paris
bathtub on July 3, 1971. Allegedly an
overdose but mystery shrouds around the actual events because no autopsy was
done and Pamela orchestrated a quick and suspicious burial. Jim Morrison rests in Pere Lachaise, his
grave-site is visited frequently and in the past has had parts stolen,
vandalized and innumerable tokens of affection in homage by adoring fans who
make the pilgrimage. His grave is said
to be guarded daily and because when he died Pamela only bought a 30 year
lease, he was in jeopardy of being evicted by Paris’s most famous cemetery. His family, who he seldom acknowledged while
he was alive, upgraded the lease allowing his resting place to stay and purchased
a steam cleaner for the Pere Lachaise to help alleviate the graffiti problem.
I was a hungry student when I
discovered Jim Morrison. I devoured
books about him, the poetry books he’d written (all of which I used to carry
around with me on early artist dates) and I delved more into the Doors
discography. In 1998, I got the bright
idea (from spending so much time with theatre people) that I would write a one
man show about Jim Morrison. Mind you, I
was no playwright and had no faith in my writing abilities at the time but I
had this vision in my head from bumming around stages that I needed to get down
on paper. I called it ‘Morrison Laments’. It’s a short one man show, it’d be good for
the Fringe Festival but my ambitions were lofty because the piece would have to
include Doors music and I’m certain the rights to those songs would cost an arm
and a leg but a little girl lost can dream, right?
I spent a lot of time reading
interviews Jim did. I compiled many of
his actual quotes and wrote a seven page script on them with some of my own
words to flesh it out. It’s based on the
idea that Jim was misunderstood, like in the above quote at the beginning of
the blog, that how sometimes we grow so attached to our masks and the masks of
others that we can’t ever just love them for who they truly are but who we need
them to be. Jim was a poet who posed as
a Dionysus rock God. He used rock and
roll to spread his message but in the end, the message was lost and he was
consumed by evils instead. That’s the
premise of my ‘show’.
The play starts with a darkened
theatre that gives way to a dim red haze.
We see Jim center stage, dressed in the iconic leather pants and Concho
belt, long wily dark hair framing his intense expression, knelt down on one
knee. Think his ‘Young Lion’ photo-shoot.
He rises, straight but swaggered, closing his eyes. He sings the first verse of ‘Moonlight Drive’.
There are few props in this
piece, books and such, a soap-box type thing, a white porcelain bathtub and a
bottle of booze he swigs from now and then as he laments. And lament he does. My writing is shoddy and this needs A LOT of
editing and refining but here’s a little excerpt from the piece:
‘I didn’t want to be a singer. I
couldn’t conceive it. I thought I was
going to be a writer or a sociologist, maybe just write plays. I went to film school when I moved to
California but I quit, man. I guess the
truth in my cinema made them see the ugly side of themselves maybe, I don’t
know. The idea that they hated it
pleases me though, I was testing the bounds of reality and decency to see what
would happen. That’s just me. I’m into anything about revolt, disorder,
chaos. I like to shake people up and make
them feel … uncomfortable. People think
I’m high all the time. I think they want
me to take their trips for them. I guess it’s because they are too afraid, you
know? I’m not afraid. The answer to a hard question about fear …
expose yourself to your deepest fears, after that man, fear has no power and
the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes.
You are free. For anything. There is no more fear, just words and poetry
and songs, so many songs and then death … the inevitable end.’
My goal, now that I have had a
few people ask me about this piece, is to red pen it to perfection, format and fix it so that it’s cohesive and while
it’ll never make it to an actual opening, be stage ready. Another challenge I am prepared to undertake
because to be honest, currently, it’s a pile of donkey dung but there’s a gem
in there somewhere.
I love the Doors. I appreciate all of the rebellious antics of
Jim Morrison because I was never that kind of person and in many ways, afraid to
be. Maybe that was his appeal, he said
all of the things everyone else was thinking, did what he wanted, thwarted the
establishment, punk perhaps but with lazier mind altering drugs and a brave new
world perspective.
One of my bucket list items is to
park myself in the sand on Venice Beach, where Jim started the Doors, just to
sit there and write. Just absorb the
Morrison ether in the ocean air and maybe adopt a little of that mischievous
mojo for myself. I will get there. Sooner or later.
I have several (varying) literary
heroes and I regard Jim Morrison as one of them. He is one of the most prominent, iconic, magnetic
and revolutionary front men in music but he was also a brilliant mind and a
thoughtful poet. Many see his raucous
exterior and wild antics but I see an artist, with a purpose, an artist who had
so much left to share.
In propinquity,
Nic
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