Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend by Stephen Davis- a witty and thorough view on Jim Morrison's life. I'm about half-way through and thought I'd share some of my favourite bits...
' ''Film Studies'' was a new academic field in 1964, and film student was considered synonymous with goofball, slacker, draft dodger.'
'In his notebooks Jimmy wrote concentrated poems that described a superhuman elite of elevated beings- ''the Lords''- who operated on a higher psychic plane than the rest of humanity, who ''saw things as they were.'' The Lords invisibly imposed a version of social control that seems derived from William S. Borroughs's Nova Mob.'
'But classmates acknowledge that Morrison was unusually dedicated to learning the obscure byways of film history. Ray Manzarek recalls that Jimmy once hitchhiked 450 miles all night to Berkeley for a one-time-only screening of French existentialist hero Jean Genet's ultrarare homoerotic prison movie Un Chant d'Amour. Only the hippiest, most hard-core cinema freaks in L.A. took the trouble to make the scene. ''Jim was a very talented and brilliant person,'' Phil O'Leno said. ''But he was a little too young to be wise.'' '
'The Ravens were fun, but mediocre. With no original songs and a charisma-challenged lineup, it was a band going nowhere.' (I will definitely be adding the term 'charisma-challenged' to my vocabulary!)
'But mostly Jim had just stopped eating. Instead he began taking daily doses of LSD, using the still-legal hallucinogen to raise his consciousness and blot out the psychic trauma of his past.'
'Or he and Phil O'Leno would drop acid and freak out along the canals, trying to scare each other.'
'Bill Gazzari wouldn't even let Jim into his club to audition because he was barefoot. This went on for a while, Gazzari recalled. ''One day Jim said, 'Bill, can we come in now?' I leaned over the counter and he had one shoe on. He didn't have a shoe on the other foot. I said, 'Did you lose a shoe?' Jim said, 'No, I found one so I could get in.' '' '
'Talent does whatever it wants to. Genius does only what it can.' - Eugene Delacroix
'Sometimes, when stuck for a lyric while he was improvising, he'd crack a popper under his nose. Jim's eyes rolled up into his head and he'd collapse over the keyboard. Ray just kept playing until Jim regained consciousness and the set would go on.'
'On Saturday night, while John Densmore and Pam were talking in one of the Fog's booths, Jim Morrison made his move and sat down with them. There was talk of mutual friends, astrology, acid, and real estate. Ray later tried to accurately describe this encounter: 'Once their eyes combined, their psyches did a caduceus up the staff of Mercury and their souls sprouted wings. They were mated. Olympian. Cosmic.'' '
'She acted out the role of rock star wife to the max, calling herself Mrs. Morrison, wearing a wedding ring, and burning through his money as if he owned a bank. He never married her, he often cheated on her (and she on him), but he always came back to her. He wrote to her, dedicated his poetry to her, and left her everything in the end. Jim Morrison loved Pamela Courson to death.'
'At least once a week Pam would explode in fury, throw open the bedroom window, and dump Jim's clothes and books into the street, screaming curses and bloody murder as the laundry and literature flew. Mirandi Babitz ascribed some of Pam's chronic unhappiness to sexual incompatibility between the two lovers. Jim, Babitz claimed, preferred anal intercourse, while Pamela, who was tiny and rail thin, was less than thrilled taking Jim's reputedly prodigious reproductive organ into her rectum.'
(On Jim's photo shoot with Gloria Stavers) 'She shot him pouting like a sex kitten, and posing against her brick walls like a Greek hero. She told him about her trip with Lenny Bruce, and showed him how to stay thin and sexy by throwing up the food he'd eaten. At dawn they tumbled into bed. She lubricated herself with melted butter and let Jim do what he liked best. A couple of months later, when The Doors was released, Sixteen published a fawning, breathless cover story under the headline: ''Morrison Is Magic!'' '
'He was extremely welcome at Warhol's midtown studio, the Factory, where he scored pills from the regulars and star-quality blow jobs from Nico in a bathroom covered in aluminum foil.'
Jim about himself: 'I've always been attracted to ideas that were about revolt against authority. I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos- especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom. Rather than starting inside, I start outside- reach the mental through the physical.'
' ''Film Studies'' was a new academic field in 1964, and film student was considered synonymous with goofball, slacker, draft dodger.'
'In his notebooks Jimmy wrote concentrated poems that described a superhuman elite of elevated beings- ''the Lords''- who operated on a higher psychic plane than the rest of humanity, who ''saw things as they were.'' The Lords invisibly imposed a version of social control that seems derived from William S. Borroughs's Nova Mob.'
'But classmates acknowledge that Morrison was unusually dedicated to learning the obscure byways of film history. Ray Manzarek recalls that Jimmy once hitchhiked 450 miles all night to Berkeley for a one-time-only screening of French existentialist hero Jean Genet's ultrarare homoerotic prison movie Un Chant d'Amour. Only the hippiest, most hard-core cinema freaks in L.A. took the trouble to make the scene. ''Jim was a very talented and brilliant person,'' Phil O'Leno said. ''But he was a little too young to be wise.'' '
'The Ravens were fun, but mediocre. With no original songs and a charisma-challenged lineup, it was a band going nowhere.' (I will definitely be adding the term 'charisma-challenged' to my vocabulary!)
'But mostly Jim had just stopped eating. Instead he began taking daily doses of LSD, using the still-legal hallucinogen to raise his consciousness and blot out the psychic trauma of his past.'
'Or he and Phil O'Leno would drop acid and freak out along the canals, trying to scare each other.'
'Bill Gazzari wouldn't even let Jim into his club to audition because he was barefoot. This went on for a while, Gazzari recalled. ''One day Jim said, 'Bill, can we come in now?' I leaned over the counter and he had one shoe on. He didn't have a shoe on the other foot. I said, 'Did you lose a shoe?' Jim said, 'No, I found one so I could get in.' '' '
'Talent does whatever it wants to. Genius does only what it can.' - Eugene Delacroix
'Sometimes, when stuck for a lyric while he was improvising, he'd crack a popper under his nose. Jim's eyes rolled up into his head and he'd collapse over the keyboard. Ray just kept playing until Jim regained consciousness and the set would go on.'
'On Saturday night, while John Densmore and Pam were talking in one of the Fog's booths, Jim Morrison made his move and sat down with them. There was talk of mutual friends, astrology, acid, and real estate. Ray later tried to accurately describe this encounter: 'Once their eyes combined, their psyches did a caduceus up the staff of Mercury and their souls sprouted wings. They were mated. Olympian. Cosmic.'' '
'She acted out the role of rock star wife to the max, calling herself Mrs. Morrison, wearing a wedding ring, and burning through his money as if he owned a bank. He never married her, he often cheated on her (and she on him), but he always came back to her. He wrote to her, dedicated his poetry to her, and left her everything in the end. Jim Morrison loved Pamela Courson to death.'
'At least once a week Pam would explode in fury, throw open the bedroom window, and dump Jim's clothes and books into the street, screaming curses and bloody murder as the laundry and literature flew. Mirandi Babitz ascribed some of Pam's chronic unhappiness to sexual incompatibility between the two lovers. Jim, Babitz claimed, preferred anal intercourse, while Pamela, who was tiny and rail thin, was less than thrilled taking Jim's reputedly prodigious reproductive organ into her rectum.'
(On Jim's photo shoot with Gloria Stavers) 'She shot him pouting like a sex kitten, and posing against her brick walls like a Greek hero. She told him about her trip with Lenny Bruce, and showed him how to stay thin and sexy by throwing up the food he'd eaten. At dawn they tumbled into bed. She lubricated herself with melted butter and let Jim do what he liked best. A couple of months later, when The Doors was released, Sixteen published a fawning, breathless cover story under the headline: ''Morrison Is Magic!'' '
'He was extremely welcome at Warhol's midtown studio, the Factory, where he scored pills from the regulars and star-quality blow jobs from Nico in a bathroom covered in aluminum foil.'
Jim about himself: 'I've always been attracted to ideas that were about revolt against authority. I like ideas about the breaking away or overthrowing of established order. I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos- especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom. Rather than starting inside, I start outside- reach the mental through the physical.'
