Jim Morrison: Jerk, Devil, Rock Singer [Monster and/or sicko]
I am reading the Hopkins and other writer, Sugerman, [both co-wrote this popular biography], which I saw a lot of when I was younger, in the 1980s. I think I saw it because of the influence of a local high school teacher, and it went more viral from there. That's a guess. But I think this was accurate for Bloomington, Indiana, as much as the rest of the world after its publication in 1980. "Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive. " A line from one of Morrison's songs, which might be derived from an earlier poet.
I am now about 150 pages in, out of around 350 or so; a few more than I was when I started this title a day or two ago.
At this point of the book I want Jim Morrison to die sooner than later. He is what I added in the first part of the title of this post, and then I added "monster", and "sicko": sycophant probably applies. Too much alcohol, too much drugs, too much him, and too much violence and sexual depravity.
I might not be the first or the thousandth person to claim this, but Jim Morrison is a pretty despicable and sick person. Great artist, in many ways, but an awful, and dark and gross individual. Sick, to a major degree, evidenced in his teenage years but worse with time and drug abuse.
Having not finished the book, again, not quite half way through, I hope that his early death is/was better for him and all of us than if he had kept on living. Why did he hate his parents so much? For being nice, conformist, well achieving Americans? For having traditional values and codified morals?
Keep in mind, going back to the 1970s and 1980s as a youth, I listened to and enjoyed all the hits of the Doors that I knew of. I watched Apocalypse Now, and was artistically intrigued by "The End", admittedly more a director's choice for the film than the direct contribution of the band in question, but this song has its qualities, dark and foreboding for sure. I believe that I heard it a few time in my church mission in Chile, and some locals asked me to translate it. I thought it was pretty and melodic, and has a menacing yet luridly appealing message, as Martin Scorsese used it for the culminating scene of his iconic film. Into the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s, I have enjoyed all main hits of the Doors. I did not seek out the minor ones, nor did I try reading this book "Nadie Sale de Aqui Vivo", by the aforementioned Hopkins and Sugerman, until now, around the corner (the last climate season) from turning 50 years of age. Old enough, right? Old enough to be stuck in my ways, or perhaps being firmly aligned with the values that people had issues against Jim Morrison and the oft times obscene and profane art of the Doors.
I have finally read the book, one that I was acutely aware of as a younger man, in the earlier 1980s and now close to four decades (a Biblical time period) later, in my month of July and retrospect, even in the summer of the epic pandemic. What would Mister Mojo Risin' think of such times? What does the drug-induced and philosophical wizard, the life-crazed and sex-obsession poetic savant have to say about such globally catastrophic evil machinations of his distant future? Did Jim, in fact, fake his own death in Paris, France, to become the free and anonymous bard that he had wished to be by the end of his alleged drug abused and alcohol-overwhelmed life, at the rock star age of 27, following 60s legends Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin?
It has now been a few days seen I finished it; with time of a slight passage to mull over its meanings.
Is he still alive?!! Is James Douglas Morrison still creating his poetry throughout the universe? Well, in many senses, because of and through his art of song and verses, he certainly is still alive, he is still with us. Jim Morrison is immortal.
The feelings that I had in the first 100 to 150 pages of the book for this would-be larger-than-life character, those sentiment urges of antipathy and disgust and a desire to see this man die sooner, the one who disowned his own parents, who had little regard for the forces of order and decency, or plain affection or respect for parents, transformed a bit more towards pity and some compassion, or at least some feeling of this guy was screwed in wrong and had to be the devil and artist that he had to be, much like Van Gogh or hundreds and perhaps thousands of other artists and poets across the vast generations.
Jim Morrison. There were not a lot of witnesses of your death, your body, your remains.
Whichever way your soul has gone, dead in 1972 or alive somewhere in some head case horror show or opium den Shangri La, now as old as my parents and some great grandparents poking around the globe in 2020, I am glad I finally read the book; I have a chance to entertain, scrutinize, and exorcise some of those universal or peculiar particular demons, at minimum and a small portion of yours and a few more of my own. Without all the drugs and booze.
Jim Morrison: not an easy person, not an easy read, not an easy life or death.
And so be it.
August 2, 2020 Addition. His biographers are now dead, too. Rest in peace, I will see you all on the other side. Break on through.
I am now about 150 pages in, out of around 350 or so; a few more than I was when I started this title a day or two ago.
At this point of the book I want Jim Morrison to die sooner than later. He is what I added in the first part of the title of this post, and then I added "monster", and "sicko": sycophant probably applies. Too much alcohol, too much drugs, too much him, and too much violence and sexual depravity.
I might not be the first or the thousandth person to claim this, but Jim Morrison is a pretty despicable and sick person. Great artist, in many ways, but an awful, and dark and gross individual. Sick, to a major degree, evidenced in his teenage years but worse with time and drug abuse.
Having not finished the book, again, not quite half way through, I hope that his early death is/was better for him and all of us than if he had kept on living. Why did he hate his parents so much? For being nice, conformist, well achieving Americans? For having traditional values and codified morals?
Keep in mind, going back to the 1970s and 1980s as a youth, I listened to and enjoyed all the hits of the Doors that I knew of. I watched Apocalypse Now, and was artistically intrigued by "The End", admittedly more a director's choice for the film than the direct contribution of the band in question, but this song has its qualities, dark and foreboding for sure. I believe that I heard it a few time in my church mission in Chile, and some locals asked me to translate it. I thought it was pretty and melodic, and has a menacing yet luridly appealing message, as Martin Scorsese used it for the culminating scene of his iconic film. Into the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s, I have enjoyed all main hits of the Doors. I did not seek out the minor ones, nor did I try reading this book "Nadie Sale de Aqui Vivo", by the aforementioned Hopkins and Sugerman, until now, around the corner (the last climate season) from turning 50 years of age. Old enough, right? Old enough to be stuck in my ways, or perhaps being firmly aligned with the values that people had issues against Jim Morrison and the oft times obscene and profane art of the Doors.
I have finally read the book, one that I was acutely aware of as a younger man, in the earlier 1980s and now close to four decades (a Biblical time period) later, in my month of July and retrospect, even in the summer of the epic pandemic. What would Mister Mojo Risin' think of such times? What does the drug-induced and philosophical wizard, the life-crazed and sex-obsession poetic savant have to say about such globally catastrophic evil machinations of his distant future? Did Jim, in fact, fake his own death in Paris, France, to become the free and anonymous bard that he had wished to be by the end of his alleged drug abused and alcohol-overwhelmed life, at the rock star age of 27, following 60s legends Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin?
It has now been a few days seen I finished it; with time of a slight passage to mull over its meanings.
Is he still alive?!! Is James Douglas Morrison still creating his poetry throughout the universe? Well, in many senses, because of and through his art of song and verses, he certainly is still alive, he is still with us. Jim Morrison is immortal.
The feelings that I had in the first 100 to 150 pages of the book for this would-be larger-than-life character, those sentiment urges of antipathy and disgust and a desire to see this man die sooner, the one who disowned his own parents, who had little regard for the forces of order and decency, or plain affection or respect for parents, transformed a bit more towards pity and some compassion, or at least some feeling of this guy was screwed in wrong and had to be the devil and artist that he had to be, much like Van Gogh or hundreds and perhaps thousands of other artists and poets across the vast generations.
Jim Morrison. There were not a lot of witnesses of your death, your body, your remains.
Whichever way your soul has gone, dead in 1972 or alive somewhere in some head case horror show or opium den Shangri La, now as old as my parents and some great grandparents poking around the globe in 2020, I am glad I finally read the book; I have a chance to entertain, scrutinize, and exorcise some of those universal or peculiar particular demons, at minimum and a small portion of yours and a few more of my own. Without all the drugs and booze.
Jim Morrison: not an easy person, not an easy read, not an easy life or death.
And so be it.
August 2, 2020 Addition. His biographers are now dead, too. Rest in peace, I will see you all on the other side. Break on through.
Okay, I thnak me for this.
ReplyDeleteI mean thank.
ReplyDeleteJim Morrison. Still big.
ReplyDelete