The Doors (22 page)

In 2003 it's more than twenty years since the journalist Jerry Hopkins and the Doors insider Danny Sugerman, in their enormous best-seller
No One Here Gets Out Alive: The Biography of Jim Morrison
, cynically hinted that despite their title Jim Morrison wasn't dead after all: that, like Elvis, he'd faked his death to escape the pressures of fame, not to mention the
real possibility of prison, where anything could happen, but that he'd be back, that one day—
¹¹
It's been twenty years since the one-time Sixties generational historian James Howard Kunstler, picking up Hopkins's and Sugerman's cue, published his equally cynical novel
The Life of Byron Jaynes
, where at the end the Jim Morrison character shows up naked on a motorcycle. It's been twenty years since Jim Morrison lookalike Michael Paré, playing the long presumed dead singer Eddie Wilson, shows up at the end of the film
Eddie and the Cruisers,
in the midst of an Eddie and the Cruisers revival, to see his younger self in a bank of TV screens in the window of an electronics store, only to walk away alone, his
shoulders hunched, a lovely, satisfied look on his face. If Val Kilmer's old mirror man is going to show up anywhere, isn't it more likely, isn't it more right, that it'd be as a half-crazy Nature Boy in a dystopian future Los Angeles ruled by Third World gangsters than as Byron Jaynes's Joe Doaks in New England or Eddie Wilson's Mr. No Name in New Jersey? “A crack in the mud at the bottom of a sun-dried lake I count more beautiful than any human being, you know what I mean?” says Kilmer's animal man, sounding as if he's quoting from a book of Jim Morrison's poetry, as Bob Dylan's Jack Fate looks on impassively. “Know what you mean,” Dylan says. “Kinda like a curse on being born.” “You got that right,” says Kilmer. “That's 'cause we live in fear. 'Cause we know we're going to die.” He picks up a rabbit. “Animals don't know
they're going to die,” Morrison says, stumbling over his words, his thoughts backing up in his head, with “The End” and “People Are Strange” and “L.A. Woman” and even “Alabama Song” backing up too, all of it coming out in the mindless voice of someone who regardless of who might be standing in front of him is always talking to himself, or God. “Holds us back, knowledge of death. I say, amazing grace indeed,” he says, as he raises his knife.

 

The Doors
, directed by Oliver Stone, written by Randall Jahnson and Stone (1991).

Masked and Anonymous
, directed by Larry Charles, written by Sergei Petrov (Bob Dylan) and Rene Fontaine (Larry Charles) (2003).

Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman,
No One Here Gets Out Alive: The Biography of Jim Morrison
(New York: Plexus, 1980).

James Howard Kunstler,
The Life of Byron Jaynes
(New York: Norton, 1983).

P. F. Kluge,
Eddie and the Cruisers
(New York: Viking, 1980).

Eddie and the Cruisers
, directed by Martin Davison, written by Davidson and Arlene Davidson (1983).

Acknowledgments

This book was fun to write, and part of the reason why is that, over the years, writing about the Doors and others here and there, I was lucky to find people who were fun to work with: Lisa Bralts-Kelly at
Cake
in Minneapolis, Danny Alexander at Johnson County Community College, Nancy Duckworth, Jon Carroll, and Bill Broyles at
New West
/
California
, Doug Simmons at the
Village Voice
, David Frankel and Ingrid Sis-chy at
Artforum
, Graham Fuller at
Interview
, Bill Wyman at
Salon
, Steve Perry and Melissa Maerz at
City Pages
in Minneapolis, Mark Francis at the Centre Pompidou, Michel Braudeau at
la Nouvelle Revue Française
, the staff of the Seattle and Portland Arts and Lectures series, Hal Foster at Princeton, Vendela Vida and Andrew Leland at the
Believer
, Eric Weisbard at the Experience Music Project, and Melissa Harris at
Aperture
. I owe thanks to Ben Fong-Torres and Jerry Hopkins, for their invaluable work on the Doors and their
friendship over many years, and as well to Kathi Goldmark, Joel Selvin, Dave Marsh, Michael Sragow, Tosh Berman, Kristine McKenna, Erik Bernstein, and Tabitha King.

At PublicAffairs I was privileged to work, again, with my editor Clive Priddle, publisher Susan Weinberg, Melissa Raymond, Jessica Campbell, Tessa Shanks, all-seeing production manager Christine Marra, copy-editor and fact-checker Gray Cutler (what errors remain are not hers), Jane Raese and Pete Garceau for their spare and clean designs, indexer Donna Riggs, and, at Faber & Faber, again, with my editor Lee Brack-stone, Helen Francis, Anna Pallai, and Ruth Atkins. Wendy Weil of the Wendy Weil Agency, with Emily Forland and Emma Patterson, and their associates Anthony Goff and Georgia Glover at the David Higham Agency in London, always make life easier.

This book began with nights my wife Jenny and I spent at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, waiting for the Doors to come on. We took handbills on the way out, and for some reason, over five houses in forty-four years, they never disappeared.

Illustration Credits

p. v: © Larry Miller

p. 11: Illustration by Erik T. Johnson

p. 45: Photo by Peak

p. 74: Photo by Herb Greene, 1965

p. 77: Poster design by Dennis Loren

p. 84: Photo by Tabitha King

p. 85: Photo by George Rodriguez

p. 101: Illustration by Reynold Brown

p. 138: © Tate, London, 2011 and © 2011 Trustees of the Paolozzi Foundation, licensed by DACS/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

p. 140: © Estate of Wallace Berman

p. 188: Jacket cover © 1984 Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. from
The Zebra-Striped Hearse
by Ross MacDonald. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Endpapers: © Family Dog 1967—© Rhino Entertainment 2008, artist Victor Moscoso,
www.victormoscoso.com

Index

Albums and songs are credited by recording artist; books by author; art works by artist; films by director and/or referenced principal. Albums and songs not credited are by the Doors.

“Alabama Song (WhiskyBar),”

“All Your Love” (Bluesbreakers)

Allen, Joan

Alloway, Lawrence

Altamont

Ambler, Eric

Arnold, Gina

“Auguries of Innocence” (Blake)

Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco

Babitz, Eve

on Jim Morrison

on Oliver Stone

“Baby Please Don't Go” (Them)

“Baby What You Want Me to Do” (Presley)

“Back Door Man,”

Bad Lieutenant
(Ferrara)

“Bad Romance” (Lady Gaga)

Baker, Chet

Baker, Tom

“Ball and Chain” (Big Brother and the Holding Company)

Band, The

Barks, Carl

Barry, Dave

Batman Forever
(Kilmer)

Beach Boys

Beatles

Begley, Ed

Beiderbecke, Bix

Benjamin, Walter

Berkeley Free Speech Movement

Berman, Wallace

art

iPhone/iTunes commercials and

Berry, Chuck

“No Money Down,”

other songs

“Big Black Train” (Golden Chords)

Big Brother and the Holding Company

Big Fix, The
(Simon)

“Big Two-Hearted River” (Hemingway)

Bill Haley and the Comets

Bishop, Larry

Blade Runner
(Scott)

Blonde on Blonde
(Dylan)

“Blowin' in the Wind” (Dylan)

“Bo Diddley” (Diddley)

Boot Yer Butt!

Botnick, Bruce

“Break on Through (To the Other Side),”

Brecht, Bertolt

Bringing It All Back Home
(Dylan)

Brooks, Harvey

Brooks, Louise

Buffalo Springfield

“Buick ‘59” (Medallions)

Bukowski, Charles

“Bullfrog Blues,”

Busby Berkeley chorus line

Byrds

Cain, James M.

Camus

Captain Beefheart

Catch-22
(Heller)

“Cease to Exist” (“Never Learn Not to Love”) (Beach Boys/Manson)

“Celebration of the Lizard,”

Chandler, Raymond

Charles, Ray

Chet Baker Sings

Churchill, Winston

Circle Jerks

Clapton, Eric

Clear Light

Clinton, Bill

Clinton, Hillary

Clutter family murders

“Come on in My Kitchen” (Johnson)

Conner, Bruce

Cooke, Sam

Cortázar, Julio

Costello, Elvis

Courson, Pamela

Crash, Darby

Crawdaddy!
(magazine)

Creedence Clearwater Revisited

Crist, Charlie

Crowley, Aleister

“Crystal Ship, The,”

Cult

Dallas performance (December 1970)

Damiano, Gerard

Dead Man
(movie)

Dean, James

DeLillo, Don

Dennis, Ty

Densmore, John

beginning of The Doors

Doors, The
(movie) and

on Morrison/Doors

reforming the band and (2003)

Riders on the Storm
(book)

Detour
(Ulmer)

Dick Tracy

Diddley, Bo

Dillon, Kevin

DiMartino, Dave

Diski, Jenny

“Do the Clam” (Presley)

Donahue, Tom

Doors, The

art and

death and music

fine art tradition and

myths and

name of band

original band members

popularity

popularity in Europe

reforming the band (2003)

Shaw on mood of songs

songs on radio today

Doors, The
(album)

about

KMPX radio

Morrison on

Doors, The
(Stone/Kilmer)

about

actors playing band members

ads for

description

“End, The” performance at Whisky à Go Go

fire concert

making “Light My Fire,”

reviews

Douglas, K.C.

Dutschke, Rudi

Dyer, Geoff

Dylan, Bob

Ed Sullivan Show, The

Masked and Anonymous
(Charles/Dylan)

“Easy Ride,”

Ed Sullivan Show, The

Eddie and the Cruisers
(Davidson/Paré)

Eichler houses

Electric Prunes

Eliminator
(ZZ Top)

Elvis is Back!
(Presley)

“Emöke” (Å kvorecký)

“End, The,”

Densmore

Doors, The

Doors, The
(Stone)

Krieger

Manzarek

Morrison

Whisky à Go Go, Sunset Strip

“End of the Night,”

Blake and

Densmore

Krieger

Manzarek

Morrison

“Endless Sleep” (Reynolds)

Every Mother's Son

Everything You Know Is Wrong
(Firesign Theatre)

Faber, Manny

Faithfull, Marianne

“Fall on You” (Moby Grape)

Family, The: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion
(Sanders)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
(Thompson)

Feliciano, Jose

Ferrara, Abel

“Fever,”

Fiedler, Leslie

Fine Disregard, A: What Makes Modern Art Modern
(Varnedoe)

Fingers
(Toback/Keitel)

Firesign Theatre

“Five to One,”

Fogerty, John

Folger, Abigail

“For What It's Worth” (Buffalo Springfield)

Ford, Harrison

Ford, Tennessee Ernie

400 Blows, The
(Truffaut)

“409” (Beach Boys)

Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, The
(Dylan)

Fromme, Squeaky

Frykowski, Voytek

Fukuyama, Francis

Fulsom, Lowell

“Fun, Fun, Fun” (Beach Boys)

Germs

Get Shorty
(Keitel)

Gibbons, Billy

“Gimmie Shelter” (Rolling Stones)

Gingrich, Newt

Ginsberg, Allen

“Gloria”

beginning of The Doors and

Densmore

Doors

Jim Morrison

Krieger

Manzarek

other groups and

Van Morrison

Going After Cacciato
(O'Brien)

Golden Chords

Gopnik, Adam

Gordon, Kim

“Got Me Under Pressure” (ZZ Top)

Graham, Bill

Grateful Dead

Great Jones Street
(DeLillo)

Great Society

Grosz, George

“Guantanamera,”

Guston, Philip

Guthrie, Woody

“Gypsy Woman” (Impressions)

Hamilton, Richard

Haynes, Todd

“Heartbreak Hotel” (Presley)

Heller, Joseph

“HelloLove You,”

demo version

Krieger and

Hemingway, Ernest