"We Can Whip the Horses Eyes."

I believe in a long, prolonged derangement of the senses in order to obtain the unknown - Jim Morrison

   I've been to Jim Morisson's grave. I saw Mr. Mojo Risin' when I went to Europe in 1999 with my first wife on a belated honeymoon. We went to London, Paris and Amsterdam. We saw Abbey Road, The rooftop where The Beatles played performed in public for the last time, Battersea Power Station, which was featured on Pink Floyd Animal's album cover and visited the Amsterdam Hilton where John Lennon spent his honeymoon and held his famous "Bed-in for Peace."


   But what I want to talk about today was the highlight of my trip: visiting Jim Morrison's grave. I don't know many people who really care but it's one of the coolest things I've ever done.  You may not care to hear about anywhere I've been or what I think about Jim Morisson, but today I wanna write what Jim Morrison, the music of The Doors, and that trip to Paris meant to me.

"women seem wicked, when you're unwanted."

- People Are Strange

  Growing up I was socially awkward and incredibly shy. I didn't have many friends, I was a latino in a predominantly white, private, Catholic school, and was picked on a lot. Around fifth grade,  the other kids in my class started discovering music and everybody was into Michael Jackson, Duran Duran and other mainstream pop music. I was discovering rock music like Van Halen and Def Leppard. I wanted so desperately to fit in, I tried to get into what everyone else was into, but it just made me stand out even more, and the more I tried to fit in and gain social acceptance, the more my awkwardness stood out.

"When you're strange no one remembers your name"

-People Are Strange

   I discovered The Doors in high school. They stood out from all the other bands. It was rock and roll but it was kind of pop music too, their singer was a teen idol but he was also a rocker, a boozer, a rebel, and also a college graduate, a film student, an intellect, and a poet. It was rock, pop, jazz, blues, poetry. theater, cabaret. They didn't fit in anywhere. They stood out amongst everything else of the time.  They didn't need to fit in. It was better to be on the outside looking in. Sure, life is painful but pain is a lot more real than absurdity of trying to fit in and be like everyone else.

  

Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. - Jim Morrison

  
   The music of The Doors sounded like no others of the time. A blend of rock, pop, blues, jazz, and eastern influences. Contrary to the accepted norms for rock bands, they lacked a bass player, relying instead on Ray Manzarek who played his hypnotic sounding Fender Bass Organ with his left hand and the electric organ with his right hand. You could call Manzarek the first "human sequencer" I suppose.

I like any reaction I can get with my music. Just anything to get people to think. I mean if you can get a whole room full of drunk, stoned people to actually wake up and think, you're doing something - Jim Morrison

   

 The vivid imagery of Jim Morrison's poetic lyrics is like an attack on your senses. The Top 40 charts of 1968 are filled with songs like "Harper Valley PTA," and "La-la Means I Love You," that share the top of the charts with a song like "Hello, I Love You," by The Doors. A short little radio friendly pop song on the outside but there's another level to the song when you actually read the lyrics. It's simple, yet there is a lyrical depth to it that you just didn't see in popular music:

   She's walking down the street

Blind to every eye she meets

Do you think you'll be the guy

To make the queen of the angels sigh?

   The Doors were dangerous, provacative and unpredictable. I don't know of too many other rock bands before The Doors who were just as likely to get arrested, as get a standing ovation whenever they played. Some cities banned their performances. Morrison at times seemed more content to start a riot than perform a concert. Sometimes he could be inebriated and unable to perform. You would go to a Doors concert without knowing if you were going to see a brilliantly, charged, perfect musical performance, or a catastrophe, ending in a riot.

I like people who shake other people up and make them feel uncomfortable - Jim Morrison

  Ok, I don't want to make this sound like a f*kkin love song or something. Anyways, we didn't have alot of time in Europe, and the only reason I wanted to go to Paris was to see Jim Morrison's grave. I'm not a big fan of Parisians. Sorry any French people, now I'm not trying to intentionally start some shit, but after all who paid for your war? if it wasn't for the U.S.A. you would all be speaking German. A little courtesy when we visit is the least you could do.

 Jim Morrison Owns an audience member

   Our flight was late and by the time we got to the hotel, figured out the Paris subway and got to Père Lachaise Cemetery, we had less than an hour before they closed for the day, and we were leaving the next morning early for Amsterdam. The guard didn't have a map, and when I busted out what little french I knew when I asked, où est Jim Morrison sil vous plait? I did not get a response, and that cemetary is friggin huge. We didn't see any people around, it was late, so we just started running around at random.  After a few minutes, I saw an arrow carved on the side of someone's large tombstone, or mausoleum or whatever it was. Under the arrow was carved, "This Way."

   "Ok, there we go, all we gotta do is follow that."

   " How do you know, they're talking about Jim Morrison?" My wife asked. 

   " Well, I'm pretty sure someone didn't go thru all that trouble for Georges Bizet."

   The picture of the grave with the bust of Jim Morrison and graffitti everywhere is not what I found. It was actually a pretty run of the mill grave surrounded by a bunch of other graves and a very simple tombstone. I didn't take this picture but this is it.

   Digital cameras weren't just affordable to anybody in early 1999. I didn't even know anyone with a cell phone back then, much less a phone with a camera. I was going to get a few dozen disposable cameras cuz they're easy to use, portable, and you don't have to worry about film n crap. But my dad convinced me I should take his bulky professional camera so I could have really good pictures...The thing is, I barely know how to use the f*kking coffee machine and the dishwasher much less how to load and remove film from a camera. So the majority of the pictures I took never came out. What pictures did come out, are in the possession of my now ex-wife and that won't be changing any time soon. I wish I hadn't listened and just took the disposable cameras.

Jim Morrison, busting out some next level Nostradamus sh*t, as he predicts the future of music.

   Seeing Jim Morrison's grave was a quest. And just like a quest, it wasn't easy, we were faced with setbacks that almost prevented us from getting there, but in the end, just like any quest, only those truly worthy will succeed. Muslims, go to Mecca, that is their pilgrimage that they must do at least once in their lifetime. For me Jim Morrison's grave was my Mecca.


   I feel like I should end this with some sort of definite, dramatic conclusion, but I can't think of any. I'm just a guitarist with questionable mental health, who is a big fan of The Doors and Jim Morrison, and sometimes I still can't believe I actually got to see him.

   Kinda makes me sad because nobody will be taking any pilgrimages one day to my grave. But maybe thats a good thing. I get nervous meeting new people anyways.


The future's uncertain but the end is always near - Roadhouse Blues.