December 9, 2025 • 16 mins
George Noory and author Paul Wyld explore the life and career of Jim Morrison, lead singer of the rock band The Doors, the spirituality and poetry that influenced his lyrics, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death at age 27 in Paris.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And welcome back Paul Wild with us, George Norrie back
with you. Paul's website is linked up at Coast tocoastam
dot com. Paul, what was that deciding moment for Jim
Morrison that led him towards the doors with Retmanseric?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Well, like I said, he you know, he didn't want
to go to New York work at Jonas Mekas the
film the album Guard, filmmaker he loved, and so he
moved to Venice Beach and Santa Monica, started sleeping out
of the Santa Monica Peer and that's when he started
to h to open his mind up. He was taking
a lot of LSD n F l ST though probably
(00:39):
put most of us into a mental hospital at Cooma. Yeah, exactly,
and he was opening up his his his consciousness. He
was he was breaking on through. The song that he
wrote is just all about that is break on through
to that, to that other side, to that other reality
that he was.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
In touch with.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
And he didn't want to get a job, and he
was able to get his way, I find a way
out of not being drafted because he was classified A
one at the time, and he was able to get
out of that. He did not want to go into Hollywood.
He hated Hollywood. He thought Hollway movies were sir for
the masses. But he had to find a way to
(01:23):
express himself. And I don't think he really wanted to
just simply be a beat nick poet in Venice Beach,
which already has like a at the time, a long
history of beat poets there, people like Laurence Lipton.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
So he had the idea to make, you know, to
form a.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Rock and roll band, and he said that he envisioned
a fantastic concert in his mind. That he's literally just
taking notes, you know, at a at a concert that
he was hearing in his head. And that's how he
said that the songs came to him so magically. He
meets ray Manzeric on the beach and the the the
(02:02):
mental momentum is is already you know, within him, that
that spiritual momentum, those those spirits that he said, you know,
leapt inside of him there they're looking for a way
to come out, you know, to activate the you know
that the Shalmanic presence you know that he had along
with all of his you know, his heritism and his
his mysteriousness that made him such a fascinating rock star.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And man Xeric was the keyboardist, if I recall, wasn't
he Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
He Raymond's Eric grew up in Chicago and he loved
the blues and he started playing the piano and keyboards
there and then he wanted to come to California to
study film. And that's how I mentioned Morrison at u.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
C l A.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
What was the moment where the doors hit it big?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, they they started out playing the smaller clubs in
town and then they they were found by the person
who books at the Whiskey a go go, and they
started really hunting their act there. They were following a
band called Love that they they loved, and.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Then it was.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
The Electra Records that that that found them like Jack
Holsman and and they're producer Paul Rothschild and but they
heard just really blew them away. They they wanted to
they wanted to sign them. I think what what sold
Jack Holsman was was on the Alabama song because it
was very he realized that, oh, well they're doing Berthold
Brect And I think that was the clincher for Jack
(03:36):
Holsman to sign them to Electra and then of course
they wanted to uh.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
They felt that what they thought.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Breaking Through was going to be their big hit single,
so they released that and then mhm that was That
was well received, but it wasn't the big hit.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
But it was light My Fire that they decided.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
To release and and that's what what skyrocketed them into fame.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
The late Vala Kilmer played Jim Morrison in The Doors movie.
How do you think he did?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
They think, well, oh, I think he did a fantastic job.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
You know, I thought he was amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I read somewhere they had to pay him extra million
dollars because the drugs, because Malcomer was not into drugs
and all that. It is worth noting that Mary Warbelow
his college girlfriend. She her friend Bill Cosgrave, who wrote
a really good book called Jim Morrison, Mary and Me,
and he was friends of Jim Morrison, was living on
(04:29):
the beach in those first days the Doors and with Mary.
And when Mary Warblow saw the movie, she said that
that was only thirty percenttion that that the rest of
him was was missing. But it's a fantastic concert movie.
Raymond's Eric had problems with it. I haven't read that
or someone told me that Olivers don't even like thrown
him off the set. But Valcomer did at a really
(04:53):
amazing job, a really amazing job, and there are some
really beautiful scenes in that film.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Actor.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I miss him. He was a good guy too. Yeah,
he left us two too early, he did Mount Morrison
speaking of believing us too early at twenty seven. They
never did an autopsy pall on him. What do you
think happened to him?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Well, I've thought about this so much.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Well, like everything in Jim Morrison's life, everything that happened
in Paris is mysterious. It's we're gonna be talking about
it for decades, right, Yeah. I I think that there's
two likely stories.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
One.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
You know John Densmore, the drummer, He said that if
anybody could disappear a bit in Jim Morrison, and if
if he consider what was hanging over his head, you know,
the Miami Trot. For instance, he was still on on
bond on appeal and he was very worried about what
was going to happen to him when he came back
to Florida. If he lost on appeal, he would have
to serve six six months of hard labor, and I
(05:51):
think they're prepared. They were, they were prepared to stick
it to him. His lawyers were telling him that it's
a good autum chance that they're gonna win on the appeal.
But I think Jim Morrison was thinking to himself, you know,
I've already been convicted of a crime I did not do.
In decent exposure, ten thousand photographs was submitted that night,
excuse me him. During the during the trial, not one
(06:12):
showed him. No witnesses remembered him doing that. So he
was very worried about what would happen to him when
he came back to the United States, and this caused
him a lot of anxiety in Paris. So it's possible
that he considered doing that. That was back when there's
no no Internet or anything like that, and you know,
(06:32):
he had the money where that could have been possible.
I think in the realm of like what could really
is true is that they I think that the people
in the scene, like Alan Rone and Angus Farda Parisians
when all of this happened, the very concerned for Pam mccurson,
(06:53):
who was only twenty four years old and Jim Morrison
passed away. Plus she was you know, she was a
heroin addict, and she's in a foreign capital and she
doesn't know French and her very famous international rock star
boyfriend has has just died. And I think there was
they wanted to hurry up the release of the body
to protect Pamelin Curisson because if the the Prisian authorities
(07:16):
had had custody of the body for longer, they could
have thought, well, you know, let's do a let's do
an autopsy, and if they found heroin, then it's a
possibility of a murder investigation. There are actually people who
in other documentaries that they said they left France was
there afraid that they were could be fingered to be
the one who sold Jim Morrison the heroin. But of
course that would put Pamelin curs On, you know, at
(07:37):
the the cross here is that she'd be the prime suspect.
So I think there was a there was a they
might have I mean, that's what I think I would
have done if I was around and I saw how
vulnerable Pamela Curisan was, like, she did not put next
of kin in the United States which sped along the
release of the body for burial, and that you know,
allowed her to to leave to leave France. If she
(07:59):
had listed Jim or or something that's having FAMD in the
United States, it would have been had to contact it
and it would have delayed the whole process of releasing
the body.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Can you rule out suicide?
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yes, I don't think Jim Morrison was was was someone
who was going to was going to take his life.
This is somebody who was full of life. This is
somebody who would not, in my am I belief from
the person that I've that I've come across, would he
would not do that. He was someone who thought about
death a great deal.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
And this is.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Someone who is super curious and deeply fascinated with you
know what lies beyond, you know when we when we
leave our bodies.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
But suicide, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
We had a great guess by the name of our
Gary Patterson have since passed away, who was obsessed with
the fact that many of these rock stars died at
the age of twenty seven. Strange is it?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
It is? It starts at Robert Johnson, right, you know, yeah,
and it comes out like the Amy Winehouse you know
recently and et cetera and Kirk Cobain. I mean from
what I astrologically look at it from the cult. From
the cult perspective, that's when you're Saturn return and comes around.
(09:19):
That's always a tumultuous time in anybody's life, if they
look back on it. And maybe there's something to that
that goes on with rock stars who are who reach
some level of fame at that at that time. And
you know, I don't I don't know. It's very it's
deeply mysterious, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Sure is.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Morrison was also influenced by the nineteen sixty two movie
Lawrence of Arabia. How come.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I think, uh so, Lawrence comes out in nineteen sixty two,
and I think Lawrence of Arabia is depicted in that film.
He's he's our first rock star. The film influenced Mick
Jagger and David Bowie. You know, this is someone who
who is a lot like Jim Morrison. He's well read,
and he's an intellectual and when he wants adventure and
(10:07):
he doesn't want to be stuck in the map room
like at the beginning of the movie, and he wants
to go out through the desert. He reinvents himself and
he goes to a series of trials. We almost loses
his life, and he gains the respect of of the
Bedouin tribes in and then he becomes this international figure.
You know, there's a very romantic hero, right and like
(10:31):
in the film you see him dancing on the on
the train cars and he's having his picture taken by
the American journalists that came out and you know that
makes him famous.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
The film is.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
It just is a kind of like you know, blueprint
for you becoming a rock star, you know, going through
what you have to go through to become somebody else,
you know, and and and at a costume you know,
of your choice.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
With Jim Morrison, he went through this same thing. He's
out in the desert and he changed his life around,
and he went through like like trials with or shamanic initiation,
with the kind of drugs he didate, and the amounts
that he did that to break on through and in
a way that you know he saw to do it.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
And then he.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Appropriated the black leather, the whole lizard king image, you know,
to you know, to provoke and people who saw him
and during audiences that you know, he's he's bringing you
back to a time that is very very old. Jim
Morris was a very very old soul and that's that's
what he was channeling. Like that God, he even looked
like the statues that were created during the time of
(11:36):
the ancient world.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Truly remarkable individual, wasn't he?
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yes, very much So.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
At what point in his career do you think he
was at a point where he knew he had made it?
Did he ever believe that?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yes, that's that's a good question. I mean he made
in the sense of how rock stars, how we think
they make it. At that time, he achieved fame, and
he had money, and you know, they were on tour
and he was being interviewed and you know, he was
meeting all young He said that he was meeting a
(12:18):
lot of very interesting people around Los Angeles and Hollywood
at the time.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
But Jim Morrison was ambivalent about this.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
He in the end said that looking at pictures of himself,
he felt like, God, I gotta look at these pictures
of myself when I'm like seventy eighty years old. Like
he really wanted people to remember him for his poetry,
you know, for his art, and he was afraid that
the rock star image, at the sex symbol image was
was going to interfere with that, so he was ambivalent
(12:47):
about that.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
He told his sister.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That when he would recite his poetry on stage that
the audience wasn't wasn't wasn't too interested in it at
least when the Doors got really famous, because they were
they were playing the when they got families, They're playing
these huge arenas, you know, film with like you know,
you know, screaming teenagers like just going because they want
to see Jim Morrison, like you know, start a right
(13:12):
or something like that. Right, Whereas like in the in
the smaller, you know, more artistic, avant guard clubs, they
were playing like they really loved Jim Morrison's like, you know,
poetic imagination. So it became a catch twenty two for him.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Paul, what did they think of the Beatles at the
time the Doors.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Oh, I think they they they loved the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And I'm sure I've never really read anything about what
Jim Morrison might have said about the Beatles.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Jim Morrison's favorite band was Pink Floyd. You really loved Pink, Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
He must have known about the Beach Boys because they
were in l A too.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Right, Yes, this is interesting. He he really loved Elvis.
Elvis was this big deal. Like he really admired Mick
Jagger a great deal. He wasn't too inter rock music,
like he loved his Tom Layer records and things like that.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
But he loved Elvis.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
And in front of Barney's Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard,
out there in the patio, there used to be a
patty out there. Patty out there, he told a friend
of his, like, you know, I would love to see
a biography about Elvis. His name escapes him right now,
but he was the friend that he was talking to,
who was who co wrote No One here gets out.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
A lot of the bog found him. He went on to.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Write the first biography about Elvis that that came out
not too long after that conversation. So Jim Morrison was
the inspiration to get the first biography of Elvis out there.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Big morrishan ever meet Elvis?
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Do you know that?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I don't know, I don't know. I bet he would
have had a real trip on that one if he did. Yes,
it is interesting to read about when when Elvis and
the Beatles met here in Los Angeles, and Elvis kind
of looked at John Lenlom and say, hey, guys, like
you need to, like, you know, say something here.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Soon.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
You know, they get along after a while, though, didn't they?
Speaker 4 (15:02):
They did? They did a.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Lolways, remember seen Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show a
long long time ago.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Yeah, Elvis was another one.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Miguel Connor's book of the Occult Elvis came out, and
it turns out that Elvis was was also somebody who
had a strong connection to the other side. I was
very surprised with all the things that I read in
Miguel Connor's book, which is also a great read.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Would you say Morrison was spiritual?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Quite, He was a very spiritual person. The doors manager
of Bill Simmons once said that, like, you know, his
concerns are not of this world, like there's there's some
other world. I think Jim Morrison was someplace else, you know,
for most of his life. You know, a lot of
rock stars are, you know, they're they're interested in the
trappings of you know, of the money that brings to
(15:54):
my mice houses and nice cars and all that kind
of stuff. Jim Morrison just preferred things to be simple,
you know. He just he liked his Mustang and but
he never he never bought a house, and het he
bought some nice things for his girlfriend Pamela, and he
loved deeply. And he lived in a room in the
Altaiena Momantel, room thirty two, and he kept his life
(16:15):
simple that way. He was always somebody who was going
to Frank Cassandro that you could see on Santa Monica Boulevard,
in the cafes and the bars, talking to himself in
scribbling poetryund paper. So he was definitely someone who was
connected to that, to that other reality. And uh, that's
(16:36):
something that he gave himself over too fully.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Listen to more Coast to Coast a m every weeknight
at one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to
coastam dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
And welcome back Paul Wild with us, George Norrie back
with you. Paul's website is linked up at Coast tocoastam
dot com. Paul, what was that deciding moment for Jim
Morrison that led him towards the doors with Retmanseric?
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Well, like I said, he you know, he didn't want
to go to New York work at Jonas Mekas the
film the album Guard, filmmaker he loved, and so he
moved to Venice Beach and Santa Monica, started sleeping out
of the Santa Monica Peer and that's when he started
to h to open his mind up. He was taking
a lot of LSD n F l ST though probably
(00:39):
put most of us into a mental hospital at Cooma. Yeah, exactly,
and he was opening up his his his consciousness. He
was he was breaking on through. The song that he
wrote is just all about that is break on through
to that, to that other side, to that other reality
that he was.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
In touch with.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
And he didn't want to get a job, and he
was able to get his way, I find a way
out of not being drafted because he was classified A
one at the time, and he was able to get
out of that. He did not want to go into Hollywood.
He hated Hollywood. He thought Hollway movies were sir for
the masses. But he had to find a way to
(01:23):
express himself. And I don't think he really wanted to
just simply be a beat nick poet in Venice Beach,
which already has like a at the time, a long
history of beat poets there, people like Laurence Lipton.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
So he had the idea to make, you know, to
form a.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Rock and roll band, and he said that he envisioned
a fantastic concert in his mind. That he's literally just
taking notes, you know, at a at a concert that
he was hearing in his head. And that's how he
said that the songs came to him so magically. He
meets ray Manzeric on the beach and the the the
(02:02):
mental momentum is is already you know, within him, that
that spiritual momentum, those those spirits that he said, you know,
leapt inside of him there they're looking for a way
to come out, you know, to activate the you know
that the Shalmanic presence you know that he had along
with all of his you know, his heritism and his
his mysteriousness that made him such a fascinating rock star.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And man Xeric was the keyboardist, if I recall, wasn't
he Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
He Raymond's Eric grew up in Chicago and he loved
the blues and he started playing the piano and keyboards
there and then he wanted to come to California to
study film. And that's how I mentioned Morrison at u.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
C l A.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
What was the moment where the doors hit it big?
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, they they started out playing the smaller clubs in
town and then they they were found by the person
who books at the Whiskey a go go, and they
started really hunting their act there. They were following a
band called Love that they they loved, and.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Then it was.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
The Electra Records that that that found them like Jack
Holsman and and they're producer Paul Rothschild and but they
heard just really blew them away. They they wanted to
they wanted to sign them. I think what what sold
Jack Holsman was was on the Alabama song because it
was very he realized that, oh, well they're doing Berthold
Brect And I think that was the clincher for Jack
(03:36):
Holsman to sign them to Electra and then of course
they wanted to uh.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
They felt that what they thought.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Breaking Through was going to be their big hit single,
so they released that and then mhm that was That
was well received, but it wasn't the big hit.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
But it was light My Fire that they decided.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
To release and and that's what what skyrocketed them into fame.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
The late Vala Kilmer played Jim Morrison in The Doors movie.
How do you think he did?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
They think, well, oh, I think he did a fantastic job.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
You know, I thought he was amazing.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I read somewhere they had to pay him extra million
dollars because the drugs, because Malcomer was not into drugs
and all that. It is worth noting that Mary Warbelow
his college girlfriend. She her friend Bill Cosgrave, who wrote
a really good book called Jim Morrison, Mary and Me,
and he was friends of Jim Morrison, was living on
(04:29):
the beach in those first days the Doors and with Mary.
And when Mary Warblow saw the movie, she said that
that was only thirty percenttion that that the rest of
him was was missing. But it's a fantastic concert movie.
Raymond's Eric had problems with it. I haven't read that
or someone told me that Olivers don't even like thrown
him off the set. But Valcomer did at a really
(04:53):
amazing job, a really amazing job, and there are some
really beautiful scenes in that film.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
Actor.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I miss him. He was a good guy too. Yeah,
he left us two too early, he did Mount Morrison
speaking of believing us too early at twenty seven. They
never did an autopsy pall on him. What do you
think happened to him?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Well, I've thought about this so much.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Well, like everything in Jim Morrison's life, everything that happened
in Paris is mysterious. It's we're gonna be talking about
it for decades, right, Yeah. I I think that there's
two likely stories.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
One.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
You know John Densmore, the drummer, He said that if
anybody could disappear a bit in Jim Morrison, and if
if he consider what was hanging over his head, you know,
the Miami Trot. For instance, he was still on on
bond on appeal and he was very worried about what
was going to happen to him when he came back
to Florida. If he lost on appeal, he would have
to serve six six months of hard labor, and I
(05:51):
think they're prepared. They were, they were prepared to stick
it to him. His lawyers were telling him that it's
a good autum chance that they're gonna win on the appeal.
But I think Jim Morrison was thinking to himself, you know,
I've already been convicted of a crime I did not do.
In decent exposure, ten thousand photographs was submitted that night,
excuse me him. During the during the trial, not one
(06:12):
showed him. No witnesses remembered him doing that. So he
was very worried about what would happen to him when
he came back to the United States, and this caused
him a lot of anxiety in Paris. So it's possible
that he considered doing that. That was back when there's
no no Internet or anything like that, and you know,
(06:32):
he had the money where that could have been possible.
I think in the realm of like what could really
is true is that they I think that the people
in the scene, like Alan Rone and Angus Farda Parisians
when all of this happened, the very concerned for Pam mccurson,
(06:53):
who was only twenty four years old and Jim Morrison
passed away. Plus she was you know, she was a
heroin addict, and she's in a foreign capital and she
doesn't know French and her very famous international rock star
boyfriend has has just died. And I think there was
they wanted to hurry up the release of the body
to protect Pamelin Curisson because if the the Prisian authorities
(07:16):
had had custody of the body for longer, they could
have thought, well, you know, let's do a let's do
an autopsy, and if they found heroin, then it's a
possibility of a murder investigation. There are actually people who
in other documentaries that they said they left France was
there afraid that they were could be fingered to be
the one who sold Jim Morrison the heroin. But of
course that would put Pamelin curs On, you know, at
(07:37):
the the cross here is that she'd be the prime suspect.
So I think there was a there was a they
might have I mean, that's what I think I would
have done if I was around and I saw how
vulnerable Pamela Curisan was, like, she did not put next
of kin in the United States which sped along the
release of the body for burial, and that you know,
allowed her to to leave to leave France. If she
(07:59):
had listed Jim or or something that's having FAMD in the
United States, it would have been had to contact it
and it would have delayed the whole process of releasing
the body.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Can you rule out suicide?
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yes, I don't think Jim Morrison was was was someone
who was going to was going to take his life.
This is somebody who was full of life. This is
somebody who would not, in my am I belief from
the person that I've that I've come across, would he
would not do that. He was someone who thought about
death a great deal.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
And this is.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Someone who is super curious and deeply fascinated with you
know what lies beyond, you know when we when we
leave our bodies.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
But suicide, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
We had a great guess by the name of our
Gary Patterson have since passed away, who was obsessed with
the fact that many of these rock stars died at
the age of twenty seven. Strange is it?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
It is? It starts at Robert Johnson, right, you know, yeah,
and it comes out like the Amy Winehouse you know
recently and et cetera and Kirk Cobain. I mean from
what I astrologically look at it from the cult. From
the cult perspective, that's when you're Saturn return and comes around.
(09:19):
That's always a tumultuous time in anybody's life, if they
look back on it. And maybe there's something to that
that goes on with rock stars who are who reach
some level of fame at that at that time. And
you know, I don't I don't know. It's very it's
deeply mysterious, isn't it?
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Sure is.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Morrison was also influenced by the nineteen sixty two movie
Lawrence of Arabia. How come.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I think, uh so, Lawrence comes out in nineteen sixty two,
and I think Lawrence of Arabia is depicted in that film.
He's he's our first rock star. The film influenced Mick
Jagger and David Bowie. You know, this is someone who
who is a lot like Jim Morrison. He's well read,
and he's an intellectual and when he wants adventure and
(10:07):
he doesn't want to be stuck in the map room
like at the beginning of the movie, and he wants
to go out through the desert. He reinvents himself and
he goes to a series of trials. We almost loses
his life, and he gains the respect of of the
Bedouin tribes in and then he becomes this international figure.
You know, there's a very romantic hero, right and like
(10:31):
in the film you see him dancing on the on
the train cars and he's having his picture taken by
the American journalists that came out and you know that
makes him famous.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
The film is.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
It just is a kind of like you know, blueprint
for you becoming a rock star, you know, going through
what you have to go through to become somebody else,
you know, and and and at a costume you know,
of your choice.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
With Jim Morrison, he went through this same thing. He's
out in the desert and he changed his life around,
and he went through like like trials with or shamanic initiation,
with the kind of drugs he didate, and the amounts
that he did that to break on through and in
a way that you know he saw to do it.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
And then he.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Appropriated the black leather, the whole lizard king image, you know,
to you know, to provoke and people who saw him
and during audiences that you know, he's he's bringing you
back to a time that is very very old. Jim
Morris was a very very old soul and that's that's
what he was channeling. Like that God, he even looked
like the statues that were created during the time of
(11:36):
the ancient world.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Truly remarkable individual, wasn't he?
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yes, very much So.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
At what point in his career do you think he
was at a point where he knew he had made it?
Did he ever believe that?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yes, that's that's a good question. I mean he made
in the sense of how rock stars, how we think
they make it. At that time, he achieved fame, and
he had money, and you know, they were on tour
and he was being interviewed and you know, he was
meeting all young He said that he was meeting a
(12:18):
lot of very interesting people around Los Angeles and Hollywood
at the time.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
But Jim Morrison was ambivalent about this.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
He in the end said that looking at pictures of himself,
he felt like, God, I gotta look at these pictures
of myself when I'm like seventy eighty years old. Like
he really wanted people to remember him for his poetry,
you know, for his art, and he was afraid that
the rock star image, at the sex symbol image was
was going to interfere with that, so he was ambivalent
(12:47):
about that.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
He told his sister.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That when he would recite his poetry on stage that
the audience wasn't wasn't wasn't too interested in it at
least when the Doors got really famous, because they were
they were playing the when they got families, They're playing
these huge arenas, you know, film with like you know,
you know, screaming teenagers like just going because they want
to see Jim Morrison, like you know, start a right
(13:12):
or something like that. Right, Whereas like in the in
the smaller, you know, more artistic, avant guard clubs, they
were playing like they really loved Jim Morrison's like, you know,
poetic imagination. So it became a catch twenty two for him.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Paul, what did they think of the Beatles at the
time the Doors.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Oh, I think they they they loved the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And I'm sure I've never really read anything about what
Jim Morrison might have said about the Beatles.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Jim Morrison's favorite band was Pink Floyd. You really loved Pink, Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
He must have known about the Beach Boys because they
were in l A too.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Right, Yes, this is interesting. He he really loved Elvis.
Elvis was this big deal. Like he really admired Mick
Jagger a great deal. He wasn't too inter rock music,
like he loved his Tom Layer records and things like that.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
But he loved Elvis.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
And in front of Barney's Beanery on Santa Monica Boulevard,
out there in the patio, there used to be a
patty out there. Patty out there, he told a friend
of his, like, you know, I would love to see
a biography about Elvis. His name escapes him right now,
but he was the friend that he was talking to,
who was who co wrote No One here gets out.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
A lot of the bog found him. He went on to.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Write the first biography about Elvis that that came out
not too long after that conversation. So Jim Morrison was
the inspiration to get the first biography of Elvis out there.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Big morrishan ever meet Elvis?
Speaker 4 (14:40):
Do you know that?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I don't know, I don't know. I bet he would
have had a real trip on that one if he did. Yes,
it is interesting to read about when when Elvis and
the Beatles met here in Los Angeles, and Elvis kind
of looked at John Lenlom and say, hey, guys, like
you need to, like, you know, say something here.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
Soon.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
You know, they get along after a while, though, didn't they?
Speaker 4 (15:02):
They did? They did a.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Lolways, remember seen Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show a
long long time ago.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
Yeah, Elvis was another one.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Miguel Connor's book of the Occult Elvis came out, and
it turns out that Elvis was was also somebody who
had a strong connection to the other side. I was
very surprised with all the things that I read in
Miguel Connor's book, which is also a great read.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Would you say Morrison was spiritual?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Quite, He was a very spiritual person. The doors manager
of Bill Simmons once said that, like, you know, his
concerns are not of this world, like there's there's some
other world. I think Jim Morrison was someplace else, you know,
for most of his life. You know, a lot of
rock stars are, you know, they're they're interested in the
trappings of you know, of the money that brings to
(15:54):
my mice houses and nice cars and all that kind
of stuff. Jim Morrison just preferred things to be simple,
you know. He just he liked his Mustang and but
he never he never bought a house, and het he
bought some nice things for his girlfriend Pamela, and he
loved deeply. And he lived in a room in the
Altaiena Momantel, room thirty two, and he kept his life
(16:15):
simple that way. He was always somebody who was going
to Frank Cassandro that you could see on Santa Monica Boulevard,
in the cafes and the bars, talking to himself in
scribbling poetryund paper. So he was definitely someone who was
connected to that, to that other reality. And uh, that's
(16:36):
something that he gave himself over too fully.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
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