“Herpetarian Monarch”
(2nd Anniversary celebration re-print. Original posted 2/25/2009)
I’m not a Baby Boomer but their generation has been a force of inspiration throughout my life. Although many of you likely share my disappointment at missing out on being one (due to the cruel fate of a mis-timed birth), I am sure you all share my admiration. Please join me as I take time each week to shine a spotlight on one of the many heros from this fine, fine generation of Americans!
Jim Morrison!
James Douglas Morrison was born in Florida, in the United States of America. His father was an Admiral in the U.S. navy (a tool of “the man”). Jim’s mother, Clara, stayed at home with their children. Steve and Clara were unselfish, devoted parents who worked tirelessly to ensure their children were well fed, well educated, had shelter and were in good health. I am sure you can already see why Jim would grow to hate them…
At the age of 4 Jim’s parents took the family on a vacation out west. Their progess was slightly delayed by a traffic accident involving Native Americans. Jim’s family (Imperialists of European decent) barely noticed, or remembered the incident. Jim’ sister Ann: “He enjoyed telling that story and exaggerating it. He said he saw a dead Indian by the side of the road, and I don’t even know if that’s true.”
However, being a magnificent Baby Boomer Jim knew, even at the age of 4, that he should internalize this event. It wasn’t about the pain and suffering of some folks involved in a traffic accident. It was, rather, about him, Jim Morrison! Jim would make his father suffer for being foolish enough to take his family on a vacation, exposing the “child’s young, fragile, egg shell mind” to such devestation. Over many years, and forcing himself to recall, and re-recall the tragic pain of that vacation he was eventually able to bring back the full memory of “Indians scattered on dawn’s highway, bleeding!” How could his thoughtless, callous father have taken the family on that vacation, virtually strangling young Jim in the womb?!
Now, we begin to truly appreciate the Dickensian circumstances of young Jim’s upbringing. How would Jim ever be able to overcome his parents’ mis-handling of his childhood and persevere?!
Yet, overcome he did! Jim’s parents financed his college degree through undergraduate stints at St. Petersburg Junior College, Florida State University, and ultimately UCLA film school. But Jim was clever. He was better than them! He saw through their shallow, empty act of providing housing, food and tuition so he could pursue what interested him. Naturally, he refused to use the education his father’s hard work had financed.
You, go, Jim! That’ll show ‘em! Your old man won’t force you to live his boring, mundane pedestrian life. Well, O.K., his dad was a naval officer, not a film director, but still, his parents paid for film school so Jim wasn’t about to fall into their trap.
Jim eventually started a band with Ray Manzarek, a friend from film school. Ray was an extremetly talented pianist and keyboard player, winner of awards for musicianship as a child and already a veteran of several successful bands. Jim, unemployed, wandered on the beach, mumbling to himself and scribbling “poems” in a notebook. It was obvious who the star of this band would be! How lucky Ray was to hook up with Jim!!
Two other talented musicians; Robby Krieger and John Densmore joined the band. The band wrote music to several of Jim’s poems with very little positive response. Then Krieger penned the lyrics to, “Come on Baby, Light My Fire,” which Krieger, Densmore and Manzarek set to music. It was an enormous success. Naturally, Jim insisted they return to the earlier pattern of setting his “poetry” to music.
Jim was drinking and using drugs a lot. Wouldn’t you if your parents had taken you on vacation as a child and financed a degree from UCLA film school? Yet some people still failed to understand this immense burden of family trauma Jim continued to silently carry with him. This led Jim to add a section to his song/poem “The End:” he would stand on stage and scream to thousands of strangers in the audience that he wanted to kill his father and f**k his mother. Can you blame him?! How did his parents live with themselves, knowing the torment they had put him through?!
Yet, how gallantly Jim soldiered on, working to overcome the hardships of his childhood! Go, Jim, GO! You are the greatest!!
Seeing Jim for the wounded, yet silently suffering genius that he was, several women tried to help Jim conquer his sorrows. But how could Jim accept their love and selfless help when they would never truly understand the pain he silently harbored within. Didn’t they know his father had taken him on vacation and he had witnessed a traffic accident?! And then they paid his way through film school…
Although the musicianship, hard work and dedication of Krieger, Densmore and Manzarek made the band successful Jim saw that success for what it was; a duplication of his parents’ world. Naturally he had to medicate his pain somehow. He became even more dependent on drugs and alcohol and less reliable at performances, sometimes not showing up, often forgetting lyrics and stumbling or passing out on stage.
Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore continued writing and recording songs, scheduling concerts, making public appearances, promoting the band, and wrestling with the task of getting a now bloated and often drug and/or alcohol impaired Jim to stand in front of the microphone. Of course Jim needed to get away from them. Their talent and reliability were destroying him! Nobody understood, or appreciated the genius of his poetry. They couldn’t even understand the stupendous artistic, creative brilliance of a drunken Jim losing the tempo of songs and threatening to display his male member to a live audience. How could Jim continue to live with these cretins?! His bandmates were trying to force him to live the life of a financially successful rock star! How much more could one man stand?! If others weren’t selflessly toiling to help him be a film director they were selflessly toiling to make him a rock star!! Has anyone in the history of the human race ever been so put upon?!
Even a heroic, selfless genius like Jim has his breaking point.
So Jim defaulted on several contracts, commitments and obligations and fled to Paris, where, without the support of his selfish bandmates he was able to realize his full potential! He was finally free of his parents and the grueling life of a rock star and free, free to pursue his muse and grow to his full potential. Free to become the great artist he always knew he could be. And where better, but in Paris, the City of Lights!
In less than 5 months he overdosed on heroin and was dead. At the time of his death there were reportedly over 20 paternity suits pending against him.
Each year thousands of twenty-somethings flock to his gravesite in Paris to pay homage to this great, Boomer Hero and honor his gifts to the arts! They walk past (and often unknowingly trample) the graves of such artistic lightweights as Honoré de Balzac, Claude Bernard, Sarah Bernhardt, Georges Bizet, Sophie Blanchard, Jean de Brunhoff, Maria Callas, Jean-François Champollion, Ernest Chausson, Frédéric Chopin, Auguste Comte, Eugène Delacroix, Thierry Fortineau, Joseph Fourier, Sadegh Hedayat, Clarence John Laughlin, Marcel Marceau, Georges Méliès, Charles Messier, Amadeo Modigliani, Michel Petrucciani, Édith Piaf, Marcel Proust, Gioacchino Rossini, Edmond James de Rothschild, Comte Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Oscar Wilde while on their way to pay homage to this brilliant, boomer musician, composer, poet and artist.
The spirits of Wilde, Chopin, Proust, Rossini and Saint-Exupéry surely repose in joy knowing they share their site of perpetual entombment with the brilliant author of, “Father, I want to kill you. Mother, I want to…”
What a tremendous loss to the Boomer Generation…America…The World! Jim Morrison, Threedonia salutes you!
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I am glad the Boomer Hero/Zero columns are back. Just too funny!!!
yes indeed, heroic martyrdom through overdose
I remember learning about Honore de Balzac in sophomore history class. Don’t remember a damn thing about him. But we had more than a few laughs over his name. Poor guy. But of course, I’m sure sharing a resting place with the great hero Jim Morrison makes up for it.
“Balzac” was said with such gusto by Hermione Gingold in The Music Man.
Rufus… Did you mean DHP.com — is this “Classic Rufus” or new material?
Marcel Marceau’s version of “The End” was jaw-dropping.
A True Hero (wipes tear from eye)
Floyd,
Doh! I forgot to edit that out. This was a re-post to kick start the series on the new site. Boomer Hero and Zero will be a weekly, Friday feature. Don’t you remember us discussing this at this morning’s threedonia staff meeting? And don’t forget, it’s your turn to buy the donuts for Monday’s meeting.
Sure thing … Spudnuts on me.
I’ll try not to vomit on the donuts again.
That was vomit?!
Chuck told me they were sprinkles!
As my 3-year old says — they were “Pringles”.
Pringles on donuts! It’s two meals in one. Genius!
Rufus, sorry about the bad information. The puke was so colorful I thought it was sprinkles.
Like Eddie Wilson, I preferred Rimbaud.
OK vomit jokes in the morning..not cool. Heh.
Great post Rufus. Love it. Can I post it on facebook. It’ll piss off my siblings. TRUTH TO POWER! Ha!
Glad you liked it, Stephanie. It’s a re-post from way back in the DH’s Place days. Since Floyd brought it up today, and we have new readers, I thought I’d throw it up again. (pun intended)
Post it anywhere. Just be sure to hat tip me and Threedonia.
And watch Friday for the new, refurbished, recurring Boomer Hero/Zero o’ the Week!
Thanks dude!
classic! I too went to that cemetery in Paris (started by Napoleon as a burial place for his generals and…probably anyone who pissed him off). Edith Piaf?! Bah! I followed the conga line through the meandering lanes, ignoring the lipstick stained monument to Oscar Wilde, until I found the “Morrison Hotel”. A group of Italian schoolgirls were standing around it, stage whispering excitedly to each other. Probably wishing they had a paternity suit too.
I didn’t truly understand The Doors music until I saw the movie, which, by the way, you should never ever ever see with a hangover. Once I saw him dancing on the stage with a hallucinated Native American and then passing out unable to finish the concert, it all made sense. He is a standard for all times.
Kind of follows my own life story – which is why I’m now sitting in a cubicle in the middle of nowhere, reading Threedonia when I should be working, glaring at my cubicle mate as he walks around on his headphones and bumps my chair.
Great!
Great to see you here, kishke! Haven’t seen you since the Libertas days! We could use some of your brilliant commentary in these parts. Don’t be a stranger.
Rufus,
So glad you’re bringing back the Boomer Hero/Zero feature- it’s one of my favorite features of this blog.
Wiat’ll you see Friday’s, JimmyC. It’s so tough for me to do it’s why the series ended the first time around. It’s necessary, and true and needs to be done, but it’s also mean-spirited, and I hate being mean-spirited… but it’s the truth, gol’ darn it, and not speaking out to avoid seeming mean hurts the other person so I’ve got to speak up.
Though I love the Doors movie and Val Kilmer should have walked away with Best Actor that year, I’m embarrassed I ever put so much stock in Mr. Mojo as a person or alleged poet. Rufus, thanks for nailing the “He’s drunk, he’s nobody. He’s drunk, he’s somebody. He’s drunk, he’s dead.” coffin shut, too.
That said, I still dig the brunt of the band’s songs and the surviving members should be strongly and appreciatively commended for the 40th anniversary album re-issues, which added previously unheard layers of music and subtleties to the mixes.
Eric,
I like the Doors, and I certainly like some other bands with members who are as egotistical and drug addicted as Morrison was, but I think Morrison’s behavior is a perfect example of the self-centered, Boomer attitude. The guy had a great childhood; caring parents who treated him nicely. I would have liked to have had the benefits he had, but none of that was good enough for Jim. It had to be all about him, 24/7. I especially feel bad for his bandmates. They were such a big part of the band’s success and worked tirelessly behind the scenes to keep things moving in spite of Morrison, yet nobody ever remembers them, or gives them credit.
Every generation has heroes like this; Belushi, T.S. Elliot, Poe, Wilde…
No, I got that. Was just a nice reminder of why I should have never placed Boomer jackoff Jim on a pedestal.
I lived for a while near Melbourne, Florida, where Morrison was born. If I remember correctly, his childhood home was still standing, but was a little off the beaten path. So Morrison’s fans designated an unrelated house on the main drag as “the Morrison house” and decorated it with sycophantic graffiti.
Which seems appropriate.
I read the autobiography of John Densmore, the drummer. A bit of a wuss, frankly. This guy was in a band with a smash hit in 1967 and it took him months to lose his virginity. But he did his job!
He also hates John Milius because Milius once described how Doors music gave him Vietnam war fantasies in a good way.
I bet John Milius feels real bad about that…doesn’t he? Heh!
Thanks to Milius half the planet associates Doors music with burning jungle, drugs and firing M-60s into the darkness. Thanks to Morrison and Oliver Stone, the other half associates it with pagan excess, drugs and Indians in the desert. Please don´t make me choose.
(Don´t get me wrong, the Densmore lifestyle worked out better than the Morrison lifestyle but he seems a very earnest fellow.)
[...] impression was the Baby Boom, “Me Generation” correlation was a bit of a stretch. And as someone who is no fan of Boomers I would love to pin the blame on them, but I think that thesis takes away from the overall theme. [...]
One of my favorite posts to write, ever. And, for those few of you who have been asking for another, I think you’ll like what I’ve got in the hopper.
Barry O, er, SoeterO???