Horse Girl, Mental Illness, Straight Whisky

Alison Brie’s Sarah in Horse Girl (2020) is an intriguing part for her. Effortlessly empathetic, Brie has always had an interesting presence, and no matter how crazy her character gets throughout, she never loses our sympathy. Rather, it’s an occasionally frightening look at what it's like to have your sense of reality slowly snatched away from you, where, to a certain extent, you know you’re losing it but can’t help but go down the rabbit hole. Beana does something interesting by taking us right into Sarah’s mindset. From the start, we know she’s an oddball, spending all of her nights at home obsessing over a cheesy drama called Purgatory. We know she’s sick, and in a daring move, for the last act, we experience the world wholly through Sarah’s fractured perspective, a unique approach to dealing with mental illness that has an unsettling, open-ended effect. As a result, the movie takes on a surreal, dream-like quality, bordering on sci-fi. Overall, it works pretty well, even if the occasional surreal touches from the perspective of other characters feel a bit out of place, as if they couldn't make up their mind whether they were making a serious film about mental illness or a surreal, David Lynch-style mindf*ck. Composers Josiah Steinbrick and Jeremy Zuckerman help build the bizarre tone of the film. Shimmering music matches tender moments. Droning sounds match Sarah's dream sequences. Elements of her mind bleed into each other illogically, which is visualized by editor Ryan Brown's experimentation to portray the way her mind works: subtle cuts and slow dissolve transitions create time and space lapses; ominous sound edits portend her deteriorating mental state. The final scene elicits more than one interpretation, and viewers can find closure in the established ambiguity, but they won't experience a neatly tied-up ending -- just as lingering mental illness will not offer a clear resolution. Source: www.popmatters.com

Interpretation by Imdb user Palange Music: It seems that many people think it's about mental illness, but there is one detail that they seem to overlook in the very beginning. If you watch the first few minutes, when they are talking about ancestry-like dna tests, you will notice that when the conversation concludes, Sarah walks away and Joan notices out the window that there is a horse in the parking lot - she catches just a quick glimpse of it and makes a strange face (about 2:30 into the film). At the end of the film when Sarah is walking her horse (which she took without permission) she walks past the shop and it shows the exact same frame and Joan's reaction to the horse being in the parking lot (1 hour 35 minutes approximately). If you look closely the same cars are in the parking lot and you can also see Sarah standing with Joan proving this is intended to be the same scene as the one in the beginning. This would mean she actually did jump back in time. To me this proves that she is not crazy and that it was intended to be a science-fiction film (time travel/aliens or unknown creatures, etc.) Source: www.imdb.com

In his essay “The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years,” Greil Marcus writes of Jim Morrison, “Here’s this nice-looking person on the stage all but threatening you with a spiritual death penalty and turning you into a jury that convicts yourself.” As usual with Marcus we are not entirely sure what that means. One of the most infamous onstage jams was the fleeting union between Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison on stage at hip New York club Steve Paul’s The Scene in the spring of 1968, while Janis Joplin looked on. Peace and love wasn’t on the agenda when what should have been a supreme meeting of minds disintegrated into a chaotic brawl that ended with Joplin smashing a bottle on Morrison’s head. It sounds like Janis Joplin was just lying in wait because she felt Jim was being rude to Jimi Hendrix. Obviously Morrison could be crude, weird and obnoxious, but this just sounds like typical drunken stupidity on the part of all parties involved.

Danny Fields (publicist, Elektra Records): I was working for Elektra, which meant I was working for Jim Morrison, but he and I didn’t get along. I knew Jim was at The Scene that night, and Jimi Hendrix was always there. And I was a teenage boy who worshipped Janis, so I knew she was there as well. Janis’s hatred of Morrison, I don’t know where it started. But if you mentioned Jim’s name she would say: “That asshole.” She was not going to put up with what she thought was his childish behaviour, wherever she encountered it. Janis stepped on the stage and hit Jim over the head with the bottle, then she poured her drink over him. The three of them, Morrison, Joplin and Hendrix, started grabbing and rolling all over the floor in a writhing heap of hysteria. They were in a tangle of broken glass, dust and guitars. Naturally it ended up in all three of them being carried out. Morrison had been sending off danger signals from the moment he got there. He was behaving like someone from the sewers. Morrison was the most seriously hurt. Source: www.amazon.com

Dawn’s Highway (2019), a short story by Jim Cherry:

A phone booth stands alone, empty in the Los Angeles night, its dull plastic light an island, in the sea of neon fused darkness. a car pulls up to the curb and a lone figure gets out. The car pulls away, the figure walks to the phone booth closing the door behind him. The inside light pops on illuminating him, a silhouette in relief against the night. He takes a dime out of his black jeans, and picks up the receiver, he puts the dime in the coin slot, waiting for the dial tone. As the phone rang on the other end, his girlfriend picks it up. “Yeah, it’s me,” he says, his voice a soft conspiratorial whisper, “we just got back into town tonight.” Jim was walking down Sunset Boulevard, he’d been wearing the same clothes for the last couple of days, black jeans, t-shirt, boots, a dark welder’s jacket. His pants still had some remnants of desert sand in the creases and folds, he had other reminders of the desert as well, the cuts and bruises on his face. It had only been six months since he’d come down off of Dennis Jacobs roof, where he’d subsisted on acid. Under the summer sun he burned away a lot of ideas of himself and while the rest of the city slept he took notes at a fantastic rock concert in his mind, as he wrote down the songs he heard. No one, not even his friends had understood that. Most of the time, they only saw the Jim they wanted to see, the Jim they expected. A police cruiser drove past, one of the cops was looking at him, suddenly it screeched to a halt and the cops jumped out. “Are you Jim Morrison?” “Yeah,” Jim said defiantly, “who wants to know?” The cops pushed him against the wall of the nearest building and pat him down before handcuffing and putting him in the back of the cruiser. The cops hustled him through the police station and they threw him into an interrogation room, his hands still cuffed in front of him. Jim understood the game they were going to run on him and wondered which would play the good cop, and which would play the bad cop. “I’m officer Ellison and this is officer Hanson, we’re the investigating officers.” The suit jacketed cop said. “Investigating what?” “Do you know the whereabouts of one Phillip O’Leno?” Hanson asked, taking the lead. “Not really.” “He’s missing, we think he may have been killed.” “What makes you think I had anything to do with it?” The cop stared at Jim hoping the silence would intimidate Jim. Jim returned the stare. “Where’d you get all those bruises from?” “Some bikers didn’t like our long hair.” “Do you have a job?” Ellison asked in a softer tone, trying to break through the barriers Jim had up. “No.” “What do you do for a living, son?” Jim thought a moment, considering the audience. “Nothing you’d understand.” “We really don’t care about you kissing some Mexican girl,” Hanson said with a look of mild distaste on his face. “Why don’t you just tell us what happened out in the desert son?” Smiling, Jim asked, “What if life is nothing more than an act of remembering?” The cops looked at each other, perplexed by the question. “What if we’re dead already and just remembering this?” The two cops just looked at each other, “What if we’re just sitting around remembering life and telling each other our stories?” “What’re you talking about son?” “You know, like Sunset Boulevard, Citizen Kane, Carousel.”

Flashback: “Manzarek isn’t like you, he isn’t a poet, he’s a capitalist, he wants fame, money, power.” Jim remembered Felix Venable's words. “Felix, since you're not going to let me drive,” Jim said, “wake me when we get somewhere,” as he lay down in the backseat. The car pulled up in front of a roadside bar, it was a sun bleached, weather-beaten wooden building with a porch running across the front, there were some motorcycles parked off to the side of the building. “Wake up Jim, we’re here!” “Where?” “Somewhere.” Felix said. They went inside, it was cool, quiet and dark, despite the soft moaning of the jukebox. The bar ran the length of one wall, a little farther in and across from it was a pool table, sitting at a table were five bikers with their girlfriends. All the guys were dressed in leather jackets, white t-shirt, jeans, and biker boots. The girls were all dressed in low cut flowery blouses and tight pants. They all watched as the outsiders came in, Jim was the first to get to the bar. “What can I get for you?” The bartender asked. “Beer, por favor,” Jim said, smiling broadly. “We’re on a mission of discovery,” Jim chimed in smoothly, “looking for a new world.” “A new world?” the biker said, “you mean a new world like when Europeans came here and killed our ancestors?” “No, it’s like space, but instead of going outwards we want to go inward.” “You college boys are tourists slumming, looking to get high.” Phil and Felix turned to their beers, While Jim looked around taking in the surroundings trying to memorize everything about the place, he caught the eye of one of the girls. Her blouse was low-cut and there was the undulation across the top of her breasts as she walked, came up to the bar, ostensibly to get a drink. She sidled up next to Jim, and he started talking to her. The bikers started to notice and get agitated, the talking amongst themselves grew louder. Phil was the first to notice and leaned over to Jim, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea Jim.” “Why not?” “Well, for one,” Phil said, “you almost got us busted in L.A. when you jumped out of the car and kissed that chick.” “Phil,” Jim said innocently, “she was a beautiful angel, and I just thought I’d break the ice.” “That’s beside the point Jim, all those guys over there are getting upset.” Jim looked over at them, and roared, “Well, fuck them!” The bikers all stopped talking and the leader walked over to Jim. “You like my girlfriend, gringo?” “Who says she’s yours?” Jim questioned. “We’ll see who she leaves with.” “You like girls?” the biker confronted him. “Why? You want to fuck me?” Jim said in a mocking tone. “More like fuck you up.” The biker punched Jim, Felix jumped up and blindsided the biker and then there was an explosion of sound, as chairs crashed to the floor, and the bikers jumped on them. The bartender started yelling, “You’re not going to break up my bar!” Jim, Felix, and Phil jumped into the car, the tires spinning out a cloud of dust and rock in their wake. Jim was thoughtful and he didn’t want to expose himself, Phil would understand, but Felix would think him naïve and mock him. “I want to live a life without regret.” “You think that is possible?” the shaman asked, “for every choice you make you may later mourn what you’ve lost or suffer what you’ve gained.” 

Jim didn’t know what to say, ever since he could remember he knew what answers a teacher was looking for. He knew which buttons to push to impress a school teacher. The shaman said, “You can’t expect knowledge to be given to you.” “Why not?” “Knowledge is power you have to earn it and if you risk not using it wisely, it can destroy you.” “What will happen when we take the peyote?” Jim asked. “It will change the way you see the world.” “How?” Phil asked. “Each of you differently, what you fear is out there but you will also find the greatest joy.” “And afterwards?” Jim asked. “You will awake on dawn’s highway,” the shaman said, pointing towards the road. “What’s at the end of this dawn’s highway?” “No one knows what’s at the end of the highway, madness or bliss.” Jim looked enthralled for the adventure, Phil, hesitant, not sure if this was a trip he really wanted to go on. Jim looked to the sky, it was dark, and the moon was full and bright and held dominion over the desert. The music throbbed, he looked around and saw the concert in his head, clearer than he ever had. The scene was bent, curved, as if he looking through some other lens, there was a sea of people. The music pulsated through his body, it was scintillating, a scream came ripping through the atmosphere and he realized it was from him. Out of the darkness he saw a silvery spiderweb, he felt the prickling of fear at the edge of his consciousness, then some silvery nails pushed down out of the darkness and he knew he was in a coffin, he told himself not to be afraid if he let the fear in it he couldn't return from his trip. “What about all those aphorisms you’re always spouting from Nietzsche and Rimbaud? Aren’t those your rules?” “I’m beyond that, man. Nietzsche and Rimbaud are just signposts in the wilderness, they tell me I’m on the right trail.” He is already missing the horizon, thinking they should have lingered on the beach. They are in West Hollywood now. Vegetation contending with sidewalks, palms leaning in over cornices. Billboards obstreperous, affronting the senses. “Nietzsche gave us Zarathustra. And then the lights went out. He went mad.” Jim looks now over at his friend. “Oh come on, Jim.  You’re not mad. Just back off on the booze.” Smiling now, but eyes widening, Jim's stare is vacant: “Madness begets madness.” That stare unnerves him. The flatness of it, as though James Douglas Morrison had turned into pure ice at the center of hell. In his movie mind, Jim saw the final scene of the sensuous wild west for a turned-on generation, in disconnected images with the mind choosing the order, creating its own context. As he neared The Whisky he could feel the music thumping through the walls, the doors. He walked in and was swallowed by the music. Source: medium.com

Straight Whisky (2004) by Erik Quisling & Austin Williams: With varying degrees of success, Quisling and Williams reconstruct 40 years of hip-shaking, altered consciousness and groupie-love at Sunset Strip nightclubs Whisky A Go-Go and its sister establishments the Roxy Theatre and the Rainbow Bar & Grill, in an attempt to bring to life the L.A. music scene since 1964. Focusing on random events meant to emblemize the Whiskey ambiance and demonstrate its cultural impact, the authors chronicle the club from its early Tinseltown days to the Black Flag riots. The list of acts that have graced the stage of Whisky is a veritable who's who of rock, with compelling tales of Jim Morrison passed out back stage. Williams recounts the time Charles Manson dropped by the Whisky just days before the mass killings at Benedict Canyon, harassed a waitress and was thrown out by the owner, Mario Maglieri. Central to rock 'n' roll history, the Whisky was a place of raw, untethered emotion, debauchery and mayhem. As Henry Rollins claims in his surprising foreword, "When you think about who's been at the Whisky, it reminds you that LA actually used to have some culture. Now LA seems just to be sort of a cultureless wasteland. But back then, there was a real scene. Something worth real documentation." Source: www.amazon.com

Mario Maglieri, who presided over a rock ’n’ roll mini-empire on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood at the Whisky a Go Go and the Rainbow Bar & Grill, where he nurtured generations of musicians with encouragement, food and tough love, died on May 4, 2017 in Los Angeles. The Whisky a Go Go was opened in 1964 by a former policeman named Elmer Valentine, who soon asked Mr. Maglieri, a friend from Chicago, to help run the club. It became a critical part of the Los Angeles rock scene. For a time, the Doors were the house band. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin also played there. So did Led Zeppelin, the Byrds, the Who, Otis Redding, the Turtles and Neil Young. The Beatles demanded to visit the Whisky when they toured the United States in 1964. Mr. Maglieri understood that some needed a free meal at the nearby Rainbow Bar and others a kind word. “I don’t think it was innate in him to love rock ’n’ roll people,” Lou Adler said in a telephone interview. “But being around it for all those years, he just took a fatherly, grandfatherly, feeling toward these people. He loved those kids with problems, like Jim Morrison.” Mr. Maglieri told The Los Angeles Times in 1993 that he had warned Jim Morrison, the lead singer of the Doors, and Janis Joplin to straighten out, without success. Jim Morrison, Mr. Maglieri said, “was a good boy” who “would look at me all goofed up. I couldn't help liking him for his lack of guile. The reprimanding I gave him didn’t do any good. Too bad he’s not alive. I’d give him a spanking. When The Doors were the house band, I saw Morrison two or three times a week. He was drunk or stoned but he could talk. A bit pathetic, but Jim was a good kid. His girlfriend Pam, a redhead looker, danced as a go-go for a while, but Jim got jealous and he told her to learn to cook instead." In Pamela Courson, Jim Morrison finally met his match. In many ways, she was as bizarre as he was, always looking for something exciting, something special. While Pam entertained a fantasy of one day settling down with Jim and living a normal life, she must have known the reason they thrived together was because both were tormented souls." -Straight Whisky (2004) by Erik Quisling & Austin Williams

"I will never be untrue/Do anything you would want me to/Never stay out drinking/no later than two (two thirty...)/I will never treat you mean/and I won't cause no kind of scene/Tell you all the people/all the places I have been/I will always treat you kind/try to give you peace of mind/Only you tell me that you love me/one more time/Now darling/please don't be sad/Don't run off like that/when you get mad/Cause if you do you gonna lose/the best friend that you ever had/That's no lie/I will never be untrue/Do everything you want me to do/Bring all my loving/all my money/bring it all home to you." -"I will never be untrue" (1969) by The Doors, written for Pamela Courson.