Dreaming, Fiction, and Empathy: Aside from the considerable evidence that dream content is related to waking social life, a further component supporting a link between dreaming and empathy is that the dream acts as a piece of fiction, which is explored by the dreamer and others as part of the sharing process, and that, like literary fiction (Oatley and Veltkamp, 2013), can induce empathy about the life circumstances of the dreamer. Veltkamp showed that empathy was increased for people who read a fictional story, in comparison to a non-fictional piece, but that this effect only occurred if the reader was fully immersed into the story, “transported into this narrative world.” The emotional response is greater with fiction than with non-fiction, because of the freer involvement with the characters and story, and because “the focus of fiction is primarily on eliciting emotions, rather than presenting factual information.” Drawing a comparison between dreams and literary narrative does raise two questions, on the measurement of the narrative structure of dreams, and on the difficulties associated with deciding what is literary about literary narratives. Nielsen et al (2001) quantified narrative progression in REM and NREM dreams using a story grammar tool to parse dream reports into their constituent components (actions, scenes, and characters) and to identify the causal precursors and consequences of the constituent actions. The two types of sleep did not differ with respect to the mere presence of story components. Episodic progression, that is, the minimal story unit, was defined as the occurrence of at least one character action for which both an initiating event and a consequence were also identified. A greater proportion of REM than NREM stage 2 reports contained at least one episodic progression, proportions were, respectively, 0.66 and 0.43. This significant difference was accounted for by the proportion of dreams with episodic progression being much higher (0.79) for late REM dreams of frequent dream recallers. On the question of what is a literary narrative, Mar and Oatley (2008) include in this category novels, films, TV shows, and theater, and they state these narratives model the human social world, with the viewer or reader undergoing a simulation of events. Some of these characteristics of literary narrative obviously do not hold for dreams, but the crucial characteristics that they have in common are that literary narratives and dreams are simulations of the waking social world, and that both can elicit engagement and emotion when told. The main basis for story production in dreams is detailed in Dr. Edward Pace-Schott’s study Dreaming as a story-telling instinct (2013).
The similarity between dreams and fictional stories is explored by States (1993), with dreams doing “much the same thing as the fiction writer who makes models of the world that carry the imprint and structure of our deepest concerns. And it does this by using real people, or scraps of real people, as the instruments of hypothetical acts.” States proceeds to describe “such narratives contributing to our formulation and recognition of patterns of experience,” and including scriptural violations or scripts in conflict. He compares dreams to two types of narrative, life itself, from which the dream borrows its content, and fiction, which is “waking dreams designed for other people,” and he cites Calvin Hall’s conclusion that people incorporated into dreams are those to whom we have mixed feelings, or some tension. In their paper The function of fiction is the abstraction and simulation of social experience, Mar and Oatley (2008) state that “Engaging in the simulative experiences of fiction literature can facilitate the understanding of others who are different from ourselves and can augment our capacity for empathy and social inference.” They conclude that “In much of literature, the author challenges readers to empathize with individuals who differ drastically from the self,” and they propose that narrative fiction represents “learning through experience.”
We emphasize that the functional SST (Social Simulation Theory) and non-functional William Domhoff views of dreaming both see the dream as fiction. Dreams are fictional because they have events that only very rarely copy waking life episodes (Fosse et al., 2003). Furthermore, in Vallat et al. (2017), an unknown dream environment occurs in just over 40% of dreams, and is significantly more frequent than an environment that is wholly or partly taken from waking life. In contrast, other characters in the dream are more likely to be known than to be unknown or mixed. Oatley (2016) in Fiction: Simulation of social worlds, states that people who read fiction improve their understanding of others, because fiction has complex characters and circumstances that we might not encounter in daily life. He concludes: “While some everyday consciousness can remain inside the individual mind and be externalized in small pieces during conversations, fictional stories can be thought of as larger pieces of consciousness that can be externalized by authors in forms that can be passed to others so that these others can internalize them as wholes, and make them their own.” The present paper is proposing that dreams can, like fictional stories, be passed to others who internalize them as wholes. But what is being said of dreaming consciousness could also be said of the scenarios and narratives present in waking consciousness. Source: www.psychologytoday.com
"We cripple ourselves with lies. In times like these we need men who can see clearly and speak the truth." -Jim Morrison, Wilderness (1970)
Patricia Butler: Oliver Stone wanted to use Patricia Kennealy's real name in the film. The only way she would agree to that is if Stone let Kennealy rewrite her character the way she wanted it. According to Jerry Hopkins, Kennealy then took what was hardly a scene in the film and blew it up to something like 15 pages of script, making it seem like she was Jim's "other woman", which she never was. Pathetic doesn't begin to cover it. Kennealy did first meet Jim when she interviewed him at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1969 and the only motivation I think Morrison had to make this liaision with a rock journalist was to promote his self-published poetry book The Lords & The New Creatures. Randall Johnson (who was the original writer of The Doors' screenplay) was very helpful to me throughout my research and he endorsed my book. And the Doors film Stone directed wasn't like the film Randy wrote. Seeing the difficulty of translating the intrincacies of Morrison's life to the screen, Stone decided to reduce his story to "a metaphor of the 60s."
Stone basically took Randy's script -- which, by the way, was far more honest and did use Jim and Pam's relationship, their real relationship as a focal point, and he ripped it to shreds, creating his own little fantasy of Jim the bad boy of 60s' rock. Randy Johnson's original script was really quite good and would have made a far superior movie than Stone's eviscerated version. "There was never a question of my not meeting Jim. I knew it was going to happen the instant I laid eyes on him, long before I got the job at 'Jazz & Pop' magazine," Patricia Kennealy said in 2013. This suggests an obsession towards Jim Morrison before their "fateful" meeting. It almost sounds like a fan laying siege to their favorite rock star, rather than a self-described "intellectual" or an "accomplished author". It seems the great, self-professed trailblazing feminist's true motivation for taking the job with "Jazz & Pop" was to sleep with a rock sex-symbol, after all.
Kennealy started her bohemian lifestyle in SoCal dancing as a go-go in roadhouses while she studied journalism. She experienced with a lot of drugs, too, and she yet has the nerve to criticize Pam Courson's choices. Each chapter begins with a variation of "Jim and I we were having dinner with others..." She, very conveniently, never names "the others". This is pretty much the gist of this book. Claims made by Kennealy, claims that cannot be verified by anyone else but her alone. Who were "the others", Miss Kennealy? Why do I get the feeling there was no "dinner" and therefore no "others" involved? Her book contains claims by Kennealy that only be verified by Kennealy herself. Despite having 50 years to do so, Kennealy has never produced one iota of souvenirs she claims Jim Morrison "showered" her with, she has never identified the minister who, according only to her, performed the "ceremony" and only has a "marriage certificate" with a lot of redacted information on it with a signature that does not look like Jim Morrison's handwriting. Regarding that picture of Jim Morrison's childhood friend Tandy Martin? There appears to be something of a backstory concerning that picture, from "Tiffany Talks. Patricia Kenealy: Your Ballroom Days Are Over Baby!", by Janet M. Erwin: "She's at it again. She left Jim a valentine today, a big black and white picture of her with Tandy Martin, his high school girlfriend. Stuck it under the windshield wiper on his car. She says she's going to keep doing things like that 'to make him crazy'." Very creepy. It's the same with so many other sad cases I've encountered hovering around the Morrison periphery: they were looking for attention and a perverse sort of "respect" from people not bright enough to know better, or so desperate for someone to worship in lieu of Jim, they'll believe almost anyone who claims to have met him. Simply read "Your Ballroom Days Are Over" by Janet Erwin, and will get a much more accurate telling of Patricia's fake relationship with Jim Morrison. When confronted with Erwin's memoir, Kennealy acted like a blinded deer in headlights and never mentioned it. Something unusual, indeed. Janet Erwin corroborated about her relationship with Morrison: "I dated Jim Morrison around 10 days in two weeks. About what most of his girlfriends had. In other words, Jim really was true to Pam in his own way. All I know is that Jim loved her the best." Even all his other girlfriends will admit this, except Kennealy.
As Danny Sugerman recalled in 1993: "Pamela was a beautiful lady. Jim continually returned to her above all others. Pam was Jim's cosmic mate. Although I saw him with other women, I never heard him speak about any other woman except Pam. And I never considered he was with any women other than Pam. Pam was the one with the power as Jim's woman, no other woman ever possessed that power." Sugerman fell in love with Pamela but he was not reciprocated. Pamela's last boyfriend was Randy Ralston. Pam called him and she asked him if he wanted to go with her to a concert at the Palladium. Randy Ralston went with Diane Gardiner to pick up Pam. Randy recalls: "She was all dressed up and looked unbelievably gorgeous. It was bizarre. Diane would be whispering in my ear as people came up to pay homage to Pamela, the rock and roll princess." At one point Randy and Pam went to Las Vegas and they talked about getting married: "We always were really very enamored of each other, but I don't think anybody could fill the boots of Jim Morrison. I don't think there was any guy who could do that in her life for her." In December 1973 Randy and Pam were preparing things to make a camping trip, they were very happy until Pam talked about her family. Pam felt so hurt about her sister Judy's remarks about her and Jim, she decided not to spend her last Christmas with her family. Randy tried to convince Pam to go with her family but she made the decision of staying with him. Source: groups.alt.music
Emotion and Gender Typicality Cue Sexual Orientation Differently in Women and Men: Heterosexual individuals tend to look and act more typical for their gender compared to gay and lesbian individuals, and people use this information to infer sexual orientation. Consistent with stereotypes associating happy expressions with femininity, previous work found that gay men displayed more happiness than straight men—a difference that perceivers used, independent of gender typicality, to judge sexual orientation. Here, we extended this to judgments of women’s sexual orientation. Like the gender-inversion stereotypes applied to men, participants perceived women’s faces manipulated to look angry as more likely to be lesbians; however, emotional expressions largely did not distinguish the faces of actual lesbian and straight women. Compared to men’s faces, women’s faces varied less in their emotional expression (appearing invariably positive) but varied more in gender typicality. These differences align with gender role expectations requiring the expression of positive emotion by women and prohibiting the expression of femininity by men. More important, greater variance within gender typicality and emotion facilitates their respective utility for distinguishing sexual orientation from facial appearance. These findings thus provide the first evidence for contrasting cues to women’s and men’s sexual orientation and suggest that gender norms may uniquely shape how men and women reveal their sexual orientation. Men are not meant to express as much emotion as women (who are stereotyped as hyperemotional), but are expected to express more dominant emotions, such as anger, to a greater extent than women. Gender inversion theory proposes that gay men and lesbian women have the minds of the opposite sex, thereby explaining their same-sex attraction (Katz, 2007). Specifically, gay men are expected to be like straight women, and lesbian women like straight men, in a plurality of their thoughts and behaviors that includes their emotional expressions (Geiger, Harwood, & Hummert, 2006; Tskhay & Rule, 2015). Although gender inversion is an exaggerated stereotype, particularly as the association between sexual orientation and gender typicality is not always straightforward, it does bear a kernel of truth. Future research could expand to examine how gender typicality and emotion cue men’s and women’s sexual orientation across cultures. Such efforts might also consider target ethnicity, given featural overlaps with emotional expressions (Zebrowitz, 2010) and as sexual dimorphism also varies across ethnic groups (Hopder, Finklea, Winkielman, & Huber, 2014). Source: link.springer.com
Janet Erwin: Jim Morrison was a wonder of man, the best and most considerate lover I have ever had. He was straight and in my opinion, if he insinuated anything different it was indeed to get a reaction from others, to push people's buttons. He was a prankster. Jim had 20 paternity suits filed against him throughout his career. He told me he was being sued by women he'd never even heard of, let alone had sex with, and when I asked him how he felt about gays--after witnessing his intense discomfort at being hit on by a gay man at a bar--he said he didn't mind "as long as they don't try to compromise me." He also said he couldn't imagine "how men could do that to each other." Stephen Davis dared to paint an imaginary scenario featuring the owner of a local coffe shop in Florida, Tom Reese, whose denial of an affair didn't stop Davis' twisted fantasies. The problem is, Tom Reese mentioned Jim Morrison frequently in the talks he gave to his coffeeshop audiences--adding in every instance that there had never been anything of a sexual nature between them--and how he detested those rumors.
Patricia Butler: My interview with Jeff Moorehouse led me to the conclusion Jim Morrison was straight, nor bisexual. I talked with the Morrisons and their attorneys, Brian Manion and Louis Reisman. Despite the offensive nature of some of the material with which I approached them, the Morrisons were unfailingly gracious and timely in their responses. I had more problems with the Coursons, who didn't want my book about Pamela published. I interviewed Pamela Courson's psychiatrist who treated her during 1967-1974 (Dr. Paul H. Ackerman). Also I talked at length with Eve Babitz, Mirandi Babitz, Pamela Des Barres, Paul Ferrara, Brian Gates, Bob Greene, Babe Hill, Jac Holzman, Jerry Hopkins, Randall Johnson, January Jensen, Christopher Jones, Robby Krieger, Rich Linnell, Frank Lisciandro, Kathy Lisciandro, Ray and Dorothy Manzarek, Anne Moore, Jeff Morehouse, Herve Mueller, Julia Negron, Barbara Stewart Noble, Randy Ralston, Thomas Reese, Paul Rothchild, Raeanne Rubenstein, Ellen Sander, Bill Siddons, Cheri Siddons, Danny Sugerman, Cathy Weldy, Officer Darryl Williams, and Gilles Yepremian, among other insiders from The Doors' circuit. Dr. Michael W. Kaufman, the pathologist who analyzed Pamela's autopsy report, wrote: "Her weight, state of nutrition, and state of hydration would indicate that she was living a normal existence. Of significance was that examination of the endometrium and that the ovaries demonstrated evidence of recent ovulation. This evidence of ongoing reproductive functioning is frequently absent in drug abusers. The liver, likewise, did not show changes suggestive of alcohol abuse on either a chronic or acute basis. The lungs did not demonstrate changes which would be expected in chronic intravenous drug abusers." John Mandell’s statement to the police that Pamela had been using heroin for “approximately one year” seems to corroborate January Jensen’s and Ellen Sander’s observations that Pamela was not using heroin during the year she lived in Sausalito, whis is also confirmed by Dr. Kaufman’s report. “Yes, I can substantiate that,” Pamela's psychiatrist Dr. Ackerman says in response to this assessment of Kaufman’s report. “She did use heroin, but it was not a heavy habit. She didn’t start frequent use of heroin until after Jim Morrison died. And it wasn’t very heavy use, just enough to be worrisome.”
Virginia Flagg: Jim Morrison was an outlaw in a lawless place. He had the guts to be what everyone won't face they are.... and he took it to the limit, looked at it with brazen and fearless wonder and it all broke his heart. He chose Pamela because she inspired his best instincts and she was someone who remembered him who he really was. Their relationship was wild, strange and romantic, a very tragic romance.
Babe Hill says, “Jim had not only one-night stands, but other girl friends, certain women he was fond of if Pam wasn’t around or if they were fighting. Whatever was convenient, a place to crash, a soft shoulder.” Babe Hill had asked Jim in Miami if he had handfasted Patricia Kennealy, and Jim conceded it was possible, saying, “I don’t know what I did! I was drunk. Maybe I did, but there was no emotional involvement with her.” Jim told Babe he was going to have to confront Kennealy. Babe Hill, “Jim’s attitude was, 'I was indiscreet in my past, and now I have to go pay for it,' because he was such a gentleman. He would never just tell any woman just to fuck off. So, whatever it was, he had to see her and confront it.”
Patricia Butler: Danny Sugerman's whole focus was always to further the Doors' myth as concocted by him and Ray Manzarek. I told Danny once, when I was having trouble juggling everyone's conflicting interests in my book, that it was hard to make everyone happy. He said that when he was preparing NOHGOA, he just had to choose who to be loyal to. And Danny chose Ray Manzarek. It is something to think about. However, I decided to be loyal to Jim and Pam, and it made all the difference. In fact, Danny pointed some of the things out to me that were not true in NOHGOA before I could bring them up, and he asked me to leave some things out of my book because he didn't want these stories to continue. Source: groups.alt.music
As many as 75,000 Americans could die because of drug or alcohol misuse and suicide as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to an analysis conducted by the national public health group Well Being Trust. The group is sounding the alarm that the growing unemployment crisis, economic downturns and stress caused by isolation and lack of a definitive end date for the pandemic could significantly increase so-called "deaths of despair" unless local, state and federal authorities take action. "Unless we get comprehensive federal, state, and local resources behind improving access to high quality mental health treatments and community supports, I worry we're likely to see things get far worse when it comes to substance misuse and suicide," Well Being Trust's chief strategy officer Dr. Benjamin F. Miller told CNN. Miller emphasized the data is just a projection, and that actions taken could change the number of deaths. "We can change the numbers -- the deaths have not happened yet. However, it is on us to take action now," Miller says. "Unemployment during the Great Recession was associated with an increase in suicide deaths and drug overdose deaths," according to the Well Being Trust. For instance, deaths from both suicide and drug overdoses rose along with unemployment during the 2008 recession. Unemployment went from 4.6% in 2007 to a peak of 10% in October 2009 and declined steadily reaching 3.5% in early 2010, according to the group. Changes also must be made to medical and mental health care to ensure that those who need care can get it, the group says. That includes relaxing some privacy standards surrounding technology to improvise care options. "This screams for an opportunity to examine what wasn't working about mental health delivery prior to COVID and examine new strategies to create a new and more integrated approach to mental health post-COVID," Miller says. Earlier this week Vermont, which has been plagued by overdoses, reported that opioid deaths decreased for the first time since 2014. "The state saw a 58% decline in deaths attributed to opioid misuse between 2018 and 2019," Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine said. There were also fewer deaths involving fentanyl, but the percentage of opioid-related fatalities involving cocaine continues to increase, Levine said. "We've responded to the opioid crisis in this country as if it was only about opioids when, in reality, it's driven by deeper issues associated with mental health, addiction, pain and suffering," Miller says. "Virtual community may not be enough to hold off the impact of isolation and loneliness. And finally, uncertainty. The stress of uncertainty has a serious impact on the emergence and worsening of mental illness," the group said. Source: edition.cnn.com
Patricia Butler: At some point Patricia Kennealy wrote a serie of exaggerations about Pam Courson and her heroin addiction, citing Alain Ronay as her source. I called Alain and asked him if he had actually told her these things and he started crying and denying his allegations. Ronay also said that the article that was published in Paris-Match magazine was very inaccurate and that everything he'd said had been skewed. In the interviews Agnes Varda and Alain Ronay gave to Paris-Match magazine in 1991, both say that when they arrived, they went up to the second floor apartment where Jim and Pam lived. There is a contradiction in the Ronay and Varda stories at this point. Varda remembers clearly that when they arrived, Jim was still in the tub, surrounded by members of the fire brigade. On the other hand, Ronay says that Jim was already on the bed and that he never saw the body. Varda's accurate description of the death scene in the bathroom gives credence to her story over Ronay's. When Albert Goldman started his first draft, he simply wrote down the same old clichés about Morrison.
The Doors Companion (1997) by John Rocco, included Albert Goldman's article "The End" which launched the most sleazy speculations about Jim Morrison's last hours in Paris. Albert Goldman, who appointed himself as my mentor, was not exactly known for his accuracy in reporting. In fact, the reason some people wouldn't talk to him (including Alain Ronay) about Morrison was because he had such an incredible reputation for yellow journalism. Goldman made no bones about the fact that he wasn't interested in what was true, just what seemed most provocative. Actually, I thanked Albert Goldman on my book credits along with my other sources, but not on a professional basis. My exact words were, "'To Uncle Albert Goldman, who told me I was too stupid to live to be 30." Albert Goldman was a dear man to me personally, but professionally he was a shark.
I thought Goldman was a nice guy to me personally, but I didn't trust him professionally and wouldn't want to collaborate with him. It would be good for people to consider the possible agenda of an author. My book is told almost entirely through the words of the people who were actually there, and all sides I knew are presented. Since I wasn't there and I don't have a personal stake in the story, I had no reason to lie or mislead the reader. If you interview enough people you start to get a sense of when people are being straight with you and when they are lying. It's not that difficult to tell when folks have their own agenda to pursue (i.e., those who have nothing to gain from lying are more believable than those who do). Also, unless all these people know each other and get together to coordinate their stories, pretty soon you can see if one or two stories seem oddly out of line with the rest and that's a red flag. Babe Hill did initially get angry with me when I told him I'd be writing about Jim's child abuse allegations but he later apologized for his reaction and encouraged me to write honestly about what I'd found in the manuscript of Max Fink, and just be sure I presented all sides and opinions (including the Morrisons), which I feel I did. Also I discovered Danny Sugerman was never romantically or sexually involved with Pamela. The problem with Sugerman wasn't in the details, but rather with the fact that entire passages were made up out of whole cloth. Many insiders had quite a lot to gain from lying ($$$), and Sugerman most of all. It is, after all, the nonsense that Danny added to NOHGOA that made it a bestseller. Jerry Hopkins tried for years to sell his book. Then he teamed up with Danny, who did a lot of editing on it, adding a lot of very dramatic and also very false information, and it's then when the book got sold.
I talked to Mirandi Babitz quite a length about the rumors of Pamela working as a call girl on Melrose Avenue. When we traced her basis for saying such defamatory things, she realized that she never knew any of this firsthand, and she got it all from shady gossip from wannabes and rivals around the rock scene--the same gossip that had once painted Morrison turning tricks in Florida when the most probable situation was Morrison earning some extra dollars by dealing acid tabs to college students--. Ms. Babitz was repeating essentially third-hand speculation without basis in fact. My theory is Mirandi was jealous by proxy (her sister Eve Babitz had unrequited designs on Jim Morrison). Pamela actually called Eve Babitz "just a groupie" to her face and that apparently struck a nerve. Pamela was erratic, mentally unstable, flirtatious, but she was never a "semi-pro". That's patently nonsense since Morrison was very generous with Pam financially. By late 1970, Patricia Kennealy was stalking Jim Morrison; that's precisely how he saw it. Jim tried to pacify Kennealy to protect Pamela. Kennealy was maniacally jealous of Pamela and didn't understand her relationship with Jim. Her disturbing obsession with Pamela could even be confounded with lesbian attraction.
Jerry Hopkins: "Patricia Butler has worked six years on her book, and because she's turned up so much new material, my ego insists that the extra time she spent on research is why. I spent two years researching and writing No One Here Gets Out Alive; it was finding a publisher that took forever. Patricia, on the other hand, continued plugging away on this project nights and weekends. She slowly developed relationships on the phone and got her sources to tell stories they never told me, and then, adding insult to injury, uncovered some secrets Danny Sugerman and I never knew. Patricia Butler's exploration of Jim Morrison and Pam Courson's love story--and her surprising retelling of the Jim Morrison history-- should be the final word on the matter."
-Frank Lisciandro: Do you think Pamela was material-minded?
-Babe Hill: She wasn’t material-minded; that’s what Jim loved about her. She realized the beauty of his soul and what he was trying to do. She didn’t care about the material aspect of any of the stuff. That was her whole thing about being against the other Doors, and the office, and everything else. It didn’t have to do with that they weren’t making any money; it was just that they were wasting his creativity. I figure she had a very supportive influence on his poetry and never missed a chance to rag on him when he went off the track.
RiderontheStorm69: Severe depression was very obvious and it seems like it was something Jim Morrison struggled with his entire life. I think Jim Morrison might have suffered from DID. Thinking about it always makes me pause about a few things that Jim wrote: "He felt he had to drink to silence the voices," the seeming separate identities presented in the Hitchhiker screenplay, and in the poem "The Changeling." On the flipside of that though, he could have been drinking as false courage because he was shy; His separate identities in the Hitchhiker screenplay perhaps could be archetypes, because archetypes interested him. I was just reading about DID and the article said that people who suffer from this disorder sometimes experience amnesia. And when a person suffers from the resultant amnesia, they usually try to make up a "story" for it afterwards. Jim's life can be seen as a flight from his past and from himself. The hitchhiker's journey being a metaphor for this. Sometimes, under great duress, people literally forget who they are and just start traveling. In psychiatric parlance this is called a fugue state. Morrison was definitely interested in forgetting; "Learn to forget", "Forget the world, forget the people", "Can we resolve the past?" His story is an internal drama. The family represents past memories Jim must destroy, or repress, at all costs. But as they are his past memories, the family, like the hitchhiker, is an aspect of Jim Morrison. So martydom or self destruction reappears. I tend to wonder if the film HWY was based on this premise, the two lead characters appearing two be adversaries, but actually representing aspects of one person, the life urge and the death urge.
I think the DSM IV has a category for those who consider that their changed consciousness and perception is the result of "shamanistic possession". It's called Dissociative Disorder. The difference between it and Dissociative Identity Disorder is that the person with DID experiences pronounced differences in memory, perception, consciousness, and what we call "personality" with each different part. There are typical "personalites" for DID--the angry protector, who remembers the abuse and acts out abuse on others; the child, who has less access to memories and skills; the member of the opposite gender; the older, wise counselor or nurturing figure; the provoker, or "clown." If Jim was dissociative, his memory of such an event would have been intermittent. If he had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), he'd only remember it when he was in a particular mood. Specifically, an extremely angry mood. But the incident could still affect him on subconscious levels. Those who have DID tend to have survived abuse from a very early age. Just like in the song "Five to One" Jim alludes, "When the morning wakens/Then may I arise/Pure and fresh and sinless/" This leads me to an aside: The experience of having DID is a broken, shattered state of consciousness. The person experiences "coming to" or "waking up", or "coming up" abruptly, in unfamiliar surroundings, without context, sometimes without recognizing friends or even relatives. The person becomes very adept at covering up memory gaps by joking, making nonsense statements to throw the "strangers" off track, and outright bluffing--interpreted by others as lies--to fill in missing material. Source: groups.alt.music
Psychiatrist Oleguer Plana-Ripoll knew that many individuals have multiple conditions — anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He wanted to know how common it was to have more than one diagnosis, so he got his hands on a database containing the medical details of around 5.9 million Danish citizens. He was taken aback by what he found. Every single mental disorder predisposed the patient to every other mental disorder — no matter how distinct the symptoms. “We knew that comorbidity was important, but we didn’t expect to find associations for all pairs,” says Plana-Ripoll, who is based at Aarhus University in Denmark. The study tackles a fundamental question that has bothered researchers for more than a century. What are the roots of mental illness?Scientists have found evidence that many of the same genes underlie seemingly distinct disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism, and that changes in the brain’s decision-making systems could be involved in many conditions. Researchers are also drastically rethinking theories of how our brains go wrong. Perhaps there are several dimensions of mental illness — so, depending on how a person scores on each dimension, they might be more prone to some disorders than to others. The most immediate challenge is working out how to diagnose people. Since the 1950s, psychiatrists have used an exhaustive volume called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently in its fifth edition. It lists all the recognized disorders, from autism and obsessive–compulsive disorder to depression, anxiety and schizophrenia. Each is defined by symptoms. The inherent assumption is that each disorder is distinct, and arises for different reasons. However, even before the DSM-5 was published in 2013, many researchers argued that this approach was flawed.
Few patients fit into each neat set of criteria. Instead, people often have a mix of symptoms from different disorders. Even if someone has a fairly clear diagnosis of depression, they often have symptoms of another disorder such as anxiety. “If you have one disorder, you’re much more likely to have another,” says Ted Satterthwaite, a neuropsychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Psychiatrists have tried to solve this by splitting disorders into ever-finer subtypes. “If you look at the way the DSM has evolved over time, the book gets thicker and thicker,” says Satterthwaite. But the problem persists — the subtypes are still a poor reflection of the clusters of symptoms that many patients have. As a result, the world’s largest funder of mental-health science, the US National Institute of Mental Health, changed the way it funded research. Beginning in 2011, it began demanding more studies of the biological basis of disorders, instead of their symptoms, under a programme called the Research Domain Criteria. In 2019, the World Health Assembly endorsed the latest International Classification of Diseases (called ICD-11), in which some psychopathologies were newly broken down using dimensional symptoms rather than categories. The challenge for the dimensionality hypothesis is obvious: how many dimensions are there, and what are they? Satterthwaite calls this “a very large problem”. Ultimately, a future version of the DSM could have chapters devoted to each dimension. A 2009 study found that thousands of gene variants were risk factors for schizophrenia. Many were also associated with bipolar disorder, suggesting that some genes contribute to both disorders.
One study of six psychopathologies found that the brain’s grey matter shrank in three regions involved in processing emotions: the dorsal anterior cingulate, right insula and left insula. But subsequent studies by Adrienne Romer, a clinical psychologist now at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, identified a totally different trio of regions with roles that include the pons, cerebellum and part of the cortex. One key to making sense of this might be to focus on the brain’s executive function: the ability to regulate behaviour by planning, paying attention and resisting temptation, which relies on many brain regions. Romer and Satterthwaite have independently found disruptions in executive function in a range of psychopathologies — the suspicion being that these disruptions could underlie the p factor. Suicide is one of the most observed symptoms in DID and suicide rates reported as 70 - 72% in DID and presence of a dissociative disorder was the strongest predictor of a suicidal behavior. DID is highly associated with consequent risk of recurrent suicidal behavior. Self harm, labile emotion, and impulsivity suggest the diagnosis of comorbid borderline personality disorder. Evidences show that Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and DD have often been reported to occur comorbidly. BPD diagnosed in 30% to 70% of DID patients. “I think it’s a time for much more empirical research rather than grand theorization,” says Neale. At the genetic level at least, he says, there are many disorders, such as PTSD and generalized anxiety disorder, that remain poorly understood. Source: www.nature.com
Alan R. Graham: I believe Jim Morrison was descending deep into depression and alcoholic schizophrenia. Frustrated by the mediocrity of his fans, Morrison distanced himself from thems. In his last interview before he left for Paris, Jim had told a reporter, “One morning, I woke up and was surrounded by all of these spirits.”
Jeff Finn: Subtlety, in the form of fine-detail gray-scale shading, is in order if we are to fully empathize with Jim Morrison's wounded core. When You're Strange briefly broaches the reality of its title: feeling like a stranger, or an outcast. It's been noted elsewhere that Jim Morrison knew that pain, which hit at a young age, so it begs the question: why didn't DiCillo wade further into that particular mire, in order to extract the actual motivations that drove a volatile artist to raging alcoholism, depression, and early burnout, all in a pre-rehab world? It's convenient to now view Jim Morrison merely as a popular icon/cultural oddity and forget that, in the end, the psychic pain that came with feeling like an outsider was what ultimately secured his psychedelic place in the rock pantheon. When I met with Alain Ronay, whom Oliver Stone had hired as a consultant for his Doors film, he told me he marched up to Stone, and asked him why he wasn't telling the truth about Jim. According to Ronay, Stone smiled and said, "Because the truth doesn't sell."
Patricia Butler: I had no opinions formed about Jim and Pamela when I started out my research. I didn't have many opinions formed. That's why it was easier for me to dismiss the oft-repeated theories when actual facts proved those theories to be wrong. I talked to Dr. Arnold Derwin, The Doors' occasional physician. At the time Jim left for Paris, Derwin hadn't seen him professionally for over a year. In truth, Jim was in bad health when he left the States. Ray Manzarek remarked on his horrible cough. Jim filled a prescription for asthma medication just before he left the States. There is difference between what people believe and what they say in public. I know from personal experience that Ray Manzarek, for instance, said many things in public which, in private conversation, he'd laugh about. Manzarek actually confirmed that Jim's asthma was giving him real problems before he left the States. Danny Sugerman, too, would write things for public consumption because it was good for the Doors's mystique, not because he believed those things to be true. Despite later revisionist claims, Sugerman was not even friendly with Jim at the time. So asking what certain people believe is not the same as asking what what they'll say "on the record." When I spoke to Alain Ronay regarding that interview he did for that Italian magazine, his exact words to me -- and I remember them very well, because he actually cried -- "How could you believe I would say such terrible things about Jim and Pam? I loved them both so much." He swore to me that he had been grossly misquoted and his statements completely misrepresented. Now I don't know whether that was true or not. I can easily see Alain saying sensational things in order to sell a big story to a magazine, and then crying over it when he got called on the carpet for it. I also talked with the Morrisons, who confirmed Jim suffered from asthma since he was a child. Until the 1990s, Jim's parents never visited his tomb in Paris and later Pamela's sanctuary. I was really angry with Stephen Davis when he called me. When he did tell me what he was planning for his book, I found it completely disgusting, not to mention entirely irresponsible. But Davis didn't care. What do you think sells more books -- the truth or the scandal? I recommend Frank Lisciandro's book as one of the few reliable books. Frank told me Paul Ferrara had refused to be interviewed for Friends Gathered Together because Ferrara 'didn't have a good recall of Morrison.' More than that, I think, Morrison had not a good recall of Ferrara, given his flirtation with Pamela.
Virginia Flagg: I did not deal with Jim in public but there are witnesses of our friendship, albeit a bit perplexed that I visited his house. He goofed on never explaining my privileges or purpose in his life. Other than that, our relationship was very reclusive. I spent a lot of time at his house in Laurel Canyon, and Pam knew it. Pam came to trust me, and I had lovely times with her as well. Pam was bright, beautiful, charming, and funny. I never went to a Doors concert but sometimes I hung out with Jim in the afternoon during setup, or after a concert. Once I gave him acid tied to a flower before the Hollywood Bowl concert, as I lived up the hill, and he asked me to come by--but there was a form of wisdom that I gained early on, by not getting in the line that would assign me to groupiedom and would have made lose my objectivity. I only slept with Jim once. Believe me, if you had ever slept with him, you would not forget it--it was an infectious state you found yourself. Pamela was Jim's true love, she was his little girl, and the woman he chose. In that era the artistic scene in Los Angeles was a relatively small community, compared with what it birthed later. About the influence of Warhol/Nico on Jim, I don't think the Factory's scene mixed that well, being Jim straight. My grandfather was James Montgomery Flagg who collaborated in the creation of the "I Want You" poster when FDR asked for a more sobering image for Uncle Sam. John Barrymore and my grandfather were bohemian friends. In the 60s I worked serving drinks in the booths of "The Brave New World" (the coolest underground club, even moreso than Bido Lito's). One night, amidst Arthur Lee and Frank Zappa and the Mothers--suddenly sauntered a rebel dressed in nondescript jeans and a tattered shirt, and I was struck by the sheer weight of his authority onstage. My heart was swollen, it was truly stupefying. Jim was way ahead of the times in his consciousness of what was coming. I was an acquaintance of Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison though Jim referred to me as a friend. We exchanged poetry and he liked my poems. I never idolized Jim Morrison. He was a man of considerable inner strength and personal integrity but his faults were many, with a tendency to self-pity and evasiveness, and I dealt with those faults as well as I could. Source: groups.alt.music
"If you watch the footage of Jim speaking with Pastor Fred Stegmeyer you see more of the real Jim. He was very cordial and, at heart, a true southern gentleman." -Robby Krieger. It’s refreshing to see him sober and enjoying a conversation in this segment of The Doors: Feast of Friends (1970) documentary directed by Frank Lisciandro. The mystique of Jim Morrison kind of fogs the true side of what he was like. It was really nice to see this side of Jim. He listened, he was respectful and gave intelligent answers to the pastor.
Like a Rolling Stone may have been more revolutionary, but Visions of Johanna has a strong claim to be Dylan’s greatest song, a parade of luminous symbolism that manages to be both mystifying and incredibly potent (“The ghost of electricity howls through the bones of her face”). His Nashville backing band, meanwhile, sounds perfect: subtle but insistent, the small-hours setting of the lyrics seeping into the sound. In the mid-60s Dylan complained that he had never written anything as “far out” as the strangest folk ballads, but on Desolation Row, he succeeded in taking the ballad form to a completely new place. It’s a cliche to compare it to TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, but it fits: 11 stark minutes of oppressive, absurd imagery that never slackens its grip on the listener despite its length.
As I’ve listened to the song during these last traumatic weeks, I’ve come to see “Murder Most Foul” as Dylan’s gift to the world at another terrible moment in our history, when our leaders have failed us and we are living through a calamity that seems to have no end. Like Kennedy’s murder in 1963, the federal government’s utter failure to protect the people in 2020 is a collapse of biblical proportions. Life expectancy, a basic indicator of a society’s health, was simultaneously improving around the world, except in the United States. What we hear in “Murder Most Foul” is the weary voice of a Nobel laureate who’s closing in on his 80s, walking us through our trials and tribulations as only a great poet can do. Clocking in at over 17 minutes, “Murder Most Foul” is the longest song Dylan has ever recorded, just surpassing “Highlands,” released in 1997. President Kennedy “being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb” by unseen men seeking to collect “unpaid debts” who killed “with hatred and without any respect.” Backed by the melancholy chords of his piano, Dylan takes us through the terrible images of the Zapruder film of the assassination that he’s seen “thirty three times, maybe more” (“It’s vile and deceitful—it’s cruel and it’s mean / Ugliest thing that you ever have seen”). At its most essential level, “Murder Most Foul” marks the collapse of the American dream, dating from that terrible day in Dallas, when a certain evil in our midst was revealed in ways not seen for a hundred years—a day that, for Dylan, myself, and others of our generation is forever seared into our collective memory. The murder and the hidden machinations behind it, he tells us, robbed us of Kennedy’s brain, a symbol for the positive, forward-looking American spirit that he represented, and “for the last fifty years they’ve been searching for that.” The contrast between the culture of Dylan’s musical past and the Trump-stricken country of today is summarized in his take on Kennedy’s plea to the nation, turned upside down: That’s the place where Faith, Hope, and Charity died. As Dylan points out midway through the song, they mutilated Kennedy’s body for science, but nobody ever found his soul. Source: www.thenation.com
Jim Morrison is the ultimate Rorschach Test, in that people only see what they want to see and it is often through a personal myopic view. To some he is forever the leather-clad rebel rock star challenging society and the powers-that-be. To others he is the quiet, introspective poet, and to many raised on the cinematic cartoon from Oliver Stone, he is a drug-addled narcissist with almost no redeeming qualities. There is seemingly no end to the Morrison maze. As Jim’s close friend Frank Lisciandro says: “The fact is that 90 percent of what I hear about Jim Morrison strikes me as being totally wrong; absolutely and totally wrong. The stories that have been made up about Jim Morrison outweigh the facts by so much that I don’t even know where to begin to remend the fabric of truth because its been so torn apart.” Robby Krieger: “Why did Jim go to Paris? It was partly that we couldn’t play anywhere and partly that he needed to broaden his horizons, get rid of all the hangers-on, and just be with his lady. It was unexpected. But there was nothing we could say. Jim obviously needed some kind of vacation, and eventually we all agreed it was a good idea.” Morrison was allegedly seeking a “artist expatriate” lifestyle comparable to many of the writers who found a sanctuary in the City of Light, like John Singer Sargent, Lawrence Durrell, Edith Wharton, etc
However, while the other Doors maintained that Jim did not quit the band, their manager at the time Bill Siddons insisted in no uncertain terms that Morrison was done with the band. “Jim did quit the band. That’s not a rumor, that’s a fact. Jim said that he was leaving the band and was going to pursue other avenues for the foreseeable future. In my mind, Jim had left, but because he hadn’t defined his new future as a screenwriter or whatever he wanted to do, he may come back. While Jim was in Paris, the other three Doors auditioned other singers because they knew that Jim might never come back. A friend of mine at A&M Records had recommended this guy that he had heard and I even ended up managing this guy who was going to replace Jim as the lead singer of The Doors. His name was Mike Stull.” Danny Sugerman controversially wrote in Wonderland Avenue that Pamela Courson had confessed to him that Jim snorted some of her heroin, thinking it was cocaine and overdosed. Of course Pamela died 15 years before Sugerman published this particular story; a story, incidentally, which he never bothered to mention in his 1980 Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive (cowritten with Jerry Hopkins), even though he knew this story by that time since Pamela died in 1974. The number of people who could be called Jim’s closest friends and confidantes can be counted on one hand. Pamela Courson, Babe Hill and Frank Lisciandro are the best known; yet only Lisciandro is available to talk.
Frank Lisciandro: Anyone who engages in substance abuse spends a lot of time reconstructing reality for themselves, so how can you really know who a person really is when they’re always reconstructing their own reality. The sober Jim Morrison was such an appealing dude, and such a gentle and considerate person. However you also have to understand that this “drunk Jim” wasn’t always hostile. Sometimes he was hilariously funny when he drank, sometimes he was charming and witty, and he loved to play the fool for laughs at times. There were times when I saw him get drunk and obnoxious, but a vast, vast majority of the time he was more playful and just social when he was drunk. I just never felt that he was playing games with my head at all, never. I never once felt that way, but I did see him manipulate or try to use a situation to screw with people. But then again, from my experience, these were usually people who had it coming [laughs].
I think Jim assumed a stage character. His stage persona was the character he played. And when it worked he could not only entertain the audience, but also scare them and getting them on a whole other consciousness trip. I can say that Jim's motions were different onstage, his demeanor was different and his voice was different. He was acting a part. There was something about being onstage that forced him to assume a persona that wasn’t his own. Maybe there was a fear or insecurity that forced him to become someone else. Maybe it was simple stage fright, maybe it was his role in the script he had written. Maybe it was in the tradition of shamanism. Who really knows why?
-Steve Wheeler: Did Jim ever talk to you about being disgruntled or tired of performing with the Doors?
-Frank Lisciandro: We know that Jim didn’t like playing in the larger arenas. He told me that countless times and he’s also on the record saying that he wasn’t interested in being a jukebox and pushing out the same twelve songs every show. He was a creative person, so, of course, he wanted to do different things. So who was the guy onstage? It depended on the stage and the night. There was a different Jim Morrison on the stage in Miami in 1969 than on the stage at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968. We have the film and can see what kind of performer he was at the Hollywood Bowl, and he was a pretty damn good performer that night. And while the Hollywood Bowl is a fairly big place—when compared to a club like the Whisky—he was still able to create his magic; like he did with his performance of “The End” that night. I can tell you without hesitation that Jim really didn’t have a lust for material possessions, because it was not his goal to make money with his art. The money he did make with the Doors, he would spend on a shop for Pamela or making a movie like he did with HWY. Pamela was friendly enough with me, and I had some short conversations with her over the years. I even stayed at their house one time and she was perfectly friendly to me when we were together, but I can’t say that I really knew her. I can say that when Jim talked about her, it was always in praise of her or about what a great job she was doing with the shop. Jim was very supportive of her. I think she was about three years younger than Jim, so there could have been a bit of shyness. Sure, I’ve heard stories about Pam from other people, but I dismiss them. I try to talk about only what I personally experienced, and not repeat gossip. No other woman had anything close to the relationship with Jim that Pam had. The main reason he gave for going to Paris was that Pam wanted to go there and live. He had completed his contract with Elektra, and he wanted to do some writing over there and he also was taking HWY with him to show to some French film people that he had met previously—Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy—to get their feedback and opinions as a way to maybe find some funding to make films. There were multiple reasons and objectives for his going. Pam was there and he wanted to be there with her.
I did get the feeling that he felt a sense of disappointment that the “movement” that he had become part of after his rooftop experience in Venice—that is the movement of music and art and the re-establishment of an American Renaissance in the arts—had been co-opted by the media and by commerce. I believe that it all went sour for him. I don’t recall any specific words that he said to bolster that belief, but I had the strong feeling that he felt a sense of loss for that initial Summer Of Love movement when it wasn’t about business, but when it was about artistic freedom and community and peace and saving the planet. Jim said it out loud more than once to unreceptive ears that he was tired of continuing his music career the way it had become. He said this in interviews in various ways, and he said it to me on more than one occasion specifically, that performing in big arenas—the size that the Doors had begun playing in—was something that wasn’t enjoyable to him. In fact, he was talking to Michael McClure and other Hollywood agents about writing a screenplay for one of Michael’s books at the same time that we were working on the editing for HWY. He was really, really interested in film at that time more so than he was in his music career. In my presence, he did talk about the fact that he just didn’t enjoy performing anymore. He did suggest that he would enjoy performing if they could do it in small clubs again, where he first felt the magic, but he didn’t want to do the large venues anymore.
There’s definitely a disconnect from the real Jim Morrison and it’s because people have been making up stories about Jim Morrison for more than 30 years. All of us, who were his close friends, all have the same remembrances of Jim being very discreet. He was just rather smart in not saying private things to people who didn’t need to know about them. There are so many stories about Jim you hear from people who have suspect motives and even less credibility. Did they actually know Jim Morrison? I’m reminded of the communication experiment in Psychology 101 where one person tells another person a story and then he repeats it to someone else and so on down the line. By the time the story gets to the fifth person it’s a complete jumble that has nothing to do with the original story. And, in the case of Jim, you can see what has happened. There are folks telling Jim Morrison stories who met him once or twice and maybe had a drink with him. My advice to those interested in Jim is to believe very little of what you hear or read.
-Steve Wheeler: There are quite a few theories about Jim’s death, did you ever get involved in that parlor game mentality or try to find out anything?
-Frank Lisciandro: Well, I’ve read stories and I’ve heard stories over the years. I read the so-called first-hand account written by Alain Ronay which was published in an Italian magazine. He contends that he was there and that he knew what happened. Then again, I spoke with Mrs. Courson—Pamela’s mother—who told me what Pamela told her over the last few years, which contradicts what Alain Ronay wrote. This was a private conversation, so I don’t feel comfortable repeating it and I never have written about it or told anyone in the press. What I will say is that if what Pamela told her mother was true, and if I understood what her mother told me, then it would contradict the major points of Alain Ronay’s version of events. Then there’s the fire department’s report, the medical examiner’s report, what Bill Siddons has to say, and before you get done you’re more confused than when you went into it. There’s been a lot of talk that Pamela was some sort of heroin junkie. I don’t know that for a fact; I only know that from hearsay. I never saw any marks on her arms, and I never heard her or Jim ever talk about heroin at any time; so I don’t have any first-hand experience to conclude that Jim died a heroin death. I do know that a lot of stories that I’ve heard about me are totally made-up and completely untrue. So why should I take any stories about Jim or Pam as gospel? Likewise, Babe Hill admits to taking nearly every drug known to man with Jim, but he categorically denies that Jim ever used heroin. With the exception of Pamela, there is no one who spent more personal time with Jim than Babe. And anyone who says they were around Jim as much as Babe, is just not being truthful. I think Babe would have seen heroin use by Jim. Heroin was definitely around so Jim could have definitely gotten some, but I just don’t think he would have hid that from Babe or me. And to complicate the matter, there are people out there who make comments about Jim and tell stories about him who didn’t know him at all. These are people who met him in a bar for an afternoon, people who casually ran across him for five minutes, people who really didn’t know him, but these are the same folks who endlessly speculate as to who Jim was or make up stories about him because they want to pretend that they really knew Jim Morrison. The fact is that 90% of what I hear about Jim Morrison strikes me as being totally wrong; absolutely and totally wrong. Source: rokritr.com
Patricia Kennealy rewrites her own love life in "Blackmantle," a messy and rather dizzying fantasy novel, which is too vengeful and wild to be enjoyable. Imagine her autobiography "Strange Days," but with a lot more murder. Her alter ego Athyn was born on a battlefield to a dying mystery woman, and was brought back home as a foundling by one of the surviving warriors. Years later, she is cast out of her family's home, and goes on to become a legendary brehon. Then she discovers she is actually the hereditary queen of Keltia. During this time, she also falls in love with famed bard Morric Douglass (Jim Morrison's alter ego). Eventually the two are married, as Athyn drives out the Firvolgi invaders. But the beautiful junkie Amzalsunëa (Pam Courson's alter ego) is still obsessed with Morric, and poisons him when he comes to comfort her. Now Athyn goes on a rampage against anyone who wronged Morric -- and then she goes into the underworld itself, to challenge the god of death. At first glance, "Blackmantle" sounds like a sci-fi version of the Orpheus legend. But it becomes clear this is a therapy session put to paper, where Kennealy can get revenge on all the people in her life who have ticked her off, then live happily ever after with an idealized, faithful Morrison. It gets a little stomach-turning, in more than one way. It certainly doesn't help that Athyn is such a nasty person. Reality and fantasy collide with a nasty splat in "Blackmantle." In the end, it seems merely like a way for Kennealy to get back at Pam Courson and the Doors in fiction, as she could not do in life. Source: www.amazon.com
Patricia Kennealy: I didn’t really hang out with musicians, it wasn’t my job. Like they say in Almost Famous, “it’s not your job to be friends with them, it’s your job to criticize them.” When you see them over and over again you do develop a personal fun relationship with them. Janis Joplin was a pet of the magazine. We loved her so much and we were devastated when she died. Janis was so amazing. Jimi Hendrix, I was not a fan. All the musicians I met told me what a great musician he was and how incredible he was and frankly, I just didn’t hear it. I was an Airplane girl, I was a Doors girl, a Grateful Dead fan to some extent, but Jimi Hendrix, I just didn’t get it. Lillian Roxon was the first who commented in print my association with Jim. I was indirectly mentioned as “a chick who Jim promptly balled on the living room floor”, and “the next morning Jim’s old lady (Pamela) showed up to complain 'Jim, you always ruin my Christmas'”—a clear reference to the incident at Diane Gardiner’s house in December 1970. Before, Richard Goldstein wrote a 1968 piece about Jim and Pam for New York magazine, in which he remarks Jim “picks up his girlfriend” and they all head out for the beach. I think Jim wanted to protect her privacy so Pam wouldn't be bothered by the fans. The hardcore bandfollowers and people in rock circles knew about Pam. Another writer, misled perhaps by flawed chivalry, even claimed Pam was “Jim’s intellectual equal”.
I wasn’t around Pamela Courson all that much, I only met her a couple of times. For whatever reason Jim needed her in his life. I do believe she killed him, absolutely. Most people think that’s a really terrible thing to say but I really do believe it happened. I mean maybe it wasn’t deliberate or intentional, more like, “here, Jim, just take this, it’s cocaine” and it wasn’t, it was her smack. There are many many theories about how it actually happened, many contradictory stories about he was in a nightclub to score heroin and he came home and overdosed. But he didn’t do smack, you know, when he talked about it he said that heroin was horrible and he didn’t understand why Pamela did it. Maybe Pam just stood by and let Jim take the heroin in hopes of getting him hooked along with her, as junkies are so fond of doing to their nearest and dearest, to cut their own guilt and shame. Also, as an emotional batterer, Pam Courson was right up there with the gold medalists. Jim died because Pam fucked up as much as he fucked up. Source: rocknwomen.avidnoise.com
“Pamela showed me a marriage certificate when I was in Paris with her. Clearly no one else in Jim’s life was as close to him as Pamela was. Of course she was his wife, Pamela was Jim Morrison’s soul wife if nothing else.“ –The Doors’ manager Bill Siddons.
In Patricia Kennealy's Strange Days we don’t see any instances of Pamela being a big bitch to Jim Morrison. In fact, she comes across as rather sweet and nice, which only seems to make Kennealy angrier. Patricia Kennealy: 'Pamela Courson had great charm, when she wasn’t strung out on smack or screaming at Jim like a fishwife, by all accounts both regular occurrences.' Most of Patricia's knowledge of Pamela in the book was secondhand information from other people, and she seems to have only focused on the negative. And again, this is a third-hand account we’re supposed to believe. Note how she says “by all accounts.” So, she didn’t actually see this, she just heard it through the grapevine from who-knows-who, and took it as gospel. She doesn’t even say it was according to people who knew Jim well, or people she trusted. Most of the actions Kennealy attributes to Courson are hearsay or theory. Her 'highly respected' musical Jazz & Pop magazine has pretty much been forgotten except for the pieces they produced on old-time rockers like the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, and some jazz guy called Jim Pepper. In Strange Days, it's funny when Jim suggests that Patricia Kennealy was a secret lesbian and she loses her marbles. Later, Patricia goes apeshit when she discovers Janet Erwin having sex with Jim. And the handfasting ritual she describes honestly doesn’t sound like Morrison’s taste. Patricia met Pamela for maybe a couple of hours. James Riordan credited Pamela as Jim's longtime companion and their relationship as the predominant relationship of his life, saying 'their romance was a tumultuous blend of tenderness and uncontrolled passion right from the beginning and this fire and ice quality lasted right to the end'. Riordan also refers to Pam Courson as Morrison's sexual and intellectual equal. Source: authorial-madness.com
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.
Kennealy started her bohemian lifestyle in SoCal dancing as a go-go in roadhouses while she studied journalism. She experienced with a lot of drugs, too, and she yet has the nerve to criticize Pam Courson's choices. Each chapter begins with a variation of "Jim and I we were having dinner with others..." She, very conveniently, never names "the others". This is pretty much the gist of this book. Claims made by Kennealy, claims that cannot be verified by anyone else but her alone. Who were "the others", Miss Kennealy? Why do I get the feeling there was no "dinner" and therefore no "others" involved? Her book contains claims by Kennealy that only be verified by Kennealy herself. Despite having 50 years to do so, Kennealy has never produced one iota of souvenirs she claims Jim Morrison "showered" her with, she has never identified the minister who, according only to her, performed the "ceremony" and only has a "marriage certificate" with a lot of redacted information on it with a signature that does not look like Jim Morrison's handwriting. Regarding that picture of Jim Morrison's childhood friend Tandy Martin? There appears to be something of a backstory concerning that picture, from "Tiffany Talks. Patricia Kenealy: Your Ballroom Days Are Over Baby!", by Janet M. Erwin: "She's at it again. She left Jim a valentine today, a big black and white picture of her with Tandy Martin, his high school girlfriend. Stuck it under the windshield wiper on his car. She says she's going to keep doing things like that 'to make him crazy'." Very creepy. It's the same with so many other sad cases I've encountered hovering around the Morrison periphery: they were looking for attention and a perverse sort of "respect" from people not bright enough to know better, or so desperate for someone to worship in lieu of Jim, they'll believe almost anyone who claims to have met him. Simply read "Your Ballroom Days Are Over" by Janet Erwin, and will get a much more accurate telling of Patricia's fake relationship with Jim Morrison. When confronted with Erwin's memoir, Kennealy acted like a blinded deer in headlights and never mentioned it. Something unusual, indeed. Janet Erwin corroborated about her relationship with Morrison: "I dated Jim Morrison around 10 days in two weeks. About what most of his girlfriends had. In other words, Jim really was true to Pam in his own way. All I know is that Jim loved her the best." Even all his other girlfriends will admit this, except Kennealy.
As Danny Sugerman recalled in 1993: "Pamela was a beautiful lady. Jim continually returned to her above all others. Pam was Jim's cosmic mate. Although I saw him with other women, I never heard him speak about any other woman except Pam. And I never considered he was with any women other than Pam. Pam was the one with the power as Jim's woman, no other woman ever possessed that power." Sugerman fell in love with Pamela but he was not reciprocated. Pamela's last boyfriend was Randy Ralston. Pam called him and she asked him if he wanted to go with her to a concert at the Palladium. Randy Ralston went with Diane Gardiner to pick up Pam. Randy recalls: "She was all dressed up and looked unbelievably gorgeous. It was bizarre. Diane would be whispering in my ear as people came up to pay homage to Pamela, the rock and roll princess." At one point Randy and Pam went to Las Vegas and they talked about getting married: "We always were really very enamored of each other, but I don't think anybody could fill the boots of Jim Morrison. I don't think there was any guy who could do that in her life for her." In December 1973 Randy and Pam were preparing things to make a camping trip, they were very happy until Pam talked about her family. Pam felt so hurt about her sister Judy's remarks about her and Jim, she decided not to spend her last Christmas with her family. Randy tried to convince Pam to go with her family but she made the decision of staying with him. Source: groups.alt.music
