Venus & Adonis, Jim & Pam Morrison

Desire is death, says Shakespeare. There's no physic, no cure, for it. And, for Shakespeare in the early 1590s, that death-in-desire is made manifest by the plot of "Venus & Adonis", as well as the couplet of Sonnet 147. My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease, Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, uncertain sickly appetite to please. My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not kept, Hath left me, and I desperate now approve. Desire is death, which physic did except. Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic-mad with evermore unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, At random from the truth vainly expressed: For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

"Venus & Adonis": For his two long narrative poems, Shakespeare went back to classical stories and characters. From Book 10 of Ovid's Metamorphoses, he took the brief tale of Venus and Adonis and transformed it into something more substantial, more erotic, and more strange. The set-up is right there in the title: The Goddess of Love Meets The Beautiful Young Man. There's plenty of aggressive, relentless, and desperate seduction, but no sex. What the reader is treated to is erotic rhetoric, and little else. But hold on, when did this seduction poem introduce desire and death? Early and often. When Venus coaxes a kiss out of Adonis, it's described in language that is clearly predatory: Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey, And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth. Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey, Paying what ransom the insulter willeth, Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high That she will draw his lips' rich treasure dry, And, having felt the sweetness of the spoil, With blindfold fury she begins to forage. Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil. And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage, Planting oblivion, beating reason back. 

Shakespeare might have stopped there. Sex and violence aren't unknown companions. A little rough and tumble, the titillation of the woman performing the seduction. But the warning Venus announces ends with a vivid and, it will turn out, entirely accurate premonition of Adonis's fate: And, more than so, presenteth to mine eye The picture of an angry chafing boar, Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie An image like thyself, all stained with gore, Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed. Doth make them droop with grief, and hang the head. What happened? Was this a hunting accident? The poem leaves it to Venus to answer these questions. We stay with the goddess throughout, never leaving her point of view. She spends what's left of the night lovesick, singing tedious songs about her beloved. Morning dawns. She hears Adonis's hounds at bay, runs toward the sound, encounters a boar "Whose frothy mouth is bepainted all with red...." She "berates the boar for murder", discovers a wounded trail of hunting dogs, and she also chides Death.

But chiding death is not the same as discovering what happened. Venus's lack of curiosity about Adonis's death is at this point mildly provocative. It's easy to dismiss this as swept aside by grief. Hold that thought. Suddenly, in the distance, she hears "some huntsman hollo". Despite evidence to the contrary, her hope is renewed and off she goes in pursuit. Then, before we can prepare ourselves for it, she spies Adonis's body in the grass. The scene revealed to us is restricted to Venus's point of view. The narration offers no explanation of what happened. Venus's interpretation links up with earlier moments in the poem to provoke our suspicion that Adonis's death is more than a hunting accident. Here is the description when she views his dead body: And, being opened, threw unwilling light. Upon the wide wound that the boar had trenched In his soft flank, whose wonted lily-white. With purple tears that his wound wept was drenched. No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf, or weed, But stole his blood, and seemed with him to bleed. There's a hint here, in the anatomical imprecision that locates the wound in his "soft flank", about the violent sexual crime that's been committed. Adonis, the Goddess of Love's object of desire, who possesses a potency she's desperate for, but won't deliver, is gored in the very place that has been in dispute for hundreds of lines of verse. The poetic conventions themselves call attention to this key moment of symbolic overdetermination: the contrast of white and purple, the empathy nature shows in bleeding with him.

Let's pause here and revisit the point I raised: isn't this just a hunting accident, romanticized by Venus due to her unrequited desire? I mean, look at the circumstantial evidence: a dangerous animal, probably cornered, fighting for its life, a boar with a bloody mouth, and a dead Adonis, gored at tusk height. This is enough to make a case. But is it conclusive? Is there more to it? Let's make a list.

• Classical versions of the story identify Mars (jealousy), Diana (revenge, envy), and Apollo (punishment) as responsible for Adonis's death.

• Venus repeatedly warns Adonis that his perfection puts him in danger, and that procreating will give back to nature ("Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse").

• When she warns him about the perils of the boar hunt, she adds that her love for him renders him vulnerable to a deadly jealousy, without specifying who she has in mind. As if the boar were the instrument of another's jealous rage.

• Venus's desire is predatory, and a real danger to Adonis, directly and indirectly. Indirectly through the involvement of others, as above, and directly due to the common fatal outcome when immortals and mortals come into conflict (the substance of Ovid's Metamorphoses).

These elements conspire to move the needle from "accident" to "murder". As detectives in crime dramas so often say, "Something just doesn't add up". We left Venus standing over the dead body of Adonis, offering her reaction to his wound. After this, she imagines what happened, and it's the only version of the killing of Adonis that we get. But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar, Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave, Ne'er saw the beauteous livery that he wore: Witness the entertainment that he gave. If he did see his face, why then, I know He thought to kiss him, and hath killed him so. "Tis true, 'tis true; thus was Adonis slain; He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear, Who did not whet his teeth at him again, But by a kiss thought to persuade him there, And, nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine Sheathed unaware the tusk in his soft groin. "Had I been toothed like him, I must confess With kissing him I should have killed him first; But he is dead, and never did he bless My youth with his, the more am I accursed." With this she falleth in the place she stood. And stains her face with his congealed blood. This, pardon the pun, is the climax of the poem, its funereal, bloody orgasm. The goddess, narcissistic to the last, laments that she's the one who has missed out, accursed for not having enjoyed sex with this perfect young man. And at the same time, the equation of her desire and the boar's superimposes sex and violence, as she imagines herself as the boar, equipped with a tusk/phallus capable of dealing a penetrating death blow. It's difficult not to speculate about this poem's relationship to the conditions in which it was produced: the anxiety over the closure of the theatres at the precise moment Shakespeare's career as a playwright was taking hold. "Venus & Adonis" is a poem of frustration, of impotence, leading to death in the pursuit of desire. The worn trope—Time Devours All Things (tempus edax rerum)—is true for human beings, says Shakespeare: if you're a mortal, death lurks at the heart of the very thing you most want. Source: www.popmatters.com

Patricia Butler: Randall Johnson's original script was essentially a movie about Jim and Pam, with Pam being a very strong woman, far more true to life than the caricature Oliver Stone drew as Pam. Randy recognized that the real story was between Jim and Pam and slanted the script accordingly.  It was still about the Doors, but the real love story between Jim and Pam was much more prominent and realistic. Stone couldn't stand Pamela being given so much positive attention, and he ripped the script to shreds. What you saw on the screen unfortunately bears absolutely no resemblance to what Randy wrote. Stone's contact with Patricia Kennealy muddled the waters even more. I know that Meg Ryan had enough access to factual information that she had to know her character was falsely drawn. As a very big star and the biggest box office draw in that movie at that time, she had quite a lot of power to exert her influence to get the part strengthened. Instead she took the easy route and, as a result, a whole generation of fans came away with the impression that Pam was this weak airhead. Some of the people who knew Jim -- at least who would be the most likely to be interviewed -- had too much vested in their own personal agendas for them to ever speak honestly. One of the best things about writing my book was getting to find and talk to people that most Doors/Morrison fans have probably never heard of, or only heard of in a peripheral way. These are the folks who not only knew Jim and Pam best, but have nothing to lose by telling the truth about him and Pam. Thank god for those people, or else the Oliver Stone version of Jim and Pam would be what ended up taking over. The Coursons were quite unhappy with the movie because Stone told them quite a few lies in order to get their cooperation.  The production also "borrowed" quite a number of personal photos and documents from the Coursons that were never returned. On top of all that they got to see this movie that made their daughter look like a boneheaded loser.

I don't think Stone ever had any intention of making Pamela a real character in the story. Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson first met in August 1965 and they had a "common law marriage", which is recognized as full legal matrimony in accordance with certain qualifying conditions. In order of the chapters of my book I access to the following serie of interviews to: Ray Manzarek, Robby Krieger, Jeff Morehouse, Stan Durkee, Richard Sparks, Frank Lisciandro, Margaret Fink, Paul Rothchild, Admiral George Morrison and Mrs. Clara Morrison, Bryan Gates, Thomas Bruce Reese, Randall Jahnson, January Jensen, Mirandi Babitz, Babe Hill, Julia Densmore Negron, Paul Ferrara, Jac Holzman, Bill Siddons, Cheri Siddons, Christopher Jones, Anne Moore, Rich Linnell, Dr. Paul Ackerman, Dr. Arnold Derwin, Raeanne Rubenstein, Cathy Weldy, Herve Mueller, Tere Tereba, Alain Ronay, Ellen Sander, Danny Sugerman, Randy Ralston, Barbara Marko, Bruce Ramm, Alan R. Graham, etc. I didn't interview Salli Stevenson because she didn't seem too receptive. Salli was not present any of the times when I interviewed Danny Sugerman. I went to Danny's house with Salli once, and that day I talked informally with Danny's wife Fawn, but I did no interview Danny until a week later. I interviewed Danny twice, each time accompanied by my friend Dan Salomon, not Salli Stevenson. I've also had numerous phone and email conversations with Danny, none of which Salli Stevenson was privy to. Furthermore, I interviewed Babe Hill at Salli Stevenson's apartment, and Babe told Salli to her face that day that her "romantic relationship" with Jim Morrison was purely a figment of her imagination. Salli only had a friendship bond with Jim Morrison. It was Janet Erwin (Salli's friend) who was a lover of Morrison. Erwin published her memoir "Tiffany Talks. Patricia Kennealy: Your Ballroom Days Are Over Baby!" published in The Doors Collection magazine (run by Kerry Humphreys) in 1999, where she unmasks Patricia Kennealy's psychotic pursuit of Morrison. Erwin is very reliable, since she had worked as a secretary for RCA record company and was divorced (she received substantial alimony from her ex-husband, and this provoked jealousy from Kennealy). One of her motives, Kennealy aduced for writing Strange Days was to procure her own "astral alimony" from the difunt Morrison. Janet Erwin, in whose apartment Patricia lived rent-free while planned to stalk Morrison, is called Tiffany in Strange Days, presumably for avoiding a libel suit. That same memoir where Patricia calls "cocksucker" three times! to Jim Morrison during her psychotic tirades while he's fighting for his artistic rights at the Miami trial. Kennealy's quote: "You cocksucker, I say unemphatically. No woman in her right mind would want to give her kid a cocksucker like you for a father." How gracious of Ms Kennealy.

No wonder Janet Erwin found it all most revolting and she wanted to restore her friend/lover dignity when she wrote Ballroom Days as a necessary corrective to the truculent Strange Days. Kennealy also called Jim and Pam "sluts" in both Strange Days and Blackmantle. Vicious beyond words. The only "slut" would be in any case Patricia Kennealy. In Strange Days, Kennealy admits she dressed showing lots of skin and a generous cleavage in "a tight bodice corset cut down to my nipples." Pam Courson seems an innocent school girl opposite the wanton Kennealy. Indeed, it was Pam's sweetness and remnant innocence which invariably besotted Morrison. Jim and Pam had a powerful intimate, sexual and spiritual connection. "Jim paid for the abortion," Kennealy informed Pam in her disturbed stalker tone she adopts in Strange Days. What exactly Jim paid for we won't know, probably he tried to get her out of his life by any possible means.

Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson are going to go down in the history books as great lovers, and people are going to be writing plays about them. It’s Romeo and Juliet, it’s Heloise and Abelard. Jim Morrison carried a portable movie camera and he and Pam traded off filming each other doing things in Paris. At the end of Angels Dance and Angels Die there's a description of a movie Jim took of Pam in a graveyard not long before he died. The film, slightly shaky and out of focus, begins with a close-up of red flowers in a clear vase sitting next to two black-and-white photos in frames placed on a gravestone. The camera then pans to a crucifix, and zooms in on a bust of Christ. The scene cuts to Pamela, slowly walking between an aisle of gravestones. Her head is bowed, and her long red hair shields her face from view for a moment, before she slowly looks up to stare pensively into the camera. It is easy to make out the words she speaks as she tells him, “I don’t want to move.” So the camera pans away from the uncooperative subject, who changes her mind suddenly and runs back into the camera’s range, reclaiming the scene by dancing wildly among the gravestones, her hair flashing about her like a flaming banner. All at once, Pamela disappears behind a mausoleum, but Jim anticipates her moves, and the camera catches her reappearance, running from behind the marble monument and continuing her wild dance. Abruptly the film goes into slow motion, and Pamela seems to be swimming through a thick liquid as she comes around the front gate of the churchyard. Then, just as suddenly, she is in full motion again, laughing at Jim as she whirls about. He follows her every move; she anticipates his every need. At this moment they are a team, in perfect synchronization, vibrant young lovers playing among the gravestones.

My friend Dan Salomon came across this passage from the French poet Arthur Rimbaud (Illuminations, 1886) that immediately reminded him of Jim Morrison and Pamela. One fine morning, in a land of very gentle people, a superb man and woman shouted in the public square: “Friends, I want her to be queen!” She laughed and trembled. “I want to be queen!” He spoke to his friends of revelation, of ordeals terminated. They leaned on each other in ecstasy. They were indeed sovereigns for a whole morning, while all the houses were adorned with crimson hangings, and for an entire afternoon, while they made their way toward the palm gardens. They were sovereigns for a whole morning, and an entire afternoon, and maybe even longer. I hope they found the palm gardens. -Angels Dance and Angels Die (2010) by Patricia Butler

Daydreaming Disorders, Researching Jim & Pam

Frederic Bartlett demonstrated in his book Remembering (1932), no two people will repeat a story they have heard the same way and why, over time, their recitations of the story will diverge more and more. No ‘copy’ of the story is ever made; rather, each individual, upon hearing the story, changes to some extent – enough so that when asked about the story later – they can re-experience hearing the story to some extent, although not very well. This means that each of us is truly unique, not just in our genetic makeup, but even in the way our brains change over time. It is also depressing, because it makes the task of the neuroscientist daunting almost beyond imagination. For any given experience, orderly change could involve a thousand neurons, a million neurons or even the entire brain, with the pattern of change different in every brain. Worse still, even if we had the ability to take a snapshot of all of the brain’s 86 billion neurons and then to simulate the state of those neurons in a computer, that vast pattern would mean nothing outside the body of the brain that produced it. This is perhaps the most egregious way in which the IP metaphor has distorted our thinking about human functioning. Whereas computers do store exact copies of data – copies that can persist unchanged for long periods of time, even if the power has been turned off – the brain maintains our intellect only as long as it remains alive. There is no on-off switch. Either the brain keeps functioning, or we disappear. What’s more, as the neurobiologist Steven Rose pointed out in The Future of the Brain (2005), a snapshot of the brain’s current state might also be meaningless unless we knew the entire life history of that brain’s owner – perhaps even about the social context in which he or she was raised. To understand even the basics of how the brain maintains the human intellect, we might need to know not just the current state of all 86 billion neurons and their 100 trillion interconnections, not just the varying strengths with which they are connected, and not just the states of more than 1,000 proteins that exist at each connection point, but how the moment-to-moment activity of the brain contributes to the integrity of the system. Add to this the uniqueness of each brain, brought about in part because of the uniqueness of each person’s life history, and Kandel’s prediction starts to sound overly optimistic. Recently, the neuroscientist Kenneth Miller suggested it will take ‘centuries’ just to figure out basic neuronal connectivity. Meanwhile, vast sums of money are being raised for brain research, based on faulty ideas and promises that cannot be kept. The most blatant instance of neuroscience gone awry, documented recently in a report in Scientific American, concerns the $1.3 billion Human Brain Project launched by the European Union in 2013. Convinced by the charismatic Henry Markram that he could create a simulation of the entire human brain on a supercomputer by the year 2023, and that such a model would revolutionise the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders, EU officials funded his project with virtually no restrictions. Less than two years into it, the project turned into a ‘brain wreck’, and Markram was asked to step down. We are organisms, not computers. The IP metaphor has had a half-century run, producing few, if any, insights along the way. The time has come to hit the DELETE key. Source: aeon.co

It has been suggested that Maladaptative Daydreaming may be a dissociative disorder, a disturbance of attention, a behavioral addiction, or an obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder. Relating to the first possibility, although phenomenological descriptions of MD and the suggested diagnostic criteria of the condition include symptoms that are pathognomonic to MD and different than the characteristics of existing dissociative disorders, MD does indeed seem to contain several dissociative elements. Specifically: (a) detachment from external reality in favor of internal experience; (b) absorption—a state of total attention; and (c) via their daydreams, individuals may temporarily adopt alternative (non-self) identities (while acting out characters' behaviors or dialogues in their minds). Additionally, some individuals have described the initiation of excessive daydreaming during childhood to avoid an intimidating or traumatic social environment. In other words, individuals suffering from an abusive environment or those who suffer from social anxiety disorder may develop MD as a means for escaping from the harsh reality into their safe internal worlds. Indeed, one study found that social anxiety and childhood trauma were correlated with MD. Such findings may point to a stress-diathesis model for MD, whereby individuals who have an innate talent for immersive and fanciful imagery may develop MD if they are burdened with stressful life events. Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"There is nothing more spectacular as a rainbow/and nothing more mysterious than the absence of color./This other world seems by far the best/till its other jaw reveals incest and obedience to a vegetable law/I prefer a feast of friends to the giant family." -Jim Morrison

Patricia Butler: The stress of the Miami trial, together with a viral infection, had triggered Jim Morrison’s childhood asthma, leaving him with a deep cough that he was making worse by chain smoking. John Densmore has never addressed ex-wife Julia Negron's claim that Jim Morrison didn't phone called him from Paris. Pam's sister Judy had been running the Themis store for quite some time before Pam moved to Paris. Letter to Bob Greene, The Doors' accountant (received on July 3, 1971): Hello Bob, how are you? Paris is beautiful in the sun, built for human beings. Speaking to Bill Siddons a while back I told him of our desire to stay here indefinitely. Will that be possible? Could you write and give me an idea of how long we can stay on living at our present rate, a sort of financial statement in general? Also, a copy of the partnership agreement, if it was ever completed. We have decided to turn the shop (Themis, Pamela's boutique) over to Judy and Tom (Pamela's sister and her husband). Eventually, we'd like to be completely clear of any involvement. Any luck on the credit cards? We could use them made out in both our names. Please send us $3,000 for the bills. Give our best to all, later, Jim. 

Like many of the rumors about Jim and Pam, when you trace them back to their source, they're invariably nonsense. Danny Sugerman did admit to me, shortly after his cancer prognosis, he had concocted part of his story with Pamela. In my knowledgeable opinion Danny and Pam were not friends. All of my sources made it clear that Pamela would no more hang out with some starstruck teenager than Jim would. Of her family, Pam seemed closest to her dad, she often liked to torment her mom, and was often tormented by her sister Judy. In fact she'd had such a major falling out with her sister that she wasn't planning to go home for what turned out to be the last Christmas of her life because she said she couldn't bear to be in the same room with Judy. Pam was declared Jim's legal wife by the State of California in 1973 and was awarded a stipend of 1500$ per month. There's tons of evidence to contradict Kennealy's contentions about Pamela, but she conveniently chose to overlook all of it. Instead Kennealy took the most obscure stories and pumped them up to suit her own purposes. Kennealy is a delusional egotist. Not to mention that her actions pretty much confirm that if Jim Morrison had been just as smart and handsome, but hadn’t been a rock star, she wouldn’t have given him the time of day. Pamela gave Jim attention, care and love when he was an unknown misfit. My agent for about 10 years Jonathan Dolger (Jim Morrison's editor at Simon & Schuster), is still laughing about the nonsense attributed to him. Mr Dolger said that he did receive a telegram from Jim about the cover of his poetry book The Lords & The New Creatures. But he said everything else written about Jim's uncontrollable moods is complete fabrication. No one ever called him asking for the telegram which, Dolger says, is still in the file in New Jersey. Both Dolger and McLure attest of Pam Courson's importance in boosting Jim's poetry talents. Modestly, I think my book is the most comprehensive published work on Jim's and Pam's lives to date. Jerry Hopkins said it was. Despite my exhaustive research, I'm afraid Pam Courson will remain an enigmatic and elusive figure, due to the scarce documentation about her whereabouts. For what I deduced from her psychiatrist, Pam was an unstable woman whose emotional wounds were caused by a dysfunctional home life. When she first met Jim, she felt suddenly connected to a very wounded artist who she could identify with. For Jim, it was fate, and they would only separate by death. And this was not your typical rock and roll publicized affair like Sid & Nancy or Kurt & Courtney. Theirs was a real love story, and for that reason Pam Courson is maybe the only case in the annals of rock and roll who could keep her anonymity and mystery intact alongside Jim Morrison. Diane Gardiner didn't discard the idea of a suicide pact between Jim and Pam in Paris. Nobody can demonstrate such thing, but it's possible Pam decided to wait to be 27 to reunite with her soulmate.

Pamela Courson's white dress she wore in 1968 for The Beard premiere at the Coconut Grove dinner party. -Patricia Butler: During my research I ended up being pretty shocked about how easily some people would lie, and for very little reason or return. There were people with different memories, who had differing impressions and different agendas for how they wanted their place in Jim Morrison's story to be written (or, in many cases, rewritten). About confusing memories, one example that comes to mind is Paul Rothchild, who told me that Pamela had ballooned up to nearly 200 pounds, and that he'd seen her in this condition within six months of her death. Now Pamela was 115 pounds when she died. That would've been one helluva big weight loss (not to mention the gain in the first place) in a short period of time. Then I talked to her friends. While Pamela was certainly heavier than she'd been pre-Paris, she was still at her ideal weight (she'd actually been 20 pounds underweight before Paris). There's a photo of her in my book that shows her in that six month period before her death, and she looks fantastic. I liked Paul Rothchild and trusted him; he had no reason to lie to me. So do I report that Pamela gained 75 pounds or so in the last year of her life, since I have a reliable witness to that fact? No, of course not. Was Paul lying to me? No, of course not. That's just how he remembered it. Somehow over the years that healthy gain multiplied in his head until Pamela was, in his memory, overweight. This example illustrates the main problem with relying on one person's memory of anything, even someone you know to be trustworthy. You cast the net as wide as you can, then try to find that "one true thing" in what you bring back. And it's helpful to find and talk to school teachers, classmates, roommates, neighbors -- all the folks whose names people don't recognize. They pretty much always have interesting things to say, just that no one's ever bothered to ask them. In the case of those things that remain murky, all you can do is present as many sides of the story as you can and let others draw their own conclusions. Try walking those myths backwards, painstakingly, step by step, and more often than not you'll find they'll disintegrate before you get very far.

In the spring of 1973, Pamela Courson was living in San Francisco with a man named Michael Verjaska. She had been friends with Michael for a few years but they became lovers after Jim died. She was also dating Randy Ralston. These images came from a personal home video from one of Pam’s friends in San Francisco. The submitter said “Pamela Courson and her boyfriend in the early 70’s” and asked to remain anonymous. Looks like she was growing out her bob at the time. My sources of information about Pamela not being a heavy heroin user before Jim Morrison's death are: the LAPD report; Pamela's autopsy report; an independent analysis of Pamela's autopsy; January Jensen and Ellen Sander's recollections; Ellen Sander hastened to refute Pamela's rumored heroin addiction while she was in Paris, and after. "When she stayed with me, I did not see her do anything like that. And if she was a heroin addict in Paris -- it's awfully hard to hide it. It's not like you can put it down for a week. I saw no evidence of any kind of hard drug usage while she was at my house, and I was with her almost constantly." January Jensen, who lived in nearby Sausalito and became Pamela's confidante, echoed Ellen's observations. 

"During the time that she was here in Sausalito, she wasn't doing anything but smoking pot every now and then." I know it's human nature to want to believe the worst of these characters, but in this case there just isn't any evidence to support it. It's also doubtful that Pamela would have bothered lying to her shrink, who she had been seeing for many years -- since the time Jim got famous. Due to the professional secret with his patient, to learn information about Pam's mental deterioration was like pulling teeth, but I gathered Pamela, like Jim Morrison, suffered from borderline disorder. Alcoholics, heroin users, and prescription pain killer addicts like to be down. They like to feel comfortable, warm, drowsy and unconscious. I doubt that any but the strictest sect of AA would classify Morrison as an "addict." People confuse his image with his reality. He experimented with a lot of drugs when he was younger. But by the time he went to Paris he was just your garden variety alcoholic. Now I'm not disagreeing that alcohol is a drug that people do get addicted to; but when someone says someone else is an "addict," that's not usually what they mean.

Diane Gardiner, The Doors' publicist and Pam's confidante, booked press interviews with Jim at the Phone Booth, the bar next to The Doors office. “Jim was interested in strip dancers and how they felt,” Diane said. “He had a real empathy for them. He would go to those places and he would applaud. He’d be a great audience.” Diane also remembered Jim's drunken advances towards her: “Jim had fallen across the bed drunk and he just looked up at me and he said, 'I want to fuck you.' There was that old part of me going, Gee whiz, 'I’d like to fuck you, too.' So I just said, 'Sure, Jim.' I found out he didn’t like women who weren’t feminine. He didn’t like it when women got kind of brash. Later I found he thought I was being too mechanized. Anyway, we didn’t fuck and he went back out into the front room.” Maybe that was the reason he appreciated Pam's femininity and not Patricia Kennealy's brashness. Source: satireknight.wordpress.com

Judy Garland, Jim Morrison: First-rate Self-destructive entertainers

2020 Spirit Awards Winners: Renée Zellweger–JUDY (Winner) Best Female Lead. Renee Zellweger Gets to the Core of Judy Garland’s Tragic Decline. When you think of self-destructive entertainers who died before their time, which names come to mind? Jim Morrison? Jimi Hendrix? Kurt Cobain? We don't really think of Judy Garland in this capacity because she lived 20 years longer than these fatalistic 20-somethings, burning out while she was fading away. If it’s taken so long for a bigscreen biopic of Judy Garland to come to fruition, perhaps it’s because the lady herself warned off any attempts with one of her most famous quotes: “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” Zellweger offers an all-collapsing performance of the star at her lowest physical and psychological ebb: It’s gutsy, can’t-look-away work. Zellweger will likely win an Oscar with her performance.  Source: variety.com

Patricia Butler's book, Angels Dance and Angels Die is basically a "relationship dual biography," wherein Butler traces the romance between Morrison and Courson. Good memoir if you find a rock star's relatively monogamous love life interesting, although unsurprisingly the book skips almost every part of Pamela's life that doesn't involve Jim Morrison. It's funny coming from Patricia Kennealy that she puts her accomplishments above Pamela Courson's, when Patricia has just been a midlist SF/F author for some years in the 90s. But both before and since, her main claim to fame was handfasting with a rock star. This is the only part of Angels Dance and Angels Die that deals with Pamela's feelings on Patricia: "Conversely, when New York journalist Patricia Kennealy showed up at Pam's apartment in Los Angeles to inform Pam that not only had she had an affair with Jim, but had, she claimed, aborted his child as well, Pamela responded with nothing more than mild curiosity - 'How interesting,' she reportedly said. 'I've never met one of Jim's women before.'" Even though that anecdote actually comes from Kennealy's book, it shows how much of a threat Pamela perceived Patricia was: zilch. And I wonder: What the hell did James Douglas Morrison ever do to deserve the kind of treatment he has gotten in print? Is it just envy, that makes people so hurtful and hateful about him? By running him down, does that make them less unimportant, less stupid and vile? Do they hate and fear and resent his excellence that much? Admittedly, there's a lot to envy: He wrote poetry, he made great music. He was gorgeous, funny, romantic and self-deprecating. He got out there and let all sorts of morons project vicarious emotions all over him. Kennealy had an almost three year period to find Courson, who spent a good deal of her final years in Los Angeles, and demand to know what happened to Jim Morrison. If in Kennealy's position, I'd want some answers. But Kennealy remained mysteriously silent after receiving the news of Morrison's death.

John Densmore on Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson: "Pamela was this adorable waif from Orange County, cute as a bug. She came up to Hollywood to find herself and she found Jim. She was clearly his soulmate.” Patricia Kennealy: "Jim certainly loved Pamela and cared about her, and I’ve never denied or dismissed that, for all her faults and flaws, she had a great and sunny charm and a prettiness that was truly astonishing; what a pity the inside of her didn’t match the outside. Never mind the fawning tone Patricia Butler took in her letters: that was only a ruse to get me to talk to her, so she could then boast of my cooperation and turn right around and trash me in Angels Dance Angels Die; as, indeed, that paragon of truth in reportage, her dear mentor Albert Golddigger--oh, sorry, Goldman--did when I flatly refused to talk to him about Jim for the obnoxious lie-o-rama that thankfully died with him. As a rule I never boast, but I feel I must point out with pride and pleasure both, that I told witnesses on a Friday that if Goldman's book on Jim could not be stopped, then he would just have to die, and, on Monday, he did! Butler's ill-advised character assassination of Jim was needed to persuade anyone how wonderful her heroine little Pamela was."

Salli Stevenson, rock journalist, on Patricia Kennealy: "I interviewed Jim Morrison for Circus Magazine in October 1970. Morrison Hotel was released in February 1970. The song was written and recorded by the end of 1969. It was written about Pamela Courson. Jim Morrison said to me that he and Patricia Kennealy did not know each other well at that point. They had exchanged a few polite notes and she saw him only three times. Jim also said he didn't consider their 'Pagan wedding' in June 1970 as anything more than a creative experiment. He further said there were no witnesses, only Jim and Patricia were present. If you timeline Patricia's "Strange Days" and compare Jim's schedule you will find that Patricia Kennealy spent less than a week and a half with Jim Morrison: days, not even a month." 

In the 1980’s, in the book “Rock Wives” Patricia Kennealy had no qualms about confessing that her time with Jim Morrison was nothing but an extended one night stand. Patricia was an accomplished sci-fi author and was content to keep to herself. When Oliver Stone began researching for his film project, however, I think it occurred to Patricia that she could capitalize on her affair, and so she wrote a laughable “memoir” that borders on pure, unadulterated farce. People have evaluated Jim’s schedule at the time, and they were able to spend maybe a week and a half together. To say she is stretching it would be putting it nicely. I've read Stephen Davis' awful biography of Morrison, and he is much nastier about Kennealy than her "most hateful and virulent detractor" (Patricia Butler). Patricia's claims about the writings have proven to be false. She met with Andy Morrison (Jim's brother) and Andy (along with a handwriting expert) confirmed that the writings were forgeries. She was supposed to release them in 2010 (that would have been the 40 year mark under the old copyright law, thus making them eligible for the public domain), but when Andy made it known that they were forgeries, somehow all of the claims disappeared, and she never spoke of them again. This has been confirmed by Jim Morrison’s former brother-in-law, Alan R. Graham.

-Frank Lisciandro: During Jim’s trial in Miami, you were there with him. Did Patricia Kennealy come and visit Jim during that period?

-Babe Hill: “Yeah. I really didn’t know her that well to form any kind of impression.”

-Frank Lisciandro: Did you have the impression he was in love with her?

-Babe: “No.”

-Frank Lisciandro: Did you ever hear about the witch’s marriage ceremony he was supposed to have gone through with her?

-Babe: “No. But it could have happened. I mean, we’d wind up in some pretty strange places sometimes; drunk in the middle of the night in Hollywood. As I recall, he didn’t believe that she was ever pregnant.”

“Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together” is the only book that reveals the real Jim Morrison. I want you to know, that after reading seveal biographies on Jim - and listening to/reading everything currently available online/in press regarding Jim - I have come to believe that “Friends Gathered Together” is the single most important document we have on Jim Morrison. These perspectives of the people who truly knew him are of enormous value. I believe historians will concur with my thoughts on this, when all the information on him comes in; and the dust settles…” -Dr. Tim Culver Professor of Psychiatry Clinical/ Dept. of Psychiatry University of Calgary –"Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together" (2014) by Frank Lisciandro

2/5/71 (Friday): Patricia and I visit Diane Gardiner at The Doors office. Patricia soon wishes we hadn't gone, because Diane immediately lights into her for the crap she pulled back in December: "You don't DO that, Patricia!" Diane roars. "You DO NOT sit someone down and say [she adopts a simpering, whiny tone] 'Your old man knocked me up' What's the matter with you? Jim doesn't like his wife being harassed by a rock journalist, okay?" I am wondering more and more if she befriended me simply because I was moving to Los Angeles and she needed a friend here who didn't know any of these people--especially Jim and Pam. It's beginning to look as if she's made herself persona non grata not only with Jim but virtually everyone connected with him.

2/10/71 (Wednesday): Full moon. Patricia and I go to a press party, someone says Richter himself is predicting a much bigger quake tonight, that yesterday's was just a foreshock. We freak out but Allen Rinde takes us out for drinks and calms us down, at least temporarily. I get weirded out again, decide to drive across the desert to Las Vegas. Little chance the Corvair will make it, so we decide to call Jim. He's got a much better car and might even be up for the drive. Patricia leaves a message with The Doors' service, but of course he never calls back.

2/12/71 (Friday): I am just heading back to the laundromat when I see Jim getting out of his car in the parking lot behind Barney's. I wait for a minute, watching while he leans in and pokes around in the back seat. I'm trying to decide whether to walk over and say hello or proceed as if I hadn't seen him. His status as rock heartthrob throws me off balance. About that time he straightens up, sees me and waves--that takes care of that. We chitchat a bit, he says he's going to get a beer and something to eat before going to the studio. He invites me to join him but I tell him I just ate and had better get my clothes.

"Is Patricia still here?" he asks. "Still staying with you?"

"Yes." There's the flicker of a grimace on that handsome face, which gives me the nerve to add, "I get the impression you're not exactly thrilled to see her."

"That's putting it mildly," he says. He shakes his head. "She keeps acting as if there's something there, and there just isn't."

"There used to be though, didn't there?"

He looks me straight in the eye. "No."

Whoo boy, I think. This man is pissed off.

"Is this just a visit," he says, "or is she planning to stay?" His tone is sardonic and bitter. Tell him I think she's leaving on the 20th.

"What day is that?"

"I think it's a Saturday... a week from tomorrow."

"What time's her flight?"

I can't resist. "Why? You want to drive her to the airport?"

"I thought maybe the two of us could have dinner that night. You can help me celebrate."

"All right," I say, after a short hesitation. This is an invitation I can accept, since Patricia will be back in NY by then and there's no way she can find out and be hurt by it. For all I know he's just looking for companionship anyway, and I could certainly use a new friend.

"I won't be as happy to see her go as you are, though. I don't blame you," I add quickly, as his grin fades. "I know she's made an awful fool of herself."

"She's done a lot worse than that," he says, "but we can talk about it some other time. I need to get going. Where's your car?"

Tell him it's still at the laundromat, he offers to drive me back, I say thank you but I don't think any bogeymen will get me. It's only two o'clock or so, and I don't want to tie him up any more.

"I'll see you a week from tomorrow then," he says. "About six?"

"Okay," I say. "You remember where I live?"

"Sure," he says, staggering me. "On Flores, right? Below Fountain? East side of the street..." he squints, "third floor, about halfway down on the right. Right?"

"Right." He grins at me a moment longer, then shyly tilts my chin up and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. And he strolls off towards Barney's door, throwing me one sly, sideways glance as he goes, while I stand stupified, savoring the smoky-sweet taste of his mouth and wondering what I've just got myself into.

All of a sudden I am looking at a journal, and the contents are electrifying. My suspicions about the abortion are correct. She knew Jim was not the father, and that's why she aborted. What I didn't know, didn't even suspect, was the reason for her coming to Los Angeles twice, throwing herself at him over and over despite his obvious indifference and hostility. She's trying to get him into bed again. Good grief, Patricia, smell the coffee. Your "thing" with him is already so dead it's mummified. She also obsesses about Pamela so much, how he continues to "cleave unto" Pamela instead of "cleaving unto" her. I'm so sorry for her, and yet I loathe her. It's just beginning to dawn on me, the extent of her crimes... is too strong a word, isn't it? Yet she bulled her way down to Miami, stuck out her belly, threatened paternity suits, and she didn't really believe, herself, that he was the father. What if the press had discovered the reason for her presence? I remember how she seemed to dismiss the trial as some kind of dodge he'd arranged to avoid his "obligations" to her. But I don't remember any hint of sympathy for him, at what had to have been the worst time of his life.

I’m just rinsing the soapsuds off my face when the door opens. It’s Jim Morrison carrying his cigarettes. He has the look of exasperation I’ve started to think of as his 'Patricia Look'. He pokes around in my bag to find one of my purloined Poppi matchbooks, then sits down on the stool, and props his feet on the edge of the bathtub. His exhaustion is palpable, and I’m beginning to feel guilty for not going around to the Alta Cienega as he asked. Initially I assumed Patricia had gone to Miami to offer Jim her moral support. She soon made it clear he hadn’t invited her and that she’d gone down solely to confront him. Patricia had no sympathy for Jim’s plight whatsoever despite the fact that he was facing a possible prison term. It’s been decades now since I’ve felt any sympathy for her at all. I haven’t read Strange Days, and nor do I intend to, but I’ve had parts of it read to me, enough to know it’s simply a further and ever more spiteful rearranging of reality. Since its publication in 1992 Patricia has continued to demonstrate her truly vicious, vengeful and greedy nature.

I was just drifting off when I noticed someone sitting down next to me on the sofa–I felt the cushions give under his weight. He placed his hands under my shoulders to lift me up, and bent to kiss me. He was so close I could feel the heat of his face over mine, and I knew it was Jim Morrison because I could feel his masculine smell. Then we kissed again softly and he tentatively slid his right hand under my skirt, while locking my eyes with his half-closed eyes. He started to unbutton my blouse and I touched his warm chest under his open shirt. The kiss continued to be wet, expansive and unreal. I felt like floating, his kiss like a peak of heavenly sugar through my bloodstream. Without saying any word, we went to my bedroom and immediately I lost notion of time. He was such a good kisser, slow and dreamy and fierce all at once. The next morning, I found Jim washing his hair and whistling, in a great mood. He smiled sleepily as I got in, picked up the soap and covered my body with white lather. Then he stood back so the hot water ran down my body, proving himself kind and considerate. As the soap slid smoothly between us, he kissed me sweetly. Then he lathered me up again, smiling childishly. Not without certain difficulty, we made love for the second time under the shower. “I’m going to dry off. But stay inside if you want,” he said, almost breathless when he was leaving the shower. --Tiffany Talks: Your Ballroom Days Are Over, Baby (1999) by Janet Erwin

'An Alternate History': Jim Morrison & Pamela

A prolific groupie who counts Jimmy Page among her former lovers has said her drug-fuelled sexual encounters empowered women. Pamela Des Barres says the Led Zeppelin guitarist was a 'true love' but also had flings with The Who's Keith Moon and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. The 69-year-old believes she was a positive role model to younger women. Whether it was watching Elvis sat between Jimmy and his band's frontman Robert Plant, or sitting on stage watching the legendary guitarist entertain 80,000 fans, she had a front row seat for the rock 'n' roll antics of the 1960s.

As she promotes the republication of her now 30-year-old memoirs I'm With The Band, she told The Sun: 'Sitting on Jimmy’s amp, I almost felt like one of the group. Girls in the audience looked up at me and wondered which one I was sleeping with, and I was so proud. Any woman who gets out there, looks on stage and goes after someone who inspires her, that is the ultimate feminist act, surely?' she said. "People ask me the #MeToo’ question a lot, I had #MeToo’ stories growing up–but not with musicians. I was never harmed. I considered myself a feminist." One man who couldn't charm Pamela into bed was Jimi Hendrix, for whom she performed in a short film dancing around his band. She said the impossibly charismatic guitarist hit on her but she felt she was too young to sleep with him at the age of 17. 

But the same year Pamela hooked up with The Doors frontman Jim Morrison after hearing his song The End playing from a nearby building. She went to his house to find him singing along to his own record while standing shirtless next to his fridge in leather trousers. Pamela recalls 'making out passionately' and described the singer as the most beautiful man she has ever seen.

In 1973 Pamela called time on her groupie lifestyle, but married singer Michael Des Barres. They divorced in 1991 after having a child, Nicholas, in 1978. The former groupie is believed to be the inspiration for the 2000 film Almost Famous, but Pamela wasn't impressed with the movie. Pamela, who now lives alone in LA, identifies as a Christian and squares the religion's moral dogma with her promiscuous past by describing orgasms as 'godly'. Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

In the early 60's both Jack Kerouac and Jim Morrison were living in the Clearwater, Florida area, a time in Kerouac’s life that he was hitting local bars with an entourage of teenage admirers. It’s tempting to imagine a teenage Jim Morrison sharing a beer with Kerouac, but no such meeting has ever been mentioned. At the time Morrison was known to be extremely shy, a few years before when the Morrison’s lived in San Francisco Morrison went to the City Lights Bookstore while poet-owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti was there and Morrison was too shy to approach him. 

Jim Morrison 'An Alternate History' by Jim Cherry: In Beat poet Michael McClure Jim Morrison found a kindred poetic spirit and a productive relationship, but not at first. McClure and Morrison first met in New York while McClure was rehearsing his play “The Beard.” Both men were drinking and had an immediate dislike for each other. That hurdle seems to have been overcome by the time The Doors went to play their European tour. Morrison ran into McClure and invited him over to read some of his poetry. McClure was soon encouraging Morrison to get his poetry self-published it. By 1969 Morrison was impressed by McClure’s novel “The Adept” which had themes and settings in common with Morrison’s. They rented an office in a Hollywood building and worked on a screenplay of “The Adept” but because of its lack of cohesion was rejected by an agent, and the two went on to other projects. 

One of the most frequently asked questions among Doors fans, is what would Jim Morrison be doing if he hadn't died? July 3, 1971, 4am, Paris, France. Jim Morrison wakes up after falling asleep in the bathtub after a night of drinking. Morrison wraps himself in a warm robe and goes back to bed. As he gets into bed he’s careful not to wake Pam. August 1971. He comes to the conclusion that although he’s feeling better he can’t recreate the creative burst he felt on Venice Beach six years earlier. Morrison adopts the same discipline he had when working with Michael McClure. Morrison, gaining creative confidence and control, decides to accede to Pam Courson’s wishes that she and Jim have a normal life. He buys an old church in the French countryside that will be renovated into their home. In the meantime Morrison wanting to finish ‘old business’ works on his manuscript of Observations While on Trial in Miami. The book is observational as well as philosophical with a surrealist edge to it and provides a look into the American judicial system of the time. It becomes an underground hit and is considered by many to be one of the last great writings of the 1960’s counterculture movement.

The producers of Altered States see Morrison and are so impressed they want him to star in their movie. Morrison, familiar with the Paddy Chayefsky novel and seeing this as a chance to advance his film career agrees to play the lead as long as he can direct. Morrison argues that based on past experiences he has some insight into the subject matter and he throws in the use of a Doors song as well. The producers agree and Jim Morrison stars in and directs Altered States which is released in 1980... As I was writing this a sense of sadness overcame me for what could have been. Jim Morrison’s talents were many and his potential was within his grasp all he had to do was find a way. Source: medium.com

Maybe intellectuals have always been persecuted and shoved in lockers, but today we are at a specially low point — where social media interaction has replaced genuine debate and political discourse, where politicians are judged by whether we’d want to have a beer with them, where scientific consensus is rejected, where culture is underfunded, where journalism is drowning in celebrity gossip. Jim Morrison wouldn't fit well in our era of celebrated mediocrity, that's sure. Pamela Courson was the muse who inspired many of Jim Morrison's songs and poems like "Love Street," "Queen of the Highway," or "Twentieth Century Fox." Morrison began his relationship with Pamela Courson in 1966 when they met during one of the first appearances of the Doors at “London Fog”. She was born in Weed, California and grew up in an area south of L.A., Orange County (Morrison dedicated a piece to her called “Orange County Suite” even at the time it was never published officially). Pam was studying art at L.A. City College and couldn’t wait to explore the big city (in particular the Sunset Strip zone).

Morrison was touched by the sweetness of Pamela, her warm smile and her apparent defencelessness. It didn’t take long for the two to fall in love and so began a relationship which, although it had its ups and downs, was marked by a sense of profound complicity. The main characteristic of their relationship was clearly expressed in the words of the song “Queen of the Highway”. Pam was the princess and Jim was the monster dressed in black leather. Pam was often present at studio recording sessions of the Doors. Jim often used to joke and improvise during the sessions: an example can be heard in “Five To One”, in which Jim repeats both at the beginning and end of the song the words “Love my girl”; no doubt these words were meant for Pam who was sitting in some corner of the studio. Jim in Pamela had finally found his other half.  Source: www.doorscollectors.com

Jim Morrison & Pamela, Lou Reed & Nico: Rock 'n' Roll Angst and Redemption

Jim Morrison articulated again his belief that rock was dead: ‘The initial flash is over. What used to be called rock’n’roll – it got decadent. It became self-conscious, involuted and kind of incestuous. The energy is gone. There is no longer a belief.’ When asked if he might consider to be bisexual, he answered: ‘I’m hopelessly heterosexual!’ Jim also offered to discuss the merits of ‘alcohol as opposed to drugs’, explaining that ‘getting drunk you’re in complete control up to a point. It’s your choice, every time you take a sip. I guess it’s the difference between suicide and slow capitulation.’ Today, despite the record-straighteners, the kiss-and-tell memoirs from former lovers and friends, the online now-it-can-be-told memories, less is known about Jim Morrison and The Doors than ever before. In the acclaimed 2009 documentary When You’re Strange, the depth of what we don’t know about The Doors is revealed as staggering, almost infinite. Never mind the deeply troubled, irresponsibly generous, irrefutably talented, handsome-as-a-matador-in-his-prime real-life person that was James Douglas Morrison. Never mind the books he quietly read, the sweet love he secretly made, the cronies and the hangers-on—how much he despised them but hated himself more. Pamela Des Barres says that her first thought after hearing of his death was for Pamela Courson. Despite the crack-ups, the freak-outs and hate trips, she still believes that: ‘He was in love with Pamela Courson and that was it.’ 

‘He was Jim fucking Morrison and he was a kid... a child. And of course he’s in this playground and he’s going to fuck around with it, but he was really in love with her.’  One day at the end of June, 1971, walking to the beautiful Place des Vosges, Morrison slumped on a bench and wrote what would be his last poem, ‘The Sidewalkers Moved’. ‘Join us at the demonstration,’ he wrote, thinking back to the Paris riots of 1968, while staring blindly into his own unimagined future. Morrison, like Blake, clearly draws a distinction between what is and what is not possible through the imagination. Like Blake, Morrison glorifies the imagination in his work, arguing that when generate our reality through our imagination, our imagination does not see that reality as fixed; much to the contrary, it allows us to see beyond a fixed set of structures, perceiving our reality, like Blake argues, as infinite. —"The Poet Behind the Doors: Jim Morrison's Poetry and the 1960s Counter-Cultural Movement" (2011) by Steven Erkel

Jim Morrison was used to crazy women, groupies, and hangers-on. Even his girlfriend Pamela was crazy, with her flaming red hair and her refusal to play by Jim’s rules. Jim and Nico began to fight a lot, mostly when they were drunk and high. But often when they were simply having sex. Not like Nico used to fight with Brian Jones, though. Jim would never beat Nico up. They simply ‘enjoyed the sensation,’ Nico said: ‘But we make love in the gentle way.’ Then suddenly it was over. Not when Jim or Nico decided, but when Pam decided. Once Pam had found out where Jim was and who he was with, she began a new affair of her own with a French aristocrat named Jean de Breteuil with apparently permanent access to high-quality heroin, which Pam also now began ‘experimenting’ with. She knew what Jim’s reaction would be when he found out and began thinking about it, in those frozen hours he was always most terrified of right before dawn, during the coldest, darkest moments of the night-day. Jim pretended not to care. Then early one morning, while Nico was still passed out, Jim got in his car and drove back to L.A. and Pamela – as he always did eventually, as he always would. Not even leaving a note behind. 

"City Lights" (from Lou Reed's album The Bells, 1979) isn't only about Charlie Chaplin but about a lost America, the implication being that, in these late modern times, all the lights in the world might not be enough to bring us together. The time has come to call the fathers home from the stale curbstone shores. Sometimes they're bad and Take No Prisoners. But who then do they finally hurt but themselves? And when they give of themselves, they reaffirm what great art has always been: an act of love toward the whole human race. Lou Reed is a prick and a jerkoff. He's also a person with a deep compassion for a great many other people about whom almost nobody else gives a shit. I won't say who they are, because I don't want to get too schmaltzy, except to emphasize that there's always been more to this than drugs and fashionable kinks, and to point out that suffering, loneliness and psychic/spiritual exile are great levelers. The Bells isn't merely Lou Reed's best solo LP, it's great art. —Lester Bangs (1979, Rolling Stone)

Berlin isn't my favorite Lou Reed album, that distinction belongs to 1979's The Bells, but to deny that it is among the most important works in his collection would be extremely misguided. Critic Michael Hill pointed out that Reed's album was, "met with confusion, revulsion and anger" upon its initial release. The Velvet Underground's chanteuse Nico would later claim that Reed, "wrote me letters saying Berlin was me." Who exactly Caroline was based on has been conjectured about for years. Was it Nico? Was it Reed's wife at the time Bettye Kronstadt? Caroline is a composite that manifests as a fevered brew of vulnerability, paranoia, suffering and bullying. She is certainly one of the most unforgettable characters in rock history and she inspired some of the most penetrating and memorable lyrics of Lou Reed's career. No one before or since has managed to capture urban angst or the frustrations of addiction, depression, and ultimately redemption better than Lou Reed. Much more than being rock's dark prince, Lou Reed has reminded us for forty years now that there is indeed light at the end of the longest and blackest tunnel. —Moon in the Gutter (2013) by Jeremy Richey

Nico just once offered an example of the peyote visions she endured with Jim Morrison: "The light of the dawn was a very deep green and I believed I was upside down and the sky was the desert which had become a garden and then the ocean. I do not swim and I was frightened when it was water and more resolved when it was land. I felt embraced by the sky-garden." Soon after, she started to write a song lyric, possibly her first, titled Lawns of Dawn. Nico told Morrison that she did not know how to compose. She could not follow the mechanics of writing. Morrison told her to write down her dreams, literally, write down the images she remembered. He started by imitating other writers, Celine and Blake, and he realized that they were writing down their dreams. Their affair, a torrid mixture of drinks, drugs, sex, fights and poetry, lasted little more than a month before this Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden and drifted down their separate roads. They were tired of each other, were exhausted by each others titanic demands. Aside from the authority she had received from Morrison to compose, and the slanted introduction to English poetry, she kept two prevailing souvenirs of their liaison: his blood in hers, and red hair. —"Nico: Life and Lies of an Icon" (kindle, 2017) by Richard Witts

Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, Their Rock Wives

Apparently Jim Morrison and Pamela Courson encountered each other at a midweek party at UCLA. She was radiant, laughing, and seemingly with another guy. Jim circled around her, looking for an angle, but Pam wouldn’t make eye contact. According to Jim’s friend January Jansen, “He saw her there across the room and wanted to meet her, so he asked around until he found a friend of hers who could arrange a proper introduction.” They chatted for a while, and she told him she was taking art classes at Los Angeles Community College. The following weekend, in early April 1966, Pam Courson came to the London Fog. While John Densmore and Pamela were talking in one of the Fog’s booths, Jim Morrison made his move and sat down with them. Ray Manzarek tried to accurately describe this encounter: “Once their eyes combined, their psyches did a caduceus up the staff of Mercury and their souls sprouted wings. They were mated. Olympian. Cosmic.” Jim Morrison later told that when Pamela finally took him home at dawn, it was the first time he’d ever really made love. A few nights later, they went on their first date, to see French director Claude Lelouch’s hit film A Man and a Woman. Pamela had an electric, star-quality presence that could kill all conversation when she walked into a room. She hated the Doors, thought the whole thing was way beneath Jim's talents. Jim didn’t argue with her, just reminded her that the Doors were paying the bills for her rent, the boutique, and everything else. Jim was crazy about Pamela, and so he pampered the hell out of her. She always gave him a lot of attention and admiration and he also showed a great deal of kindness and loving behavior toward her.—"Angels Dance and Angels Die: The Tragic Romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison" (2010) by Patricia Butler

Jim Morrison: “To me, politics is nothing more than the search of certain individuals for private power. They can cloak it in any ideological, romantic or philosophical terms they want, but it’s essentially a private search for power.” Wallace Fowlie, the distinguished biographer of Arthur Rimbaud, began teaching Jim Morrison’s poetry at Duke University. Similar courses were offered at Yale and Stanford. Fowlie later published a critical study, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: The Rebel As Poet.

Jim Morrison & Pamela (People are Strange) video. Soundtrack: "People are Strange", "Love Her Madly", "The Crystal Ship", "Hello, I Love You" by The Doors, and "Oh, Jim" by Lou Reed.

I was at Lisa Robinson’s house when she got the call from Jim Morrison’s girlfriend Pamela, asking what she should do? Jim was dead in the bathtub. I didn’t want to lose Lou! His drinking scared me silly, but there was nothing I could do except monitor him as best I could. Lou’s favorite bar on Long Island was Jilly’s, where he had bartended on and off in the summers. The gays flirted with him, but there was nothing inappropriate or outrageous. Everyone knew that I was his girlfriend, and the boundaries were drawn. Lou’s flirting didn’t bother me. It didn’t mean anything to him and I felt secure in his love for me. Underneath all the posing, Lou was all man—a leader—and particularly courageous about his principles. He walked away from any situation if it meant he was not being true to himself. If he couldn’t follow his true course, he would give it all up—which was the main reason he left The Velvet Underground. He actually was crazy enough to follow his principles in the real world. At seventeen, Lou’s parents had sent him to see a psychiatrist who prescribed EST for his depression and mood swings. During the summer of 1959, he was treated at Creedmoor State Psychiatric Hospital in Queens, New York, where the EST treatments were administered without an anesthetic. At that time, the procedure involved putting him on a wooden gurney with a rubber block between his teeth. This was an experience that scarred Lou for life. It is commonly thought that EST was prescribed to Lou in order to cure him of his ‘bisexual tendencies,’ but he never told me this or even alluded to it. I think he told journalists this to be more sympathetic to the gay community, in part to broaden his appeal to that audience.

Lou was intent upon becoming successful as an original artist. He rarely talked about his personal writing process. Lou wrote under a kind of extreme cyclical personal pressure—in spurts, usually overnight, and after thoughts and feelings had built up in him so intensely that they came pouring out, often fully formed. His writing process was cathartic, and it allowed him to reach his most authentic truth. Lou never told me what to say, how to act, or what to wear. He always told me I looked great, whatever I wore. He had complete confidence and trust in me, and he let everyone around know it. David Bowie made it known that he was very interested in working with Lou, but the more Lou wished to impress someone, the less he acted like he cared.  —"Perfect Day: An Intimate Portrait Of Life With Lou Reed" (2016) by Bettye Kronstad

Lou Reed's Demos, Papers And Record Collection Soon To Be Public: Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed's widow, is donating his personal archive of recordings, photos and business records to the New York Public Library. Anderson says she hopes access to the archive will paint a more nuanced picture of Lou Reed than the tough guy in leather jacket and shades everyone knows. The collection includes thousands of hours of video and audio recordings and more than 300 boxes of papers, photos and other items spanning his six-decade career. There's a 1971 recording of Reed reading poetry. There's a bill from the legendary New York bar Max's Kansas City — "I really wanted it to not be deep in some vault where only people with white gloves can come. He was really democratic," Anderson explains. Source: www.npr.org