Wednesday, June 04, 2008

School Of Rock: The Doors


"No one here gets out alive."-Five To One- the Doors

11 year old Paticus: "You see, man. You see that ? THAT is the fucking TRUTH, man !! And Morrison is telling it ! No on here gets out alive. Does it get any truer than that, man ? We're ALL gonna die, man."

Okay, I might not have said it exactly THAT way, but I'm pretty sure I probably said it. Yes, there was a time in my life when I thought that Jim Morrison was deep. really deep. Like genius deep. I'm not proud of it, but it happened.

Don't get me wrong, I still like the Doors, I think they have some great tunes, but I think Jim Morrison was a bit of a self indulgent dick.


But not back when I was 11. Oh no. He was a rock god. In fact, one of the first albums I remember buying is "The Soft Parade" on cassette. I heard it when my family and I rented a house down on the Jersey shore, and our neighbor had the album.

Then, I read No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman, and that cemented it. Jim was a poet, a misunderstood and persecuted genius. And you know what ? I bet he's still alive. He just gave them all a big FUCK YOU ! and slipped off into the darkness, to continue being a genius in peace. That fucking ROCKS, man !!

And I wish I could blame drugs and alcohol for this thinking, but no(they were a few years off), it was just the mind of a fat,lonely, and unattractive 11 year old boy.

Why Jim Morrison ? I guess my perception was that he was an outsider(like me !) who still became what he wanted to be, and he didn't give a damn what people thought. Of course, the larger picture was that he didn't seem to give a damn about anybody, period, and that's not so much something to which I wanted to aspire.

Having said all that, I still love me some Doors songs. I just don't follow the Jim Morrison personal philosophy. Unless I'm telling chicks to touch me.




Thus endeth the lesson.

5 comments:

Donna said...

I dislike The Doors. I never understood why people worshipped him. I never thought his music was genius.

Self indulgent dick is a good way to describe him.

There are several artists I believe to be musical geniuses, Michael Jackson for one, but Jimmy didn't make my cut.

Feral Mom said...

Mr. Feral is/was a sometime Doors fan, for which I used to give him endless grief, i.e. "the Doors is the worst band in the world." Somewhere along the way, however, I learned to appreciate Morrison for the comedy. Ride the snake...to the lake. See? Comedy gold!

Paticus said...

Miss Ann- But you gotta admit, he RAWKS those maracas !!!

Feral mom- Yeah, there's a definite comedy to it. But i won't completely disparage them either. i don't think he's a lyrical genius, but i do really dig some of the tunes. "Peace Frog" is another one I really like.

Jennifer said...

I always hated No One Here Gets Out Alive. It's one of my least favorite books ever. (sorry). I love the Doors though. Five To One is one of their best songs too. I actually do think a lot of the songs they wrote are easy to be taken as truth, especially if you're already in a bad mood, but kids do this all the time. I'm not surprised you thought that at 11. You should have seen what I thought of GNR at age 11 (you don't want to know) I can't believe I even just wrote that. I'm out.

Oh, and glad to see you are still blogging :) I haven't been by, and wasn't sure.

Paticus said...

Jennifer- Glad to know you're glad I'm still here, and I was glad to see you re-awaken Balance!
I still like the Doors, i just don't hold them up as prophets like I used to. i think some of their stuff is great, including "Five to One"
I like some Guns N Roses, too.