Is everybody in...?
Is everybody connected w/ the present-day Doors IN-SANE?
The Fair Use protest is about to begin...
WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!
There once was a group called the DoorsWho sang in dissent of the mores
To youth they protested
As witnesses attested
Now they're nothing but corporate whores
Who am I? Let's just refer to me as James Phoenix. (For the record, I never had children, least of all any pathetic impostor named Cliff. And once & for all, I am not, nor do I have anything to do w/ any Oregonian rodeo clown claiming to be yours truly.)
I invite you to join me & the Door$ Unhinged International (D.U.I.) as we FREE JIM MORRISON FROM CORPORATE DOOR$
The Doors were once part of the solution, but they are now part of the problem.
Before we get down to it, there's something I need to get off my chest. I've waited decades to have my say & I can't imagine a more apt platform than MySpace.
So many people have taken potshots at me through the years, especially after I "died" & no longer was around to defend myself. Well, guess what? I've got feelings just like you. It's time I address the myriad detractors &/or shills who conveniently manage to profit from my would-be corpse, all the while failing to consider my cultural impact w/ regard to context.
Firstly, although I didn't think much of his biography on me, I did appreciate Stephen Davis's description of the Doors in general & my perceptions in particular: "The Doors at their best were about as good as rock music ever got. At their worst, they were one of the most pretentious bands on the planet. But no one had a clearer grasp of the complexities & ironies of the age than Jim Morrison."
W/ that in mind, know that I've always contended an abiding sense of irony over all I do. At the same time, I've had more than my fair share of cringe-inducing moments along the way. For instance, I allowed my tongue-in-cheek "Lizard King" persona to bite my lip & crawl up into my ego for a nasty spell. (How's that for irony?) I'll cop to it. But in my defense, I was the lyrical/vocal firebrand of the late 1960s, back when rock music actually possessed a genuine sense of menace (& thus intrigue), as opposed to the strict commerce of today's largely passive background drones.
Lennon & McCartney? Brilliant, to be sure, but not exactly menacing. Jagger? Always "one step removed." Hendrix? Amazing cat but he was all about the guitars. Janis? Incredible voice but mainly an interpreter of outside material. Grace Slick? Intriguing for sure. And a rich trippy wit, but not exactly menacing. Arthur Lee? Overflowing w/ talent, but refused to tour beyond L.A. Lou Reed? Junkie folkie. And Iggy? Definitely menacing, but word-wise he chose to found & then flunk out of the Dumb & Dumber School of Lyrics. However, one thing they all shared w/ me was a less-than-brilliant poetic prowess. Yes, you read that right.
I never fail to get a kick out of those who continually get off on scapegoating me for writing "bad poetry." Please. There's no such thing as good poetry. It's all pretentious drivel. Any action beyond breath is an attempt at calling attention to oneself. Blake? Bombastic. Nietzsche? Needy. Ginsberg? Purple as they come. Hell, even Charles Bukowski was ass-over-appetite & he was the best. But that's the point. Their words jar you from the complacency of everyday reality. They shift you out of auto-pilot & into overdrive. I once stated that if my poetry aims to achieve anything, it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see & feel. I also said the following: "Real poetry doesn't say anything. It just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you."
Show me a good, nay, great poet & I'll show you somebody who knows how to fuck while talking dirty. Similie. Mixed metaphor. Meter. Internal rhyme. It's all there. I mean, what do you want? Bob Dylan? The Carl Sandburg of Rock? Wonderful lyrically, but about as vocally thrilling as...your high school principal. Me, I was into Rimbaud & his writing was more flowery than a hothouse in the Everglades, but at least he wasn't your Grandpa Sandburg, rotting away, like some mummified corpse that's become one w/ his rocking chair, after having spent his golden years hawking Victoria's Secret & Starbucks & making a cameo on Dharma & Greg, for fuck's sake. But back to that ominous entity known as the Door$. (Not to be confused w/ the band I once fronted.)
41 years after the group's debut, the Doors have become the exact thing we originally railed against: THE ESTABLISHMENT. The group (what's left of it, anyway) is now nothing but a shameless Hollywood novelty act/cover band shrewdly marketed to milk nostalgia & cash in on my "legend." But no one should be too surprised as back in the fall of 1968 certain beguiling members were all too eager to offer up "Light My Fire"'s ass to Buick behind my back. Less than three years later, after I'd dematerialized, the first thing those same members attempted was to sell their (& my) souls to Tiparillo. Classy, huh? (Pamela Courson, bless her heart, helped vanquish that particular flame.) Ask the incorrigible Raymond Daniel Manzarek & he'll surely try & slip you the same old new-age neo-hippie rhetoric & rationalization about the Doors "subverting" America via their living room television sets. As if our having shared tube time w/ Dick Clark, Ed Sullivan, Jonathan Winters, & the Smothers Brothers wasn't enough. But then that's just it. It's NEVER enough, is it, Ray? As fellow First Amendment-defender Jello Biafra once said, a generation after mine: "The biggest addiction in America isn't drugs. It's money." Pure greed. What an oxymoron.
Even Lou Reed - who initally championed the Doors, only to turn the other cheek (ironically, in response to our success) - later hawked Honda Scooters & American Express. Nearly everyone else, from the Stones to the Who & Jimi to Iggy have long been linked w/ corporate endorsements.
Say what you will about me, but I never sold out.
It was strange enough to have to play the game & deal w/ Elektra, at that time a small independent record label which, ironically, quickly became a "major player" thanks to the Doors' success. But shouldn't that have been enough? More than enough, even? To quote John Densmore from a documentary made ten years after my "death": "How much money does one want to make? It doesn't matter after a certain point." Amen, brother. (But please refrain from joining Manzarek in exaggerating the size of my progenitive organ in hopes of generating even more album sales. It's humiliating beyond words.)
Granted, w/ any major group, certain products are part of the process. But there is a line. Be mindful of quality - as opposed to quantity - or the next thing you know you'll be turned into a sweatshop-crafted doll complete w/ new fallacies. Again, for the record, I never sang sans shirt, as an "officially-licensed" action figure would have you believe. The only times I performed completely shirtless in any official Doors capactiy occurred during the ill-advised Joel Brodsky photo sessions in 1967. And a 1968 Griffith Park shoot that later begat a Rolling Stone cover. And an early Guy Webster first-album session. What can I say? I was young, headstrong & drunk. (And I admit that I was anything but rational while drunk. I've long since reduced my intake to a glass of wine. There's been no sign of "Mr. Hyde" for the better part of 37 years, thank you.)
The current state of The Door$, Coattail Riders of the 21st Century Storm, D21C, or whatever they're calling it this week - complete w/ bad stand-ins - is, simply put, a pox on a legacy - & a blatant undermining of any avant/punk/indie/alt credibility the Doors once held. (Lest we forget Iggy formed the "Psychedelic" Stooges after seeing the Doors come unhinged in Ann Arbor. Christ, was I full of piss that night.) Well, I'm here to tell you it's BULLSHIT. And I'm asking for your help. Join me in throwing a monkey wrench into the Doors' monkey business. This insidious charade has been going through the motions for too long. It's time to break on through, back to the other other side, once & for all. I may have gone fishin', but YOU can carry the torch.
It's time to slam the ©Ø®PØ®ATE DØØ®$ shut!
Cut and paste your own Doors mixes, a la John Oswald. Create your own Doors t-shirts, stickers & stencils. (And I'm not talking about buying Door$-sanctioned Shepard Fairey-type B.S.) As the band Negativland infamously relates: "Copyright infringement is your best entertainment value." It's time the Door$ remember Free Speech & learn - for the first time - about Fair Use. And that includes Ray "I'd Love It If Piracy Didn't Exist" Manzarek, a rocking chair "rocker" old enough to be your great grandfather. Enough has been enough, for decades.
To paraphrase my infamous 1969 Miami performance: "Your faces are being pressed into the shit of the world! Come on!"
As of 2008, the Doors remain a long-standing Madison Avenue monopoly. Like some delusional fast food junkie in serious need of a screening of the documentary Super Size Me. A hoary hydra of commodity giving endless head to any endorsement-dangling suit who's "into the myths, man." A washed-up, bloated sea monster w/ so many tentacles, even it can't keep track of its own insatiable reach. And soon those tentacles will resemble a NASCAR race car, emblazoned w/ sponsor's logos & a cockpit blaring "classic" Doors songs courtesy of superficial Tinsel Town movie soundtracks. (Monsters, Inc., anyone?) But there is hope.
YOU can help slay the overly-commercialized beast by spreading the word. "Tell all the people" what the Doors once stood for & what they can symbolize in the future. Meanwhile, here's something for the Doors Music Co. to fathom:
I am not mad, nor am I dead.
I am interested in freedom, more so than ever.
Good luck,
James Phoenix
P.S. For those who've actually read this far & are pondering the obvious, I leave you w/ this: I chose to "die" when I did for political as well as personal reasons. Fortunately, it was the wisest move I ever made. I now live a simple, relatively quiet life. And while I'd be grateful for a full State of Florida pardon, whether one is granted or not (all statute of limitations aside), I have no intention of ever returning to any semblance of the life I once led. I knew when to cash in my chips & that was a few lifetimes ago.
The FREE JIM MORRISON FROM CORPORATE DOOR$ MySpace page exists solely as a means of clearing the air & exhuming the principles long ago interred by the Doors Music Co.