Light my Fire

Seems that December is making up for all those barren days by giving us a plethora of heroes today. Taking the "show" money, and completing the trifecta for today is the broodingly handsome fellow above. Number 110's name is James Douglas (I'm Jim) Morrison born this day 1943 in Melbourne, Florida. He was born into a respectable family (his father was an Admiral), and supposedly had an I.Q. of 149. When he was four years old he witnessed the aftermath of a car crash in the desert, and believed it to be one of the most formative events of his life. He made frequent references to the event in his music, and his poems. Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind." Being a Navy brat he did have to move about often bouncing from school to school, and city to city. He eventually finished his undergraduate degree in film at UCLA. It was in 1965 that he formed the band that was to make him famous, The Doors. The name is a quote from Aldous Huxley's "The Doors of Perception" which is itself a quote from William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." The Doors got their start at the famous club Whiskey a Go Go opening for Van Morrison. Jim is credited for being the main lyricist of the group, but guitarist Robbie Krieger did make significant contributions to many of the group's biggest hits (i.e. Light My Fire, Love me Two Times, and Touch Me). It was "Light My Fire" that was their first number one hit, and got them invited to play on the Ed Sullivan show. The lyrics "girl we couldn't get much higher" were just a little too much for good old Ed and the censors, and they requested that Jim sing the amended version "girl we couldn't get much better." Morrison said that he would, but during the performance sang the original version anyway, saying that he forgot, and it did not go over well with Ed. Sullivan refused to shake their hand at the end of the performance, and never invited them back onto the show. Morrison was the ideal rock star, sex, drugs, leather pants, and mysterious, and for my money, The Doors are one of the top five rock bands of all time. They are right up there with The Police in my personal hall of fame. He even did the required bit about dying young, of a supposed heroin overdose in Paris at the age of 27). Reading one of his biographies (years and years ago) does give me insight into why I admire the crazy bastard so much. Some of major influences are heroes of mine in their own right. Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Louis-Ferdindad Celine, Antonin Artaud, and Jack Kerouac will all, when their time comes will graces this blog as heroes, and they were all influences on Morrison. So for sharing all those heroes with me, and for writing lines like "Five in one, baby One in Five, No one here gets out alive," which is so very true, James Douglas Morrison (December 8th, 1943- July 3rd, 1971, at the age of 27, of a heroin overdose), you are my (third, and biggest) hero of the day.