Summer With MorrisonDennis Jakob, Summer With Morrison
We stumbled outside, down to the wharf where the boats were and where they were selling some fish in a kind of open air market. Then I remember us walking along the main drag, drunk as, well, wharf rats. The stream of traffic moved by in spasms of light with Morrison weaving on ahead, until suddenly – We were careening down a path away from all the booths and stuff above us. We were up against this small cliff, with all these local folk streaming at our backs and a wide expanse of cars below. We were sitting on a log. The three of us. Alone. And then I heard it.
I heard that voice. Oh, how I heard it! And what it said, over and over again in spastic repetition, was this:
"When she comes down here, we'll leap up and snap her neck and then run down to the boats. When she comes down here, we'll leap up and snap her neck and then run down to the boats. When she comes down here, we'll leap up and snap her neck and then run down to the boats..."
Over and over again. I looked over at Tony. He was looking at me. I think I was paralyzed with fear, through all that drink. With dread. With foreboding, I now knew something I had never known before about James Douglas Morrison. I knew he could be a killer.Tony looked at me, and I at Tony. Tony got up and brushed by Jim and slapped him lightly on the shoulder. I got up and said, "Time to go, Jim." Morrison snapped awake, as if out of some nightmare, and followed us dumbly out into the crowd again. Out into that busy mound of local social life. But what had we heard? We climbed into Tony’s Karmann Ghia again. Tony drove us down even farther South to a place he knew where there were beaches. I felt surprisingly alive. But I had not forgotten what Jim had said on that little path by the log, that very clear, almost trance-like articulation.
I asked Tony if he remembered anything about Jim’s monologue from the previous night, near that strip of beach. "Man, I was scared," he said. "I knew that if some chick had wandered down there, he was going to do it." I nodded in grim affirmation. "Well, it's done-with now," I said.
Angels Dance And Angels DieButler, Patricia. Angels Dance and Angels Die
It was on this night, during a party at a friend’s house, that Jim’s frighteningly erratic behavior turned violent in an episode which would prove to be an eerie precursor to others like it for Jim over the next ten years. Exasperated by his apparently drunken antics during the evening, Tandy chastised Jim, saying, “Oh, Jim, why must you wear a mask? Do you have to wear it all the time?”
Jim’s reaction shocked Tandy. Before she knew what was happening, he had fallen into her lap, weeping. “Don’t you know,” he finally managed to gasp between sobs, “I did it all for you?”
Tandy was mortified and at a complete loss. What was he talking about? What had he done for her? Jim, embarrassed and offended by her reaction to his seemingly sincere display of emotion, left the house, only to burst in a moment later to loudly announce “I love you!” to the totally nonplused girl.
This was getting a little thick as far as Tandy was concerned; she’d had just about enough of Jim Morrison’s dramatic revue for one evening. She turned her nose up at him, expressing doubt that Jim could care for anyone but himself.
In a flash, Jim was behind the girl, painfully twisting her arm behind her back and threatening to cut her face with a knife “so no one else will look at you but me.” It would be years before Tandy Martin saw Jim Morrison again, another lifetime for each.
Riders on the StormDensmore, John. Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors
Jim went straight to the kitchen table, took out a bag of grass, and started rolling joints. He acted like he lived there. Rosanna responded with loaded sarcasm. “Help yourself, Jim.” Maybe Jim had met his match? She seemed to enjoy the verbal bantering. “I’ll be back in a little while,” I said, feeling claustrophobic from the mounting tension.
I drove around the shopping district and stopped at a liquor store for some apple juice. Was Jim going to sleep there? I decided to check on the way home.
The door opened as I knocked, not having been shut completely. I pushed it open the rest of the way and saw Jim standing in the living room holding a large kitchen knife to Rosanna’s stomach. A couple of buttons popped on her blouse as Jim twisted her arm behind her back. My pulse tripled. “What do we have here?” I exclaimed, trying to defuse the situation. “Quite an unusual way of seducing someone, Jim.” Jim looked at me with surprise and let Rosanna go. “Just having a little fun.” Rosanna’s expression changed from fear and rage to relief. Jim put the knife down. I’m in a band with a psychotic. I’M IN A BAND WITH A PSYCHOTIC! I’m in a room with a psychotic.
I wanted to tell someone, my parents, anyone … but I knew I couldn’t. The Doors was my only ticket out of my family and a possible career in something I loved, and if whoever I related the incident to reacted by saying I should quit, I would have no options. School offered me no options, there was nothing else I was interested in. I tried to forget the knife incident. But problems come back one way or another when not dealt with. A rash that itched constantly developed on my legs.
During his second year at UCLA, in 1965, Jim took a film production course with Terry McCartney-Filgate, a Canadian documentary film maker who was a visiting teacher. Here, in an exclusive interview with American Legends, McCartney-Filgate, who now lives in Toronto, remembers Jim Morrison.
AL: Did you ever see that dark side of Jim Morrison?
MF: I remember once I was at his apartment off campus. He was sort of a rich kid, by UCLA standards. His dad was an Admiral. He had some money. Anyway, Jim was shooting a scene there for his student film. I had agreed to play a small role, running a projector. I noticed that Jim had made a dart board on his wall of Playboy centerfolds. I remember thinking: Jim is not very fond of women. When I told him this, he just laughed. He was not very communicative. He was a loner.
Los Angeles Free Press Intervew:Jim: I like chicks in Levis. My taste is like whoever approaches me, I think it’s groovy.
