Patricia Butler in her book, Angels Dance and Angels Die

While doing the research for this book, I was reminded time and again that memories of the past are subjective at best. A good example is a little dispute I had with Paul Rothchild. You probably noticed that this book is dedicated to Paul, so obviously we were good friends and I trusted him absolutely; Paul had no reason to lie to me about anything, nor would I ever suspect he would. Which is why it was so frustrating when Paul told me in one of our early interviews that late in her life Pamela had become obese, ballooning up from about 96 pounds to nearly twice that.

“She went the Jim route completely,” he told me. “Jim turned his Michelangelo beauty into a grotesque fat man, she turned her Botticelli beauty into a grotesque fat lady. She had nothing appealing about her.”

I was stunned! Of course I immediately set about trying to get confirmation of Paul’s recollection, confirmation I never found. It is true that at the time of her death, Pamela was 115 pounds—the ideal weight for her height, but twenty pounds heavier than she had been before she and Jim left for Paris.

Though she was always slender, never even a pound overweight, over the years Paul’s memory had multiplied this twenty-pound gain several times until, in his mind, she was remembered as obese. When I pressed him, he told me that he had seen her in this condition about six months before she died. But the photo you saw of Pamela earlier in the book, with Randy Ralston at Diane Gardiner’s house, was taken within that time. Does she look like “a grotesque fat lady” to you?

Of course not. Was Paul lying to me? No, but his memory was lying to him. These are the tricks memory can play on all of us, and it is always wise to remember this when either writing or reading a book about real-life events of long ago, or even last week.

Angels Dance And Angels Die

BAM Interview with Paul Rothchild:

BAM: Excuse me for interrupting, but you are quoted in No One Here Gets Out Alive as saying you thought Riders On The Storm was cocktail music.

Paul Rothchild: ... I did NOT say that about Riders On The Storm. Danny Sugerman, (co-author of the book) is a FAN of the Doors who took Jerry Hopkins' original manuscript and destroyed it. Danny didn't interview me, Jerry did. Danny then changed a lot of my interview to HEARSAY that other people did. I am FURIOUS about the book, and so is everyone else I've talked to who is quoted in it. It's a great piece of sensationalism, very little of which holds to historical fact. The general shape of it is correct, but Jim is sensationalized rather spectacularly, and the best parts of Morrison are not there. The people who really helped the Doors' career are treated in a very cavalier manner, and the only people who come off well in my opinion are the groupies and sycophants who were hanging around the band and close to Danny Sugerman - who was a groupie himself

WebEditor: In the same interview, the following exchange occurred:

BAM: Love Her Madly was not one of their better singles, I agree.

Paul Rothchild: That's exactly the song I was talking about that I said sounded like cocktail music. THAT'S the song that drove me out of the studio. That it sold a million copies means nothing to me. It's still bad music.

Doub Lubahn in his book "My Days With The Doors" comments on Paul Rothchild 's "forgettfulness":

This takes us back to early 1967. The Doors' first album is out, but "Light My Fire" has not yet taken them to the top of the charts. I am working on Clear Light's first album. At the same time I'm on my second or third trip to the Canyon to rehearse for "Strange Days"

Paul Rothchild is driving and pops the question: Would I consider joining The Doors as an equal partner - a five-way split?

I tell him "No"

I will always regret that "No" moment. I wonder what would have happened if I had said "Yes." Maybe nothing, but it does pass through my mind a lot.

In 1988 I ran into Paul in New York. I reminded him of that conversation. To my amazement, he denied it ever happened!

It's easy to mis-remember. Someone posts a picture on the internet that looks like the Doors in Venice and it does look like the Doors in Venice.

But according to The Doors official biography by the Doors, it's a picture from Sausilito, CA.

John Densmore mis-remembers and it is unrealistic to expect him to research it before posting. And at the end of the day, it's not a big deal.

Same thing happened with the Doors rehearsal space in Venice. Incorrect site of their rehearsal space. And the correct site of their rehearsal space.

And then there's people deliberately sensationalizing and spreading misinformation. Here's how redditors, out to score useless internet points or "karma", describe Jim's dad, Admiral Morrison and his role in Vietnam.

The two ships involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident were the Maddox and Turner Joy.

"In 1963, Morrison took command of the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Bon Homme Richard, flagship of a 3rd Fleet Carrier Division in the Pacific... He was in command of the Carrier Division during the controversial Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964, which resulted effectively in the true beginning of the Vietnam War by President Lyndon Johnson."

Admiral Morrison was there, but none of his ships were involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, but that doesn't stop redditors from endlessly posting about it.

The myth of Jim faking his own death as told by Danny Sugerman and Ray Manzarek really divided the inner members of the Doors and family. Danny talks about why he did it here.

And then there's the case of Robbie Krieger's black eye when they performed Touch Me on Smother's Brothers TV show. 

At one point, Robbie said he go into a fight with Jim. Manzarek elaborated on the fable,

"Three rednecks got in a fight with Jim and Robbie down the street from the Doors' office at a bar and there was pushing and shoving and Robbie Krieger got whacked in the eye. Jim ducked a punch, Robbie wasn't able to duck the punch. That was 2 days before we went on The Smothers Brothers' Show. They said to Robbie on the show, Let's put some make-up on that black eye. You don't want to be on national television with a black eye. And Robbie said, Yes, I do! No one has ever gone on TV with a black eye. I'm going to be the first! It's a badge of honor." 

Robbie comes clean about his black eye in his book, "Set the Night on Fire". He was driving a van in Mexico on a Vacation with a dancer named Donna from the Whisky and a guy named Milton.

Robbie writes, "Night fell. Donna went to sleep in the back seat while Milton and I chatted up front to stay awake. On either side of us the two-lane highway sloped off into a pitch-black desert. There were no streetlights. There were hardly any other cars. Our visibility was limited to the scope of our headlights, which, for a couple of hours, illuminated nothing but a long, straight, empty stretch of boring blacktop, which slowly lulled us into complacency. And then the road curved. I hit the brakes and yanked the wheel to the left, but it was too late. We skidded off a small cliff and my aborted turn sent the van into a roll. The headlights reflected off the upside-down desert sand. It seemed like we hung in the air for an unnatural period of time, during which my brain concluded, "You're not going to survive this." We slammed into the ground. Blackness."

Donna ended up paralyzed for life from the waist down and Robbie ended up with a black eye. Robbie sent her money on a regular schedule until she died in her 50s.

Robbie concludes, "To this day, Doors fans will approach me and ask about my black eye on the Smothers Brothers show. It's the single most common question I get, even though everyone seems to think they're the first one to ever ask me about it. I usually say Jim and I got in a fight before the show. Sometimes I'll say we were attacked by rednecks who didn't like our long hair; other times I'll say Jim and I were drunkenly battling each other. Sometimes I'll say I hit my eye on a desk. Part of the reason I do that is just to be mischievous. I used to love it when Jim gave conflicting stories to the press to keep people guessing about us, and I like carrying on that tradition. But part of it is that it's just easier to offer a phony answer than to constantly relive one of the most difficult experiences of my entire life. My black eye should serve as a reminder that no matter how much a person thinks they know about the Doors, there's always more to the story. Much more."

Set the Night on Fire