Manzarek, Ray. Light My Fire
He started hitting the bottle with Felix. That sot started to impart the "secrets of the tribe" to him. And in a receptive, boozed-up state, Felix’s eye contact diatribes began to make sense to Jim...or should I say "Jimbo." The jimsonweed had opened the trapdoor to Jim’s id, and out had come the character called Jimbo. A good-old boy. A racist.
Light My Fire
Krieger, Robby. Set the Night on Fire
Too much booze and too much Jimbo. He was hard to live with when that redneck came out. That hillbilly/cowboy/honky trailer-trash creature was not the Native American - inspired poet whom I knew and loved. Jimbo was another personality altogether - a mean and desperate man. A man of roughness and crudeness. A man on a hell-bent-for-leather quest for domination, power...and kicks. Jimbo was Felix’s Frankenstein monster, the destructive golem. And he was Jim’s doppelganger. An evil homunculus brewed up by the immersion of Jim Morrison in a wash of grain alcohol. And the blood secrets of the tribe. And Jimbo attracted scum like flies to feces. Or did he seek them out? Out of some need for validation of this alter ego. A need for companionship in his dissolution. Or did they simply, serendipitously find each other?
Set the Night on Fire
Lisciandro, Frank. Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together
Eva: ...everybody was trying to sort of take him out of the public eye, so they take him down to apparently a palazzo; a mansion. And there were like black servants and everything, and he said that he was very much afraid of these black people at that point because they looked so foreign and alien to him and everything.... That was a very fearful night, a very fearful experience for him and it got in touch with his relationship with blacks, because he said he didn’t trust them, he didn’t understand them. He said, "I was like a white boy not knowing my place in this thing."
Friends Gathered Together
Krieger, Robby. Set the Night on Fire
When Jim and Pam booked the plantation house, I’m sure it sounded elegant and romantic, but the reality of it was a little creepy. Dinner was served on domed plates by a staff of about ten Black servants wearing tuxedos and white gloves. We sat at one of those extra-long dining tables while the servants stood quietly at attention behind us. The intention was to make us feel pampered, but we felt like colonial slave owners, which is the furthest thing from comfortable, so Jim gave the servants some paid time off and we invited him to stay at Cary Island with us for the rest of the trip.
Sugerman, Danny. Wonderland Avenue
Jim was knocking back vodka straights, encouraging me to do the same, until it was time for Bo to come on. The minute he was announced and his rhythm guitar and jungle drums began, Jim was away from the bar, jumping the railing which separated the dance floor from the bar and the seats, and onto the dance floor, up against the stage, throwing his head back, arms in the air, dancing. Nobody seemed to recognize him. By the time Bo hit the second song, Jim pulled one of the back-up singer’s microphones down from the stage and was screaming along with Bo. The song finished and Bo leaned over and said to Jim, ‘Say boy, you scream purty good, you ever thought of joining a rock’n’roll band?’ Jim threw his head back with pride and slurred, ‘Ya ever heard of the Doors?’
Bo said: ‘Oh sure, “Light My Fire” and alla them?’ Jim roared: ‘Well, I AM the Doors!’ The audience went wild. Jim spun on the crowd. ‘Fuck you,’ he bellowed, ‘this is the man that deserves your respect!’ Bo took a step back from the lip of the stage. Jim raged on, ‘You don’t know shit – you’re all a bunch of n******! A buncha fucking ungrateful stupid n******!’ There was a low, strong rumbling as a thousand dark eyes glared down on us. Hands were pushing us off the dance floor, down some steps, pulling. I tried to grab Jim to stop, but he was in front of me, so I just tried to hold on. All at once we were outside, shoved out of the fire door, onto the sidewalk alongside the club. Mario gave Jim a final push away: ‘Ya try that bullshit again, Morrison, and I’m gonna let them cut ya!’ Jim spun away from Mario’s push and just kept spinning, like a top, down the incline, right into the intersection of Sunset and San Vicente swinging his jacket off his back and holding it at the oncoming traffic. Jim stood in the middle of Sunset Boulevard playing matador with the cars coming in either direction.
Wonderland Avenue
WebEditor: Interview of Tony Funches, Jim's black bodyguard. He doesn't mention any racism on Jim's part at all. Jim idolized a number of black musicians, of which blues legend Albert King pictured here was one. He performed with The Doors in Vancouver together.
Los Angeles Free Press, Bob Chorush 1971
Jim: I wasted a lot of time and energy with the Miami trial. About a year and a half. But I guess it was a valuable experience because before the trial I had a very unrealistic schoolboy attitude about the American judicial system. My eyes have been opened up a bit. There were guys down there, black guys, that would go on each day before I went on. It took about five minutes and they would get 20 or 25 years in jail. If I hadn’t had unlimited funds to continue fighting my case, I’d be in jail right now for three years.
Jim on stage at the Living Theater
