Walking With The Lizard King...

Today was a beautiful day in Upstate New York, so I grabbed my iPod and went for a five-mile walk. With the Lizard King. As I walked, I reminisced on how this relationship with Mr. Mojo Risin began.

I was in the eighth grade and saw his face staring at me from someone's shirt. The same face you see here. It was so captivating I had to know who this person was. So began my affair with Jim Morrison.

It began by acquiring The Doors quintessential album, and from there I was a goner. That voice...those lyrics...pure magic. The message relayed through the stereo hypnotized me and I played it over and over again. He was in all essence a magnificent poet.

That Christmas, despite their very obvious disdain for my infatuation with the Lizard King, my parents gave me No One Here Gets Out Alive, the amazing biography by insider Danny Sugarman and Jerry Hopkins. This took the infatuation to an obsession. No one understood him...women tried to possess him, men wanted to profit from him. All he ever wanted to do was break down the doors then disappear.

Sadly, Jim prompts the same question that plagues Elvis fans all over: Do you prefer fat Jim or thin Jim? When was he at his best?

Truthfully, all illegal antics aside, he was always pushing the boundaries, always at his best. Emulating Arthur Rimbaud, he wanted to write and share his art until he felt it time to just disappear. I have just learned of Wallace Fowlie's book Rimbaud and Jim Morrison: The Rebel As A Poet and will let you know what I think about it once it has been digested.

In the meantime, Oh, moon of Alabama, we now must say goodbye...I must have whiskey, oh you know why.