More Jim Morrison.

[apolla]

I must occasionally admit to myself that the people I love are imperfect. I don't particularly mind- I've never been one of those people who has to deify those they love. As my mother says, my heroes do all seem to be anti-heroes.

Only one of my adored actually seems to genuinely fulfil the requirements for total git. But which one? Could it be Errol, who flirted with narcotics and young girls, who never managed to stay faithful to anyone and who drank himself into a nice early grave? Or is it Robert, who left his wife at the age of 19 to carouse around the world, conquering America and its girls by sheer force of ego, before crashing to earth after a terrible tragedy? It could even be Philip, whose addictions took hold for a decade and destroyed everything he'd worked for.

Or could it be John Lennon, who bought into the pop star lifestyle then railed against it when he got tired of it? Who beat his wife on at least one occasion, who never really got to know his eldest son and who, once he was with Yoko, spat vitriol at everything he'd previously known? Who may or may not have given money to the IRA at the moment they really kicked off their bloody campaign of the 1970s that left families forever destroyed?

No. It's not Errol, who liked his girls pretty young. It's not coke-snorting, groupie-loving Robert. It's not Philip, who couldn't stop taking heroin even for the sake of his mother or his children. It's not even, Jimmy Page, who got himself a 14-year-old girlfriend around the same time he got a heroin addiction, and who was also fond of satanic old Aleister Crowley.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, it is my love, it is my Jim. Every now and then I read or hear something about him that makes my heart just sink. Each time, I think my heart breaks a little, but I continue to love him just the same. 

The latest crushing moment came while I was quite innocently walking along listening to The Soft Parade and thinking about how I might have been a little harsh in my reaction to the death of Doorzoid Supreme, Danny Sugerman. How I called him a jumped-up hanger-on kid, parading himself around as the Greatest Doors Fan, Keeper of the Flame of Jim. How I thought he was a fool for saying he thought Jim was a god. How I thought he was just riding on the Morrisonian coattails, making money off of the death of someone I love. How he represents those terrible Doorzoids who call themselves fans but scrawl stuff over Jim's grave, over nearby graves and who seem to think being a Doors fan is all about getting stoned and worshipping a picture of a bare-chested, leonine young Jim.

And yes, a recent obit for Danny in Uncut magazine (and another in my favourite, MOJO) has made me realise I was a little hasty. If it weren't for Danny keeping the flame, nobody else really would, besides Ray Manzarek (the keyboard player). Without Danny, that all-important early 80s revival (The 'He's hot, he's sexy and he's dead' Rolling Stone) may not have happened, so maybe Jim would've been forgotten to the mists of time. I'm not sure about this personally- Light My Bloody Fire will always be important and I think Jimmy would've made his posthumous way back one way or another. But I was harsh and cruel and probably just jealous that this little git got to hang out with Jim.

Now, it's at this point that I should say that a large slice of my reasoning for believing Jim didn't have a heroin addiction is down to Danny, who swore blind that Jim wouldn't touch the stuff and made him promise not to (he didn't keep said promise, if you were wondering). Most of my reasoning for believing Jim didn't want to die is that he wasn't a heroin addict. Most of my reasoning is that he was an alcoholic in an unhappy situation in paris, who took a snort of his smack junkie bitch's stash not realising it was heroin.

You see, this allows me to believe that Jim didn't want to die, and this is very important to me. Because if Jim was a heroin addict and did want to die, then there isn't much hope in the world. I have to believe that this was a real tragedy, no matter how self-inflicted. Philip has proved to me that there's room in my heart and mind to love a heroin addict, at least from a distance. But with Jim, somehow the need to believe he wasn't a heroin addict is everything. Perhaps it's that if he was, then everyone else was right. Everyone else was right about Jim. Everyone else was right that he was just another rich, spoiled junkie fool, and I need to believe that Jim was different to everyone else. That he was a poet, that he was genuinely fragile under the iron stare, that his indecency trial had broken him. That Jim was different and didn't want to die.

So, why the sudden thoughts and doubts? Well, it finally occurred to me that Danny might've lied. I don't see what reason he would have to lie, but you never know. More than that, more terrible than that: that Jim lied to Danny. That Jim was enough of an addict to lie to this kid that worshipped him (literally) and tell him that heroin was bad and he shouldn't do it, while himself doing it. This means that my beautiful Jim was a heroin addict, a liar and most of all, a hypocrite.

Which is important to someone who thinks of Jim as a beacon of truth, brutal honesty and enlightenment. Important because I have always believed Jim to be different, to be someone who challenged the established order rather than becoming part of it. 

I may have been fooling myself this whole time. The more you get to know James Morrison, the more you realise you don't know him at all.

So my heart breaks a little, but I love him just the same.

But the main reason I have for believing Jim didn't want to die comes from his own mouth:

I wouldn't mind dying in a plane crash. It'd be a good way to go. I don't want to die in my sleep, or of old age, or OD... I want to feel what it's like. I want to taste it, hear it, smell it. Death is only going to happen to you once; I don't want to miss it.