Sun., Aug. 9th, A Celebration of The Doors at Beyond Baroque (Venice, CA)

Fans of The Doors and the band’s beyond-charismatic lead singer/songwriter Jim Morrison are in for a treat on Sunday, August 9, 2015 in Venice, California. Photographer Jim Coke will display the photos he shot of the band on July 15, 1967 at L.A.’s first rock music festival — just two weeks before “Light My Fire” hit number on on the Billboard charts.

To celebrate the occasion, some of L.A.’s most renowned poets will present a Doors Ekphrastic Poetry Set inspired by Jim Coke’s photographs of The Doors. Participants include Laurel Ann Bogen, Don Kingfisher Campbell, Juan Cardenas, Charles L. Davis, Iris De Anda, S.A. Griffin, Stevie Kalinich, Gerald Locklin, Brenda Petrakos, Kristin Sharp, Shy But Flyy, Joan Jobe Smith, Carl Stillwell, Fred Voss, Pam Ward, and Jessica Wilson Cardenas. The afternoon will also feature music from Juan Cardenas and his friends, sending listeners on a journey of Doors-influenced sound.

WHERE: Beyond Baroque, 681 N. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

WHEN: Sunday, August 9, 2015, 2 p.m. (reception), with a poetry reading at 2:30 and open mic at 3:30 (one poem per reader).

PRICE: $5 suggested donation for the poetry reading and open mic (photography reception is free).

PHOTOGRAPH: Jim Morrison by Jim Coke (July 15, 1967), all rights reserved by the photographer.

Maids Are Bickering…, poem by Jim Morrison

MAIDS ARE BICKERING…
by Jim Morrison

Maids are bickering in the hall
The day is warm
Last night’s perfume
I lie alone in this
cool room

My mind is calm & swirling
like the marble pages of an
old book

I’m a cold clean skeleton
scarecrow on a hill
In April
Wind eases the arches
of my boney Kingdom
Wind whistles thru my mind
& soul
My life is an open book
or a T.V. confession

”Maids are Bickering…” appears in The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 2, available at Amazon.com.

Photo: “Pink Curtains, New York City” by Terrie-Johnson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Morrison Hotel, photograph by Henry Diltz

In 1969, photographer Henry Diltz and The Doors showed up at The Morrison Hotel – 1246 S. Hope Street in L.A.’s skid row — figuring the proprietor would be more than happy to let them shoot some photos. When the hotel manager told them to hit the road, the group stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out a Plan B. Opportunity knocked when Diltz looked through the hotel’s front window and saw the desk clerk leave his post. He told the bandmates to run inside and assume various positions at the window.

Diltz was able to fire off just one roll of film during the session — but just about every shot turned out a classic. The crown jewel was, of course, the above photo that graced the cover of the 1970 album of the same name.

The Doors Unhinged, book by John Densmore

On April 17, 2013, John Densmore — best known as drummer for The Doors — released The Doors Unhinged: Jim Morrison’s Legacy Goes on Trial, a memoir about his extended legal battle with bandmates Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger over the right to use the name “The Doors.”

OFFICIAL OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK: The subject of The Doors Unhinged is the “greed gene”, and how that part of the human psyche propels us toward the accumulation of more and more wealth, even at the expense of our principles and friendships and the well being of society. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band, The Doors fractured because of this. In his book, drummer John Densmore looks at the conflict between him and his band mates as they fought over the right to use The Doors’ name. At the same time, Densmore examines how this conflict mirrors and reflects a much larger societal issue — that no amount of money seems to be enough for even the wealthiest people.

OUR THOUGHTS: When The Doors started out in 1965, the bandmates decided to share everything equally — and give everyone equal credit. That meant that no matter who had written a song, the credit line would read: The Doors. This has always struck me as smart — and a way of making sure that everybody stayed involved and felt appreciated, because everybody was making the same amount of money.

But after frontman/rock god Jim Morrison died in 1971, the three remaining bandmates couldn’t agree about how and when to use The Doors’ music and name, with Densmore as the holdout when it came to selling out (especially when it came to using their songs for advertising). All hail, John Densmore! 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: An original and founding member of the musical group The Doors, John Densmore co-wrote and produced numerous gold and platinum albums and toured the United States, Europe, and Japan. His autobiography, Riders on the Storm, was on the New York Times bestseller list, and in 1993 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He has written numerous articles for Rolling Stone, London Guardian, The Nation, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and Utne Reader. He co-produced Road To Return, narrated by Tim Robbins — a film that won several prestigious national awards and was screened for Congress, resulting in the writing of a bill. He also executive produced Juvies, a film narrated by Mark Wahlberg that aired on HBO and won numerous awards, including 2004 IDA for excellence and U.S. International Film Fest for creative excellence.

Joan Jobe Smith (pictured in June 2013 with John Densmore) — author of the Silver Birch Press Release CHARLES BUKOWSKI EPIC GLOTTIS: His Art, His Women (& me) — was a go-go dancer for seven years and in 1966 danced live with The Doors at Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.

Smith and her husband, poet Fred Voss (pictured at left with John Densmore) — a longtime avid fan of The Doors — attended a book signing on June 1, 2013 at Fingerprints, a record store in Long Beach, California, where they waited in line with hundred of other fans for a chance to meet Densmore and hear about his book. The reading was originally planned for late May, but Densmore rescheduled out of respect for his bandmate Ray Manzarek, who passed away on May 20, 2013 at age 74.

Like Fred Voss, I am a longtime, avid fan of The Doors — and I can’t wait to read The Doors Unhinged (great title!), available at Amazon.com.

Photos by Fred Voss and Joan Jobe Smith

Maids Are Bickering…, Poem by Jim Morrison

MAIDS ARE BICKERING…
by Jim Morrison

Maids are bickering in the hall
The day is warm
Last night’s perfume
I lie alone in this
cool room

My mind is calm & swirling
like the marble pages of an
old book

I’m a cold clean skeleton
scarecrow on a hill
In April
Wind eases the arches
of my boney Kingdom
Wind whistles thru my mind
& soul
My life is an open book
or a T.V. confession

…”Maids are Bickering…” is found in The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 2, available at Amazon.com.

Photo: “Pink Curtains, New York City” by Terrie-Johnson, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Desert, Poem by Jim Morrison

THE DESERT
by Jim Morrison

The Desert
    –roseate metallic blue
    & insect green

    blank mirrors &
    pools of silver

    a universe in
    one body

###

“The Desert” appears in THE AMERICAN NIGHT: The Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 2 (Vintage, 1991)

Photo: Jim Morrison in the desert, late 1960s.

Bargain Books a Boon to This Blogger

Yesterday, I took a walk and wandered into one of the OUT OF THE CLOSET thrift stores that brighten the world here in Southern California. This is my favorite place to look for books — because the people who contribute have great taste in literature and the prices are the low, low, lowest anywhere.

My three finds on Tuesday, March 5, 2013, we among the best I’ve ever hit. Is this the way people who play slot machines feel when three cherries appear? I paid just $1 for each of these books — and all were in beautiful condition.

Without further ado, here they are (along with a passage from each)…

“The address that Patrolman Mancuso was looking for was the tiniest structure on the block, aside from the carports, a Lilliput of the eighties. A frozen banana tree, brown and stricken, languished against the front of the porch, the tree preparing to collapse as the iron fence had done long ago. Near the dead tree there was a slight mount of earth and a leaning Celtic cross cut from plywood. The 1946 Plymouth was parked in the front yard, its bumper pressed against the porch, its taillights blocking the brick sidewalk. But, except for the Plymouth and the weathered cross and the mummified banana tree, the tiny yard was completely bare. There were no shrubs. There was no grass. And no birds sang.” From the novel A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES by John Kennedy Toole, first published by Grove Press in 1980 (and winner of a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for the author).

THE GROVE PRESS READER 1951-2001, edited by S.E. Gontarski, also features work by Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Jean Genet, D.H. Lawrence, Harold Pinter, and scores of other leading authors of this half-century in international arts and letters.

The cover blurb of THE AMERICAN NIGHT: The Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 2 reads: “A literary last testament from rock’s poet of the damned.” (Is that really a sales pitch?) As most breathing humans (and some animals) know, Jim Morrison (1943-1971) was the driving force of the seminal 1960s band, The Doors.

AN AMERICAN PRAYER (Excerpt)

by Jim Morrison

Do you know the warm progress

under the stars?

Do you know we exist?

Have you forgotten the keys to the Kingdom?

Have you been born yet

& are you alive? 

Let’s reinvent the gods, all the myths

of the ages

Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests

[Have you forgotten the lessons

of the ancient war]

And, finally, one of my all-time favorite books — I’ve given away probably 10 copies of ON WRITING by Stephen King and always snap up a copy when I find one.

Here are some words of wisdom from the writing wizard: “I believe that plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible…my basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow (and transcribe them, of course)…stories are found things, like fossils in the ground…stories are relics, part of an undiscovered pre-existing world. The writer’s job is to use the tools in his or her toolbox to get as much of each one out of the ground intact as possible.”

Morrison Hotel Redux

In 1969, photographer Henry Diltz and The Doors showed up at The Morrison Hotel — 1246 S. Hope Street in L.A.’s skid row — figuring the proprietor would be more than happy to let them shoot some photos. When the hotel manager told them to hit the road, the group stood on the sidewalk trying to figure out a Plan B. Opportunity knocked when Diltz looked through the hotel’s front window and saw the desk clerk leave his post. He told the bandmates to run inside and assume various positions at the window.

Diltz was able to fire off just one roll of film during the session — but just about every shot turned out a classic. The crown jewel was, of course, the above photo that graced the cover of the 1970 album of the same name. Dlitz’s photos are currently on display at the Standard Hotel in Hollywood as part of the Sunset Strip Music Festival taking place through August 18th.