Wednesday, July 09, 2008
In Search of an Authentic Experience
Q: Who had more influence on music, Chopin or Jim Morrison?
A: I don’t know, but they are both buried at Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Recently we were in Paris and I absolutely had to make the pilgrimage to the world famous Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. I realize that there are many famous graves there, including Oscar Wilde, Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt and many others. For me, though, I wasn’t there to do the typical “tourist thing” and check off one more site to see. It was a personal pilgrimage that had a lot of deeper reasons behind it.
When I was in high school in the 1980s I lived next door to my two cousins, Andy and Dan. Dan introduced me to the music of The Doors and for several years they were a huge part of my life. I can remember driving around the Seattle area in Dan’s beat-up car that didn’t even have a tape deck in it. We had to bring along a battery-powered boom box so we could listen to “Riders on the Storm” and “LA Woman” at full volume.
Dan and I were very close. We went through U.S. Navy boot camp together in San Diego shortly after high school, and a couple of years after that suffered the loss of his brother Andy, who was killed in a drunk driving accident. Dan didn’t handle it very well and sort of went his own way for a while: he was kicked out of the Navy for drugs, went off and fished in Alaska, then tried to hold down several different jobs, but wasn’t having much success out of life.
It was down in Portland at Bible college, literally on the day my first daughter was born, that I heard the sad news: Dan had committed suicide after a night of heavy drinking. He put a gun in his mouth in the parking lot of a tavern near Seattle, and ended it all. For him I suppose all the rage at everybody—the world, his abusive father, whatever—finally proved to be too much when coupled with a massive intake of Jack Daniels.
One thing Dan had mentioned to me a few years earlier in passing conversation was that, when he died, he wanted The Doors’ “Break on Through to the Other Side” played at his funeral. Sadly this request was not honored, and I have always vowed to visit his grave and play the song, which is something I have not done as of yet, nearly fifteen years after his death. It’s one of those things I just gotta do…
So to return to our recent trip to Paris and my journey to Pere-Lachaise: I wanted to visit Morrison’s grave, not in order to have my picture taken in front of it like most of the other tourists, but as a true pilgrimage. I wanted to sit in the quiet, with the trees and the sunshine, and reflect about my life, my experiences with Dan (the good times and the bad times), and what part The Doors’ music had played in all of that. But sadly, this was not to be.
By the time I found the grave (which can be quite difficult in a cemetery without many straight paths), I was ready to do some reflecting. But no—the grave itself is protected with a steel fence. There were tourists all around it taking pictures of each other. One Chinese student asked me in broken English if I would take her picture in front of “Jeem Moreeson grave?”
Finally I had my ten seconds in front of the grave and took a couple of pictures, just to be able to remember it later. Looking at the famous graffiti on the tomb next to Morrison’s was disappointing as well, since they had clearly scrubbed off previous graffito. I was hoping to read stuff that went back to the 1970s, but it was all gone. All the contributions were from 2008…whatever. Just then a yuppie couple from the States came up to start taking pictures of the grave. The wife asked the husband, “Now who was Jim Morrison again?” Husband: “I think he was some kind of an actor or something…” I couldn’t bear to listen and had to get out of there.
I wandered around the cemetery for a while taking some pictures, and then finally found a bench in front of a rotunda with a statue. I thought this would be a good, quiet place finally to reflect on my life, The Doors, and cousin Dan. But no, this also was not to be; the quiet reverie of Pere-Lachaise was rudely shattered. Two American teenagers sat down at the bench next to me and then one began a long—and quite loud—conversation on her cell phone with somebody in high school French. Frustrated, my reflective mood evaporated, and I finally gave up and left to explore the cemetery.
So what’s it all about? To be perfectly honest, I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that there are times when I need to take time out seriously to think about my life; where I’ve come from, what kinds of experiences have shaped me, and how various people have come in and out of my life, and what an impact they have had. Even a guy like Jim Morrison—who died only a few years after I was born—had an impact. Certainly Dan had an impact. I can’t overlook the good times we had, and I still miss him.
I promise you Dan, the next time I’m in the Seattle area, I’ll visit your grave and play “Break on Through” for you.
A: I don’t know, but they are both buried at Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Recently we were in Paris and I absolutely had to make the pilgrimage to the world famous Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. I realize that there are many famous graves there, including Oscar Wilde, Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt and many others. For me, though, I wasn’t there to do the typical “tourist thing” and check off one more site to see. It was a personal pilgrimage that had a lot of deeper reasons behind it.
When I was in high school in the 1980s I lived next door to my two cousins, Andy and Dan. Dan introduced me to the music of The Doors and for several years they were a huge part of my life. I can remember driving around the Seattle area in Dan’s beat-up car that didn’t even have a tape deck in it. We had to bring along a battery-powered boom box so we could listen to “Riders on the Storm” and “LA Woman” at full volume.
Dan and I were very close. We went through U.S. Navy boot camp together in San Diego shortly after high school, and a couple of years after that suffered the loss of his brother Andy, who was killed in a drunk driving accident. Dan didn’t handle it very well and sort of went his own way for a while: he was kicked out of the Navy for drugs, went off and fished in Alaska, then tried to hold down several different jobs, but wasn’t having much success out of life.
It was down in Portland at Bible college, literally on the day my first daughter was born, that I heard the sad news: Dan had committed suicide after a night of heavy drinking. He put a gun in his mouth in the parking lot of a tavern near Seattle, and ended it all. For him I suppose all the rage at everybody—the world, his abusive father, whatever—finally proved to be too much when coupled with a massive intake of Jack Daniels.
One thing Dan had mentioned to me a few years earlier in passing conversation was that, when he died, he wanted The Doors’ “Break on Through to the Other Side” played at his funeral. Sadly this request was not honored, and I have always vowed to visit his grave and play the song, which is something I have not done as of yet, nearly fifteen years after his death. It’s one of those things I just gotta do…
So to return to our recent trip to Paris and my journey to Pere-Lachaise: I wanted to visit Morrison’s grave, not in order to have my picture taken in front of it like most of the other tourists, but as a true pilgrimage. I wanted to sit in the quiet, with the trees and the sunshine, and reflect about my life, my experiences with Dan (the good times and the bad times), and what part The Doors’ music had played in all of that. But sadly, this was not to be.
By the time I found the grave (which can be quite difficult in a cemetery without many straight paths), I was ready to do some reflecting. But no—the grave itself is protected with a steel fence. There were tourists all around it taking pictures of each other. One Chinese student asked me in broken English if I would take her picture in front of “Jeem Moreeson grave?”
Finally I had my ten seconds in front of the grave and took a couple of pictures, just to be able to remember it later. Looking at the famous graffiti on the tomb next to Morrison’s was disappointing as well, since they had clearly scrubbed off previous graffito. I was hoping to read stuff that went back to the 1970s, but it was all gone. All the contributions were from 2008…whatever. Just then a yuppie couple from the States came up to start taking pictures of the grave. The wife asked the husband, “Now who was Jim Morrison again?” Husband: “I think he was some kind of an actor or something…” I couldn’t bear to listen and had to get out of there.
I wandered around the cemetery for a while taking some pictures, and then finally found a bench in front of a rotunda with a statue. I thought this would be a good, quiet place finally to reflect on my life, The Doors, and cousin Dan. But no, this also was not to be; the quiet reverie of Pere-Lachaise was rudely shattered. Two American teenagers sat down at the bench next to me and then one began a long—and quite loud—conversation on her cell phone with somebody in high school French. Frustrated, my reflective mood evaporated, and I finally gave up and left to explore the cemetery.
So what’s it all about? To be perfectly honest, I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that there are times when I need to take time out seriously to think about my life; where I’ve come from, what kinds of experiences have shaped me, and how various people have come in and out of my life, and what an impact they have had. Even a guy like Jim Morrison—who died only a few years after I was born—had an impact. Certainly Dan had an impact. I can’t overlook the good times we had, and I still miss him.
I promise you Dan, the next time I’m in the Seattle area, I’ll visit your grave and play “Break on Through” for you.
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