Post by lawoman on Sept 19, 2019 13:54:51 GMT -5
SEPTEMBER 21 1968: The Doors with exception of Jim and Pam, return to Los Angeles after finishing their last gig in Stockholm, Sweden. Jim and Pam remain in London at the Belgravia Hotel through October 20 1968. (Doors On The Road p. 133)
OCTOBER 2 or 3, 1968 while Jim Morrison is in London, the other band members are approached by Buick with a lucrative offer for the use of “Light My Fire” as an underscore to a commercial. After efforts to contact Jim fail, they agree to the proposal. (The Doors On The Road p. 134)
‘While Jim and Pam were gone, another incident happened that drove a wedge between Morrison and the rest of the group/ An ad agency offered the band considerable money to use “Light My Fire” in a Buick commercial.
Bill Siddons: “Jim had decided to disappear. Which for me, was the first time he disappeared. For four days no one had any idea where he was and suddenly Buick was offering close to a hundred thousand dollars to use, “Light My Fire.” Since Robby was the actual writer of the song, I felt he should make the decision. For some reason it was a high pressure, ‘You gotta give an answer now’ situation, so together we all decided, ‘Well, what the hell…..why not? You, know, we were all practically teenagers. I mean, Ray was the old guy at twenty-five. And Jim came back in a couple of days and just freaked out. He thought it was the tackiest thing in the world to do with The Doors’ music. Subsequently, I figured out that he was absolutely right. Jim knew what The Doors were doing and for what they meant to people, it was the wrong thing to do. Obviously it didn’t destroy their career, but it created a real anger in him (Jim) and the other three Doors. He felt betrayed by them because of it. And no one did it to betray him. We didn’t know what to do and it was free money being dangled in front of us.”
Columbus Courson (Pamela Courson’s Father): “Jim was mad as hell. He called Ray and said, ‘Hell, this song will be classic. We sell it in a damned ad, that’ll be the end of it, nobody’ll ever give it anything.’ He was just furious, and he hung up on him. And Pam said, ‘Jim, he’s your best friend;’ and Jim was sort of violent….and she said, “Well, what are you going to do? He said, ‘Don’t worry, they’re not gonna let their little goldfish swim away.’”
Rich Linnell: “One of the few times I saw Jim angry was when he found out about, “Come on Buick Light My Fire.” Out of control. He felt betrayed. His partners had betrayed him, they had sold out to corporate America without asking him. I was there when he told them, “How could you do this to me? This my band too. How could you make that decision without me? One of them said, “Well man, you didn’t tell us where you were going, and the offer would have expired.” “So What?” He just didn’t get it. Whether he was gone for a day or a month, it didn’t matter, but you don’t sell out to the establishment. Postpone it or cancel but don’t give my soul away. That was the end of the dream. That was the end of that era of Jim’s relationship with the other members of the band; from them on it was business. That was the day Jim said, “I don’t have partners anymore, I have associates.” (A Feast Of Friends p. 83)
Cheri Siddons: He was an artist. And I think the angriest he ever was happened when The Doors decided to let Buick use “Light My Fire.” I just remember this real unhappiness. I think if he ever was going to yell, he would have yelled that day. He didn’t yell, but to me it was almost like a light switched off. That was like the last straw somehow. I’m not sure if he really liked Robby, Ray and John after that. I think he could sense they had different purposes; they were more into the money and the business and would sacrifice some of the art for that. Jim as not willing to sacrifice the art for anything. (A Feast Of Friends p. 126)
Jim: “I’m the square of the western hemisphere. Whenever somebody’d say something groovy, it’d blow my mind. Now, I’m learning, I hate people. I don’t need them. If I had an axe, I’d kill everyone…….except my friends.” (1968 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 89)
Ray Manzarek recalls the Buick Commerical fiasco in his auto-biography, Light My Fire published in 1997:
“So to be asked to use a rock song over a commerical for a new, sharp little machine was at once lucrative and subversive. We could get "Light My Fire" played again on national television. We could get rock and roll on a medium that had very little to do with rock
music. We could make a few inroads in the changeover of consiousness. Or so I thought. Back then. Back when I was a naif.
I approved the request posthaste. So did Robby and John. Jim was nowhere to be found. He was on one of his now more frequent disappearing trips. Probably off cavorting with Jimbo. Or perhaps locked in battle with Jimbo. Wrestling for control. Fighting for the destiny of the entity christened James Douglas Morrison.
When he finally did show up a few days later, the Buick commercial was a fait accompli. They needed a yes or no immediately. We said yes and signed paper. Jim freaked.
"You can't have signed without me!" he yelled.
"Well, we did," I said.
"Why, man? We do everything together. Why'd you do this without me?"
"Because you weren't here," said Robby.
"So what? Couldn't you have waited for me?"
"Who knew when you were coming back?" added John.
"They needed an answer right away," I said. "So we signed."
"It's not like it's typical Buick road hog or something." said
Robby. It's a cool little car."
"Gets real good mileage," said John.
"Four cylinders," I added. A sports car. Two-seater."
"Fuck You!" shouted Jim.
A silence filled the rehearsal room. Jim had never screamed like that before. He was enraged. And he looked wasted. He looked as if his nerve ends were frazzled. He looked as if he had been doing
things he shouldn't have. And he looked shattered. He was clearly not in control of himself...or his emotions. He stomped around the room, agitated, hyper, angered.
"Fuck You guys!" he said again. "I thought it was supposed to be all for one and one for all. I thought we were suppose to be brothers!"
"Jiiim. we are, man" I said in feeble response to his strange and terrible outburst. Nothing has changed."
"You weren't here," said Robby.
"Everything has fucking changed, Ray! Jim said. "Everything!"
"Why? I don't understand. Just because we signed a contract for a
fucking song...why has everything changed?" I asked him.
And then he came back with a line that really hurt me. Hurt John and Robby, too. Stabbed the Doors in their collective heart.
"Because I can't trust you anymore," he snarled.
"But it's good little car, man" protested John.
"It's fucking industry! It's corporate! It's the devil, you
asshole." Jim glared. "You guys just made a pact with the devil."
"The hell we did," said Robby.
"Oh yes you did, Robby. He seduced you with cute little gas efficient
cars. He shows you what you want and then he puts a little twist in
it. Makes you say yes to him when you know you shouldn't..." He
paced the room, manic. "But you go along with it because the deal's
just too good. It tastes too good." And then he looked at me, "It's
too much money, isn't it Ray?"
"Fuck You, Jim." I was getting pissed too.
Another knife in the heart. Was this actually Jim saying these things? Did he really believe what he was saying?
"Well, I'm not in it for the fucking lifestyle, man." I snarled back. "I just wanna make music. And if we can make some money at it...that's cool with me."
"Lots of money," Jim sarcastically said under his breath.
"What'd you say?"
"You heard me."
He was really pushing it.
Robby jumped into the fray. "Why weren't you here, man? A big decision had to be made and you weren't here, again!"
"Where do you go all the time" asked John.
"Wherever I want!" Jim shot back. "And it's none of your fucking business. You understand?"
John turned away from Jim's penetrating glare. Unable to confront him. Unable to say what was really on his mind. Hell, none of us could confront him. None of us had the psychic strength to call him on the carpet and read the riot act to him. It was probably just what he needed. Maybe even what he wanted.
"No one tells me what to do, John. You got that?"
I jumped in. "Nobody’s telling you what to do, man. We just want to know how come you're never around when you're needed. Where the fuck were you?"
"We called everywhere," added Robby.
"You weren't home, you weren't at the Alta Cienga," I said. "We called Barneys, the Palms, the Garden District...you weren't at the Whisky, Mario hadn't seen you in a couple of weeks." "Even Babe
didn't know where you were," said Robby.
NOTE: (All sources up to this point said Jim and Pamela were in England and had just returned to thet States to find the song had been sold to commercial. i don't understand where Ray comes up with places Jim could have been in L.A.)
Jim eruoted again. "Hey! This isn't about where I go." Then pointing an accusatory finger. "This is about you guys signing a contract without me." A silence filled the room again. Jim had broken out in a sweat. I felt cold and clammy. The evil green thing began wrapping
its tentacles around my stomach, probing for weakness. I didn't like this. I didn't like this at all.
I felt bad, hurt, misunderstood. Here I was trying to hold the whole damn thing together. Trying to be the adult. Jim had abandoned ship.
He was over the top, gone. The Ray and Jim show from Venice do longer existed. I was the oldest. I had to try and maintain the dream, hoping he would snap out of this phase he was in. Hoping that it was a phase. An aberration, a momentary aberration. Hoping that
he would come to his senses and we could resume our grail qust together. The four of us. The Doors. Brothers in the void. Supporting and nurturing one another. Hell, keeping one another alive! And we had so much more work to do. More music and poetry. Theater - Jim and I had talked of a multimedia theater project with
actors and dancers and rear-screen projections and recitations and Doors' music - the "Magic Theater" of Hermann Hesse. Films, directed by me, starring Jim, music by Robby Krieger and John Densmore. And
finally politics. The takeover of America by the lovers! He had to snap out of it. He had to come back to his old self. His real self.
"Well, it's too late," said Robby.
Jim wheeled on him. "Oh, yeah? We'll see about that. I'm gonna smash a fucking Buick to dust on stage." He was perspiring more profusely now. "It's gonna be part of my new act. 'Smash a Buick to Smithereens.' We'll see how they like that. And then I'm gonna get Abe to sue their asses. For big bucks, Ray. For a lot more than their shitty little contract. Then let's see if they still want to use a Doors song to sell a sports car."
He was pacing and sweating and clearly out of control. He stormed out of the rehearsal room and rushed up to the offices, barged into Siddons room and told Bill to get our new, young hotshot lawyer -
Abe Sommers - on the phone. When he did, Jim got on the line and hollered at Abe to do whatever he could to stop the contract.[/color]"Threaten' them with a lawsuit," he shouted into the phone. "Tell
them I'm gonna smash a Buick with a sledgehammer onstage! Tell them anything! But stop the fucking contract!"
And in three days, Buick backed out. They simply decided they didn't want to go with a rock ad campaign after all. Nothing against the Doors or their music, you understand. They simply shifted demographic focus. It was done, finished. And Jim grinned from ear to ear. He had exercised his will against the corporate
establishment and he was a contented man. He made them back down. Hell, he made them back all the way out. It felt good. And he wanted more.
And that was called...Miami. (Ray Manzarek from his book ‘Light My Fire’ Pages 305-309
OCTOBER 2 or 3, 1968 while Jim Morrison is in London, the other band members are approached by Buick with a lucrative offer for the use of “Light My Fire” as an underscore to a commercial. After efforts to contact Jim fail, they agree to the proposal. (The Doors On The Road p. 134)
‘While Jim and Pam were gone, another incident happened that drove a wedge between Morrison and the rest of the group/ An ad agency offered the band considerable money to use “Light My Fire” in a Buick commercial.
Bill Siddons: “Jim had decided to disappear. Which for me, was the first time he disappeared. For four days no one had any idea where he was and suddenly Buick was offering close to a hundred thousand dollars to use, “Light My Fire.” Since Robby was the actual writer of the song, I felt he should make the decision. For some reason it was a high pressure, ‘You gotta give an answer now’ situation, so together we all decided, ‘Well, what the hell…..why not? You, know, we were all practically teenagers. I mean, Ray was the old guy at twenty-five. And Jim came back in a couple of days and just freaked out. He thought it was the tackiest thing in the world to do with The Doors’ music. Subsequently, I figured out that he was absolutely right. Jim knew what The Doors were doing and for what they meant to people, it was the wrong thing to do. Obviously it didn’t destroy their career, but it created a real anger in him (Jim) and the other three Doors. He felt betrayed by them because of it. And no one did it to betray him. We didn’t know what to do and it was free money being dangled in front of us.”
Columbus Courson (Pamela Courson’s Father): “Jim was mad as hell. He called Ray and said, ‘Hell, this song will be classic. We sell it in a damned ad, that’ll be the end of it, nobody’ll ever give it anything.’ He was just furious, and he hung up on him. And Pam said, ‘Jim, he’s your best friend;’ and Jim was sort of violent….and she said, “Well, what are you going to do? He said, ‘Don’t worry, they’re not gonna let their little goldfish swim away.’”
Rich Linnell: “One of the few times I saw Jim angry was when he found out about, “Come on Buick Light My Fire.” Out of control. He felt betrayed. His partners had betrayed him, they had sold out to corporate America without asking him. I was there when he told them, “How could you do this to me? This my band too. How could you make that decision without me? One of them said, “Well man, you didn’t tell us where you were going, and the offer would have expired.” “So What?” He just didn’t get it. Whether he was gone for a day or a month, it didn’t matter, but you don’t sell out to the establishment. Postpone it or cancel but don’t give my soul away. That was the end of the dream. That was the end of that era of Jim’s relationship with the other members of the band; from them on it was business. That was the day Jim said, “I don’t have partners anymore, I have associates.” (A Feast Of Friends p. 83)
Cheri Siddons: He was an artist. And I think the angriest he ever was happened when The Doors decided to let Buick use “Light My Fire.” I just remember this real unhappiness. I think if he ever was going to yell, he would have yelled that day. He didn’t yell, but to me it was almost like a light switched off. That was like the last straw somehow. I’m not sure if he really liked Robby, Ray and John after that. I think he could sense they had different purposes; they were more into the money and the business and would sacrifice some of the art for that. Jim as not willing to sacrifice the art for anything. (A Feast Of Friends p. 126)
Jim: “I’m the square of the western hemisphere. Whenever somebody’d say something groovy, it’d blow my mind. Now, I’m learning, I hate people. I don’t need them. If I had an axe, I’d kill everyone…….except my friends.” (1968 The Doors In Their Own Words p. 89)
Ray Manzarek recalls the Buick Commerical fiasco in his auto-biography, Light My Fire published in 1997:
“So to be asked to use a rock song over a commerical for a new, sharp little machine was at once lucrative and subversive. We could get "Light My Fire" played again on national television. We could get rock and roll on a medium that had very little to do with rock
music. We could make a few inroads in the changeover of consiousness. Or so I thought. Back then. Back when I was a naif.
I approved the request posthaste. So did Robby and John. Jim was nowhere to be found. He was on one of his now more frequent disappearing trips. Probably off cavorting with Jimbo. Or perhaps locked in battle with Jimbo. Wrestling for control. Fighting for the destiny of the entity christened James Douglas Morrison.
When he finally did show up a few days later, the Buick commercial was a fait accompli. They needed a yes or no immediately. We said yes and signed paper. Jim freaked.
"You can't have signed without me!" he yelled.
"Well, we did," I said.
"Why, man? We do everything together. Why'd you do this without me?"
"Because you weren't here," said Robby.
"So what? Couldn't you have waited for me?"
"Who knew when you were coming back?" added John.
"They needed an answer right away," I said. "So we signed."
"It's not like it's typical Buick road hog or something." said
Robby. It's a cool little car."
"Gets real good mileage," said John.
"Four cylinders," I added. A sports car. Two-seater."
"Fuck You!" shouted Jim.
A silence filled the rehearsal room. Jim had never screamed like that before. He was enraged. And he looked wasted. He looked as if his nerve ends were frazzled. He looked as if he had been doing
things he shouldn't have. And he looked shattered. He was clearly not in control of himself...or his emotions. He stomped around the room, agitated, hyper, angered.
"Fuck You guys!" he said again. "I thought it was supposed to be all for one and one for all. I thought we were suppose to be brothers!"
"Jiiim. we are, man" I said in feeble response to his strange and terrible outburst. Nothing has changed."
"You weren't here," said Robby.
"Everything has fucking changed, Ray! Jim said. "Everything!"
"Why? I don't understand. Just because we signed a contract for a
fucking song...why has everything changed?" I asked him.
And then he came back with a line that really hurt me. Hurt John and Robby, too. Stabbed the Doors in their collective heart.
"Because I can't trust you anymore," he snarled.
"But it's good little car, man" protested John.
"It's fucking industry! It's corporate! It's the devil, you
asshole." Jim glared. "You guys just made a pact with the devil."
"The hell we did," said Robby.
"Oh yes you did, Robby. He seduced you with cute little gas efficient
cars. He shows you what you want and then he puts a little twist in
it. Makes you say yes to him when you know you shouldn't..." He
paced the room, manic. "But you go along with it because the deal's
just too good. It tastes too good." And then he looked at me, "It's
too much money, isn't it Ray?"
"Fuck You, Jim." I was getting pissed too.
Another knife in the heart. Was this actually Jim saying these things? Did he really believe what he was saying?
"Well, I'm not in it for the fucking lifestyle, man." I snarled back. "I just wanna make music. And if we can make some money at it...that's cool with me."
"Lots of money," Jim sarcastically said under his breath.
"What'd you say?"
"You heard me."
He was really pushing it.
Robby jumped into the fray. "Why weren't you here, man? A big decision had to be made and you weren't here, again!"
"Where do you go all the time" asked John.
"Wherever I want!" Jim shot back. "And it's none of your fucking business. You understand?"
John turned away from Jim's penetrating glare. Unable to confront him. Unable to say what was really on his mind. Hell, none of us could confront him. None of us had the psychic strength to call him on the carpet and read the riot act to him. It was probably just what he needed. Maybe even what he wanted.
"No one tells me what to do, John. You got that?"
I jumped in. "Nobody’s telling you what to do, man. We just want to know how come you're never around when you're needed. Where the fuck were you?"
"We called everywhere," added Robby.
"You weren't home, you weren't at the Alta Cienga," I said. "We called Barneys, the Palms, the Garden District...you weren't at the Whisky, Mario hadn't seen you in a couple of weeks." "Even Babe
didn't know where you were," said Robby.
NOTE: (All sources up to this point said Jim and Pamela were in England and had just returned to thet States to find the song had been sold to commercial. i don't understand where Ray comes up with places Jim could have been in L.A.)
Jim eruoted again. "Hey! This isn't about where I go." Then pointing an accusatory finger. "This is about you guys signing a contract without me." A silence filled the room again. Jim had broken out in a sweat. I felt cold and clammy. The evil green thing began wrapping
its tentacles around my stomach, probing for weakness. I didn't like this. I didn't like this at all.
I felt bad, hurt, misunderstood. Here I was trying to hold the whole damn thing together. Trying to be the adult. Jim had abandoned ship.
He was over the top, gone. The Ray and Jim show from Venice do longer existed. I was the oldest. I had to try and maintain the dream, hoping he would snap out of this phase he was in. Hoping that it was a phase. An aberration, a momentary aberration. Hoping that
he would come to his senses and we could resume our grail qust together. The four of us. The Doors. Brothers in the void. Supporting and nurturing one another. Hell, keeping one another alive! And we had so much more work to do. More music and poetry. Theater - Jim and I had talked of a multimedia theater project with
actors and dancers and rear-screen projections and recitations and Doors' music - the "Magic Theater" of Hermann Hesse. Films, directed by me, starring Jim, music by Robby Krieger and John Densmore. And
finally politics. The takeover of America by the lovers! He had to snap out of it. He had to come back to his old self. His real self.
"Well, it's too late," said Robby.
Jim wheeled on him. "Oh, yeah? We'll see about that. I'm gonna smash a fucking Buick to dust on stage." He was perspiring more profusely now. "It's gonna be part of my new act. 'Smash a Buick to Smithereens.' We'll see how they like that. And then I'm gonna get Abe to sue their asses. For big bucks, Ray. For a lot more than their shitty little contract. Then let's see if they still want to use a Doors song to sell a sports car."
He was pacing and sweating and clearly out of control. He stormed out of the rehearsal room and rushed up to the offices, barged into Siddons room and told Bill to get our new, young hotshot lawyer -
Abe Sommers - on the phone. When he did, Jim got on the line and hollered at Abe to do whatever he could to stop the contract.[/color]"Threaten' them with a lawsuit," he shouted into the phone. "Tell
them I'm gonna smash a Buick with a sledgehammer onstage! Tell them anything! But stop the fucking contract!"
And in three days, Buick backed out. They simply decided they didn't want to go with a rock ad campaign after all. Nothing against the Doors or their music, you understand. They simply shifted demographic focus. It was done, finished. And Jim grinned from ear to ear. He had exercised his will against the corporate
establishment and he was a contented man. He made them back down. Hell, he made them back all the way out. It felt good. And he wanted more.
And that was called...Miami. (Ray Manzarek from his book ‘Light My Fire’ Pages 305-309
