No One Here Gets Out Alive by Jerry Hopkins, Danny Sugerman
|
Book Summary Author: Danny Sugerman, Jerry Hopkins Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2006-04-14 ISBN: 0446697338 Number of pages: 384 Publisher: Grand Central Publishing Product features:
|
| New | New Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $6.84 | ||
| Used | Used Usually ships in 1-2 business days | $2.99 |
Your purchase is protected by the A-to-z Safe Buying Guarantee. Amazon.com automatically transfers your payment to the merchant so you'll never need to pay a merchant directly. Amazon.com A-to-z Safe Buying Guarantee covers both the delivery of your item and its condition upon receipt.
Book Reviews of the No One Here Gets Out Alive
Customer Review: And they all loved him so sincerely
Summary: 3 Stars
The book has been amply and well reviewed, so I'd like to address only a few issues that have not been mentioned. For one, this is determinedly about Jim and nobody but Jim. No other character in the book is 3-dimensional, not even Pamela Courson, ostensibly the most important consistent presence in Morrison's life, and not even the rest of the Doors, who appear as stick figures given a few bland words here and there. Although a plethora of people were interviewed, few have anything pithy to say; they merely state the facts of this or that incident or event. One has no idea of just how deeply Morrison's behavior must have affected Manzarek's, Krieger's, and Densmore's lives, yet the effect must have been apocalyptic, because Morrison's behavior was not just a few youthful shenanigans: it was one enormity after another.
And that brings me to the most important insight I get after reading the book. At one point, Manzarek is quoted as saying that he "loved Jim" quite a lot, but I would say: no one loved Jim Morrison. They did, however, exploit him to the bitter end: he was a golden cash cow.
This is the book's greatest failing: it does not even hint at the hypocrisy and cynicism of those whose entire lives, long after his death, came to rely financially on his attractiveness to the audience. Danny Sugerman's wide-eyed blindness can be forgiven to some extent: he was a young boy when he met Morrison, who was very nice to him. At that age, anything a "star" can do that is against the rules, against what mom and dad said to do, is automatically cool and a must to emulate, and self-destructive behavior is the supreme thrill: it is, essentially, the schoolyard dare taken to the extreme. At an age when daring is all and dying seems somehow unreal, the guy who gets all the girls while dong the daring is a shoo-in for adoration.
I've had friends like Morrison, back in the late sixties. No, not rock stars, but very bright and very daring, and very self-destructive. They, too, died young, but before they died they managed to alienate all of us, their circle of friends. To love them was one thing, but to actually invite them in after they've destroyed your parents' house once too often, and tried stealing your money to buy their fix, is another. It is possible to cry for an addict, but few accept the burden of living with them, of remaining their friends, especially once it's clear that every promise will be broken and fighting the addiction will not even be attempted: because addicts lie constantly, it is a necessary part of their survival.
So I've known a few Morrisons, but I had no stake in living with them because they didn't bring in millions of dollars; if anything, they wanted to "borrow" a twenty. No, I don't think anyone loved Jim Morrison: he wasn't lovable. He was horrendous, which you cannot fully appreciate unless you've spent a night saving a freaked-out friend from dying. You can only put up with someone who vomits in your apartment, urinates on your carpet, and smashes your door in the middle of the night, for so long. But every single person depicted in this book (barring those who predate his rock-star ascent) needed Morrison to pad their finances. Never mind the obvious creeps who hung out with him only because they too wanted to party endlessly - on his penny - but even the more substantial people in his life were there for the loot: the producers, Elektra suits, lawyers, managers. It cannot be said that Pamela loved him in any usual sense of love: she was as polygamous as he was, and if anything bonded them, it was their respective addictions, but money was paramount: Jim's money paid for Pamela's life in all its aspects, from the rent to the ownership of a luxury boutique, to voyages abroad and to her heroin habit.
There are a couple of telling scenes about halfway through the book (and halfway through the career of the Doors). First, Densmore, exasperated with Morrison ruining yet another attempted recording session, proclaims he's quitting. By next day, he's back as if nothing had happened. Then there's the day when Morrison, bored with the whole rock thing, wants to quit. According to the writers, the others turn pale, and a pale-faced Manzarek approaches Morrison and literally begs him to "give it six more months." You bet they needed as many more months as they could get. By that time, they had become nicely settled in their expensive lives. I imagine they all had plunked down impressive sums for luxurious homes for them and their families. Meanwhile, crazed Jim lived here and there, occasionally in cheap transient motels, and was not conscious enough to even consider how much he stood to lose financially if the band ceased to exist. As for providing for his family, he provided for Pamela's downers.
The "other" three Doors are fine musicians. Krieger, especially, has always been one of the unsung guitar heroes I've admired and learned from: unlike the faster-than-you guitar noodling that was so prized at the time, his playing was melodic, brilliantly inventive, and served the songs to the point of being the song. Krieger also composed several of the Doors songs, some with mixed results, but some with excellence - after all, he composed "Light My Fire." That said, I think they realized very early on that even if he never wrote another line, Jim could draw a crowd. Perhaps, as their success and self-confidence grew, they began to think that he was not indispensable, but the future would quickly prove them wrong. I don't know just how well they have managed to convince themselves in the intervening decades that they really did love him, but they have not ceased exploiting his legend for a single minute, and continue to do it today, with never-ending issues of remastered, remixed, better and improved, with bonus tracks, with more bonus tracks, with every cough and sneeze you were spared before CD. Perhaps the most obvious case in point is the recent "The Doors in the 20th Century" extravaganza, that toured Krieger and Manzarek with an expanded band and, of all things, a singer who not only looks a bit like Morrison and swaggers like him to a t, but actually sounds like a very good imitation. And you know what? It works. In fact, I happen to think the DVD of their performance is superb, and the musicianship of a somewhat demented-looking Krieger is stellar. But to claim that it is some sort of homage to dear Jim and not a blatant reach for the fans' purses is too shameless for words. Better to put up posters saying, "we need the money, and if you'll fork it over, we promise to give you the best possible replica of the Doors, modern tech included for no extra charge." (Densmore promptly sued them for the misuse of the band name without him - so much for all this love within the band.)
I don't propose to analyze Jim Morrison; even if I were qualified to do it, it would take much more than this already very long text. But I think we can agree that he was somewhat delusional as to his abilities. Like so many of us in the sixties, he was discovering a whole new world of art, and he wanted to participate in all of it: as an actor, writer, poet, filmmaker, and so on. But he was one of many who couldn't be bothered with actually learning the skill. His native intelligence and his success as a singer and songwriter convinced him that it should all come to him naturally, but, of course, it didn't. As they say, even Beethoven had to practice every day. Those who cynically lead him down various rosy paths collected advances for bad films, never-to-be-finished scripts, and poetry that was as often very good as it was embarrassingly bad: you can see that in his lyrics, which are a good sampling of both extremes. Ultimately, he was everyone's easy foil. In that sense, he paid dearly for every fine carpet he ever urinated on.