La tomba di Jim, fino al 1988
English: from "Jim Morrison - Tomb in Paris 1981 -1988" "The bust of Jim Morrison by Croation sculptur Mladen Mikulin was placed at the Pere Lachaise Cemetary gravesite in 1981 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Morrison's death. The bust remained at the grave until March 1988, when it was stolen without a trace - by then, the gravesite had become covered in graffiti. Cemetery staff subsequently cordoned off the plot with metal barricades a few years ago, and numerous other tombstones, vandalized with arrows labeled "Jim" that directed the way to the grave, have since been wiped clean." when i arrived here, i came alone. jim is cool, but i'd come to see delacroix, mr. wilde and gericault. they were my heroes. but i knew he was here, so i followed the signage that his fans had left. the graffiti as one got closer to jim's final drop off got more and more intense. and the sense of decadence grew stronger and stronger. the litter and party trash from devotees and loiterers with their overabundance of cigarette butts proliferated into crack and crannies. it was like america had come and "left a pile of refuse" in the middle of a parisian cemetary. i felt a reluctant horror and embarrassment. this bust, which i had no idea was a gift that would soon be stolen, looked like white cancer and decay to me. i found it to be distasteful and crass. in 1987 i had been coming out of a musical bubble that had begun for me in 1981 after visiting england and running across adam & the ants and the sex pistols simultaneously. musically, i was going in reverse from a lot of american kids -- we wanted to understand the british music, not the american scene. there was a different kind of intelligence to the british perspective that wasn't embedded in the american questions and dilemmas. jim morrison to me was a poet who could sing. he was a man who had raised fire and let his own personality drown him in fame's thick stew of debauchery and temptation. but i wasn't into that music. classic rock has never been my thing. i was into stuff that made me want to get up and go. punk rock and skateboards, long nights on city streets just exploring. and we surfed and had long drives where the insane high-pitched whine of the undertones would get us through the darkness to dawn breaks. wall of voodoo and the english beat were essentials. the british dj invasion had arrived on the west coast in 1983 and san diego had its own version of KROQ's richard blade who would talk his little accent through the morning show introducing and showcasing britain's finest top 100 music to a hungry listening audience -- steve west. "The day 91X (XETRA-FM) went Rock of the 80s, almost no one knew it was coming so there was no speculation. An air staff meeting was called for 3pm. These really straight liner-card jocks were sitting around the conference room when in walks wild Rick Carroll with a cardboard box. He dumps it on the table and says, 'I'm Rick from Los Angeles and this is your new format.' The first song was played at 6pm by Todd Tolkoff who was given the name Mad Max. He said, 'This is 91X Rock of the 80s and this is "Sex" from Berlin.' Everyone at the station (remember he is now in Mexico 30 minutes away) thought this song was too weird. It seemed slow and goofy, but hey this was all new to us. It also took forever. Well no wonder, he was playing a long-play version so the LP should have been playing at 45 rpm. Since we had never heard the song no one knew. This happened a lot." so there was a lot of exploration. and life was warm and vital. we needed fast music that wasn't laced with drugs. alcohol driven beats were fine as long as they were inspired. but the ones with great ideas were hands down the best. but the drugs still one and house music and acid music started to disintegrate the integrity of writing. it took the militance and credibility out of the rising new wave pop movement. so did shutting down mtv. in comparison, jim's music was something i learned to appreciate in slow doses later in my life when music became more than an immediate lifestyle and started to take its place among "interests" that are never ending. his music was deeper in the mind and the fantastic. it was abstracted into self interest and questioned itself without respecting the dangers any and all answers might have upon the questioner. and that's what drugs can do. they can override the familiar motherboard of the mind and leach erroneous ghosts into the library of the intelligence. and these ghosts can haunt the emotional balance of even strong people, taking them down to a cellular failure of being. i don't think there is an afterlife. and if there were, i don't think i'd go anyway. i'd do what i usually do and just forget about my party invitation. later, while i was standing across the drive from oscar wilde's resting site, a long black limousine pulled up and lingered. the reflective windows never came down. then, as silently as it had arrived, it drove away. somehow i found this very touching. alien. more my speed.