By Neil Chrisley
We had graduated from film school, and there we were, with no prospects, whatsoever. Remember, this was the mid-’60s. Hollywood couldn’t care less about guys from film school. All they wanted to do was make movies like [the Rock Hudson/Doris Day film] Pillow Talk. So anyway, Jim was originally going to New York, but for some reason he didn’t. And we ended up running into one another on the beach. Talk about being guided by the better angels of your selves–or, even more so, being guided by the spirit of the dead Indian that was in Jim’s body. It was as if he was saying, “The two of you–psychedelic warriors–have to get together.” What the shaman wanted to do was get the word out to white America about Indian tribalism. What did it mean to be a Native American, the first people on the continent? What did they see? What did they worship? It was about knowing God through the eyes of an Indian. That was one of the purposes of The Doors: to open up Native Americanism to the new tribe, as we were called–the new long-haired tribe.
Whether it's in a movie or a memoir like this, the phony legend turns an extensive body of thought and belief into a magical fairy tale. It's as if there was no Bible and people made up stories about Jesus. We don't do that for Christianity or other major religions, so we shouldn't do it for Native religions.
5 comments:
ray manzarek gets on my last damn nerve. don't even get me started on the half naked indian guy and jim morrison. good lord.
I wonder if it occurred to Morrison that not all Indians wear their hair long?
Every time I hear about the "Warriors of the Rainbow", I get the image of a sentai team. And I'm wearing red right now, so I get to be the leader.
(Shamen? Okay, that's wrong.)
Sherman Alexie actually gave a bit of Take That! to Jim Morrison in Reservation Blues. Apparently this old Indian woman on the Spokane reservation taught all the great musicians of the 20th century, but she basically talks about Jim Morrison the way Obi-Wan Kenobi talks about Darth Vader.
(An aside: Funny thing about Pillow Talk. Rock Hudson pretends to be gay, and then we find out he's been pretending to be straight his whole life. Because he got...Okay, yeah, it's more "funny aneurysm" than funny, but still.)
I would not discard Manzarek just yet, even if he rants, he was still there when it happened and saw alot of what Jim Morrison was about, real or fake. During that time, drugs could make you see and believe anything with the right person feeding the BS. Look at what Manson managed to do with a bunch of homeless, rebellious runaways? He made them believe he was Hitler and Jesus rolled into one, no pun intended.
Where were all the peace loving hippies when Indians were getting molested in churches and boarding schools? If you want to do the Indians a favor, leave the continent the way you found it?
But wouldn't being Hitler and Jesus rolled into one make him a Jewish Nazi and therefore want to gas himself? Not such a bad idea.
But I think the hippies were lifting the Pentagon or something. Some of them actually gave their kids LSD, so I can easily see hippie communes having child molestation issues.
May I have your permission to reprint your blog post on www.jimmorrisonproject.com? You will be given full credit as the author, along with a link to the original post. Thank you for your consideration.
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