Speaker 1: The twenty seven Club is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Double Elvis Media. Jim Morrison died at the
Speaker 1: age of and he died under mysterious circumstances. I can
Speaker 1: give you twenty seven reasons why that statement is true.
Speaker 1: Two would be the number of dealers who would lead
Speaker 1: him down the labyrinthian path of a grungy Parisian rock
Speaker 1: club to an unknown fate. Another one would be the
Speaker 1: number of friends that he seemed to lose into thin
Speaker 1: air just when his days were dwindling down to nothing.
Speaker 1: Twenty more would be the number of minutes, give or take,
Speaker 1: he'd spend in a stall, awake one minute and unconscious
Speaker 1: the next, cycling through the many layers of hell in
Speaker 1: his own mind. Another three would be the number of
Speaker 1: days it would take for anyone from the Door's camp
Speaker 1: to travel across the pond and attempt to figure out
Speaker 1: what in the hell was going on. And one would
Speaker 1: be the number of people who claimed to have been
Speaker 1: there for his last moments when the Lizard King shuffled
Speaker 1: off this mortal coil, all totally on this our final
Speaker 1: episode of season two, a grungy Parisian nightclub, absent friends,
Speaker 1: hell and Jim Morrison lost in fantasy. I'm Jake Brennan
Speaker 1: and this is the twenty seven Club. Yeah. It was
Speaker 1: well after midnight on Saturday, July three when Jim Morrison
Speaker 1: parked himself off at the bar at the Rock and
Speaker 1: Roll Circus and raised his arm at the bartender bombers
Speaker 1: who play. He shouted, it didn't matter what kind of
Speaker 1: beer it was or what country it came from, as
Speaker 1: long as it was cold and wet. He wanted it.
Speaker 1: A pike glass on the bar in front of him,
Speaker 1: he turned to his left and gave Jimbo a big,
Speaker 1: welcoming slap on the back. Jimbo was already a few
Speaker 1: beers deep, already a few puffs de, already a few
Speaker 1: snorts of smack deep. Jimbo turned his head slowly to
Speaker 1: face Jim's, his eyes puffy and half closed, his beer
Speaker 1: dirty and prickly, and attempted a smile as he did.
Speaker 1: His last gulp of stella trickled from the edge of
Speaker 1: his lips, and he knocked the ash off of his
Speaker 1: half smoked galois and with the other hand crushed the
Speaker 1: empty blue box of smokes. It had been a long
Speaker 1: night already. It was around one am, and the day
Speaker 1: it was catching up the Jim. The first swig of
Speaker 1: draft beer was a welcome salve at that moment. He
Speaker 1: had gone to eat that sweet and sour chicken that
Speaker 1: had given a bit of golf afterwards, and then to
Speaker 1: see the Robert Mitchen movie. Pamela stayed at home. She
Speaker 1: was even more tired than he was. No matter, they said,
Speaker 1: the best way to see a movie in a darkened
Speaker 1: theater was all by yourself alone, and the jury was
Speaker 1: still out on that one. Afterward, Jim found his way
Speaker 1: back to the rock and roll circus, another late night
Speaker 1: deep dive into the deepest of late night skies joints.
Speaker 1: Maybe he'd run into a rolling stone or a beetle,
Speaker 1: or maybe Jimmie Hendrix. Shit, no, wait, he thought, and
Speaker 1: shook his head violently. Jimmy was fucking dead. He looked
Speaker 1: up from his bar stool at the mural on the
Speaker 1: wall of Jimmy reimagined as a clown. Jim shook his
Speaker 1: head again, like if he shook it hard enough, he
Speaker 1: would clear out whatever was still in there that was
Speaker 1: messing him up. His eyes were close shut, his head
Speaker 1: still shaking back and forth, and the stella rattling around
Speaker 1: in his brain. When he heard the bartender show they
Speaker 1: called nep see, Jim opened his eyes. He looked at
Speaker 1: the bartender and pointed a finger straight at his own chest.
Speaker 1: Me ema words just all lips still in the shaking
Speaker 1: head days. And the bartender looked past Jim and gesture,
Speaker 1: first throwing a wet bar towel over his shoulder and
Speaker 1: then giving a flick of the wrist into the air
Speaker 1: like he was shooting some cats away from his newly
Speaker 1: made tuna ficial sandwich. Then pissy, he repeated, the Count's
Speaker 1: not here man. Jim turned around to see two of
Speaker 1: the Count's dealers standing directly behind him. He met them before,
Speaker 1: met them with Pamela. Pamela was tighter with the Count
Speaker 1: than Jim preferred, but these days, with this growing taste
Speaker 1: for heroin, it was good to have the Count around.
Speaker 1: And the Count had the good stuff, this ship that
Speaker 1: was spreading like wildfire in Paris, and the Count's smack
Speaker 1: was rumored to be something like eight six pc pure.
Speaker 1: Once Jim had broken his own no junk rule, it
Speaker 1: was all downhill, and the Count's smack was the best
Speaker 1: high Jim could ever hope to feel. And the dealers
Speaker 1: weren't looking for the Count. They were looking for Jim,
Speaker 1: Mr Mojoe Rising, the Lizard King. And they were star
Speaker 1: fuckers just like the Count, haunted places like the Rocket
Speaker 1: Roll Circus, just like the Count, looking just like Jim
Speaker 1: was looking to run into a stone or a beetle.
Speaker 1: They'd settled for an expat Doris Singer, and they dismissed
Speaker 1: the bartender and gave him a very precise and simple
Speaker 1: look with no words, communicated one thing. Mind your own
Speaker 1: goddamn business. Jim didn't know the dealer's real names, but
Speaker 1: he knew what they were called on the street. Was
Speaker 1: the half Asian guy, based on the nickname, assumed Chinese,
Speaker 1: but maybe that was part of the joke that he
Speaker 1: was actually half Korean or something. And the pet Robert
Speaker 1: was the one with the Napoleon complex. It was all
Speaker 1: nicknames to these guys. The Count nation Le Petit Robert,
Speaker 1: they called Jim jimbo. Jim was eager to correct them.
Speaker 1: Jim beamed ear to hear he was happy to see them.
Speaker 1: As a Pavlovian response, he knew what was next, what
Speaker 1: was coming, He knew in a few short moments, he
Speaker 1: would follow the Count's street team into the stall with
Speaker 1: the busted lock and the French graffiti and the bowels
Speaker 1: of the rocket roll circus and do a line so
Speaker 1: long and so fat, you fucking explode. But first he
Speaker 1: had to correct him on this whole nickname thing. Guys, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: great to see, Jim said, standing up and giving the
Speaker 1: dealers some appreciative pats on the arm. People don't call
Speaker 1: me Jimbo, man, I'm Jim Just Jim. This Jimbo. And
Speaker 1: he turned to introduce Lean la petit Robert to Jimbo.
Speaker 1: But Jimbo wasn't there. The barstool next to jim was empty,
Speaker 1: no glass, no sign of any activity, no stubbed out
Speaker 1: galo and the glass ashtray, no crushed blue box. That's
Speaker 1: fucking weird. Jim I thought Jimbo had just been here,
Speaker 1: half cocked it about ready to fall out of his chair,
Speaker 1: but he was here. He shook his head again. He
Speaker 1: was still confused. Obviously, maybe Jimbo bounced, or maybe he
Speaker 1: hit the head, or maybe he was up the skirt
Speaker 1: to some French chick in the back alley somewhere. Jim
Speaker 1: slammed back the rest of his Stella, put the pint
Speaker 1: glass on the bar. He yelled at the bartender, where
Speaker 1: the did he go? He pointed at Jimbo's empty bar,
Speaker 1: and the bartender furrowed his eyebrows annoyed, Ready to close
Speaker 1: up for the night and send all these drunk bar
Speaker 1: flies and junkies out into the street. He threw his
Speaker 1: hands up and looked quizzically at jim who Jim threw
Speaker 1: a couple of bucks down on the bar and turned
Speaker 1: back to the dealers. Never mind, next time, he'd introduced him.
Speaker 1: Next time, just fucking call him jim though, okay, no
Speaker 1: one called him Jimbo. And just as he had suspected,
Speaker 1: the next thing he knew, he was following less and
Speaker 1: lippety Robert down the hallway to the bathroom. A light
Speaker 1: on the wall flickered, another was out completely. A couple
Speaker 1: necked up against the wall. The place stunk of stale
Speaker 1: cigarettes and spilled pints of stella and other orders that
Speaker 1: you find after midnight, and a half lit, dank slice
Speaker 1: of urban cave life underneath the major metropolis in one
Speaker 1: in the bathroom was dark too. When they walked inside,
Speaker 1: it was empty, just Jim and the guys. His vision
Speaker 1: was blurry, His head was a tangle of beer and
Speaker 1: msg and dead people and ship. He shook it again hard.
Speaker 1: This time his head shook it again, thinking that he
Speaker 1: would suddenly glean the location of Jimbo. The dealer stared
Speaker 1: at him like he was having a seizure, and they
Speaker 1: were just waiting for it to be over. Jim reached
Speaker 1: into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out some
Speaker 1: crumpled up bills. Had no idea how much money it was,
Speaker 1: only that it was enough. Le petit. Robert took his
Speaker 1: money and gave him a baggy of the count's finest smack.
Speaker 1: Jim secluded himself in the first stall in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: the one with the busted lock. It was locked. That
Speaker 1: wasn't the issue, but once it was locked, it was
Speaker 1: near impossible to get it to unlock. Jim closed the
Speaker 1: door behind him and latched the door shut. No one
Speaker 1: was getting inside the stall with him. He heard the
Speaker 1: bathroom door shut as the dealers saw themselves out, and
Speaker 1: Jim dumped the pilot Heroine out on the back of
Speaker 1: the toilet and dragged another damp French bill from his pocket.
Speaker 1: He rolled the up and snorted the majority of howders
Speaker 1: straight off the porcelain. He did it fast, hard, and
Speaker 1: the junk rocketed up as sinuses, past his eye sockets
Speaker 1: and hit his brain. His eyes watered, and he felt
Speaker 1: each part of his brain light up like it had
Speaker 1: been plugged in direct to a wall socket, and each
Speaker 1: region of his head came alive, and the floor started
Speaker 1: to vibrate. He could smell something burning from inside his ears.
Speaker 1: He sat down on the toilet and held one hand
Speaker 1: against the wall and the other against the stall door.
Speaker 1: He coughed blood he could taste it. Coughed again violently.
Speaker 1: This time he tasted a rubbery, massive blood in his
Speaker 1: mouth and spat it towards the floor. Had he not
Speaker 1: seen Jimbo when he came into the circus? Was he
Speaker 1: not at the bar waiting for him? Jimbo Wood said
Speaker 1: nothing to him tonight. He had said nothing to him
Speaker 1: when he first arrived in Paris and showed up at
Speaker 1: Pamela's door. Come to think of it, Pamela had said
Speaker 1: nothing to Jimbo either, and jim thought it rude at
Speaker 1: the time, But it was almost like Jimbo wasn't even there.
Speaker 1: He coughed again more blood, and this time thought about
Speaker 1: the Billy Cook story. The Zodiac, thought about waking up
Speaker 1: on the doorstep of Eleanor Brow's place in l A,
Speaker 1: about snapping Papa tops with the Wizard at the door's
Speaker 1: rehearsal space. He caught more, and the blood came up again.
Speaker 1: So did the memories stealing flowers from the flower children
Speaker 1: at the human being grabbing Janice Joplin's hair at the party.
Speaker 1: Right before he passed out, Jim had a distressing feeling,
Speaker 1: a feeling that he had put certain memories and certain
Speaker 1: recesses of his mind, his own personal rock and roll
Speaker 1: circus basement labyrinth and his bruize log noggin, and this
Speaker 1: fucking hardcore smack was shaking it all loose. They called
Speaker 1: him Jim, no doubt, But what if they called him
Speaker 1: Jimbo too. Jim was fully under in some seventh level
Speaker 1: of sub circus hell. It was no longer in the
Speaker 1: bathroom stall of some dank, subterranean Paris rock club. He
Speaker 1: was long gone. And the second rip of Les Pete
Speaker 1: Robers junk rocketed straight up his nose, and then he
Speaker 1: rocketed straight downwards hell bent a sudden and sublime shift
Speaker 1: in his consciousness. It got darker, and the noxious odor
Speaker 1: of the Rock and Roll Circus bathroom stall curdled. He
Speaker 1: felt like he was submerged in liquid, thick, soupy liquid.
Speaker 1: He could still breathe just fine. If he was told
Speaker 1: that he even flushed down the stall's toilet, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: have doubted it for a moment. His cough continued, and
Speaker 1: although the taste of blood in his throat was an
Speaker 1: irritating constant, it reassured him that his lungs weren't filling
Speaker 1: with that strange soupy water. He held on to the
Speaker 1: faintest memory of Jimbo, pieces he had just gotten a
Speaker 1: glimpse of while he snorted enthusiastically, the so called person
Speaker 1: who always appeared when jim was at his best and
Speaker 1: hung around until he was at his worst. Well, he
Speaker 1: could no longer picture Jimbo's face in his mind's eye,
Speaker 1: what he sounded like, what he smelled like, the sorts
Speaker 1: of things he would say. The rocket hit a heroine
Speaker 1: had blown the whole concept of Jimbo straight out of
Speaker 1: Jim's ears. The bartender had looked at him moldly tonight
Speaker 1: when he was talking to Jimbo at the bar, almost
Speaker 1: as if he had been talking to an empty stool.
Speaker 1: And then he flipped back further in his mind, which
Speaker 1: was soggy from the smack, and thought of all the
Speaker 1: times he went on a rocket spender and made a scene,
Speaker 1: made a fool of himself. Was him, only him, always him,
Speaker 1: always Jim, just Jim. Jimbo had no story. He was
Speaker 1: from nowhere. He lived somewhere but where. Jimbo was a crutch,
Speaker 1: something to hide bad behavior behind a mask of prickish entitlement.
Speaker 1: When Jim felt like being a prick, he knew that
Speaker 1: he'd always known that Jimbo was nobody. Jim Morrison was somebody.
Speaker 1: Jimbo's weird obsession with Billy Cook and the Zodiac and
Speaker 1: the Wizard. Those were Jim's obsessions, deep seated obsessions of dark, twisted,
Speaker 1: fucked up America. He so wanted to put himself in
Speaker 1: a dark, twisted, fucked up storyline of his own. Repressed
Speaker 1: as a child conservative household Florida bullshit, he rose above,
Speaker 1: tossed it off, left it behind, saw his repressed conservative
Speaker 1: upbringing in the face of an American public confused with
Speaker 1: who they were supposed to be, Craving instruction, direction, craving
Speaker 1: chaos to turn their little, insignificant worlds upside down. It
Speaker 1: was simple. Jim repeated the moment he rebelled against his norm,
Speaker 1: against what was expected. His audience could do it too.
Speaker 1: He did it again and again. Instead of teaching the
Speaker 1: kids dance moves, he teached them the steps to move
Speaker 1: towards internal self diagnosed revolution. On stage at the Singer Bowl, Chicago, Phoenix, Miami,
Speaker 1: The Sullivan Show, he did it again and again and
Speaker 1: again and again and again. Killed the father, fucked the mother.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a killer, he was a liberator, an upset her.
Speaker 1: Suddenly there was a loud knocking sound, massive vibrations. The
Speaker 1: seventh level of sub circus hell shook with wild, abandoned, violent, insistent.
Speaker 1: The commotion was all around him, shaking, kicking, knocking, French voices, yelling,
Speaker 1: Etsiel Morton. The busted door was ripped open, and Jim
Speaker 1: was back in the bathroom stall still slumped on the toilet,
Speaker 1: he coughed again, this time a fit that grobbed hold
Speaker 1: of him and wouldn't let go. He coughed louder, struggled,
Speaker 1: to get to his feet, and there were men outside
Speaker 1: the stall door, and they reached in for Jim, helped
Speaker 1: him out. They thought he was a gonner in their ship.
Speaker 1: He'd been in there for twenty minutes. The dealers who
Speaker 1: had let him inside had fled the scene long ago,
Speaker 1: and the men were glad to see that Jim was
Speaker 1: all right. But more importantly, the rock and roll circus
Speaker 1: was closing for the night. Jim did not have to
Speaker 1: go home, but I couldn't stay here. Jim wasn't sure
Speaker 1: how he got back to the flat with Pamela that morning,
Speaker 1: or how long it took him to get there. He
Speaker 1: remembered the men in the bathroom and more men ushering
Speaker 1: him outside. The late night early morning air was still
Speaker 1: humid from the day before. He puked on a sidewalk,
Speaker 1: reached in his pocket for a cigarette, but realized he
Speaker 1: had left him at the bar somewhere at the flat.
Speaker 1: Pamela didn't seem that surprised to see him. She obviously
Speaker 1: had taken her own fair share of snorts that evening
Speaker 1: and was equally out of it. She opened her eyes
Speaker 1: wide when Jim devolved into another coughing fit. He ran
Speaker 1: into the bathroom and puked to get it was a mess,
Speaker 1: full of John coughing of blood, having the kind of
Speaker 1: revelations one can only have while on a lonely bender
Speaker 1: in a foreign country. He needed a bath. A bath
Speaker 1: would do him good, stabilize him, get him back to
Speaker 1: that warm, liquidy, floating feeling he had experienced earlier in
Speaker 1: the circus bathroom stall. He turned the bathroom fauceted on,
Speaker 1: and the water rushed out in the It was a
Speaker 1: pleasant drone, soothing. He watched the steam rise from the
Speaker 1: water as it slowly filled up the tub, his eyes
Speaker 1: lost in the swirls of heat, the steam easing into
Speaker 1: his chest and calming his cough. He took his clothes off,
Speaker 1: climbed in the tub, shut off the faucet. Then there
Speaker 1: was no sound at all, just the sound of his
Speaker 1: own breathing, and that absence of sound, which in turn
Speaker 1: makes its own sound a ringing faint. At first, rising,
Speaker 1: he heard sounds in the absence of sound that weren't there,
Speaker 1: And then he felt the nausea crash over him, a
Speaker 1: big wave of it. His stomach wretched, and he sat
Speaker 1: up from his reclined position, yelled for Pamela, but nothing,
Speaker 1: and the wave hit him again, gaining intensity now, and
Speaker 1: Jim yelled for Pamela again. She was in the bathroom
Speaker 1: a few moments later. It felt like an eternity to Jim,
Speaker 1: half asleep, fully dozed, walking zombie. Jim told her he
Speaker 1: was going to be sick again. He needed a bucket,
Speaker 1: a pot of pans, something he couldn't moved from the tub.
Speaker 1: Hen did her help now, and Pamela returned with a
Speaker 1: pot from the kitchen and Jim immediately threw up in it.
Speaker 1: She rinsed it out, handed it back to him. He
Speaker 1: was sick again again. Pamela rinsed it out and then
Speaker 1: he felt better, he had gotten it out of his system.
Speaker 1: He'd stay in the tub a while longer, and Pamela
Speaker 1: went back out to the living room, back to the couch,
Speaker 1: back to her own oblivion. She woke up after the
Speaker 1: sun had risen that morning, July three. Didn't see Jim,
Speaker 1: who wasn't on the couch with her, wasn't in the bedroom.
Speaker 1: She could hear the rustle of traffic outside the city
Speaker 1: come to life once again after a long, hot summer night.
Speaker 1: The radio had been left on all night She was
Speaker 1: just realizing this now. The Grateful Dead's version of Sonny
Speaker 1: Boy Williamson's Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl was playing, and the
Speaker 1: signal was full of static and hum. I'm gonna leave you,
Speaker 1: baby about the break of day. I count of the
Speaker 1: way you treat me. I gotta stay away. She walked
Speaker 1: back to the bathroom slowly, cautiously. She started to have
Speaker 1: bad thoughts about what she'd find in there. The worst thoughts,
Speaker 1: the thoughts that she had from time to time when
Speaker 1: she couldn't find him, when he wasn't where he said
Speaker 1: he'd beat, didn't come home when he said he would,
Speaker 1: The thoughts that would pop up when the band couldn't
Speaker 1: find him, when his manager couldn't find him, when it
Speaker 1: seemed like Jim just up and left the world without
Speaker 1: letting a soul know. Pamela was used to those thoughts,
Speaker 1: but that didn't make them any less difficult. It didn't
Speaker 1: make the journey down the hallway to the bathroom any
Speaker 1: less traumatic. She called out his name as she got closer.
Speaker 1: No response. She said his name again, this time louder,
Speaker 1: this time closer to the bathroom door, but nothing. She
Speaker 1: stepped into the bathroom and the thoughts were gone, and
Speaker 1: she screamed out loud, screamed the thoughts away. Jim's body
Speaker 1: was still on the tub, but Jim, Jim was not.
Speaker 1: Jim was long gone, and he took Jimbo with him.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word. We were Bill
Speaker 1: Siddons wanted to see the body. If there was no body,
Speaker 1: it was all just fantasy, make believe. He wanted to
Speaker 1: see Jim Morrison's lifeless body on a slab, on a table,
Speaker 1: on a bed, in a bathtub, anywhere. He just had
Speaker 1: to put his eyes on it, check that box, vet verified.
Speaker 1: Someone just taken to the goddamn body. So he knew
Speaker 1: that it was true, that the rumors were true, the
Speaker 1: Pamela's call was true, and then he'd go into Bill
Speaker 1: Siddons crisis mood. He'd handle it, take care of the ship,
Speaker 1: the media, the authorities, the label of the family, the doors,
Speaker 1: the fans. He Bill Siddons, the ship out of this thing.
Speaker 1: But he needed visual identification. Bill hadn't seen Jim in months,
Speaker 1: had hardly heard from him in months. International long distance
Speaker 1: call rates were no joke. The doors had money, sure,
Speaker 1: but Bill was smart, thrifty. Only call if absolutely necessary.
Speaker 1: Jim sent the occasional postcard. In one to his lawyer,
Speaker 1: Max Fink, he wrote the women are great and the
Speaker 1: food is gorgeous, and another to Bob green Is accountant.
Speaker 1: He asked for credit cards for himself and Pamela, and
Speaker 1: also for an extra three large for the mounting bills
Speaker 1: that came. Was living a charmed life and giving zero ships.
Speaker 1: Bill knew that Jim was taking some extended r and
Speaker 1: R in Paris, and Bill had instructed everyone to keep
Speaker 1: their distance, let him learn some new words, meet some
Speaker 1: new people, or you know what, meet no one who cares.
Speaker 1: Just let the guy disappear. Bill and the label would work.
Speaker 1: L a woman on the home front, continue to repair
Speaker 1: the still fragile image of the doors post Miami, and
Speaker 1: when Jim was ready to come home, ready to get
Speaker 1: back in the saddle and make music again, they'd be
Speaker 1: waiting again. Bill was smart. He knew deep down that
Speaker 1: that would never happen. Jim was never coming home. Jim
Speaker 1: wasn't going to prison, he wasn't making any more records
Speaker 1: of the doors. He was an indefinite hiatus from the world.
Speaker 1: He had even used that word when he spoke to
Speaker 1: Bill about his status and Paris indefinitely. He had remade
Speaker 1: himself into an expas he was long gone. Then the
Speaker 1: calls came. The phone started ringing. That Saturday, July. Three
Speaker 1: calls came in French. Calls came in English. Calls came
Speaker 1: in English with a French accent. And the calls were frantic, confused, concerned,
Speaker 1: heightened panics. Jim Morrison was dead. Bill had taken these
Speaker 1: calls before. It was a weekly game. He played back
Speaker 1: when the doors were at their height. Jim and drank
Speaker 1: himself to death over the weekend. Jim drove the Blue
Speaker 1: Lady into a telephone pole. Over the weekend. Jim got
Speaker 1: into a brawl with a Wilson brother. Over the weekend.
Speaker 1: The calls kept coming, the phone kept ringing. They all
Speaker 1: repeated the same thing, Jim Morrison is dead. Bill get
Speaker 1: he confirmed this for us. Bill felt sick. His stomach
Speaker 1: dropped to somewhere around his knees, Sweat beaded around his collar,
Speaker 1: at his wrists, slid down his temples, and off his chin.
Speaker 1: He took each phone call with a stainless steel bowl
Speaker 1: on the desk next to him, in case he had
Speaker 1: to throw up on the fly, and then more calls
Speaker 1: came in that Jim Morris wasn't dead, he was just hospitalized.
Speaker 1: He was very tired, he was resting, he had another
Speaker 1: bott of that coughing fit where he'd spit up blood
Speaker 1: and would feel woozy. And the news started running conflicting stories.
Speaker 1: Jim was in a hospital, Jim was in a sanitarium.
Speaker 1: The phone rang again, and this time it rang louder
Speaker 1: than all the other times, urgent, insistent, like a pair
Speaker 1: of hands was on the other side of the phone
Speaker 1: where it sat on the desk and shook it violently.
Speaker 1: Bill picked up the receiver. It was Pamela. Her voice
Speaker 1: was quiet, weak, broken up by the cross atlantic connection.
Speaker 1: She sounded like she had been transported somewhere, somewhere she'd
Speaker 1: never been before, and she was finding her footing. She
Speaker 1: told Bill that the rumors were true. Jim was dead.
Speaker 1: Bill needed to be on the next plane to Paris.
Speaker 1: It was days before Bill could get there. Every day
Speaker 1: was a new panic attack. The phone continued to ring, newspapers,
Speaker 1: TV stations, managers from other bands, venues, family, and the
Speaker 1: new rumors started up. Jim died of a heroin overdose
Speaker 1: in the rock and roll circus, Jim choked on his
Speaker 1: own vomit, just like Jimmy. A jealous mistress killed him
Speaker 1: with witchcraft. He was murdered to discredit the counterculture movement.
Speaker 1: Coke alcohol, heart attack suicide, killed by Count Smackula and
Speaker 1: his vicious dealers. He wasn't really dead at all. He
Speaker 1: had just figured out how to disappear completely. That old
Speaker 1: evil spirit got a Greyhound bus and ride Pamela agree
Speaker 1: to build the door to were flat. When he finally
Speaker 1: made it, Bill needed to see the body, needed closure
Speaker 1: for personal reasons, and needed confirmation for professional matters. Pamela
Speaker 1: collapsed into Bill's arms, let it loose, like she had
Speaker 1: been holding back at day luser tears for days now,
Speaker 1: which she had. She waited on Bill's shoulder, and Bill
Speaker 1: confronted her and repeated his request the body, pam where's
Speaker 1: the body? I need to see Jim, that's the problem.
Speaker 1: Pamela told him there is no body. There is no
Speaker 1: Jim the funk? Do you mean there is no Jim
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. He had traveled all the way from
Speaker 1: Los Angeles to Paris, well over five thousand miles. At
Speaker 1: Pamela's request to see after his friend an employer, because
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison was dead. Jim Morrison was very much, very dead,
Speaker 1: and now there's nobody. Pamela was scatter brained. She had
Speaker 1: flushed the rest of her heroin stash and burned a
Speaker 1: handful of Jim's letters before authorities got to the flat
Speaker 1: on Saturday. But when they did, she was too paranoid
Speaker 1: to panic, too firmly in the twin grip of shock
Speaker 1: and trauma to think clearly. There have been a paramedic
Speaker 1: that morning, a coroner, and Jim had been declared dead.
Speaker 1: They said natural causes, most likely a heart attack. Because
Speaker 1: there was no suspicion of foul play, no autopsy was performed.
Speaker 1: French law, they put Jim in a coffin then and there,
Speaker 1: put him in a coffin, sealed it up. It was
Speaker 1: French tradition, do it quick. They told Pamela that's the
Speaker 1: way it was done, to just seal him up then
Speaker 1: and there and she could be with him in the flat.
Speaker 1: She signed the death certificate that they brought her, and
Speaker 1: she didn't think to ask questions or asked for more information,
Speaker 1: or asked to make a phone call, because she just
Speaker 1: did not time to think. She wasn't thinking. The first
Speaker 1: lucid things she had done since Jim died was to
Speaker 1: call Bill. She had no one in Paris, no one
Speaker 1: really who could help. They were a handful of friends
Speaker 1: and then people on the fringes, like the Count, but
Speaker 1: the Count had disappeared suddenly, and the friends they had
Speaker 1: there were more like drinking buddies and friends, dinner friends maybe,
Speaker 1: but not real friends, not the Bill Siddons type who
Speaker 1: would know what to do. Bill stood in the flat
Speaker 1: with Pamela. The coffin was there, but I was sealed,
Speaker 1: was already a done deal. That wasn't going to be
Speaker 1: the one to open it. Probably a million tablooms would
Speaker 1: be breaking so. Unable to confirm that it was really
Speaker 1: Jim's body inside, and unable to speak to the attending
Speaker 1: doctor or get a second opinion, Bill just stood in
Speaker 1: the flat with pam and the coffin stood waiting. It
Speaker 1: was a lot Paris hot summer. A man who never
Speaker 1: identified himself to Pamela since he didn't speak English, she
Speaker 1: assumed he was from the more brought dry ice by
Speaker 1: the apartment a few times, but time was not on
Speaker 1: their side. They needed to get the body in the ground.
Speaker 1: Bill would see the that that was a Bill size job.
Speaker 1: Pamela couldn't stop thinking about the night before, about Jim,
Speaker 1: the coffin, the vomiting, the bath he drew. They haunted
Speaker 1: her for years, followed her, clung to her, wouldn't let
Speaker 1: her go. Jim left everything to Pamela in his world,
Speaker 1: but his his state was a mess of lawsuits. Multiple
Speaker 1: women came forward with eternity claims that the remaining members
Speaker 1: of the Doors wanted a fair share of royalties. Pamela
Speaker 1: got a little bit of money from the estate as
Speaker 1: the legal battles wore on, but it wasn't enough to
Speaker 1: live on, especially give him. The heroine habit she continued
Speaker 1: to harbor more than the lack of money, though. It
Speaker 1: was the memory of Jim, the memory of that morning
Speaker 1: in the bathroom. She couldn't let it go. Her heroin
Speaker 1: habit got worse. She described herself as Jim's wife. Despite
Speaker 1: everything that had happened, she was expecting Jim to return.
Speaker 1: He'd show up one day. It would have all been
Speaker 1: a sick joke. People would whisper conspiracy theories in her ear, friends, strangers,
Speaker 1: even people in the doors in her circle. They tell
Speaker 1: her that it wasn't even Jim's body and the coffin,
Speaker 1: and she was scared to death that they were right,
Speaker 1: that Gym was somewhere, had been somewhere all along, waiting
Speaker 1: for her. But while she waited, she had nowhere else
Speaker 1: to turn to, no one else to turn to. She
Speaker 1: went deeper in, give in to the addiction, gave into
Speaker 1: the darkness, and three years after Jim died in Pamela
Speaker 1: was dead of a heroin overdose. She was seven. The
Speaker 1: doors weren't at Jim Morrison's funeral, neither were his family
Speaker 1: or his friends. The ceremony of Pelich Cemetery at Division
Speaker 1: six was attended by Pamela, Bill Siddons, two of Jim's
Speaker 1: friends in Paris, photographer Alan Rene and French new wave
Speaker 1: filmmaker Agnes Varda, and jim secretary Robin Werde. The cemetery
Speaker 1: was also the final resting place of fellow Leo Tell
Speaker 1: guests Oscar Wild, as well as Edith Piaf and Frederick Chopin.
Speaker 1: It was a Wednesday, July see it was like a
Speaker 1: funeral for someone that no one really knew, and Bill
Speaker 1: thought of the unknown soldier, because he still wasn't one
Speaker 1: pcent positive that the ceremony they staged was for the
Speaker 1: person who was in the box or not. How could
Speaker 1: he ever be sure? When he got back to the States.
Speaker 1: Raymond z Eric shared his skepticism. How would any of
Speaker 1: them ever know? That it had all happened so fast?
Speaker 1: Pamela didn't know what to do when the French authorities
Speaker 1: gave it barely a moment's notice and suddenly had to
Speaker 1: get the body in the ground before a word had
Speaker 1: time to spread, before the body and the coffin had
Speaker 1: tied to rot the body, none of them who knew
Speaker 1: Jim had actually seen. Jim was buried before most of
Speaker 1: the world knew what had actually happened, that he was
Speaker 1: actually dead and gone five months before his birth day,
Speaker 1: and the grave side soon became its own rock and
Speaker 1: roll circus. Long after the Ceed Underground Club closed shop.
Speaker 1: It became mecca for fans from all over the world,
Speaker 1: Fans who brought flowers, bottles of boos, drawings, candles, potted plants,
Speaker 1: makeshift crosses, seashells, poems, lyrics. People would travel to visit
Speaker 1: Jim's grave and make a day of it, and afternoon
Speaker 1: and evening, they let up cigarettes and waxed poetic about
Speaker 1: this world and the next about art and poetry and music.
Speaker 1: They take a hit from a joint, leaned back and
Speaker 1: that heads resting on the bellies of others, contemplating the sky,
Speaker 1: contemplating death, contemplating life. At first, the grave wasn't properly marked,
Speaker 1: and so the fans did the marking themselves. Jim's family
Speaker 1: and the other members of the Doors had a hard
Speaker 1: time properly grieving grave side because it was a constant zoo.
Speaker 1: The cult of Jim Morrison wasn't going anywhere. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was coalescing here grave side. Some like John Densmore,
Speaker 1: didn't visit the grave side for years for other reasons. John,
Speaker 1: like the others the band, hated seeing Jimbo dragged Jim
Speaker 1: down a cliche inevitable path to self sabotage. Jim was
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing and Jimbo ruined it. Three years after
Speaker 1: Jim's death, John was finally able to travel to Pere
Speaker 1: la Chaise to pay his respects. On the tenth anniversary
Speaker 1: of Jim staff and actual headstone was finally installed. The
Speaker 1: headstone and an accompanying bust of Jim were created by
Speaker 1: Mlada mcculkin, a Croatian artist and fan of the doors.
Speaker 1: The zoo that passed through the cemetery scrowled on the
Speaker 1: bust and black marker and in paint, defiling it with
Speaker 1: names and dates and messages. Pieces of the bust were
Speaker 1: broken off when it was stolen in mccullin's once generous
Speaker 1: homage was a decimated shadow of its original self. In
Speaker 1: December of nine, Jim's family had the trashy grave site
Speaker 1: cleaned up and a brand new headstone installed with the
Speaker 1: bronze plaque. Jim's mother and father stood in front of
Speaker 1: the grave site for a few moments. It was the
Speaker 1: first time they had been near their sun in years.
Speaker 1: And then on July twenty, anniversary or Jim's death, the
Speaker 1: cemetery gates caught fire at midnight. Thousands descended upon the
Speaker 1: pair of shades, ready to honor the memory of Jim
Speaker 1: Morrison with the thing he had both subtly and over
Speaker 1: he tried to get his audiences to do over the
Speaker 1: years right. Jimmy tried to take them there years ago,
Speaker 1: egged them on to throw chairs and yell at cops
Speaker 1: and upend the status quo in general. They got close
Speaker 1: to full blown ma'am on a few occasions, and now,
Speaker 1: twenty years after he had left them, they would finally
Speaker 1: give him the chaos he craved. Cars were flipped over,
Speaker 1: fights broke out, bruises, blood destruction. The riot squad was
Speaker 1: called in and the tear gas flew, and the cops
Speaker 1: clashed with the fans. The giant wooden doors at the
Speaker 1: entrance of the cemetery went up in flames. This blood
Speaker 1: in the streets, it's up to my ankles. Even in death,
Speaker 1: Jim inspired and uprising the eternal upsetter, And even in death,
Speaker 1: the authorities stepped in before Jim's revolution went too far.
Speaker 1: They beat back the rioters, sent them home and courting
Speaker 1: off the area around Jim's gravestone. In two thousands sixteen,
Speaker 1: a councilman from Jim's hometown in Florida made a bid
Speaker 1: to relocate Jim's grave from Paris to the Sunshine State.
Speaker 1: The French and the Doors management both had a good
Speaker 1: laugh over that one. Jim shrine wasn't going anywhere Florida Man.
Speaker 1: The Door's original lineup only released six studio albums in
Speaker 1: the span of four short years. Despite the brevity of
Speaker 1: their output, their legacy has grown to mythic proportions. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, the Doors catalog was flying off record
Speaker 1: store shelves, aided in part by Electra's decision to drop
Speaker 1: the list price on half of their LPs. The Doors
Speaker 1: sold more albums after Jim Morrison's death than they ever
Speaker 1: did when he was alive. Francis Ford Coppola's nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine film Apocalypse Now may have had something to do
Speaker 1: with the rise and popularity. It's You, So the End
Speaker 1: is iconic and became a model for rock music and
Speaker 1: movies about the Vietnam War. Despite the graveside shrine and
Speaker 1: the post mortem record sales, the rumors persist, as rumors do,
Speaker 1: that he faked his own death. That Jim Morrison hopped
Speaker 1: up Playe in Paris early on that morning of July
Speaker 1: three and was never seen again. That there's nothing but
Speaker 1: sand in his coffin, That he's living as a poet
Speaker 1: on the streets of New York City, That he opened
Speaker 1: a ranch in Oregon. Jim Morrison, the poet, the artist
Speaker 1: was he real? Jim Marrison, the drunk, the oh was
Speaker 1: he real. Jim Marris and the revolutionary, the upstart, the
Speaker 1: challenger of norms? What about him? Was he real? And
Speaker 1: Jim Morrison, the dilettante, the tenderfoot, the poser? How about him?
Speaker 1: What was fantasy and what was the truth? With Jim Morrison,
Speaker 1: sometimes the genius moments were a masquerade. At other times
Speaker 1: they were super real. Sometimes he played the role of
Speaker 1: the fool, and it was tough to say in those
Speaker 1: moments that the joke was on him or us, or
Speaker 1: if it was a joke at all, or books his
Speaker 1: life for perhaps even his death. I'm Jake Brennan, and
Speaker 1: this is the seven Club, all right. The twenty seven
Speaker 1: Club is scored and co written by myself, Jake Brennan.
Speaker 1: Zeth Blundy is the lead writer and editor on the show.
Speaker 1: Matt Bowden mixes the show. Additional music and score elements
Speaker 1: by Ryan Spreaker in Henrynetta and The Seven Club is
Speaker 1: produced by myself for Double Elvis and partnership with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Sources for this episode are available at Double
Speaker 1: Elvis dot com on the twenty seven Club series page.
Speaker 1: And The seven Club is released weekly every Thursday. Season
Speaker 1: one features twelve episodes on Jimmie Hendricks, which are all
Speaker 1: available for you to binge right now wherever you get
Speaker 1: in podcasts, and if you like what you hear, please
Speaker 1: be sure to subscribe to the twenty seven Club on
Speaker 1: Apple podcast to I Heart Radio Apple wherever you get goes.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to win a free twenty seven
Speaker 1: Club poster designed by the man himself, Nate Gonzalez, then
Speaker 1: leave a review for twenty seven Club on Apple podcasts
Speaker 1: or hashtag subscribe to seven Club on social media and
Speaker 1: we'll pick two winners each week and announce them on
Speaker 1: the Double Elvis Instagram page that's at Double Elvis and
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to give that a fall, So get
Speaker 1: out there and spread the word about twenty seven Club.
Speaker 1: And as always, you can find me blabbing about other
Speaker 1: crazy rock stars and my other shows Disgrace, Lam and
Speaker 1: Blood on the tracks and you can talk to me
Speaker 1: per usual on Instagram and Twitter at Disgrace Land Rock ROLLA.
Speaker 1: What's up your ear is