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Monday, November 8, 2010
News Jim Morrison wouldn't give a sh!t about your pardon, Crist
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 3:40 PM
This is an example of what I like to call political theater. Allow me to set the stage:
In the late 1960s, Jim Morrison, the brilliant lead singer of The Doors, began to veer off the rails. He was arrested several times between 1967 and 1970, usually for being drunk and disorderly and, once, for showing his cock on stage. The Doors call it "The Miami Incident."
Without some assemblage of the events which culminated in Jim Morrison's behavior on the night of March 1, 1969 at the Dinner Key Auditorium, one can only witness a small piece in a turbulent puzzle. A shrewd historian could, most likely, trace all of the significant moments in Morrison's short, brilliant life toward his ultimate destruction. Yet, Miami was that moment of fate when pressure strangled any thought of restraint and Jim lashed out once and for all time against the sex-symbol image he had dangled so tantalizingly at the media. The image the press had quickly preyed upon and proceeded to stretch and manipulate beyond any sense of reality. Jim had played along with the game in his youthful ignorance, but his disdain for this image intensified as he matured. He had hoped his audience would mature with him, look beyond the absurd to the relevance of his beloved words.When Jim finally arrived, it was obvious to everyone who knew him he was drunk, drunk beyond even Morrison standards. Jim was not a man to be reasoned with, even if his close associates hadn't been faced with thirteen thousand angry reasons why he'd better get on the stage. Morrison only needed a moment to size up the situation. While The Doors repeated the intro to Break on Through over and over, he bided his time at the side of the stage. When Jim finally crossed the stage and took the microphone, at least one tape-recorder ate up every word. You can still hear it if you want to, ask any hard-core Doors fan for an audio of the Miami concert. Just be forewarned, it wasn't Jim's finest hour.
When someone jumped on stage and drenched him with champagne, Jim took his shirt off. "Let's see a little skin, let's get naked." Damp clothing fell to the concrete floor. "I'm not talking about revolution, I'm not talking about guns and riots, I'm talking about love. Love one another. Love your brother, hug him ..."
Read on here.
Enter outgoing — meaning he lost in the last election — Florida Gov. Charlie Crist; he's thinking of pardoning Jim Morrison nearly 40 years after his death, making the act completely pointless, especially when he says things like this to reporters: “Candidly, it's something that I haven’t given a lot of thought to, but it's something I’m willing to look into in the time I have left,” Crist said. “Anything is possible.”
Hey, Crist: Get off the stage. No one gives a fuck about your asinine pardon; Jim wouldn't have given a fuck and, more, he would have been ashamed of your blatant public relations ego trip.
Now, close your eyes and listen to the words and think about what the poet meant by them:
Rhiannon "Rhi" Bowman is an independent journalist who contributes snarky commentary on Creative Loafing's CLog blog four days a week in addition to writing for several other local media organizations. To learn more, click the links or follow Rhi on Twitter.
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