Lisciandro F.J. - Jim Morrison: Friends Gathered Together

Published by Vision Words & Wonder, LLC

Copyright 2014 by FRANK J. LISCIANDRO

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book many be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the publisher: Vision Words & Wonder LLC. (VisionWordsandWonder.com)

This book is dedicated to Angelina Chiofalo & Rose Lisciandro, in memoriam.

All Photographs including front & back cover Copyright 2014 Frank Lisciandro, with the following exceptions: pp.81 & 243 2014 Katherine Poma and Frank Lisciandro;

p.11 Fud Ford; p.103 Ron Alan; p.108 John Garetti; p.209 Michael McClure;

p.317 Eva Gardonyi Hormel

Book & Cover design by Frank Lisciandro

Frank Lisciandros Acknowledgements

My gratitude to Jims friends who allowed me to record our conversations; their participation, stories and insights are the heart of the book. Thanks to Judi Bernards for her keen-sighted corrections & suggestions; to Irv Wiswall for his crucial tech help; to Dee Boyles & James Dowlen for their design mentoring; to Richard Cheverton and Carolyn Nicotra for their support and advice; to Alyssa Townsend for guidance with social media. My special thanks to Steve Wheeler whose skill, enthusiasm, persistence and Doors-savvy made him the ideal editor for these pages.

Steven P. Wheelers Acknowledgements

Thanks to my wife, Maggie, for her unlimited patience and the support of family and friends. Id also like to acknowledge top Doors researcher Len Sousa and the online community of fans who keep the spirit of Jim Morrison alive. Special thanks to Frank Lisciandro for many years of friendship, and for trusting me with your memories and these illuminating transcripts that make up this vital addition to the Morrison legacy.

Permission to reproduce printed text from the following sources is gratefully acknowledged:

Villard Books: Wilderness, 1988 by Columbus and Pearl Courson;

Villard Books: The American Night 1990 by Wilderness Publications.

Simon & Schuster: The Lords and The New Creatures 1969, 1970 by James Douglas Morrison.

ISBN - 978-0991252527

ISBN- 0991252527

Second Edition Printed and bound in the United States of America

For information about print purchases, or use rights, for any photograph in this book, contact: FrankLisciandro.com

Disclaimer: This book is designed to provide information about James Douglas (Jim) Morrison. The opinions expressed are those of Jims friends (the people interviewed) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher. The author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.

Jim, quiet and shy, was in many of my film classes; Ray and I
hung out together and talked movies, beat writers, rock music...

Kathy Lisciandro, John Haeny, Jim Morrison & Frank Lisciandro, December 8, 1970

In the following chapters, I talk with thirteen of Jim Morrisons friends to try to unravel the mystery of who he was. If youre curious about who I am and my connection to Jim, this chapter will provide a rough sketch. And if youre wondering how this book came about, please read on.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and seduced by documentary photography when I was a young teenager. I wanted to be a photojournalist. After high school I enrolled at Michigan State University where I learned how to tell stories with photographs and words. In 1962 I left MSU, took a Yugoslavian freighter to Europe and spent a year traveling with a motor scooter and almost no money. The resulting education in personal economics and self-preservation was outstanding; I returned to the USA, moved to California and enrolled at UCLA to study filmmaking. A fateful decision!

The film classes at UCLA were creative, technical, practical and fun; my fellow students were, for the most part, talented, self-confident and smart. Among them were Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek. Jim, quiet and shy, was in many of my classes; Ray and I hung out together and talked movies, beat writers, rock music, spiritualism and psychedelic drugs.

After graduating from UCLA, I was offered a job at a Hollywood film studio. With the war in Vietnam raging out of control, I expected a draft notice from the US Army with travel plans that included Southeast Asia. My wife Kathy and I believed that it was more humane to help people in less fortunate places than participate in a war we didnt support. Instead of going to work at Universal Studios, or being drafted as a soldier, we joined the Peace Corps.

In the year before we left for our assignments in Togo, West Africa, Morrison and Manzarek had formed a band: The Doors. We were there for their opening night at The London Fog, their first Sunset Strip gig. Dozens of new bands were surfacing in Los Angeles and San Francisco every week; everyone with an instrument and three chords was making music.

In Africa during the summer of 1967The Summer of Love as it was hyped by the mediaI was supervising the digging of water wells in one of the least developed countries in the world, while back in California people were flocking to free concerts in open spaces like Golden Gate Park and Griffith Park. Trying to work and survive in Togo was a constantly evolving surreal adventure. About ten months after arriving, we received a months-old Time magazine that had an article about The Doors first album. Reading about the success of our friends while we were living in a mud-hut village added to the surrealism of our situation.

When we returned to California, I started working on documentary film crews. In July 1968, Paul Ferrara, another Film School buddy, asked me to operate a 16mm camera at The Doors Hollywood Bowl concert. Soon after the concert, Ray and Jim offered me the job of editing Feast of Friends, a documentary film the band was producing and that Paul had been shooting.

I accepted the job and set up a film editing space in the corner of a small room adjoining The Doors rehearsal studio. In those days, part of the work of a film editor involved long hours viewing and logging miles of footage in front of a small-screen Moviola. Jim began visiting and hanging out with me in the evenings. He was interested in what I was doing, and how the film was progressing. We watched and talked while I spliced together lengths of film to try out his ideas and suggestions.

While working on the film, I had been making photographs of The Doors on and off the road. Then early in the spring of 1969, Jim asked Paul Ferrara, Babe Hill and Ithe team responsible for making the documentaryto work with him on a new 35mm narrative film that he had written and was calling TheHitchhiker [later renamed HWY: An American Pastoral].

To clearly establish this film as his own project separate from his work with The Doors, Jim rented a production office in the Clear Thoughts Building in West Hollywood, where I again set up an editing room. During the months that Jim and I worked together on Feast of Friends and HWY, we became trusted friends as well as creative collaborators. I appreciated his sense of humor, his easy going manner and his quiet, brilliant intelligence.