I graduated from high school in 1965 and then went to Cal State Long Beach. After Rich started helping with the Doors equipment, he started telling me about them, but I wasn't very interested. I didn't know who the Doors were, 'cause they hadn't had a hit yet. When he offered me a trip to San Francisco, I said 'OK, I'll go.'

We ended up sitting in the audience at this show at the Avalon Ballroom (May 12, 1967), watching this maniac. What I remember is Jim on stage. I wasn't affected one way or the other by meeting him, but when I saw him on stage I was more emotionally gripped and moved and disturbed than I had ever been at any similar type of thing.

I remember thinking, WHAT? What is he saying? What is he doing? I don't get it. And then he said something about 'Awkward instant/And the first animal is jettisoned/Legs furiously pumping/Their stiff green gallop' and I went, 'This guy is completely out of his mind,' But I was moved by it, I could feel it. It was the first time poetry had been a movie to me, the images were so strong that they came to mind in a photo form. I could see the horses jumping off the boat. I could see them drowning.

So what was my first impression of Jim? He scared me to death.



Copyright 2002 by Bill Siddons/ Waiting-forthe-Sun.net