Morrison Jim

American singer, songwriter, poet and cult figure, the founding member and lead singer of the legendary rock group "The Doors," a top band of the 60s with mega-hits "Riders on the Storm" and "Light My Fire." Also known as The Lizard King or Mr. Mojo Risin, he is the author of "The Lords and the New Creatures," 1969. Morrison was the oldest of three children born to Navy Captain Steven Morrison and his wife Clara. His younger sister Anne was born in 1946 followed by brother Andy in 1949. The tumultuous events of World War II kept Captain Steve and his family in a peripatetic lifestyle, moving four times before Jim was four years old. When in Albuquerque, NM, he experienced "the most important moment of my life. "Me and my mother and father and my grandmother and grandfather were driving through the desert at dawn. A truckload of Indian workers had hit another car or something - there were Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death. So we pulled the car up. I must have been about four or five. I had to stay in the car while my father and grandfather went to check it out - all I saw was funny red paint and people lying around, but I knew something was happening, because I could dig the vibrations of the people around me. And all of a sudden I realize that they didnt know what was happening anymore than I did. That was the first time I tasted fear...and I do think, at that moment, the souls or the ghosts of those dead Indians - maybe one or two of em, were just running around, freaking out, and just leaped into my soul, and I was like a sponge, ready to just sit there and absorb it...And theyre still in there. Its not a ghost story, its something that really means something to me." Morrison was a minor terror and a problem child, but a voracious reader. Captain Steves naval career kept him on tour of duty for extended periods of time, leaving his prankster son with no male role model and no discipline. The responsibility of childrearing fell entirely on the somewhat eccentric Clara, who, engrossed with her two younger children, could not control her oldest son and left him to explore his fascination with reptiles, a passion which resulted in Morrison becoming the self-titled "Lizard King" in later years. During adolescence, Morrison was a good student who tested an IQ of 149, yet was continually in trouble due to his fundamental resentment of authority. A bright loner and natural rebel, he took direction from absolutely no one, adults or peers. After he received his diploma from George Washington High School in Alexandria, VA, in the mail because he didnt attend the graduation ceremony, he had no plans other than to read, write and drift. Without Morrisons prior knowledge, Captain Steve enrolled him in a community college in St. Petersburg, FL where Jim could attend classes while he lived nearby with his grandmother. "I couldnt think of anything else to do. I didnt learn much. School was easy. I didnt want to go in the army and I didnt want to work." Academics suited Morrison. After the first year he transferred to Florida State University to get more credits in theater and film. Making a career decision, he applied to the theater department at UCLA and he hitchhiked to California in 1964. Officially disowned by his parents at this point, Morrison became completely estranged from them, claiming they were deceased. Reveling in his freedom from family restriction at UCLA, Morrison began to drink heavi Read less