The first stop was Jack Kerouac's On The Road. I remember mispronouncing Kerouac's name at the time. I remember my mother going into the hospital for an operation the night I began the book. I'm a fast reader. I can also read and sing along to whatever is on the stereo and remember what I've read. But On The Road went slowly. I'd never encountered such freewheeling language in a book. The long and exuberant sentences were a wonder to my youthful mind. By the time I got to the Mexican trip toward the end of the novel, I was transfixed. I found out that it was a "hippie bible" but even then I didn't understand this. I recognized the elements of freedom and a rather sedate rebellion, but I focused more on the relationship of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty. I guess Sal shared some characteristics with the hippies because he always had a place to freeload in his aunt's house, but I dug him because he seemed to stand apart from everything around him, which was much the way I felt as an adolescent. I refused to take Nabokov's advice and I identified with characters I read about. As an only child I could find in Moriarty the brother figure I never had in reality. It did save me from imitating Moriarty's laugh, which is what Sugarman reported Morrison as doing. In due time, I learned that On The Road was disguised autobiography, a small piece of what Kerouac was to have dubbed the "Dulouz Legend", the story of his life. Later I saw movie footage of both Kerouac and Neal Cassaday, the real life Moriarty. Even before I knew these things, I regarded the book as one of longing. A longing for a disappearing America, the longing for youth fast fading, the longing for a true friend seemed to be the crux of it. By this point in time, I was trading mix tapes of independent bands with some friends.
One of those friends provided me the next great book of my youth, Frank Herbert's Dune, which happens to be another hippie manual. And it's also a great teenage read. Dune is another slow read. It could be read fast, but like a final cigarette of the day, you want it to last. It's sci-fi on a grand scale that just torched my young mind. Who could have read this novel without lusting for a taste of the spice, mélange? Or wished that their mother was secretly a Bene Gesserit? Dune is another perfect book for a young high school kid. High school is bewildering and strange and it often feels like you're lost in a desert. If you don't endup in the right clique you could end up socially dead and adulthood and college seem too far away to even contemplate. Of course there were sequels galore until now Frank Herbert's son even writes Dune books today, but the original was enough for me.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - dbcooper
What a great read Wally. I related to so much of this that I thought I would add a comment. I too read No One Here Gets Out Alive in high school, and in many ways it had a profound affect upon me. I also tracked down the extensive reading list of Morrison documented in his bio, and was introduced to the fantastic works of the Beat Generation.
I re-read No One Here Gets Out Alive recently for the first time in many years, and strategic attempts at building an icon were far more obvious than during my high school days. Today, I am saddened when I read about Morrison, mainly because his death apparently was such an unintentional tragedy. I am of the opinion that The Doors' greatest album was their final one LA Woman. In many ways, it is a testament to what could have been. I don't think Morrison was going to escape jail time due to the Miami debacle. And I believe a part of the reason he fled to Paris was to escape the potential of incarceration (documented in a fine Rolling Stone article). He was alone in Paris in so many ways.
Their music transcends the 1960s, and it serves as a link between the rebellion of the 1950s through to 1970s and 1980s. When we mention great rock bands, it seems like within the first breath we spat the English Beatles, Stones and Zepplin. We can say Elvis, bred in the Southern U.S., schooled on the rock and blues of that region. The Doors sprouted from the suburbs of the U.S., well-schooled and sick of the very lifestyles that eventually were adorned in Journey t-shirts. Their music, like the works of Kerouac and Ginsberg and Salinger, transcends an era. The anger allows us to pull ourselves from the muck of American conformity. We have civilization. But The Doors started many of us on the road to culture.
2 - wally bangs
Thanks for the compliment. Your comments are just as good if not better. I agree with your Doors viewpoint too. They really did make some ground shaking stuff, but Morrison's iconic image always got in the way even before Sugarman was builting him up post death.
"The Doors sprouted from the suburbs of the U.S., well-schooled and sick of the very lifestyles that eventually were adorned in Journey t-shirts. " - what an awesome quote, db.
3 - Eric Olsen
being from L.A. and being functionally alive at the time, I had a lot of built-in resistance to the Doors but I eventually succumbed and think they really are great and iconic. I think the first and last albums are the best, so I mostly agree there. They never could escape the filler, though, and I think the first has less of that.
I am a huge Salinger fan and reading him in my late-teens really did change how I looked at reading and writing, realizing the possibilities had only been scratched, although Catcher in the Rye is my least favorite of his tiny body of published works.
Though if I reread it now I would doubtless be disappointed, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maint had a huge impact on me too, and led me to add a second major, philosophy.
Thanks Wally, super job.
4 - wally bangs
I've never read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, although I've always had an interest in Zen. I agree that Catcher In The Rye is the least of Salinger's works, preferring Nine Stories and Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters myself. Thanks for the kind words.
5 - Eric Olsen
based on your other interests I would strongly encourage you to check out Zen, although it isn't really about zen at all
6 - HW Saxton
Interesting post Wally.Judging from your
taste,you might well enjoy reading the
book "Confederacy Of Dunces" written by
John Kennedy O'Toole. It is one of the
ultimate "outcast" books.You'll either
love it or you'll hate it depending on
your worldview. That is if you haven't
already read it.
7 - Eric Berlin
Wally - This is one of the best posts I've seen yet on Blog Critics. It's amazing how closely I related to much of it.
I was introduced to The Doors during my Junior year of High School by way of the Oliver Stone film. I remember not enjoying it very much, but something about it -- and especially the music -- fascinated me. Soon I had We Could Be So Good Together and Peace Frog and Maggie M'Gill blaring through my Walkman and my nose into No One Here Gets Out Alive. As I later read Kerouac and became very interested in his life, I began to see that I was drawn (like many young men) to these darkly romantic, drunken poet-philosopher figures. What's funny is that both Kerouac and Morrison were, especially later in life, nearly unbearable to be around.
The sound of The Doors has always been immensely appealing to me: Manzarek's organ, the hollow sound, jazzy backbeat, the dark and strange lyrics. More recently, I became very interested in Manzarek and was surprised at how much I enjoyed his memoir of his days with The Doors (Light My Fire, it's called). He also wrote an enjoyable little novel in which he envisions a fictionalized Jim who faked his death and finds peace on an island in the Indian Ocean. I began to see Morrison and Manzarek as a ying and yang (or yang and ying?) combination that made The Doors what they were and are. I had the pleasure of seeing Manzarek live with poet Michael McClure (a friend of Morrison's and beat figure) performing at a strange little mission church in San Francisco a few years ago.
Catcher was another big novel for my youth, though On the Road was what really was one of the most important in terms of setting the stage for my travels and yearning to find myself and the writer I would later become.
In terms of the Zen talk: I'm curious what people think of Dharma Bums. I really enjoyed it, though I'm (almost) amazed at the influence it's said to have had on the hippie movement and the Backpack Beatniks, etc.
By the way: I reviewed Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend by Stephen Davis about a week ago. It gives a much fuller and richer (and more realistic) picture of Morrison's life than Sugarman's serviceable work.
Eric Berlin
Dumpster Bust: Miracles from Mind Trash
8 - wally bangs
The comments on my post have been more interesting than the post, in my opinion. HW - I came to Confederacy Of Dunces later in life around when I was 30. It is one of the top books I've ever read (right up there with Abbey's A Fool's Progress, I even try to make a point of re-reading it every year.
Eric, I'll have to check out both the Manzarek book along with the Stephen Davis book.
9 - Mark Saleski
excuse my french, but son-of-a-bitch that was a fine read.
also, On The Road is one of my favorite book, though i didn't discover kerouac until far beyond my college years.
10 - Shark
Nice post. I love to read about life changing books. (It's almost as interesting as hearing about life-changing teachers.)
One small caveat: In 1966 and 1967, the Doors were not a "teeny-bopper" band.
No way.
We Doors fans who were contemporaries of Jim Morrison (yah, I'm ancient) were doing acid, Rimbaud, Tzara, Jarry, French New Wave films, Maldoror, Sade, Nietzche, et al.
Although a lotta young girls creamed in their bell bottoms over Morrison, the Doors were, in the early days, about as far from a "teeny-bopper" band as one can get.
At least if memory serves.
As to the vibe in 1985 (your high school era) I dunno. I cuturally and psychologically punched out in the 80s and didn't come back until 1990.
PS: Saw the Doors live 3 times. Early, Middle, and Late (next to last show ever) Periods.
Jealous, ain't cha.
PPS: Dharma Bums is better than On the Road, imo.
PPPS: Morrison Hotel is the best album (after the first, of course)
11 - Distorted Angel
Simply a great post, Wally. It's interesting to me how it caused me to flash back to my own youth, which took place many years prior to your own - it's funny how the same cultural influences are showing up twenty years down the road. The Doors were one of the bands that shaped my high school music experience -- I sort of got to see them live the night that Morrison got arrested and dragged offstage in New Haven -- not much of a concert, but one hell of an experience for a young girl growing up in the '60s. My dad, who didn't graduate high school but read more books than anyone I've ever known in my life, got me started on Kerouac with On The Road. And it seems like Catcher In The Rye is every generation's coming of age book -- I read it, and my son read it just a few years ago. Apart from the usual surface generational differences in music and clothes, there's a universality of experience among those of us that survived the experience that is high school in America that I find very interesting.
12 - Eric Berlin
Shark: I'm beyond jealous. I'd love to hear all about The Doors shows that you saw -- the more the better.
The cloest comparison that my relatively young self can make is that I saw Nirvana live in Buffalo, New York about six months before his untimely end. Great show, great road trip, great memories.
13 - dbcooper
Shark did indeed see the second-to-last Doors show of all time. It was in Dallas at the State Fair Music Hall. They played two shows that day. They are the only concerts in which "LA Woman" and "Riders on the Storm" were ever performed live before an audience.
The Doors last concert (or last with Jim Morrison) was a day later in New Orleans when a despairing (and drunk) Morrison quit midway through the fourth song.
I am impressed Shark.
14 - Mark Saleski
dang, i never saw the Doors.
i did see Angel though...
;-)
15 - JR
More fluid than Jeff Beck?
16 - Shark
DB, you are correct re. the Dallas show. Morrison & Co. were great during the first show. He got drunk for the second, and depending on your take, was either worse or better.
EBerlin, the first show was in the early summer of 67. They played a small teen marketing extravaganza at "The Roundup Inn" (the Friday night "teen-a-go-go" locale!) in Cowtown, aka Fort Worth. They played in the late afternoon. Stage was a small chunk of plywood about six inches off the ground. We punks were standing around about ten feet from the band. It was like a garage rehearsal, except they kicked ass -- and ended with "The End."
Oy.
"Break on Thru" had been out for a while, and "Light My Fire" was just about to break on thru into the national consciousness. This was just prior to that moment.
Matter of fact, they were so relatively unknown, GET THIS, they were they played and were billed under The Box Tops and the really big headliners, The Seeds.
You're pushing too hard.
Wherez *Sky Saxon today, btw?
*dead, i think
17 - Shark
PS: A listing of the bands I've seen live would make ya faint.
I still have a ticket stub for Hendrix' first tour (opening bands: Moving Sidewalks and Soft Machine!)
Concert ticket was ---
THREE DOLLARS.
What a great time to be a rock music fan.
18 - Shark
And my wife saw the Beatles in 64.
What a fossil.
19 - Eric Berlin
Ah but Shark, how's this lineup for the first several concerts I had the pleasure of seeing as a youngster in Long Island, New York:
- Skid Row (S Bach at his late 80s best)
- Bonham (featuring the son of Led Zed's legendary drummer... one highlight: cover of Moby Dick)
- Dangerous Toys (featuring "hit": Teasin' Pleasin')
And, get this...
- Aerosmith's Pump tour live at Nassau Coliseum: more black leather and Harley Davidson shirts and bleach blondes and hairspray than you could shake a stick at.
No wonder I listened to Classic Rock almost exclusively until about 1989 or so.
20 - Shark
Eric,
Who?
How's this for the first few concerts as young kid...
(Just off the top of my head:)
The Animals (w/Eric Burdon)
Spirit
The Byrds
Miles Davis
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
Jefferson Airplane (way pre-starship)
Janis Joplin
Led Zepplin (3 times)
Cream (twice)
Blind Faith
Sam & Dave
Doors (3 times)
Hendrix (twice)
Delaney, Bonnie & Friends (w/Clapton)
Grand Funk
Chicago 'Transit Authority' (opened on Hendrix 2nd tour)
Canned Heat
Jethro Tull
Yes (before they were bad)
Soft Machine (best concert in history!)
Fever Tree
13th Floor Elevators
Crosby, Stills, Nash
Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young
John McLaughlin
Free <--(I'm one of about 8 people)
There's plenty more, I'm sure, but those brain cells are a bit on the roasted side...
21 - Eric Berlin
Shark: You're trying to piss me off, right? Well, it worked.
Except for the confusion and (hard) drugs and war and lack of good TV and Internet, I'd dearly love to transport myself to about 1965 or so for a dope seven year ride or so.
I'd take up the free love and the music though for sure.
22 - Eric Berlin
Seriously, here are the Top 5 concerts I've seen live, off the Top of my Head:
- Rage Against the Machine, NYC
- Nirvana, Buffalo NY
- Mighty Mighty Boss Tones, Albany NY ('93 or so)
- Perfect Thyroid, Binghamton NY
- Black Crowes, Ithaca NY
Bonus:
- Brother Meat (who no one has heard of), Bing NY
Long live the Brother!
23 - andy marsh
Damn Shark, I didn't know you were THAT old!
24 - wally bangs
Man, this has turned into a blast to read. Seeing The Doors live must have been just fantastic. Even better would have the Miles Davis I saw listed.
The first real concert I attended was Van Halen on the 1984 tour. Soon I was going to all of the metal shows that hit Nashville, TN until I started hitting the club scene a few years later. I've seen lots of great shows since, but the most memorable one was actually a local Murfreesboro, TN band one night. The band was called Jack (and they're still playing) who had been together since 1987 or so. I'd played on some bills with them before, but they were always terrible with most of their shows degenerating into fist fights between themselves, but by 1994 they had become a tight unit wailing a Sonics, Pere Ubu, Creedence, Captain Beefheart type mix of stunning original tracks with a handful of really obscure cover songs. Damn they knocked my ears back that night. The transcendent glory of rock and roll was upon them then.
25 - Eric Olsen
First few shows: Deep Purple, Springsteen and the first E Street Band opening for Wishbone Ash, Queen and Babe Ruth, Roxy Music and Camel, Bowie with the Spiders, Lynyrd Skynyrd in a high school gym, BTO and Aerosmith - hey, it isn't Shark's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but it wasn't bad for the early-'70s