Just saw Stone's 'The Doors' again. I guess it's been about fifteen years since first watched it.

And of course while it's a brilliant film, Stone's best, what it brought me to was the short, brilliant artistic career of Jim Morrison, and what a genius he was, though he was a complete nihilist...witness how eagerly he sought his death at the age of 27.

I was born in 1950, seven years after Morrison, and so was a little young to take full advantage of the Summer of Love in 1967. But even as a 16 year old, it was amazing until it went bad, which happened really fast, with kids like me crowding every street corner looking for sex, drugs, and music. And though I never saw them, I knew that their presence was electric and transforming. Jefferson Airplane was a little like that, too, bringing chaos and drama to what had been, in the past, a grey America.

And now, 57, with a tour of Vietnam in my past, and Nixon and all the obscene assassinations, not only Martin and Robert, but of others who wished to make change, I return to James Douglas Morrison and realize how brilliant he was.

Deranged, but brilliant.

But maybe that was the point, all along, and maybe I should have not been so safe with myself, at that.

The Monk Bought Lunch.