Father Lachaise: I Vecino Jim Morrison
It extends the night on the neighborhood The Swamp and an impassive figure receives from one of the attics of the Street Fine Arts while watching the bustle of the last Jews who close their businesses. It extends the night on Le Marais and lights Paris seem to greet going on slowly, rhythmically, trembling like a symphony. The figure moves a bit in the frame of the window, slow, almost flirtatiously, and leaves us guessing a gaunt young and hairy. If carefully scrutinize his frown, discover that behind it lurks the determination that has crossed the boundaries of fear, the glory and oblivion. In his indifferent gaze recognize someone who is turning out the last of his life. But even more surprised to know that we just recently turned 27 years. Suddenly interrupted the stillness of the scene a female voice.- ¡Jimmy, What are you doing?, Are you coming? -The silhouette wavers, seems to hesitate a moment and gives us one last time before disappearing into the shadows of the apartment. -Pam Coming! .The last Jews of Le Marais go to their synagogue and Paris is now just a flood of stars in the night 7 July 1971.
If there is a destination that deserves a place of honor in the obituary tourism and pilgrimage to Mecca groupies of shrouds, that is none other than the cemetery of Pere Lachaise
From the pages of Travel to the past and many posts have been dedicated to cemeteries, famous festivals obituaries or graves. Actually few of us can remove ourselves from the morbid curiosity that causes us death. So, many gravestones become mythomaniacs pilgrimages to that observed with fascination lies this or that celebrity looking even forget for a moment that, after a time, macabre museum is now contemplating his inevitable fate and shared. But if there is a destination that deserves a place of honor in the obituary and a tourism Mecca pilgrimage for groupies of shrouds, that is none other than the cemetery of Pere Lachaise and the jewel in its crown, the tomb of James William Morrison.
It has been 6 years since I left Paris, I remember how from my home in the nearby Boulevard Charonne every morning he took the subway to go to college, and despite his sinister the imposing gates of Pere Lachaise, already crowded with tourists, seemed to wish me a good day. These days I return to Paris, let me snuggle with nostalgia, I visit my old neighborhood and, without realizing, I find myself wandering among the graves and the cemetery.
Hiking in the cemetery
Father Lachaise, has all the ingredients that should have a cemetery that price. Or so we imagine that cemetery in an afternoon rain like a soap opera scenario of Alan Poe. Dark appearance, bare trees and twisted, moldy headstones neglected and persistent mist and a feature of the cemetery that insists on wrap, while the remainder of Paris sudemos to 40 degrees. If anything defines Pere Lacheise their "celebrities": Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Proust, Balzac, Modigliani…The list is endless familiar characters, Lacheise Pere appeal to the traveler is, after buying a plane at the entrance, embark on a scavenger hunt in endless and difficult bounding between graves, peering like a bloodhound to collect their entire collection of stiffs. Among these treasures the most coveted is chromium, certainly, that of Jim Morrison.
Les presento a Bobby Marshall, Pere Lachaise informal guide, human encyclopedia on the grave, half poet, half tramp, survivor in Paris
Once more, I undertake the same way, this time without top, six years later meet again with the same feeling of annoyance, tired and lost. Today there are not many tourists; I can not go by the crowd. And suddenly…..There is!
Disappears after chasing a mausoleum, so fleeting that for a moment think that the memories I have played a trick. But, the same curly hair and almost sparse, the same look of lunatic. Runs around in the gravel, Grita in a tourist, laughs out loud, behind a tomb for a couple of cuckoo Japanese. I present to Bobby Marshall, Pere Lachaise informal guide, human encyclopedia on the grave, half poet, half tramp, survivor in Paris.
Bobby Marschall, rogue and master of Pere Lachaise
The first time I visited the cemetery and looked for the inevitable grave of Bobby Morrison looked like an apparition, wearing a shirt The Doors, covered with beads and muttering a French infumable, offered for just one euro to take to the grave of Jimmyy to real or invented anywhere in the confines of Pere Lachaise. At the same time possibly in the city Morrison, Bobby is one of those Americans who swarm Paris still spellbound by the charm of the city and embraced his own madness. Quirky successor of the Miller, Fitzgerald the Hemingway, their world are the five acres of the cemetery.
Know by heart the life of Jim Morrison and every person in the cemetery , moves between their tombstones as if it were a playful faun, tireless stops at each and every one of them to tell a story. Cemetery staff let him do indulgently. I have sometimes thought that sleep huddled at the foot of one of their tombstones. Who go to Pere Lachaise and wants to enjoy a unique experience, I advise you to take Bobby as a guide.
The first thing you notice is the many bottles and cigarette packs around the stone
After a while it get your attention and hold it, obviously no me reconoce. He gives me a funny look between demented and. "A Morrison's grave", I say exhausted, putting a dollar in the hands.
-It's there behind!- tell me, Quickly pocketing money and climbing the fence while I was making the sign of a lookout.
Fantastic! It was already just 40 meters! With less groupies than at other times, hidden between two gigantic mausoleums is the tomb of his lordship Jim Morrison. Small and modest, the first thing you notice is the many bottles and cigarette packs around the stone.
The atmosphere is special about. A couple rolls a spliff while sounding a battered transistor chords of The End, others write poems carefully placed in the tomb. A Canadian dreadlocks endless lights a cigarette and places it carefully at the foot of the grave. The atmosphere is friendly, almost reverential. Pau and Sofia tell me who have spent years waiting for this moment, have made the trip from Barcelona in van. Pieter takes pictures and gets to shed a furtive tear. So Bobby has stopped chattering and gun us with anecdotes to honor the rest of his god.
Morrison shrouded in mystery
Tras abandonar The Dors en 1971 Jim Morrison with his girlfriend embarked on a tour of Pamela France, Spain and North Africa, following the steps Rimbaud and seeking redemption through poetry. The 3 July 1971 Jim Morrison was found dead in the bathtub of his Marais apartment. Autopsy was not, but it was declared that he died of cardiac arrest, by death certificate.. Jim's father was said to have removed his son's body from the cemetery to take home, but sources of Pére Lachaise, the famous cemetery where he was buried, ensure that no one can take a body without knowing Administration. Also called into question the very fact of his death, as credit cards and passports are still in place. It is said that because he so specified in a will shortly before. The only ones who saw his body were his girlfriend and a doctor who no longer carried. Other versions claim that he suffered a heroin overdose in a bar and was later transferred to his home.
Pam, and back in Los Angeles and destroyed by heroin, repeated over and over again that Morrison was still alive and would someday go to search
Around this strange death have been many speculations. Several people said they saw him at a Paris cafe, wearing a black leather outfit, Although these rumors were never proven. It is also said that, after his death, a person claiming to be Jim Morrison and dressed like him, got money by writing checks in your name. Pam, and back in Los Angeles and destroyed by heroin, repeated over and over again that Morrison was still alive and would someday go to search.
Ray Manzanek, teclista de The Doors, said: "If a guy capable of staging his own death-creating a death certificate and paying a ridiculous French doctor- , put a bag of one hundred and fifty pounds in the coffin and go somewhere on this planet - Africa, who knows, that guy is Jim Morrison. He himself would be able to bring this to fruition ".
Jim Morrison died at 27 years like others like Brian Jones, Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin o Kurt Cobain. On his tomb can still read an epitaph written in ancient Greek («Kata ton daimona eaytoy») que se traduce como “de acuerdo con su propio demonio” o “fiel a su propio espíritu».
Night falls on Pere Lachaise and a guard tells us that it is time to go. I say goodbye to Bobby. So in another seven years, maybe
Night falls on the Marais. The silhouette of Jimmy long ago abandoned the window to meet Pam and his fate. Night falls on Pere Lachaise and a guard tells us that it is time to go. I say goodbye to Bobby. So in another seven years, maybe. Where to sleep now? Going down the Boulevard Charonne, I guess haggard types and manes impossible resonates in every brasserie as "Light My Fire" in my ears. And then I can not help but remember, in a treacherous blow nostalgia and pride, wonderful in that year that my neighbor Jim Morrison's wished me good morning every morning.
Comments (3)
Ann
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A luxury, Enrique.
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Enrique Vaquerizo
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Thanks Ana, Paris by yourself if that is a luxury
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Jorge Leonardo Flores
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Era James Douglas Morrison y no «James William Morrison» , as the article cites.
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