I'd heard “Light My Fire” on the car radio while driving Pacific Coast Highway and knew instantly that this group was special. Being asked to interview Jim Morrison for the Sunday Times, I took as another sign that Lady Luck was pulling the strings.
        When I learned that a new editor of Simon and Schuster was “jousting” with my editor to see who would head up the combined two companies, I never doubted that Herb Alexander would win. He was, after all, recognized as the most brilliant editor and top moneymaker in the book business. When I flew to New York to go over the latest plans for promoting Poorboy, Herb said it was sure to become a number 1 bestseller, which would launch the paperback, where the big money was. I told him I'd heard he was under attack from a new boss of S&S. Not to worry, he said, he had everything under control. “They have the literary prestige, but we have the money.” Then he winked and added, “We also have the best authors.”
        Back in LA, meeting Jim Morrison was to become a life-altering experience, even though we hung out together for only a few months. I knew I had something to learn from him, something about how to husband my individuality and live as an artist, but wasn't sure what that something was. Morrison was “a walking contradiction, partly truth and party fiction,” to use lines written by Kris Kristofferson. Sometimes he seemed totally crazed, other times he was brilliantly lucid. Were his crazed antics a form of protective camouflage? Or were they the price one paid for flying on the trapeze of genius over the abyss of madness?
        The following is adapted from an article published in 2008 by the literary magazine Perigee, edited by the novelist Duff Brenna at Cal State San Marcos, CA.

        One late afternoon as we sat staring out at the Pacific Ocean shrouded in fog—Jim, Beverly, and me—Jim mused that he'd never been to Las Vegas and wondered if we'd like to go there. Sure, I said. We have friends there. Let's do it.         
        A couple of days later, we picked up Jim at his “office,” a motel room on La Cienega, and drove to the apartment he shared with Pamela Courson to make a foursome. We parked at the bottom of the outside wooden steps to their second-floor apartment and Jim went bounding up.
        After about 15 minutes when he hadn't returned with Pamela, Bev and I decided to find out what was keeping them. At the bottom of the stairs, we were stopped by angry shouts coming from their apartment. They were having one of the fights which would eventually become legendary. Jim emerged and clomped down the steps, mumbling that Pamela was not coming.
        Jim and I took turns driving. When we got to Vegas we went to my poet friend Mike's apartment. Mike told us that our mutual friend Chaney was now maitre d' of a private dining room in Caesar's Palace. Although The Doors had released only one album by this time, their fame was already such that Mike and Chaney had arranged for us to get the red carpet treatment. We dined in high style in a private dining room with an overabundance of waiters whisking about, serving us a new splash of wine with each new course.

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