Watch Still Ticking on a Dead Man's Wrist

The other day at work a Door's song came on the radio. "Light my Fire". One of the guys went nuts. Oh, The Door's are the greatest band! Listen to the way the so and so syncopates with the other so and so and you don't understand what Jim Morrison meant to rock and roll, he's the American Poet, and no one knows if he's dead or not, and Ray Manzarek, the keyboard player says he's not and blah, blah, blah. This guy might be all of 19 years old. But I'm not judging him. I too went through my Door's phase. I think everybody does, or should. But I broke on through to the other side and have decided how sad it must have been to be Jim Morrison.

I kept my mouth shut. Resisting the temptation to jump into the one-sided discussion with my tidbits of "did you kow his headstone was stolen in 1990?" I just thought: have I come so far in life that I just don't care? I know now that our beloved Lizard King was just a casualty to drugs with charisma. He's the American Poet, alright, dead at 27. It's been said that the greatest career move one can make is to die. Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis... on and on... Kurt Cobain? The poet of my generation? I don't think so. "Oh well, whatever, nevermind" is not my anthem. All these guys are just Keith Richards with a lifespan.

But I can't help but remember those feelings I once had about The Door's and how, in a way, I wish I could have it back. But we move through this life... we turn pages... we worry over mortgages, kids, life and suddenly Jimi Hendrix choking to death on his own vomit doesn't move us like it used to.

And the bottom line of this reader-skimmed blog entry is what happens eternally to these people? I'm reminded of a great tune by Steve Taylor:

I stay driven 'cause there's nowhere to park. I can't shut my eyes--I'm afraid of the dark. I lie awake, that stone left me chilled to the bone. Sound the alarm before it's done: find Jim Morrison. Come away to Paris, let him see another day. Let him fade out slowly, only fools burn away. Let a true love show him what a heart can become. Somebody find Jim Morrison. Find Jim Morrison's grave. I get weary, Lord, I don't understand, how does a seed get strangled in the heart of a man? When the music covers like an evening mist, like a watch still ticking on a dead man's wrist... tick away.