Music and Remembrances ('cause it's my birthday)

"Music is real. Everything else is tricks, games and bullshit." -Marc Maron.

Warning: This post is going to be fairly random, and I might ramble a bit.

As this October 27th dawned my thoughts turned to Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain. I have outlived them by five years. When I was a small child my mother often drove us from point A to B to C as we listened to a '60s-'70s "oldies station" that was known as Fox 97 in Atlanta. Fox 97 is now "The River" (or some such bullshit), and it plays mostly contemporary music. Oldies stations are extinct because my parents' generation is ancient- read: not a market demo in any business person's strategy.
And as I fell out of touch with my parents' music I missed only a handful of artists: obviously the Beatles and Stones, most Motown acts, the Beach Boys and the Doors. The Doors' music certainly has an enduring quality. The critics who have dismissed it as "adolescent" simply because Jim once included a verse about screwing his mother are as moronic as the people who dismissed Green Day's music because Bill Joe once included a reference about masturbation.
Jim Morrison and I had commonalities: we were both extremely bright and sensitive men who were born in Florida. He attended Florida State University briefly; I was born on its campus while my mother was earning her PhD. in literature. We both loved films and liked filmmaking. We both found our way to Los Angeles eventually. Also, given the way the "American experiment" has proceeded during the last decade I can't assure you that I won't find my way to Paris eventually.
When I think about Morrison and my new raison d'etre my thoughts turn to the abortion that Oliver Stone made when he attempted to profile The Doors. In my opinion the lone highlight of the film is when "Morrison" exposes himself to a Florida crowd then dances around and sings in the audience as he attempts to evade the police. He is otherwise superficially depicted as a slow-witted psychopath, and keyboardist Ray Manzarek's enormous contributions to the band and music are barely touched upon. I had a directing teacher named Larry Leahy who worked briefly on the set of that film. He swears that Kilmer was the incarnation of Morrison during the shooting of it. Whatever. For my money, I think that the documentary that the surviving Doors members are making will be much better.
So, in summation, if there is anything that I want to avoid for the rest of my life it is the desecration of legends when I attempt to honor them through film. I'm writing a screenplay about the Beach Boys now -- if it is anything like The Doors film, may I never live to 33.