An Open Letter To Jim's Fans

This is a rant that Patricia Kennealy-Morrison released on her now-defunct website, regarding a book she refused to name. It became the subject of a rather infamous cyberfeud between herself and the author. An Open Letter to Jim's Fans I am going to speak at length here about a book which will apparently be published in December, a book whose title or author's or publisher's name I do not use here because I do not wish to sully myself with the touch.  I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that she was probably legally advised not to mention the name or title, because honestly, it would be easy to sue the shit out of her. Not only could her comments be considered libelous and harmful to the author's livelihood and reputation, but she also THREATENS that woman. I wish devoutly that I could just ignore all this, because of the nature of the appalling filth she levels against Jim, but unfortunately, I no longer have that luxury.  ... why? I mean, what did the woman do to her that suddenly made her unable to take the high road? And why does she let every single implicit slight against her/Jim Morrison take on epic heights? You may be wondering what the hell Kennealy is talking about. Well, she's talking about Patricia Butler's book, Angels Dance and Angels Die. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-A1i7YLEKjlQ/VG7OQeSuBTI/AAAAAAAAEmY/IRGPGCR76e8/s400/Angels%2Bdance%2Band%2Bangels%2Bdie.jpg This is basically a "relationship biography," wherein Butler traces the romance between the late Morrison and Courson. I've read it, and it's neither great nor terrible. It's interesting if you find a rock star's relatively monogamous love life (in that he cheated but only stuck with one woman) interesting, but Butler is way too sappy about their romance to be entirely reliable. If nothing else, it has absolutely gorgeous pictures, including a shoot at Courson's little boutique that is just lovely. At the very least, Butler is guilty of embellishment. And given that one bestselling author is J. Randy Taraborelli who outright MAKES UP whole scenarios in his books, this seems rather tame. The book purports to be a biography of Pamela Courson and an account of her love story with Jim Morrison.  ... I do NOT know where she got that from, because not many people seem to have gotten that impression. If amazon is any indicator, most seem to think it's about BOTH of them. Yes, it has more Pamela-related information than most biographies, but the title sort of indicates that. Maybe Kennealy assumed that it was sort of the counterpart/response to her own book? It's kind of funny, because look at the title of her book: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KIA3A9tBZCw/VG7OUvkGSrI/AAAAAAAAEdY/Dgc5WlfY-m4/s400/Strange%2BDays%2B-%2Bpkm.jpg Yeah, it's a biography of HER, with a side of Jim Morrison. Despite taking up the entire cover, the title basically states that it's a biography of HER life, although unsurprisingly the book skips almost every part of her life that doesn't involve Jim Morrison. So basically it's a relationship biography, just like Butler's book. And yet, for some reason it really, really upsets her that someone did a biography of both Jim Morrison AND Pamela Courson, who are given exactly equal attention. I mean, look at the cover: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-A1i7YLEKjlQ/VG7OQeSuBTI/AAAAAAAAEmY/IRGPGCR76e8/s400/Angels%2Bdance%2Band%2Bangels%2Bdie.jpg .... oh. That's why. I just noticed that the subtitle is "The tragic romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison." Okay, now I have figured out why Kennealy is in a frothing rage about this book: it's because the cover describes Pamela as Pamela MORRISON, not COURSON. It also explains why, for some reason, this book enrages her more than the infamous Wild Child, another book purportedly about a true-love affair with Jim Morrison. Aside from ripping Kennealy off rather shamelessly, Linda Ashcroft was found to be a big ol' liar by people who investigated her claims. Which came as a surprise to NOBODY, because everybody who knew of their "affair" was dead and all "proof" was "stolen." So it's basically a fanfic. Oh, and she alleged that Morrison was molested as a child. And that he was romancing a 15-year-old. And she wrote in a whole dramatic scene at the end where Pamela confesses that she was so jealous of Ashcroft that she gave Morrison heroin to kill him... just as Kennealy alleges. But for some reason that doesn't anger her as much. In actual fact, it is pretty much nothing of the sort.  It is a collection of old English tests and receipts for toilet paper. The author, if I can call her that, is one of my most hateful and virulent detractors (I absolutely can call her that).  No, I don't think you can. A more hateful and virulent detractor would probably have found some way of slagging off Kennealy in the actual book, or finding some people who would say bad things about her. I mean, I've read Stephen Davis' awful biography of Morrison, and he is much nastier about Kennealy than her "most hateful and virulent detractor." I've actually checked Angels Dance and Angels Die for references to her, and they are perfectly civil and respectful, even acknowledging her book as being at least partial truth. In two brown-nosing missives she wrote me in 1991 and 1992, she actively solicited my assistance on a book (yeah, right) that she was allegedly finishing up back then about Pamela Courson,  Somehow I suspect that Kennealy started going apeshit when she heard it was about Pamela's romance with Jim, and not Angels Dance and Angels Die: The tragic story of how Pamela Courson (who was totally not married to Jim Morrison) murdered him, which wouldn't have happened if only he could have dumped her for his true love and real wife, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison.  https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-tiPhUN6ZYCg/VHUGMN-CmYI/AAAAAAAAJGU/S2ttTrC71kE/s236-no/main%2Bbitch%2Bside%2Bbitch.jpg a book in which she also praised nutty professor and pigdog necrographer the late Albert Goldman, as she has bragged online about how she adored him--a book which is only just NOW being published--boy, big demand!  Hey, hey, I hate Albert Goldman as much as anyone. I mean, have you read his biography of John Lennon? The man raked muck like a stableboy. But unlike Kennealy-Morrison, I did not express delight at his death, nor did I imply that I was metaphysically involved in it. But you shall judge. Just hear her kiss my royal Irish ass: </b> And my peasant Irish ass is somehow not caring, particularly since Kennealy's royal Irish ass is not exactly imposing in the grand scheme of things. I mean, she doesn't own Doors songs, estate or even the closest relationship with Morrison - all she has are her own memories. "Dear Ms. Morrison [Notice the little hypocrite had no problem with the M-name when it served her purpose to suck up; she has NEVER used my legal surname again when referring to me--PKM]: </b> ... or maybe she was taught to refer to someone by their legal name, no matter what she thinks of them. It is a formal letter, apparently. So why wouldn't she use Kennealy-Morrison's legal surname if she was writing one? I have shocking news for Ms. Kennealy - most people write their business letters DIFFERENTLY from their web rants. I dunno if SHE does, because her attitude implies that she would probably send you a voodoo doll full of pins. ...I don't believe there would be any conflict between our two projects that might prevent you from speaking with me. In fact, I would feel quite comfortable citing your work in the body of my work. </i></b> ... which she did. Check Butler's book, and you'll find some perfectly civil cited material involving Kennealy-Morrison. It's not like she played nice in this letter, and then trashed Kennealy-Morrison in the actual book. Then her reaction might make sense. There is no doubt that you must have had quite an impact on Pamela's life, and I would be remiss if I didn't do everything I can to present that as accurately as possible... I'm not looking to grab a larger market share than someone else." </i></b> I guess she hadn't read Strange Days by then, or she might have figured out that Kennealy-Morrison heaps hate on her from Day One. She goes on to toady some more, smarmily assuring me that: "You certainly have a perspective on [Pamela] that is unique, which makes your input quite important to me. Most of the people I've spoken to so far have also urged me to get your point of view. While I hardly needed to be convinced that your opinion is important to this story, their encouragement only confirmed this belief." </b> So she talked to a LOT of people before she talked to Kennealy-Morrison. It doesn't sound like Butler was really panting to hear what she had to say, because she was ranked pretty low in importance. Also, "unique" is basically a polite euphemism in letters like this. It can mean anything from weird to nasty to crazy. It's like "cozy" or "charming" in real estate, which basically mean "tiny" and "has plumbing dating back to the Civil War." https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-N2nGQILPSLg/VHLiBibwA7I/AAAAAAAAIno/EFso7XD2wl8/s400/are%2Byou%2Bcrazy.gif Uh-HUHHH... Not exactly a form letter, is it; and my, how that sycophantic tune did change, once the truckling bootlicker finally read Strange Days and heard what unpalatable truths I had to tell about her idol Pam. </b> <ol><li> Um, I've read Strange Days, and I can testify that there are few TRUTHS in it. Some of it is probably factual, but most of the negative stuff about Pam is from word-of-mouth or Kennealy's own opinion (such as her belief that Pam was stupid). </li> <li> You would expect a writer to know the difference between facts and viewpoints. </li> <li> She doesn't sound very sycophantic in the letter. Flattering yes, but not bootlicking. </li> <li> Using a word like "unique" instead of "valuable" makes it sound like she's already wary of Kennealy, and talking about how she doesn't think there would be any conflict between their projects suggests that she has to ASSURE Kennealy of this. </li> </ol> Since then this creature has not ceased to attack me violently, viciously, personally and psychotically, trying to turn Jim's fans against me, </b> ON MESSAGE BOARDS. Lady, the Web is not the same as an actual published book. She can say that you're responsible for the rise of modern pop music if she wants to on internet message boards. What you should care about is the BOOK. And speaking of the book, Kennealy seems to have forgotten her original focus. According to her, she won't stay silent because Butler has allegedly said meeeeaaaaannnn things about pooooooorr wittle Jim, who (being dead) clearly cares deeply what people say about him in little-known rock biographies. Then she goes off on incoherent rants about how Butler allegedly kissed her ass and then said mean things about her online... um, Kennealy, can we stop focusing on you now? https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-P4MOnaicLB0/VWBecwe5e0I/AAAAAAAAJ4M/5w6F7ieRDHM/s400/can%2Bwe%2Bget%2Bback%2Bto%2Btalking%2Babout%2Bme%2Bnow%2B-%2Bselfish%2Bself-centered.jpg even raking me over the coals for the timing of the abortion that Jim and I chose to have--she called me `selfish', among other things that my friends refused to tell me </b> Again: this is the Web. The Web is not the same as a cocktail party. You can easily verify what she said about you for yourself. Also, so apparently she didn't bother to find out what this woman actually said about her, but went on third-party accounts. Not convincing. and I have never responded publicly to her hateful statements. Not until now. </b> And you decided to do it in a forum where she cannot respond and have a dialogue. Klassee. https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-sqKs-s_fnd8/VHTb_GTzKcI/AAAAAAAAI-4/1F8ZUR1FH4M/s400/shut%2Bthe%2Bfuck%2Bup%2Byou%2Bcrazy%2Bbitch%2Bwhore.gif Never mind the fawning and obsequious tone she took in her letters: that was, of course, only a ruse to get me to talk to her, so she could then boast of my cooperation and turn right around and trash me; </b> Uh, where did it say she boasted about Kennealy's cooperation? If she's talking about Butler's book, Butler did not include any material from Kennealy that wasn't in HER book. Citing other authors' works is perfectly acceptable, and doesn't require "cooperation." In fact, a comment by Butler in her book makes it sound like Kennealy just snidely told her to go read Strange Days, which isn't much when it comes to "getting me to talk to her." She states in her book that <font color="#0000ff">Patricia Kennealy felt she said all she wanted to say on the subject of Jim and Pamela in her book Strange Days. It sounds like Kennealy was pretty obtuse and unhelpful to start with, then felt burned when the whole focus of the book did not become HER romance with Jim and the sheer worthlessness of Pamela. Now, I'm not a fan of Patricia Butler, but I am trying to be fair here. Kennealy is a pretty crazy person, and she seems to think that she and Morrison are the center of the universe. as, indeed, that paragon of truth and purity in reportage, her dear friend and mentor Albert Golddigger--oh, sorry, Goldman--did when I flatly refused to talk to him about Jim for the noxious lie-o-rama that thankfully died with him). </b> Well, I can't fault her for THAT decision. [Now, I'm a simple, humble person at heart, and as a rule I never boast, but I feel I must point out yet again, with pride and pleasure both, that I told witnesses on a Friday that if Goldman's book on Jim could not be stopped, then he would just have to die, and, on the Monday, he did! What obedience! There is, indeed, a God. But back to our girl.] </b> ... and just like that, the lack of blame dies. <ol><li> This is possibly the first time I've heard a narcissist actually admit that they're a narcissist, even if it's by sarcasm. </li> <li> That beginning part WAS sarcasm, right? </li> <li> Is she SERIOUSLY suggesting that God KILLED A MAN because her majesty demanded it? Because that goes beyond whimsical sarcasm and into "god complex"... which she seems to have anyway. </li> <li> I thought she was a neopagan. </li> </ol> I would not boast about how I had witnesses to saying that a man would have to be stopped BY DEATH, a couple days before he died. Kennealy seems obsessed and cray-cray enough that it might be considered suspect. She identifies completely and utterly dementedly with her subject ("Pamela's friends became my friends, her lovers became my lovers, her addictions my addictions"--perhaps she was speaking metaphorically?), </b> Uhhhh.... ew. Still, no more creepy than a woman who claims to speak for Jim Morrison now that he's safely dead. to the unhealthy point where, today, anyone who dares disagree with her view of Pamela Courson is an attention-seeking liar woefully ignorant of the fabulous truths that she herself is supposedly privy to (`privy', in quite another definition, being the operative word here), but which she never seems able to prove or defend. </b> ... wow. And the worst part is that she is utterly and completely unaware of just how hypocritical this criticism is. https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-IEVQOt9-JTI/VG7fe8JkcmI/AAAAAAAAFO8/I2Mli-AkCKs/s400/hypocrite.gif I mean, this woman regularly trots out, "Jim left me a giant stack of letters/poems/drawings! I was married to him so I know better than EVERYONE and my word is gospel!", but is unable to do any more to prove her point. No named, unbiased source has ever been shown any of the material that she claims verifies her legitimacy as the One And Only True Love of Jim Morrison, or at least no named unbiased source has ever spoken of it. And yet she criticizes Butler for allegedly claiming to have "fabulous truths" that cannot be defended or proven? WOW. <b>She preens and poses as an authority on Jim, Pam, the Doors and even me to the young and ignorant, especially online (various Doors boards). </b> Again, the hypocrisy, it blinds me. <b>I am not online </b> Then how did you put this on a site? <b>and therefore I have never encountered her personally, and hopefully never will--well, not unless it's in a meadow at dawn with a sword in my hand </b> ... LAWYER, PLEASE. Lawyer! Seriously, I'm pretty sure that could be considered a threat. An incredibly silly and melodramatic threat - for serious, a SWORD? - but still a threat. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zlwSJBZXqAM/VZTmqKO8ovI/AAAAAAAAKb0/vOFeHlN9jcQ/s400/overly%2Battached%2Bgirlfriend%2Bknife%2Bstab%2Bmurder%2Bstalker.gif <b>--but I have been told that when challenged, whether by intelligent fans who see through her bullshit or by people who were, unlike herself, genuine players in the real-life drama she so desperately wants to be part of, </b> The question is, are either the fans or the "genuine players" on Kennealy's side, or simply not on Butlers? <b>she eels right out from under it, pretends she never said any such thing, or was misunderstood, or was misquoted (when quoting HERSELF??? Nice trick!), </b> A nice trick indeed. <font color="#0000ff">Patricia doesn't know how seriously Jim took the ceremony ("probably not too seriously"), but to her, going through the ceremony was "like being validated the way I wanted to be. It was a very private thing for me, a bond I wanted to make with this person." "As soon as a relationship got trying, he would get crazy and run away from it. I used to think, when things got really hairy, `Well, doesn't he want to keep me?' Apparently not, if it means work." - Victoria Balfour, Rock Wives: The Hard Lives and Good Times of the Wives, Girlfriends, and Groupies of Rock and Roll https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4M_hYBzSm2I/VG7dY_-GYDI/AAAAAAAAFAc/MTEcjTjRgCI/s400/bra-vo.gif <b>or simply conveniently ignores the inconvenient barb. </b> Not like me! I fume and rage about EVERY inconvenient barb! <b>When caught in flat-out lies by people who actually were there, she blatantly lies some more to cover her iniquitous self-aggrandizing butt. </b> ... I'm running out of ways to say, "She's one to talk!" <b>If it weren't so evil, it would be hilarious; come to think of it, it's still hilarious... </b> sigh Yeah, this is sort of an ongoing thing with her. <b>Originally intended as a biography of Pamela Susan Courson (though what Pamela ever did to render her bio-worthy besides attach herself to Jim Morrison like a pretty remora is yet to be determined), </b> Well, there are biographies of people who did less in life. I'm still waiting for an Anita Pallenberg autobiography, though. It's also funny coming from Patricia Kennealy. She has admittedly done more with her life, having been a midlist SF/F author for some years in the 80s and 90s. But both before and since, her main claim to fame has been that handfasting with a rock star. <b>this piece of specious claptrap couldn't even sell until its fabricator, in her desperate lust to see print--there being nil of substance or interest to report about Pam's life apart from Jim, our plucky little author had to do SOMEthing to get the darn thing sold--cynically skewed it to be now mostly about JIM, whom she plainly has no use for, deeply resents, and viciously trashes all over the place. (We'll get to that presently.) </b> <ol><li> Um, no matter how much Kennealy likes to pretend otherwise, any biography of Pamela Courson would inevitably have Jim Morrison in it. </li> <li> Seriously, the girl started with him when she was 19, and the rest of her adult life was about him. </li> <li> Also, I've read the book. It's not that nasty about Jim Morrison. In fact, it errs on the side of romantic as far as he's concerned. </li> <li> I certainly wouldn't say it "trashes" him, compared to books like Stephen Davis', which is a total hack job and rakes muck nonstop. </li> </ol> <b>But since Pamela is of course perfect (since her own deficient psyche NEEDS Pamela to be perfect), </b> Just a tip: this is what PKM thinks everybody who DOESN'T buy her "lizard queen" story thinks. She believes that anyone who considers Pam to be Jim Morrison's main squeeze is unhealthily obsessed with Pamela and can't bear for the "truth" to be revealed. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MfkjIwTK7-U/VG7ffq7W9FI/AAAAAAAAFPM/kQ8k-1_oAZU/s400/i%2Bam%2Bthe%2Blizard%2Bqueen.gif <b>Pamela's choice of Jim is of course perfect too, whatever else he may have done. And of course Jim always told the truth to Pamela, never ONCE lied to her (but somehow what he said to me was never true, he told the same lies to all the women he was ever with. </b> Yeah, Butler never said that in her book. I have no idea what Butler may have said online, since I have a life and don't want to spend time hunting down every single archived comment she ever made. But I'm pretty sure PKM is just flying off the handle. "She says their relationship was perfect? RAAARRGGGHHH SO SHE'S CALLING HIM A LIAR WHEN HE SAID HE LOVED ME RAARRRGGGH I HAVE POEMS LETTERS JEWELRY MARRIAGE..." <b>I say again: Oh really? Let's see THEIR letters, poems, songs, jewelry, marriage proposals...). </b> Sure! Right after we see yours! <b>This conveniently ignores the indisputable fact (as it ignores so many other facts) </b> For a woman who claims to be a certifiable genius and brilliant wordsmith... she doesn't seem to understand the meaning of the word "indisputable." <b>that while Jim and Pamela were having this allegedly perfect relationship, he was not only sleeping around--as was Pamela herself--and he was not sleeping with Pamela </b> Yeah, Butler acknowledges that they both had affairs. She simply asserts that none of the other women meant as much to Morrison as Pamela did... .... oh wait. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-tiPhUN6ZYCg/VHUGMN-CmYI/AAAAAAAAJGU/S2ttTrC71kE/s236-no/main%2Bbitch%2Bside%2Bbitch.jpg <b>but HE ACTUALLY MARRIED ANOTHER WOMAN, and the week before his death was writing this only wedded wife of his (that would be ME, in case the third-person voice shift confuses the grammatically challenged among you) impassioned letters about his return to her in New York: how much he misses making love with her (me), calling her (me) his wife (me) and himself her (my) husband, sending her (me) lyrical and erotic love poems and declarations of his undying devotion and spectacular costly gifts for their (our) first anniversary, admitting to her (me me me) that he "went back to Pam [her her her] like a dog returning to its own vomit." </b> <ol><li> .... again, we have not seen this. We have not heard from anyone who have seen these "impassioned letters." </li> <li> And even though Kennealy has been legally able to publish them for the past DECADE, they remain unpublished. </li> <li> And even if they do exist, precisely why is it Butler's fault that those oh-so-wonderful proofs go unknown? She makes it clear in her book that Kennealy didn't want to talk to her, and Kennealy herself implies earlier in this rant that she wouldn't talk to Butler. </li> <li> So why is it BUTLER'S fault that she doesn't acknowledge the supreme romantic sovereignty of Patricia Kennealy... if Kennealy wouldn't even talk to her, let alone let her see the "proof" of how Morrison liked her best? Is she supposed to just take Kennealy's word on it? </li> </ol> <b>But, of course, her biographer proudly informs us, little Pam was soooo strong and had soooo many good friends she didn't care about that, the fact that her alleged husband was calling another woman his wife didn't matter a jot to her, </b> Actually, she never really addresses how Pamela felt about the alleged comments. This is the only part of the book that really deals with Pamela's feelings on PKM:<font color="#0000ff"> Conversely, when New York journalist Patricia Kennealy showed up at Pam's apartment in Los Angees to inform Pamela that not only had she had an affair with Jim, but had, she claimed, aborted his child as well, Pamela responded with nothing more than mild curiosity "How interesting," she reportedly said. "I've never met one of Jim's women before." Even though that anecdote actually comes from Kennealy's book, it shows how much of a threat Pamela perceived PKM as. Burn. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-cI9UMq1ySa8/VHLgBGpqkgI/AAAAAAAAIhI/QgHO9Du3vLg/s400/hahahaha%2Bhaddock.jpg no no no, yet she was at the very same time--this same biographer also tells us--so distraught by grief at this creep bigamist's death (and nobody in the world history of bereavement ever suffered the way little Pam suffered!) and so completely alone and so totally lacking in supportive friends that she caved in to despair. Out of her grief and weakness and lack of strength she just had to hook herself on heroin (not to mention hooking, both of which longtime facts in Courson's life this soi-disant and so not unbiased Boswell refuses to accept on any terms, including PAMELA'S OWN FRIENDS stating it was so) and end up overdosing, even though "Pamela hardly used at all before Jim's death". What unmitigated brazen disinformation: not only was Pam a longtime user well before Jim died, she used heroin as a diet drug while he was on trial in Miami!!! Jim knew all about her smack habit, of course, and told me early on in our courtship). And of course Pamela had nothing whatsoever to do with Jim's death, it wasn't even heroin that killed him-- Oh PLEASE! A soap opera has less of an embargo on reality! I am bothering to take note of all this garbage now, after having stayed away from these morons and their pointless crap for years and years--and quite rightly, I just get pissed off because they're all so fucking stupid, and then I want to kill them... But I bring such nastiness up--and I am brought to it vastly against my will--because this long-delayed, much-self-touted "bio" of Pamela Courson is finally, unfortunately, appearing in print, a desperately cash-hungry and apparently editorially challenged publisher having been induced to put out--uh, sell out--drat! put it out; and a slavering item about it ran in mid-October in the New York Toilet Paper--oops, Post--thus bringing it to public attention, and I fear the news of it will be picked up. She couldn't sell this piece of wretched refuse as a Pam bio because really, who the hell cares; so now she has stuffed it full of all sorts of vile and vicious and unproven allegations about Jim--which I shall be detailing presently--things I do not take at all kindly to seeing in print. So I thought I'd spike her guns. She's had at me long enough, and I haven't ever returned fire--didn't want to waste shots on so unworthy a foe, I expect. So for five years I've never responded to any of her vicious attacks on me; I've bitten my tongue and taken it, though I also consulted lawyers (no joy there! Public figure! Get used to it!). But now she's gone after Jim, and that is the worst and biggest mistake she could ever have made, not just with me but with his fans. And I will draw blade for him where I wouldn't do it for myself. In her stupidity and cupidity and hubris, she has attacked the man I love, unfairly and in public, and I choose this time to hit back. So let's just see if this little piece of garbage can take it for a few screens, the way I've had to take it for the past twenty-seven years. THE FOLLOWING IS MY OPINION OF THIS INDIVIDUAL AND HER WORK, JUST AS WHAT SHE HAS SAID ABOUT ME, IN PRINT AND ONLINE, IS HERS. Free speech. God bless America. Let the games begin. Now. Stand away. Watch and learn. See how a REAL writer does things. Jim, honey, this one's for you... Judging from this item, and from what I've heard over the past six years, we will not be getting with this book, I think, anything remotely resembling a balanced, objective, perceptive biography, but rather a shrieking fannish hagiographical love letter written (and badly written) by an unbalanced lunatic with no heart or stomach for the truth, a disingenuous and apparently clinically disordered biographical quack with delusions of literacy and creative importance, and little if any life of her own, laboring under a massive psychosexual crush on a woman who never existed--a woman who was in fact and in truth a characterless and pathetic creature whom her infatuated chronicler never knew and never makes even a shred of pretense at accurately or impartially characterizing, who had very few if any of the worthwhile qualities this chronicler so wishfully bestows upon her and all the nasty ones that she has so conveniently edited out. Sadly, this chronicler is by no means alone in her dementia, her hypocrisy or her self-interest. But that's not the worst of her crimes. THIS MALEVOLENT BITCH HAS PERPETRATED IN THIS "BOOK" THE MOST VICIOUS, INIQUITOUS, SAVAGE, UNWARRANTED, UNPROVEN ATTACK ON JIM MORRISON THAT HAS EVER YET BEEN PUBLISHED. In her frantic attempts to canonize Saint Pamela, the woman she so desperately wants to be (oh, not because of Jim!--she doesn't give a damn about Jim!--no, it's all because of Pam, because of the connections she fantasizes between Pam and herself), this deranged acolyte pours out nothing but venom and contempt upon Jim, has cobbled up "truths" that she apparently plucked out of the cesspool of an unpublished (and unpublishable) manuscript written by another party, statements that have never been verified and should never have been printed, all merely to add salacious salability to a "book" which likewise would--and should--never have been published. Some of the unspeakable nuggets of sewage she serves up for the delectation of Jim's fans: an episode of childhood abuse that, according to her account, his parents called him a liar for reporting to them (I heard from Jim's own lips a rather different story), resultant bedwetting and hatred of his mother, an alleged homosexual affair when he was in junior college in Florida and another with a young male Hollywood whore (Pamela herself being the female Hollywood whore in Jim's life, of course, though that came later), and other equally pointless, unprovable and unsavory anecdotes that have no place being reported in the most excremental tabloid alive, let alone in something that this beldam is pimping as a love story. (The only love story here seems to be the one between her and Pam, not Pam and Jim...) Whether the odious tales are true or not is only one of the objections I raise. If Jim, in a drunken stupor, let some toyboy give him a blow job at a party (guys who aren't rock stars, even, have been known to do so), or wet the bed as a child (lots of kids do), or as a babyfat teenager had a pass made at him by some gross middle-aged pig (happens all the time; to girls too), or was assaulted by some furtive male relation fiddling about out back on the porch when he was six (happens in more families than we like to think), I say that is very sad, or appallingly terrible, or just stupid, depending. But I also say, SO FUCKING WHAT??? Jim Morrison was the most flaming blatant heterosexual you can imagine. I SWEAR it; and all you have to do is look at him, anyway. He was more purely and unswervingly heterosexual in his gender orientation, more glowingly sensual and blazingly secure in his very considerable masculinity, more gloriously and ardently devoted to his physical enjoyment of women, and theirs of him, than any ten men this biog-bitch ever laid--if indeed she ever laid any at all--and a gentleman besides. Case closed. Now to the more serious matter: If Jim was abused or assaulted, violated in vulnerable childhood or no less vulnerable young manhood, or later taken advantage of because of his fame and beauty and alcoholism by some smirking nonentity who only wanted to brag, that says far less about Jim than it does about those who committed those sins and crimes against him. And it says a great deal more about this squalid hack, and the kind of person she is, and the sins and crimes she has committed, than it says about Jim. If the situation were reversed, Jim would never have written such things about her--because he was the kind of person he was. But, true or not, WE DIDN'T NEED TO HEAR ABOUT ANY OF THIS. We don't WANT to be hearing about it. And JIM doesn't need to have it heard about. Yet this pandering muckmonger took it upon herself to tell us, thought we should hear about it anyway, true or not, significant or not, whatever effect it would have upon Jim and his memory and legacy. She deliberately chose to demean Jim so that she could exalt her cherished obsessional object Pam, glorifying Courson for possessing no glory (just as she possesses none herself), making Jim look bad so her little tinpot junkie murderess whore could look good. She couldn't sell her book as a Pam bio because nobody cares except the wacko Pamheads, so she decided to rip off Jim one more time, because it was more important to her to sell the book than to do right by Jim. She never had any intention of doing right by Jim from the first. And for that she is damned and cursed forever, and all of you just now heard me say so. In case you didn't, I say again: SHE IS DAMNED AND CURSED FOREVER. More to the mundane point, I hope devoutly that Jim's family sues her and her publisher from here to eternity, or takes out a contract on her if they can't litigate (American libel laws offer no protection to the victim), and I hope with equal devoutness that this piece of depraved cloacal offal (the book, not the author; well, sure, the author too, why not) is pulped (yeah, right, the author too!) before it has time to even settle in on the shelf, or gather the dust it will assuredly and deservedly be gathering. And I wonder endlessly: What the hell did James Douglas Morrison ever do to deserve the kind of treatment he has gotten in print from everyone but me and maybe three other people? Is it just envy, that makes people so hurtful and hateful about him? By running him down, does that make them less unimportant, less stupid and uncreative and vile? Do they hate and fear and resent his excellence that much? Admittedly, there's a lot to envy: he made incredible music. He wrote poetry. He was gorgeous and funny and romantic and self-deprecating and smart. He got out there and let all sorts of morons project vicarious emotions all over him. And, yeah, okay, he was a jerk from time to time--as most of us are--sometimes even a world-class jerk. But what he did, or didn't do, is still no excuse for what they do to him. How did my beautiful Jim ever earn himself the kind of savaging he routinely comes in for, at the hands of meretricious gasbags who try to score cheap easy triumphs for themselves off what was for him very real and very great pain? Not all of those cheap scorers are strangers to him, either--some were even his friends, or claim they were. What wrong did he ever commit against them, to merit the vengeful punishment they inflict on him to this day? Jim is not here to refute these vile allegations or explain his own actions. But he was a truthful and an honest person, which is more than can be said of most of his biographers--certainly more than one can say of the one we're talking about here, "biographer" being an honorable job description that sure as hell does not apply to her--and I have no doubt whatsoever that had he lived, and if these things really happened, Jim would eventually have talked about them openly and frankly, in his art if nowhere else. Over the past thirty years our society's attitudes to such things have changed markedly. As individuals, we have grown both more familiar with and more understanding of such dark burdens from the past, and in confronting his longtime demons--if there were any--Jim would have found healing and peace. But he didn't live, and we don't know if these things happened. WE WEREN'T THERE, and it's none of our business, ANYONE's business, to make such breathtakingly sweeping and infamously unprincipled allegations in Jim's absence and in the COMPLETE AND TOTAL LACK OF EVIDENCE. Do you know how hard it is for me to write all this? Have you the least glimmering vestige of a clue? I didn't even want to repeat the specific filth I mentioned above; even to acknowledge its existence is almost more than I can endure. It rips my heart out to have to type such swill and Jim's name in the same sentence. I'd much rather be ripping other people's hearts out...but, all in good time. So. Consider my words the warning label on this "book": rather, this individual's unclean printed spew, the fly-blown ordure of her howling vanity, her parvissimum opus, the suppositious dunghill upon which she stands to crow over someone who was worth ten billion of her. Well--she may crow, but the lore of the barnyard in which she was obviously bred tells us that the noisier fowl generally get their necks wrung first. I can only hope. As I said earlier, I have up until now ignored this creature and her work and minions with the contempt and, indeed, inattention they deserve; they're too unimportant to bother with, and I have real books and other far more exciting media projects to absorb my energies. But I have broken my silence at last on this matter because I think it is crucially important that you, Jim's admirers, know in advance what sort of sordid hearsay filth you'll be exposed to in this crapulous tract of hers, and I consider it my job to warn you, as well as to defend Jim against what she has done to him. Don't even soil your hands by picking up this oleaginous rubbish to page through it in a bookstore--or, if you do, use it to pick up after your dog on the street. That's all it's fit for. THE INDIVIDUAL WHO HAS COMMITTED THIS PUTRESCENT ATROCITY IS MORE GUILTY OF ABUSING JIM THAN THAT ALLEGED ABUSER WAS. See how it went down with the Post item: The gossip columnists who ran it dismissed Pam with a couple of bored and boring lines, and devoted the entire space to enthusiastically detailing the sensational allegations about Jim. That's all they want to hear: new evil stuff about that asshole Morrison! Bring on the dish! And she happily served it up for them to sell her fucking book. So, Pamheads of the world, spare me your outraged howls: I know you've been salivating for the past year or so, awaiting the arrival of this little tome. The perpetrator has been doing her endless literary striptease online, reveling in the attention you paid her, working you up to what you thought would be the triumphant vindication of your poor put-upon Pamela--and the concomitant final put-down of that pesky Patricia, saying she's Jim's wife, just who does she think she is! (Well, Jim's wife, that's who!) But what the perp never told you, being the duplicitous hag she is, was that she wasn't just ornamenting (whitewashing) Pamela but that she'd be going after Jim in such obscene and despicable fashion. She never told you because she knew you'd have a fit, and rightly so; or maybe she was just too stupid to think you'd be upset, or maybe she just didn't care. Dig it, people! Either way, she USED you! Man, you must really be hating this! But I think I'll spell it out, just to make very sure you get the message: DAME PATRICIA ANNE ELIZABETH GENEVIEVE HONORA KENNEALY MORRISON WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG, AND YOU WERE ALL SOOOOO WRONG! PATRICIA WAS RIGHT! PATRICIA IS ALWAYS RIGHT! LISTEN TO PATRICIA! PATRICIA IS GOD! Sorry, got a little carried away there. Okay, listen up now. All levity aside, you've all been played for fools, and maybe now you'll believe me when I tell you things. Because I was right about you, too, you know... Can you say "mindless dupes of a cynical manipulating psycho", boys and girls? Well, I'm only human, and, being human, naturally I'm thrilled to bits to see all you Pamheads look like the ineffable idiots you are for having believed this creature. You richly deserve it, and I hope you all feel guilty and stupid as hell for trusting her and trashing me all these years. But what a pity and a tragedy that it took her UNPARDONABLE assault on Jim to make you see her true nature, the nature I and others saw from the first. That doesn't give me any pleasure at all. I'm right about Pam, too, you know--and I always have been. I have always acknowledged her rightful place in Jim's life, and I always will. And all I've ever wanted is to be given my rightful place there too. After all, Jim gave it to me. Maybe now you'll reconsider your position on that as well. And maybe one day we can all talk about it. Getting back to the topic: She KNEW it was going to play out like this, your tarnished angel. She knew that her lurid claims about Jim would get her the attention and the book deal she so desperately coveted and couldn't get any other way, and she went for it out of greed and Pam-lust. She couldn't care less about how she hurt Jim in the process, or how she sold you out to get what she wanted. She has no claim of legitimate connection to Jim or Pam or anyone else. She never met Jim, or Pamela, or me; never saw the Doors in concert. She's doing this solely for the gratification of her planet-sized ego--at Jim's expense, of course, that's the way it's always been with his necrographers. With that monstrous ego to back her up, she insists she is right, only SHE knows the real story and everybody else--spouses, lovers, friends, colleagues, family, fans, people who were with Jim before she was even BORN--is wrong. Oh, there's something wrong here, no doubt about it; and the wrongness is her. There's no other way this talentless hack can get any attention except by brutalizing a REAL artist, the living, loving, hurting human being who was Jim Morrison, the Jim I married, the Jim I love. The Jim you love. She is using him. Abusing him. Feeding off him like the vulture she is, and always has been. And this is where I go for my guns. I find it just about impossible to believe that Jim would have confided this sort of thing to the sort of man who claims he did--his Neanderthal lawyer Max Fink, if you must know; who in that same ferociously actionable manuscript got a lot of other things wrong, too, though I just LOOOOVED what he had to say about Pamela--believes she murdered Jim because he was leaving her (which in fact supports my own longtime contentions)--but we won't be seeing that in the pages under discussion! The author seems to selectively source only what supports her own raving tripe. Did she check these stories out with the Widow Fink or others who could verify? Do we know if those verifying sources actually have PROOF, or are they lying too, for reasons of their own--for money, for attention, for revenge on Jim? Did she pay for the tales, or did she just pirate them wholesale? Just asking. When Jim told me what he told me--and he told me much that I did not put in Strange Days, because I NEVER would have betrayed him so, in public or in private, and I don't have to tell lies or play false with people or confidences to get my books sold--well, I will say only that it was like watching him gut himself with a spoon--the pain I couldn't help or heal, the clear burning dry-eyed anguish of it, a hurt too deep even for tears. And what Jim said to me--because, as he put it, "you're my wife and you should know"--was, I PROMISE you, NOTHING like what Fink and this alleged writer claim for him. I will take my beloved husband's word over theirs any time. And I would sooner be dead myself than violate his trust. If Jim couldn't defend himself as a six-year-old child, no more can he defend himself now, as a fifty-four-year-old ghost. He has now been dead for exactly as long as he was alive, as many birthdays in death as there were for him in life... I wasn't there when he was six--I was only three years old myself, and a very long way away, I couldn't have done anything to help--but I most assuredly am here for him now. Of course, I just hate it that after all this time and all these words there is still a need to be a warrior in Jim's defense; but if you think I hate having to do it, or that I won't, or can't, or would rather not, that I'm bored with it, or that it's just too much trouble, welllll... I suggest you go read Blackmantle, Chapters 26, 27 and 28. Unlike this so-called biography, my latest book, though it is certainly a novel, is not entirely a work of fiction. A novelist writes about what she knows about, her characters are all aspects of herself. And Athyn Blackmantle, wife of the bard Morric Douglas and avenger of his death, who brings him back from the dead, is one of my absolutely favorite personal aspects... I'll be very much at your service when you've finished reading. In her creepily insalubrious obsession/identification with Pamela (hey! I knew Pamela Courson; and you, madam, are no Pamela Courson--and that person you have the literary hots for isn't Pamela Courson either) and her utter lack of sympathy for/interest in/veracity about Jim, this rancid monomaniac has made a fatal miscalculation. By her unprovable dirt-dishing (after Princess Diana, people are soooo not in the mood for that sort of thing) and her ill-advised character assassination of Jim, she will not persuade anyone how wonderful her heroin(e) little Pamela was--and an even-handed portrayal, good AND bad, might well have won her a sympathetic hearing. Instead, her strategy will backfire in her face. She will succeed only in irrevocably angering and alienating the very audience she hopes to win, and turn them against her forever. She gives nothing to Jim but the appalling wounding burden of the worst violation yet, and she takes away all her own credibility by robbing him of his dignity (and he had plenty) in death as well as in life. She has written the toxic book about Jim that Albert Goldman his own fetid self would have written (though she will doubtless take that as a compliment, so far is she gone over to the Dark Side). Well, I submit that she had better get ready for some very harsh criticism indeed, from many quarters--she has already amply demonstrated she lacks the brains, guts, class and soul to hold up under such fire; she can't even take people disagreeing with her online! (And next time I talk about this, if there is one, I promise I'll take the kid gloves off and REALLY light into her...) This whited sepulcher has set herself up as the Kitty Kelley of Doorsland, and I do not believe for one minute that the people who really care about the real Jim--fans, friends, family--are going to either credit or stand for the venomous, gratuitous, cruel and cynical atrocities she has committed against him in her own self-seeking interests. SHE HAS RAPED JIM. SHE HAS VIOLATED JIM IN PUBLIC WORSE THAN ANY MOLESTER EVER MAY HAVE DONE IN PRIVATE. In her lust to pimp for Pamela, she has sacrificed Jim yet again--killed him, betrayed him, sold him out for silver and her own self-importance--and there are many, many people besides myself who find that utterly unforgivable. And we are fucking sick and tired of it. Therefore: I URGE, EXHORT, BEG AND IMPLORE THAT ALL TRUE ADMIRERS OF JIM MORRISON NOT BUY INTO HER SEPTIC AGENDA AND NOT BUY HER BOOK, as she has many times urged people not to believe me and not to buy Strange Days. What could be fairer than that? But because of the sheer enormity of the crime she has wrought against Jim, I'm going to ask you to do more for him (and I thank you up front for your loyalty and love for Jim, thank you from both of us...). I beseech you on my knees--and, believe me, I'm far too proud to go there to plead for myself, only for Jim--IF YOU CARE ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT JIM MORRISON, IF BY HIS ART HE EVER GAVE YOU ONE SINGLE MOMENT OF JOY, HERE IS HOW YOU CAN FINALLY REPAY YOUR DEBT TO HIM: Ignore her. Repudiate her. Let her vomitous little tome languish and rot on the shelves. Write letters of protest to her publishers telling them why you love Jim and why you will not be buying a book that savages him. Send her e-mail telling her how you feel about her treatment of Jim: I hear she spends more of her time online talking about writing than actually doing any, annoying the hell out of REAL writers in the process; in the chat rooms they think she's a pain in the butt--when they're not thinking she's just a tiresome joke. DON'T BUY THE BOOK, DON'T READ THE BOOK, DON'T EVEN TALK ABOUT THE BOOK. It is all she has in her pathetic little life. That will hurt her more than anything. She means nothing. Her words mean nothing. She matters less than nothing. She wasn't there. She doesn't know. And she will pay dearly for her lies and her hatefulness, in ways she cannot begin to imagine. Turnabout is indeed fair play, and I for one would not want to be on the receiving end of the truckload of instant karma that'll be coming her way. Or, with any luck, maybe it'll just be a truck (oh, and when you see him, bitch, tell your pal Goldman Jim Morrison's wife says hello). I can't drive, myself, but I'll see what I can do. Patricia Morrison New York, October 1997