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Interview With Mark Opsasnick, author of:

The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim
Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia

Melissa Talking to Mark Opsanick about his new book “The Lizard King was Here: The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia,” which is a history of Jim Morrison’s life in the Washington DC area. Mark, could you give some idea about when the public can expect to get a hold of your book?

Mark This weekend I finished up Chapter14 so I only have one chapter to go.

That’ the rough draft. Once the rough draft is done, I have to start editing and checking the facts. What I do is print out each chapter, read it, make some corrections… it takes about a week to do each chapter… so another 15 weeks or so will take me to about January 1st. I’m pretty much right on schedule. I want to finish Chapter 15 by September 1st. I’ll have September, October, November, and December to edit the thing and fix it up so it should be ready by the end of the year. It’s a big project, and now I’m pretty much near the end of the road with it.

Melissa When did you start to writ The Lizard King was here?

Mark February 1st 2004, so it’s going to be almost two full years that it took me to do all the research and the interviews and writing. If I didn't have to work full time It certainly would have been much quicker, but such is not the case. For a part time project, two years is along time. I think Capitol Rock was three full years …. Actually Capitol Rock was four years.. so it didn't take me as long as Capitol Rock, but it still took me a long time to get this thing to the point where I’m at now.

Melissa I imagine that you had collected some of data about Jim Morrison along the way while you were writing Capitol Rock .

Mark Yes which leads right in to how I basically got started on the project. I had always been a Doors Fan. This is going back to when I was ten-years-old, reading magazines like Creem and Circus and Rolling Stone at the Greenbelt Library. The first band I was really interested in, besides the Beatles, was Alice Cooper. But the Doors - I was a big fan of as well. I never knew anything about where they came from. I don’t remember in any of those early magazine articles any mention of Morrison being from the Washington DC area. So I was oblivious to that.

Melissa That’s so typical of any rock and roll person from the DC area

Mark They just get ignored.

Melissa Think about Jorma Kakonan and Jack Casady. They will be playing in the area soon. Most people wouldn’t think of them as being part of the DC music scene. I guess they tie themselves back to there DC roots now, but most people would automatically associate them with the Jefferson Airplane.

Mark I told people when Capitol Rock came out that I had an interview with Jack Casady and they said, “That’s nice, why?”

I said, “Casady grew up in DC,” and people didn’t even believe me. They said, “No, he was in San Francisco with the Jefferson Airplane.” I had to educate them that Casady had a long history here in Washington DC. He grew up here and went all the way through Wilson High School and so forth.

Now the thing with Jim Morrison – I was in college down in North Carolina when the book “No One Here Gets Out Alive” came out. That’s the first biography about Jim Morrison ever written. They briefly touch upon the fact that Jim Morrison lived in Alexandria and attended George Washington High School and that is the first time I found out about it. I didn’t pay much attention to it after that.

I started researching Capitol Rock in 1993 and over the course of the next four years, during my interviews, I talked with a number of people who mentioned that Morrison had spent time in Northern Virginia. It was always; they weren’t really giving me facts, but rather asking me questions. It was like “Well, Jim Morrison grew up in Northern Virginia didn’t he?” “Was he involved with any bands at that time?” “Was he involved with local music at all?”

Nobody really knew any of that. I didn’t know. I kind of filed that away. I made notes about people who had asked me about Morrison. A couple of people had seen the Doors play at the Alexandria Roller Rink in 1967 and they kind of prefaced that with asking about Morrison’s time in Alexandria.

As books on the Doors came out, all the way up to 2004, I think I have read twenty different biographies on Jim Morison, There are actually a couple more that were printed in Europe that haven’t been published here. There are close to two dozen lengthy books on Jim Morrison and the Doors that basically give their stories, and without exception they all basically skip right over the time Jim Morrison spent in Alexandria, Virginia, and the DC area.

They acknowledge that he lived in the DC area for almost three years, but they don’t go in to any details at all. Only one or two books even bothered to interview a friend of his from high school. But they really kind of ignored the whole DC area, and what roll that played in his life.

So Being a Doors fan, I reach a point where it just fell into place. Capitol Rock was finished with, and some of my other projects were over with, and it was always in the back of my mind to find out more about Morrison’s time in Alexandria, Virginia. So I came up with an idea to explore what had influenced Morrison in his teen years - what happened to him, what did he experience in his high school years that may have influenced his later lyrics writing and poetry and so fourth. I got started on the book on February 1, 2004. I started interviewing, tracking down his former high school friends. Thus far I am just about finished. I think I have interviewed over 150 people and this includes forty-two of his former classmates from the Class of 1961 at George Washington High School.

I had a list of about fifteen people that I thought were closest to Jim at that time. Of that fifteen I managed to track down interview fourteen of them.

The only person I couldn’t get was Tandy Martin, his girlfriend at the time who now lives in Peru. But she has only ever given one interview, so I didn't expect to get a hold of her. But I had a great success in locating the people who knew him well. It is certainly going to be a great deal of information that has never been published before.

Melissa That sounds fantastic.

Mark That’s basically it in a nutshell. I think the most interesting aspect of this project is to examine the nightclubs where Jim Morrison hung out. I didn’t go into this project with any expectations of finding anything specific that inspired Jim to become a rock star in the DC area, but now that the project is over there are bits and pieces, and a number of factors came into play during his existence here that may have influenced his decision to go into performance art, a combination of poetry and music, and his vocal performances as front man with the Doors.

I think one of the things he did while he was in this area was attend a number of nightclubs in Washington DC and also one in particular down Richmond Highway, south of Alexandria, called the Club Log Tavern.

Melissa Yea, that name sounds familiar. I grew up in south Alexandria.

Mark That was actually built in 1938 and it existed as the Club Log Tavern until about1965; then it switched owners and became the 1320 Club.

Melissa Oh yea, people use to hang out there when I was in high school.

Mark That club had an interesting history and I talked at length with Billy Hancock about it. I found ads in the Washington Post from 1939 through 1950’s for this place. It started off the Club Log Tavern and it had orchestras and big bands and pop singers in the 1930’s and 1940’s. In the 1950’s it went towards country music and around 1958 or so they had a change in ownership and a gentleman named Carl Simpson bought the club and he brought in rock and roll bands. The first rock and roll band he brought in to the Club Log Tavern was Ronnie and the Off Beats. The lead guitarist was Danny Gatton the keyboard player was Dick Hintze and the lead singer was Ronnie MacDonald, who was involved with Jorma Kakonan and Jack Casady when they were all in a band called the Triumphs during their earlier teen years. They were playing there and Jim Morrison would go to the club and watch this band perform.

Melissa That is so wild.

Mark I had one of Jim Morrison’s former classmates, a woman he had been friends with, and she told me some stories about Jim Morrison in the Club Log Tavern that will be in the book. Also, Ron MacDonald remembered Morrison. I have some extensive interviews with Ron because Morrison would come up and talk to him on the breaks. He remembers Morrison at the club, scribbling in his notebooks. Its very interesting . According to Ron MacDonald, Morrison may have taken some of his mannerisms from Ronnie and the Offbeats. Another interesting thing is that Ronnie and the Offbeats performed a lot of Bo Diddley tunes including “Who Do You Love”, and later on the Doors would perform ”Who Do You Love” on stage. It was rare, but one of the places they did that song was at the Alexandria Roller Rink in 1967, one of the very few times they played that song live. I tend to think it was Morrison’s way of paying homage to his roots at the Club Log Tavern. I could be wrong on that, but it seems like a connection. Aside from the Club Log Tavern, there were three places in DC where Jim Morrison hung out: Bohemian Taverns, which is still there, Harrigan’s Restaurant in SW which from 1959-1961 was a hangout for beatniks and artists, and the other one which was very influential was called Coffee ‘n Confusion. That was really Washington DC’s premiere beatnik hang out at the time. They didn’t serve alcohol, they only served coffee and tea, and they had poetry readings.

Jim Morrison actually went there often and it was there that he gave his first public poetry reading and I’ve interviewed friends of his who were there on that particular evening. The very first instance of him giving his performance art was at this beatnik coffeehouse called Coffee ‘n Confusion and it was down at 10th and K streets. The building was torn down in 1969 and now it’s former site just a vacant parking lot. I think his experiences there were very influential in him later taking the stage and becoming a front man with the doors. It certainly spurred his interest in poetry and the arts and so fourth.

I go into great detail in all these matters and my conclusion is of course that there were some pretty significant experiences he embarked on when he was living in Alexandria that later defined his roll as a poet, artist, and rock and roll singer.

Melissa How about the Georgetown scene? Was he into that at all?

Mark Yes, but from all indications, not as much. There were two night clubs in Georgetown he and his friends would go down and hang out at. M Street in Georgetown in 1961 was nothing at all like it is today. It was a main commercial

Melissa Mostly country at that time?

Mark Pretty much - country and folk music. The two places he hung out at were the Silver Dollar, which is still there today, but it is the Bistro Francais Restaurant, it’s a French restaurant now. The Silver Dollar at the time actually had folk singers in there and they had those hootenanny things with folk musicians. That was in ’60 and ’61. Then it went into country music for a few years. Then in ’66 it went to rock and roll when Roy Buchanan went in there. Morrison was known to hang out there around 1960. I don’t think it was one of his favorite places. His girl friend Tandy Martin would go there for the folk music and he would go along with her. The other place Morrison was in at least a few times was Mac’s at 34th and M, across from the Cellar Door. It was actually called Mac’s Pipe and Drum restaurant at the time. They didn’t actually have music at the time; it was just this really weird neighborhood beatnik hangout. That’s how it was described to me. The old Georgetown brigade, all the old beatniks would hangout there.

In the mid ‘60’s they brought in live music and they changed it from Mac’s Pipe and Drum Restaurant to just Mac’s and then in the late 60’s they changed ownership and it became New Mac’s and was a rock and roll joint.

Melissa Yes, that’s when Billy Hancock was playing there, as New Mac’s.

Mark Yes, It became quite a rock and roll stronghold in the late ‘60’s. I know the Mad Hatter’s played there a long time, the Fallen Angels played there a while, different hard rock bands. The old Mac’s, that building was put up in the 1800’s and it was a number of different businesses, but by 1910 it was already a restaurant. It became Mac’s around 1959. Before that it was the Gem Lunch Room. It did become Mac’s in 1959 and it was a weird beatnik beer joint and Morrison did hang out in there.

Melissa did Jim Morrison have anything to do with the Mugwumps scene?

Mark You know, in the Mugwumps both John Phillips and Cass Elliot had both attended George Washington High School but they never crossed paths. John Phillips was, I think class of ’54 and Cass Elliott, whose real name was Ellen Cohen, she would have been George Washington Class of ’60, but she left after her sophomore year and moved to Baltimore, so she didn’t have a chance to know Morrison. The thing is Jim Morrison was not really involved in any local music. There were no real local bands playing Georgetown at that point. Really what built up Georgetown was the British invasion of ’64 and that’s when every thing exploded and of course Morrison was gone by that time. Jim Morrison did hang out in Georgetown, and there were a couple of places around DuPont Circle as well – the Brickskeller which is still there, and the Ben Bow restaurant, which is no longer there.

Melissa I remember the Ben Bow. I knew someone who lived above it in the ‘70’s.

Mark Those places weren’t so much live music venues, they were just places he and his buddies would go. There were a lot of places on 14th street where Morrison hung out too. There are stories that Morrison went to Rands, the Hayloft and Casino Royal and places like that to see bands play, but certainly the places he was really enamored with were Coffee ‘n Confusion, Bohemian Caverns, and Harrigan’s Restaurant which was down on the waterfront in Southwest I also had one of his old friends tell me that they would go to upper 14ths street – to 14th and U to the black jazz clubs. Places like the Colt Lounge, the Spa, the Village Note - which latter became the Jazzarama. That was all around 1960-1961. Jim Morrison had found out about these jazz nightclubs by going to Bohemian Caverns and he loved to explore that whole corridor that was at 11th and U Streets and then he just walked down to 14th an U and he would check out the jazz nightclubs in that area.

That whole area was like no man’s land for white high school kids at the time. You can see he was pretty fearless.

Melissa My brother had a job working for DC Transit back at that time, checking the buses arrival times and he had to be down there. I heard some pretty wild stories about that area.

Mark Recently I had to go down there to 14th and T, because I am writing about that whole area and how Morison visited these clubs, and I wanted to find out what they are today. So I went down there, got off at the U street metro and I was shocked because that whole area is changing into Georgetown. The last time I was there, there was nothing but old boarded up buildings up and down 14th Street, and now there are all kinds of new businesses there. It’s very cosmopolitan now. I walked down 14th to P Street, then I walked all the way down to 20th street to Dupont Circle, and P Street, which use to be pretty rough in that area around 14th and P and 15th and P, is now all built up. There’s Starbucks and Cosi, and these coffee shops and bars and restaurants all over.

Melissa That whole area around the MCI center is just like that too.

Mark Oh yeah, I’m down there every Saturday, going to the Martin Luther King Library. They just knocked down the whole 9th street strip. You see, back during the 1940’s and 1950’s and even up to about 1965 9th Street was like Washington DC‘s Time Square. All the way up from 9th and Pennsylvania to 9th and M, there was a stretch there where it was all peep shows and porno movie theaters and cheap used bookstores and arcades, I mean there was a big prostitution stretch and there was a big drug stretch. I talked to Andy Morrison, Jim Morrison’s younger brother, and he told me that they used to go walking around there and go to the used bookstores. That was when it was at its most intense period –1960. It really was like a Time Square atmosphere. I walked that whole stretch just a couple of weeks ago and it’s all been torn down. It’s all high-rise office buildings, these ten and eleven-story office buildings. There isn’t one single business left from its heyday. That tells you how much the downtown area has been torn up. The city has changed very much since the days when Jim Morrison would go walking around downtown. He would take the bus from Alexandria into Washington DC, get off at 12th and Penn and just start walking. He would check out the bookstores during the daytime and make notes on where the nightclubs were. I think he walked the entire city pretty much. Then he’d get his friends to take him back to these nightclubs at night. I think that definitely had a pretty strong influence on him. He would do the same kind of thing when he went away to college, both down in Florida and out in Los Angeles. When he took the stage with the Doors he had had a little bit of experience from being on stage doing the poetry reading at Coffee ‘n Confusion in Washington, D.C.

Melissa That’s pretty wild. It gives much more of an insight in to the character of Jim Morrison. My general impression of him has always been of this extreme narcissism. I guess my opinion is mainly shaped by the movie, “The Doors.”

Mark That’s what has influenced people’s perceptions. The movie, these biographies that focus on Jim the wild man, Jim the drunk, Jim the rock and roll star, his female conquests and that sort of thing. The fact is he was an extremely intelligent, very creative person. He had his personality quirks, and he did do a lot of things alone, but contrary to popular opinion, he also had a lot of friends in high school and did a lot of normal things too. During the week he’d spend time in his bed room reading and drawing, that sort of thing, but on weekends he loved to go into DC and explore. That would be both on the week ends during the day and when he could he’d go in the evening with his friends and visit some of these nightclubs as well. I think Morrison was fascinated with what Washington, DC had to offer in terms of entertainment and nightclubs.

Melissa Well it was his introduction to culture.

Mark Oh absolutely. He would go to the Dupont Theater, which was on Connecticut Avenue just below Dupont Circle, and the Playhouse Theater on 15th Street. He’d go see these movies by Serge Eisenstein and Francois Truffaut, the French symbolist filmmakers. He would go see all these films that kind of spurred his love of cinema. All these things had there origins here in Washington DC while he was living in Alexandria.

Melissa I could see how he would be attracted to Paris, from the similarity to DC.

Mark All of his favorite filmmakers were French and some of his favorite authors were as well. His favorite poet was Arthur Rimbaud.

Melissa The thing about DC is that it is such a mixture. You have a very strong international thing, the country, bluegrass, the black- jazz and soul music. I mean where else is that possible?

Mark The thing I have discovered doing my books “Capitol Rock” and “The Lizard King Was Here” is that within the music scene in Washington, one particular type of music would be very intense for a period of time and then it would always change. I mean, country music was always popular up until the time of the riots in 1968. Up to that time there were a couple of bluegrass clubs that were very popular like the Shamrock on M Street in Georgetown and the Pine Tavern on Massachusetts Avenue. There were rock and roll nightclubs all over the city, especially in Georgetown and the area of 14th Street, and then you had a mixture of country and rock at places like the Ozarks, Vinnie’s and the Famous, all of which featured Link Wray and the Raymen at different times. Over in Southeast DC you had places like the 1023 Club, the Shanty, the Beehive, and the Stagecoach, which booked some strange combinations of country and rock bands. Then, in the blink of an eye, you had the riots in 1968, and it was all over with. A bit later in the early seventies heavy rock and roll moved into the local nightclubs and then in the late 1970’s there was the punk rock movement. Almost any style of music has had its moment in DC. It seems to come and go in waves.

Melissa I hope we are in for another one. Thank you, Mark. As always, talking with you has been extremely interesting. I am looking forward to having the chance to read you new book, “The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia.”

read bio on author Mark Opsasnick

visit the Mark Opsasnick official website at: http://www.capitolrock.com/index.html

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