Some say Jim Morrison died in a Paris bathtub. Others say he faked his death, skipped out of France in a peacoat and a pair of dark glasses, and disappeared into the fog of myth — a Dionysian Houdini with a passport and a pack of Gauloises.
And now, along comes a new Apple TV docuseries, Before the End: Searching for Jim Morrison, claiming the man is still alive, living in exile not in Morocco or Big Sur or the Hollywood Hills, but in… Syracuse. Syracuse, New York. That gray, slushy cemetery of dreams. A city with all the charm of a salt stain and the nightlife of a basement AA meeting. The doc insists he’s there under an alias, working as some kind of maintenance man. Which is a sweet idea if you’re writing a Springsteen ballad — but not if you actually understand who Jim Morrison was.
If Jim Morrison were alive today, he would not be replacing HVAC units in central New York. He’d be right where destiny would’ve dragged him, kicking and moaning: the San Fernando Valley. The beating, throbbing, gently-lubed heart of the adult film industry.
Let’s be clear. The man was born for porn.
He already had the look: sweaty, unwashed, leather-pants-tight, and permanently halfway between a cumshot and a blackout. He was either reciting poetry or dry-humping a mic stand. He wrote lyrics like “Come on baby, light my fire”, “Love me two times”, and “You make me real… you make me feel… like lovers feel.” That’s not music — that’s foreplay with a rhythm section.
And the rumors? Legendary. Whispers about his manhood drifted through the groupie grapevine like acid tabs at Woodstock. One of his old flames once claimed that when Jim dropped trou, it looked like someone was lowering a third microphone into the room. Mike at the Whisky a Go Go once told me, off the record, that Morrison’s cock had a deeper reverb than the bass drum.
So imagine it: Jim doesn’t die in Paris. He sobers up — or he doesn’t — either way, all roads lead to porn for a guy like him. He disappears for a few years, hides out in Mexico, maybe the Ozarks. But eventually, he drifts west. Back to California. Not to Laurel Canyon or Venice Beach, but deeper into the smog-choked sprawl. The Valley. Where stars go to fade — and broke ones go to rise again.
By the late ’80s, the porn industry was booming like Reagan’s ego. John Holmes was dead, Ron Jeremy was somehow still breathing, and the VHS pipeline needed fresh blood and a new Johnny Wadd. In walks a shaggy, sunburned, post-fame ghost with a Laulhère beret, a scarf around his neck and an anaconda in his jeans. He doesn’t say much. He doesn’t need to. Gerard Damiano, or Kirdy Stevens, takes one look and says, “You’re in. But we’ll need a name.”
And that’s where the transformation happens.
Not “Jim Morrison.” That’s dead. That’s rock-n-roll. This is porn.
He rechristens himself Jim Moorcock, aka The Phyton Shaman, aka The Lizard Thing — a nod to his past, but with more bite. A new god for a new altar.
The tapes start coming out fast. Break On Through (To Her Back Door). Love Me THREE Times. Mr. Mojo Risin’. Riders On the Snatch. Then there’s that quick detour into gay porn with Backdoor Man I, II & III, and back with Hole Kitchen and Roadhouse Blue Balls. Each film drenched in desert sweat and grainy analog glory. He wears sunglasses in every scene. Recites lines like he’s still onstage in ’69: “This is the end… beautiful friend… of your ability to walk straight.”
Jim doesn’t just do porn. He makes it mythic. He turns it into performance art. In one film, he fucks a woman while quoting Rimbaud in a hot tub shaped like a snake. In another, he vanishes behind a curtain of beaded doorways and emerges naked, fully erect, and wearing only a crown of roses and a copy of Naked Lunch duct-taped to his thigh.
By the mid-2000s, he’s a legend again — but this time, in a different industry. At the AVN Awards, they give him the Lifetime Achievement trophy. He walks onstage barefoot, shirtless, with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a golden dick in the other. He squints into the light, raises the statue like it’s the Ten Commandments, and says, “I am the Lizard Thing… I can do any thing. Even this.”
The room erupts. Somewhere backstage, a girl named Misty Luv faints from spiritual climax.
So no, I do not believe Jim Morrison is mopping floors in Syracuse. Not unless it’s the floor of a porn set after a particularly sticky shoot.
No, he’s dead. As a doornail. Otherwise, he’d be in the Valley. Forever. Lit by cheap floodlights, basking in the groan of low-budget ecstasy. His dick forever swaying like a cobra charmed by the sound of its own myth.
And maybe that’s all he ever really wanted. Not immortality. Not poetry. Not Paris. Just a place where a man can let his freak flag fly, his pants drop to his ankles, and his inner reptile truly reign.
So light one up, crank the Doors, and imagine Jim as he could have been — older, yes. Slower, maybe. But still thrusting. Still howling. Still… The Lizard King. But …The Lizard Thing.
—P.
