Lovers, muggers, and thieves

Another guest post from Babs!

 

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern” so wrote William Blake, in his 1790 book, ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’.

 

 

Blake

William Blake fan Aldous Huxley used the phrase “the doors of perception” for the title of his autobiographical book published in 1954, which detailed his first psychedelic experience in 1953.

 

 

Huxley

Jim Morrison in 1965 was inspired to name the band after the title of Aldous Huxley's book “The Doors of Perception”.

I took LSD for the first time in 1968, and took it regularly over the next few years, as did most of my friends in institutions of higher learning.

In 1970, I was living in Boston, Massachusetts, and working on my post graduate degree in stochastic calculus at M. I. T., Jerry (my future husband) was working on his post graduate degree in Physics at Wellesley College.  Jerry and I were cohabitating, which in 1970 was considered quite provocative. Jerry used to say, “Babs and I, went to different schools together.”

One early March afternoon in the Stratton Student Center of M. I. T., I was thumbing through ‘Boston After Dark’, which was a weekly entertainment newspaper, and saw an advertisement for a Doors concert at the Boston Arena on April 10th.  Jerry and I saw The Doors the previous July at the Aquarius Theater in Hollywood, and it was quite a show.  So I hurried to the Boston Sears Roebuck, where they had a Ticketron (a computerized event ticketing company) outlet. At Sears, I scored two $6.50 tickets for the late show, which cost $14.30 with the 10% Ticketron fee.  Opening my purse, I realized that I had a ten and threes single dollars bills, I managed to find four quarters, but I was still 30 cents short!  Deep in a corner of my bag, I found two dimes, but I was still ten cents short.  A very strait-laced looking guy in a three-piece suit behind me, who was there to get circus tickets for his family, gave me the extra 10 cents.

Later that day, Jerry came home and proclaimed “I scored two Doors tickets!” to which I replied “Me too, early or late show?” “Early show” said Jerry, I replied, “I’ve got late show tickets” We laughed, and Jerry said “It looks like we’re seeing the Doors twice!”

 

The day of the show

Neither Jerry nor myself had classes on Friday afternoons, so we went to see our “connection” Larry a.k.a. “Lucky Larry” who played trombone, and attended Berklee College of Music.  Larry was a fellow Brooklynite, and a friend of a friend.  He had hair that went halfway down his back, a long beard and always looked completely disheveled. Larry wore a huge belt buckle that had “LUCKY 13” engraved on it.  Larry lived in a turn of the century tenement building that had a bathtub in the kitchen of his apartment.  We bought an ounce of Oaxacan buds, two Thai Sticks (which were Thai buds on bamboo sticks, and tied with hemp string), and four “hits” of “Clearlight Windowpane” acid (which was LSD on a very small triangular shaped piece of red gelatin).  Larry would go on to become an in-demand session musician, who played on countless television and radio commercials. In 2022, Larry and I, are still in contact.

We left Larry’s, and went back to our apartment, smoked a joint, and had a bite to eat. After we ate, while rolling joints for the show, we toyed with the idea of doing two hits of windowpane each. We dropped a hit a windowpane, and as we were ready to leave, Jerry said “C’mon Babs, let's do the other hits!” I agreed, we ate the other two hits, and we headed for the bus stop.  On the bus, and halfway to the Boston Arena, we had an “acid shiver” and we were “off to the races” so to speak.

When we arrived at the arena, there was a carnival atmosphere of people selling tee shirts, rolling papers and pipes, weed, acid, uppers and downers - you name it.  We went inside, found our seats, smoked a joint and waited for the show to start.  The lights went down, and a band called “Axis”, an uninspiring blues trio were introduced.  Next up was folk singer Gordon Lowe, who played solo with an acoustic guitar.  We couldn’t hear Gordon over all the heckling and booing, the poor man received. Forty-five minutes later, the Doors came on stage to cameras flashing and the entire audience on its feet letting a roar. Jim Morrison was clearly drunk, but in a jovial mood, and the early show was very cool!

 

Morrison

 

After the early show, we were ushered outside, where it was pouring with rain.  We found a dry area under some scaffolding, smoked a joint and giggled in delight at our acid induced euphoria.  Jerry said he was thirsty, and asked if I was too, and told me “Wait here Babs, and I’ll run across the street, to the store”.  While Jerry was gone, two girls who were drinking beer a few yards away from us started screaming at each other; the next thing I knew, one hit the other one in the head with a beer bottle, and ran away!  People nearby thought that I hit her, and started shouting “Not cool, why did you do that?” at me.  The girl who was hit, got up on her feet and told them “It wasn’t her” and then she took off with her head bleeding.  By now I was more than freaked out, I lit a cigarette, and noticed two cops getting out of their patrol car, and people pointing in my direction.  Both cops started walking quickly straight towards me, my heart starting pounding and my hands started shaking thinking they thought I did it.  One cop put his hand on my arm and said, “Excuse me, young lady” as they both hurried pass me.  A sense of relief came over me, and I started laughing and couldn’t stop. Jerry came into view with two bottles of orange juice in his hand. As we drank the juice, I related to Jerry what just happened, causing him to laugh and pass orange juice through his nose. By now, it was time to go back inside the arena for the late show.

 

 

From the cesspools of excitement where Jim Morrison once stood...

 

For the late show, scheduled to start at 10PM, we had better seats that were ten rows back from the stage. It wasn’t until midnight before the Doors hit the stage again. By midnight, Jim Morrison was an inebriated mess, but managed to keep it together. At 2AM due to Boston’s curfew laws the power on the stage was cut except for Jim’s microphone, which was powered by a separate P.A. Realizing he had a live mic, Morrison quickly used it to rant and curse. Ray Manzarek grabbed Morrison and pulled him offstage, but lost his grip once the two reached the wings. Running back to the mic, Morrison told the crowd: "We all should get together and have some fun, because the assholes are gonna win if we let them”.  The promoter, not wanting a riot on his hands, decided it was best to let the Doors perform one more song. The band came out with Manzarek on guitar and Robby Krieger on bass and did an early rendition of "Been Down So Long," which would appear on the ‘L.A. Woman’ album the following year.

After the show, there were no more buses running, and we couldn’t find a cab, so we walked the few miles home, singing Doors songs, still tripping our brains out.

Today’s download is both of the shows we saw that night.

Babs will be here shortly with her clipboard and pen to take down your particulars.