(To read Part One click here!)
The overturned chair and its astonished passenger struck the rowdy table and down it went. Consternation in the ranks!
I then bent over this idiot as he lay on the floor, staring up at me in complete surprise, and raised the edge of my tray as if to bring it down on the bridge of his nose but stopped when it was about three inches from his face. After shouting, "Don't you ever do that to a woman again!" I stormed off, leaving him lying there, presumably to be rescued by his friends.
I went to Bill at the front door, handed in my tray, told him I was leaving, and to please go deal with whoever it was that had assaulted me. I walked out, and walked the mile or so home. I was pretty pissed off. I hadn't made a dime that night.
I called the next day for my schedule and was told by Marshall's secretary that I wasn't to come back to work. I asked why and further expressed my concerns about the identity of the customer who had assaulted me, and what the club had done about it. "Don't you know who that was?" asked the secretary. "No, and I don't care. Nobody has the right to assault me." "Well, it was Jim Morrison." Oops.
Not much more to say there, but I couldn't reconcile the face I'd seen in the photograph, and this hairy beast of a man who had behaved so violently for no reason that I was aware of. However, the damage was done, and I now had no job, and no money coming in. I didn't even get paid for the night. Thanks, Jim.
Through some connections I had made at the club, I was able to scratch up this and that to tide me over. I got a gig at the Gemini Psychedelic Supermarket aka Bizarre Bazaar on Las Palmas just off Hollywood Boulevard, where I worked at the jewelry concession. That was a freaky-deaky place as well. I passed the time making cheapie earrings from wire and beads, and wondering how I was going to get a proper job in the music business, if ever. As the holidays came and went unremarked, my birthday ditto, I continued to work at the Psychedelic Supermarket and then, as a consolation prize, I came down with bronchial pneumonia.
I finally staggered out to a call box and reached Carol Samuels, explaining my plight. Within an hour she and Eric Hord, guitar player for the Mamas and the Papas, showed up. They packed me and my few possessions into Eric's truck, and I was transported to Carol's parents' house on Maryland and 6th, to recover. Dr. and Mrs. Samuels were in Israel for some months, so we had the big house to ourselves.
After a couple of weeks, and a diet of mostly Cream of Wheat, I recovered enough to wonder what to do next. Carol, who was personal assistant to Bobby Roberts, (who managed the Mamas and the Papas), persuaded me to come with her to the Troubadour, to see if I could get a job as a waitress there, but one night in the super-busy bar was enough to persuade me that waitressing was not for me any longer.
Carol and I continued to frequent the Troubadour, a couple of times a week or more, and I kept hoping for the break that would get me into the music business again. I met a lot of great people, but most were scuffling like myself. We were all looking to grab the brass ring, but in the meantime, we at least had each other to complain to. Then, one night in August, it all changed.
I was standing in the always-crowded bar on a Monday night, over which Hootmeister Roger Perry ruled. The very popular Hoot Night jammed the place up, and the bar was packed to the walls. I was positioned with my back to the street door to the bar, when it opened up and in walked Paul Rothchild, producer of the Doors and also Janis Joplin.
I knew Paul through Carol, had always found him to be friendly and unpretentious. He asked how I was doing, and I complained bitterly about Jim's behavior and how it had cost me a job, and possibly that he was out there spreading the word against me. "Oh yeah," remarked Paul, "that sounds like Jim." And then he added ... (To be continued.)
Photo: Paul Rothchild and Jim Morrison at Sunset Sound Recorders.
(Comprehensive site on Thee Experience and Mark Rodney of Batdorf and Rodney shares his memories of Thee Experience.)
Sorry Mike! Part Three next week. Piece on the Troubadour Family Reunion coming up!
Posted by: sally stevens | 01/06/2011 at 04:26 PM
Talk about cliff hangers!
Posted by: MikeA | 01/06/2011 at 03:57 PM