by James Douglas Morrison

THE SCREEN IS BLACK. We hear a young man's voice in casual conversation with friends. No, this guy told me you can go down across the border and buy a girl and bring her back and that's what I'm goin' to do, I'm gonna go down there and buy one of them and bring her back and marry her. I am. An older woman's voice Billy, are you completely crazy? We hear the good-natured laughter of the woman, a man and another friend as Billy's insistent voice rises through saying: BILLY No, it's true. Really. This guy told me. It's true. I'm really gonna do it. The film changes to COLOR. A couple sit at a small table in a simulated border town nightclub. It is a CLOSE shot, reminding us possibly of Picasso's "Absinthe Drinkers." The atmosphere is suggested by peripheral sounds such as bois- terous young voices, curses in a foreign language, the tin- kling of glasses and music from a small rock band. Perhaps a dancer is visible in the background. Perhaps topless. An anonymous waitress could enter the frame and leave, serving drinks. The HERO is drunk and he's trying to persuade an attractive Mexican girl, a waitress in the bar, a whore, to cross the border and marry him. The girl tolerates him. She is work- ing, hustling drinks, and has to listen but also she likes him. In some way, he interests her. BILLY I bet only reason you won't come with me is because I ain't got any money. Well, listen. I'm tellin' you. I'm gonna go back up there and get me some money, lots of it, maybe even ten thousand. And then I'm comin' back for you. I'm comin' back. He weaves offscreen, determined, drunk, camera hold on girl, smiling wistfully and ironically after him. Then she grabs another young American and pulls him down beside her. THE GIRL Hey, man, you want to buy me a drink? TITLE THE HITCHHIKER (An American Pastoral) Film changes to BLACK and WHITE. It is dawn on the it's cold, and he stands hunched in his jacket, by the side of the highway. The sun is rising. We hold on him as a few cars go by at long intervals. We hear the car coming, watch his eyes watching, he sticks his thumb out. CUT TO profile shot, as a car swishes by. The third car stops and he runs, not too energetically and get inside. INTERIOR car. Middle-aged man in a business suit. He asks the hitchhiker where he is going. BILLY (mumbling) L.A. He is obviously reluctant to do any talking. THE DRIVER I can take you as far as Amarillo and then you'll have to go on from there. BILLY (No reply. No recognition.) DRIVER What are you going to do when you get to L.A.? Have you got a job lined up? BILLY (No answer. He is beginning to nod.) The man drives on. We see glimses of the American land- scape out the window of the car. The man glances sideways occasionally at Billy who is sleeping. CLOSE UP of the man's right hand moving snake-like to- wards the hiker's left leg. He hesitates and then touches it above the knee. Immediately, a .38 revolver appears from Billy jacket and points at the driver. BILLY Pull over. Profile of car, left side, extremely long shot. We hear a shot. The hitchhiker comes around the rear of the car, opens the door, and pulls the driver toward camera, his corpse that is, to the gully, and, after stripping his wallet of all the cash, gets into the car and drives away. The kid is standing beside the car with his thumb out. The hood is raised. The engine has failed. A State Patrolman (we learn this from his uniform, western hat, and badge) stops in his own unmarked car. Billy gets in the car. The sheriff is friendly. He talks a lot. He tells Billy that he's just getting back home after delivering two lunatics from his local jail to the state asylum. SHERIFF I had to put them both in straight- jackets and throw them in the back of the wagon. I had to. They were totally uninhibited. I mean, if I let 'em loose, they just start jerking off and playing with each other, so I had to keep them tied up. The killer is trying to stay awake. He's strung out on ben- nies, and also just plain exhausted, and he's fighting to fol- low the man's conversation. The sheriff rambles on. Billy is in that weird state between what's being said in reality and what he hears in his dream. The sheriff asks a question. He an- swers and then jerks up suddenly to realize that he's been inventing his own dialogue inside his head. Finally, he can take it no longer. He pulls the gun out and orders the sheriff to pull over to the side of the road. Then he forces him to unlock the trunk, orders him inside and slams the lid. INTERIOR of car. The hitchhiker is driving on. As the car slows down for an upgrade, the trunk flies open and the sheriff tumbles out into the dust. Billy sees it in the rearview mirror. He slams on the brakes, jumps out of the car and runs back to the spot. From off in the desert, we see the sheriff racing insanely toward the camera. He suddenly leaps and throws himself flat on the ground behind a sand dune, next to the camera. From this point of view, the sheriff crouched and breathing in heavy gasps, we watch the kid stand on the side of the road, stare out into the desert and finally get back into the car and drive away. Billy is hitchhiking again. Obviously, he has ditched the sheriff's car somewhere along the way. A car pulls over. There is a young man driving and in the back seat are his wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. The driver is friendly, tells him he used to hitchhike a lot himself and volunteers the information that he has just returned home from two years in Viet Nam, where he was a pilot. Billy pulls out the gun and lets them know immediately that he wants them to take him anywhere he wants to go. Other- wise, he'll kill them. It is NIGHT. They pull into a gas station. Billy is hungry, so are the kids. So he goes with the ex-aviator into a small country store that's part of the station. He warns the family to keep quiet or he'll kill everyone. INSIDE the country store. A seedy old man behind the counter. They ask him for a bunch of ham sandwiches. In close-up, we watch him slice the meat, the knife hesitating minutely, deciding on the thickness of each slice. The two men stand there watching him. Suddenly, the husband wheels around and gets a grip on the hitchhiker from behind. They whirl madly around the store, the father screaming for the proprietor to call the police. THE MAN Stop him! He's got a gun!! He's gonna kill us!!! Help me!!!! Billy somehow manages to get his gun out and forces the man to the car. The store owner stares after him, mouth agape, then picks up the receiver to call the police. MORNING. A young boy finds the car, pulled off on a side road, splattered with blood. He opens the door and sees the little girl's baby doll, the naked, flesh-colored rubber kind, and in close-up, we see blood on it. The EXTERIOR of a run-down shack in the country. We hear the sounds from inside. INTERIOR of shack. Televi- sion and radio and newspaper reporters, including an attrac- tive woman with a notebook, are interviewing the killer's father. He's a very old man, an alcoholic, who is slightly pleased to be thrust suddenly into the spotlight, but who treats the situation with a grave sense of public image and self-irony. THE FATHER He was always a pretty strange boy, specially after his mother passed away. Then he got real quiet. He didn't have many friends. Just his brothers and sisters. GIRL REPORTER Mr. Cooke, is there anything you'd like to tell your son? FATHER Yes, there is. Billy, if you can hear me, son, please turn yourself in. Cause what you're doin', it just ain't right. You're not doin' right, son. And you know it. During this appeal, the camera has moved slowly into a CLOSE-UP of the old man's face. INTERIOR. Car. Night. Rain. A car radio. The light glows yellow in the dark car. The radio is playing a country gospel hour. A revival meeting. The preacher and his flock. As Billy listens, we flash back into his past, over the rain and wind- shield wipers. We see an old man and a young boy in the woods. The man is Billy's father and the boy is Billy himself at about age seven or eight. The father teaches his son how to shoot a gun. He tell him to aim at a rabbit. THE FATHER Don't be afraid, son. Don't be afraid. Just squeeze one off. We see a rabbit pinioned in a rifle's telescopic sight. A small town high school, 3:30, bell rings, school is out. The kids gush from the building and flow like a human stream to the favorite drive-in restaurant. INTERIOR of car. Billy is eating a cheeseburger and Coke. Through his windows he watches the movements of one of the carhops. She is wearing slacks and with him we watch her ass and thighs. When she comes to collect, he asks her to come for a ride with him. We hear him say this but the ensuing dialogue is shown in pantomime. The actual voices are drowned out by the sounds of radios, kids talking. They are driving up a mountain road. The Rolling Stones' "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" comes on the radio. Billy sings along with the record with wild abandon and squirms in his seat like a toad. The car is parked on a rocky view overlooking the ocean. He gets out of the car and dances around it, acting crazy, and howling like an Indian. He ducks up and down, appearing and reappearing in different windows. She laughs at his clowning. The couple are in the back seat, vaguely we see their move- ments, hear them whispering, laughing, talking. CUT TO outside of car. They get out of the back of the car, hair and clothes disarranged and move side by side into a rough ter- rain behind some rocks. Camera holds on the rocks. A pri- meval rock formation. At a rhythm that is peculiarly excruciating, we hear three gunshots. A rest room in an LA service station. EXTERIOR. Billy enters rest room. INTERIOR rest room. Billy shaves with soap in rest room mirror, runs his wet hands through his hair. EXTERIOR, downtown LA. Camera follows him from a car, as he wanders through the downtown crowds of Broad- way and Main Street. Many times he is lost to our view. We see him in an arcade, where he plays a pinball machine. CLOSE-UP of pinball game in progress. Billy in photo booth. Flash of the lights. CLOSE-UP of four automatic photos: flash flash flash flash. Four faces of Billy. Billy in downtown hamburger stand. He is eating, seen from behind, Gun enters frame left. He turns and sees it, stares back blankly. CUT TO EXTERIOR, street. In hand-held confused close- up sequence, we see him dragged and shoved into the back seat of a car (police car). He is kicked and beaten. During the struggle, we hear many men's voices, gloating righteous ex- clamations. MEN So you're the little bastard that killed all those people! (Kick) You had a good time, didn't you? (Kick) You really killed 'em, didn't you? Hands cuffed behind his back, he looks up with a confused expression and says: BILLY But I'm a good boy. The men laugh. Film switches to COLOR. A montage of extant photo- graphs representing death. The body of Che Guevara, a northern Renaissance Dutch crucifixion, bullfight, slaugh- terhouse, mandalas and into abstraction. A nature film of a mongoose killing a cobra, a black dog runs free on the beach. FADE INTO BLACKNESS. EXTERIOR night. On the steps of City Hall of Justice we see the hitchhiker descend dreamlike in slow motion, move languorously across a deserted city square toward the camera until he covers the lens and seems to pass through it. Seen now from behind, as he moves away from lens, he enters a desert outskirt region where he finds an automobile graveyard. He is wandering in Eternity. In the junkyard, three people squat around a small fire. They're cooking po- tatoes in the coals, an older man named DOC pokes the fire with a stick. There is an older woman, funky, glamorous, and the third person is a young boy, a mute, of indeterminate age. He is slightly made up with white makeup. They are hoboes in Eternity and are not surprised to see him. He nears the fire. DOC Well, how ya doin', kid? I see you did it again. Ya hungry? There's some food here if ya want it. Billy doesn't speak. He stares at the moon. The woman has kept her head down, her hair covering her face. DOC Billy's back. Blue Lady, didja hear me? I said Billy's back. She looks up for the first time. BLUE LADY Hi, Billy. BILLY Hello, Blue Lady. He looks at the boy. Hiya, Clown Boy. CLOWN BOY claps his hands and nods, his face contorted grotesquely in greeting. They sit for a while like this, and stare at the fire. They eat the potatoes. Then Doc rises and says: DOC The sun's gonna be up in a while. I guess we'd better move on. Slowly, one by one, the other two rise. Doc puts out the fire with dirt and says: DOC Ya comin' with us, Billy? BILLY (thinking hard) I don't know, Doc, I just don't know. Doc smiles. DOC Well, we'll see ya later, kid. The rest of the gang will be real glad to see ya. They sure will. Well... Doc, Clown Boy and the Blue Lady start moving toward the rising sun into the mountain desert. Every now and then they turn and wave, Clown Boy leaping up and down madly and waving good-bye. As they slowly disappear, camera changes focus to Billy, the hitchhiker, the kid, the killer, hunkered over the dead smol- dering fire. THE END

To Pamela Susan

I

Snakeskin jacket Indian eyes Brilliant hair

He moves in disturbed Nile Insect Air

II

You parade thru the soft summer We watch your eager rifle decay Your wilderness Your teeming emptiness Pale forests on verge of light decline.

More of your miracles More of your magic arms

III

Bitter grazing in sick pastures Animal sadness the daybed Whipping. Iron curtains pried open. The elaborate sun implies dust, knives, voices.

Call out of the Wilderness Call out of fever, receiving the wet dreams of an Aztec King.

IV

The banks are high overgrown rich w/ warm green danger. Unlock the canals. Punish our sister's sweet playmate distress. Do you want us that way w/ the rest? Do you adore us? When you return will you still want to play w/ us?

V

Fall down. Strange gods arrive in fast enemy poses. Their shirts are soft marrying cloth and hair together. All along their arms ornaments conceal veins bluer that blood pretending welcome. Soft lizard eyes connect. Their soft drained insect cries erect new fear, where fears reign. The rustling of sex against their skin. The wind withdraws all sound. Stamp your witness on the punished ground.

VI

Wounds, stags, arrows Hooded flashing legs plunge near the tranquil women. Startling obedience from the pool people. Astonishing caves to plunder. Loose, nerveless ballets of looting. Boys are running. Girls are screaming, falling. The air is thick w/ smoke. Dead crackling wires dance pools of sea blood.

VII

Lizard woman w/ your insect eyes w/ your wild surprise. Warm daughter of silence. Venom. Turn your back w/ a slither of moaning wisdom. The unblinking blind eyes behind walls new histories rise and wake growling whining the weird dawn of dreams. Dogs lie sleeping. The wolf howls. A creature lives out the war. A forest. A rustle of cut words, choking river.

VIII

The snake, the lizard, the insect eye the huntsman's green obedience. Quick, in raw time, serving stealth slumber, grinding warm forests into restless lumber.

Now for the valley. Now for the syrup hair. Stabbing the eyes, widening skies behind the skull bone. Swift end of hunting. Hug round the swollen torn breast red-stained throat. The hounds gloat. Take her home. Carry our sister's body, back to the boat.

A pair of Wings Crash High winds of Karma

Sirens

Laughter young voices in the mts.

Saints the Negro, Africa Tattoo eyes like time Build temporary habitations, games chambers, play there, hide.

First man stood, shifting stance while germs of sight unfurl'd Flags in his skull

and quickening, hair, nails, skin turned slowly, whirl'd, in the warm aquarium, warm wheel turning.

Cave fish, eels, gray salamanders turn in their night career of sleep.

The idea of vision escapes the animal worm whose earth is an ocean, whose eyes is its body.

The theory is that birth is prompted by the child's desire to leave the womb. But in the photograph an unborn horse's neck strains inward w/ legs scooped out.

From this everything follows:

Swallow milk at the breast until there's no milk.

Squeeze wealth at the rim until tile pools claim it.

He swallows seed, his pride until w/ pale mouth legs

she sucks the root, dreading world to devour child.

Doesn't the ground swallow me when I die, or the sea if I die at sea?

The City. Hive, Web, or severed insect mound. All citizens heirs of the same royal parent.

The caged beast, the holy center, a garden in the midst of the city.

"See Naples die." Jump ship. Rats, sailors death.

So many wild pigeons. Animals ripe w/ new diseases. "There is only one disease and I am its catalyst," cried doomed pride of the carrier.

Fighting, dancing, gambling, bars, cinemas thrive in the avid summer.

Savage destiny

Naked girl, seen from behind,

on a natural road

Friends explore the labyrinth

- Movie young woman left on the desert

A city gone mad w/ fever

Sister of the unicorn, dance Sisters brothers of Pyramid Dance

Mangled hands Tales of the Old Days Discovery of the Sacred Pool changes Mute-handed stillness baby cry

The wild dog The sacred beast

Find her!

He goes to see the girl of the ghetto Dark savage streets. A hut, lighted by candle. She is magician Female prophet Sorceress Dressed in the past All arrayed.

The stars The moon She reads the future in your hand.

The walls are garish red The stairs High discordant screaming She has the tokens. "You too" "Don't go" He flees. Music renews.

The mating-pit. "Salvation" Tempted to leap in circle.

Negroes riot.

Fear the Lords who are secret among us. The Lords are w/ in us. Born of sloth cowardice. He spoke to me. He frightened me w/ laughter. He took my hand, led me past silence into cool whispered Bells. A file of young people going thru a small woods They are filming something in the street, in front of our house. Walking to the riot Spreads to the houses the lawns suddenly alive now w/ people running

I don't dig what they did to that girl Mercy pack Wild song they sing As they chop her hands Nailed to a ghost Tree

I saw a lynching Met the strange men of the souther swamp Cypress was their talk Fish-call bird-song Roots signs out of all knowing They chanced to be there Guides, to the white gods.

An armed camp. Army army burning itself in feasts. Jackal, we sniff after the survivors of caravans. We reap bloody crops on war fields. No meat of any corpse deprives our lean bellies. Hunger drives us on scented winds. Stranger, traveler, peer into our eyes translate the horrible barking of ancient dogs. Camel caravans bear witness guns to Caesar. Hordes crawl seep inside the walls. The streets flow stone. Life goes on absorbing war. Violence kills the temple of no sex. Terrible shouts start the journey - If they had migrated sooner

- a high wailing keening piercing animal lament from a woman high atop a Mt. tower

- Thin wire fence in the mind dividing the heart

Surreptitiously They smile Inviting - Smiling Choktai leave! evil leave! No come here Leave her!

A creature is nursing its child soft arms around the head the neck a mouth to connect leave this child alone This one is mine I'm taking her home Back to the rain The assassin's bullet Marries the King Dissembling miles of air To kiss the crown. The Prince rambles in blood. Ode to the neck That was groomed For rape's gown. Cancer city Urban fall Summer sadness The highways of the old town Ghosts in cars Electric shadows Ensenada the dead seal the dog crucifix ghosts of the dead car sun. Stop the car. Rain. Night. Feel. Sea-bird sea-moan Earthquake murmuring Fast-burning incense Clamoring surging Serpentine road To the Chinese caves Home of the winds The gods of mourning The city sleeps the unhappy children roam w/ animal gangs. They seem to speak to their friends the dogs who teach them trails. Who can catch them? Who can make them come inside? The tent girl at midnight stole to the well met her lover there They talked a while laughed then he left She put an orange pillow on her breast

In the morning Chief w/drew his troops planned a map The horsemen rose on up the women fixed the ropes on tight The tents are folded now We march toward the sea

Catalog of Horrors Descriptions of Natural disaster Lists of miracles in the divine corridor Catalog of fish in the divine canal Catalog of objects in the room List of things in the sacred river

I

The soft parade has now begun on Sunset. Cars come thundering down the canyon. Now is the time the place. The cars come rumbling. "You got a cool machine." These engine beasts muttering their soft talk. A delight at night to hear their quiet voices again after 2 years.

Now the soft parade has soon begun. Cool pools from a tired land sink now in the peace of evening. Clouds weaken die. The sun, an orange skull, whispers quietly, becomes an island, is gone.

There they are watching us everything will be dark. The light changed. We were aware knee-deep in the fluttering air as the ships move on trains in their wake. Trench mouth again in the camps. Gonorrhea Tell the girl to go home We need a witness to the killing.

II

The artists of Hell set up easels in parks the terrible landscape, where citizens find anxious pleasure preyed upon by savage bands of youths

I can't believe this is happening I can't believe all these people are sniffing each other backing away teeth grinning hair raised, growling, here in the slaughtered wind

I am ghost killer. witnessing to all my blessed sanction

This is it no more fun the death of all joy has come.

Do you dare deny my potency my kindness or forgiveness? Just try you will fry like the rest in holiness

And not for a penny will I spare any time for you Ghost children down there in the frightening world

You are alone have no need of other you the child mother who bore you who weaned you who made you man

III

Photo-booth killer fragile bandit straight from ambush

Kill me! Kill the child who made Thee. Kill the thought-provoking senator of lust who brought you to this state.

Kill hate disease warfare sadness

Kill badness Kill madness

Kill photo mother murder tree Kill me. Kill yourself Kill the little blind elf.

The beautiful monster vomits a stream of watches clocks jewels knives silver coins copper blood

The well of time trouble whiskey bottles perfume razor blades beads liquid insects hammers thin nails the feet of birds eagle feathers claws machine parts chrome teeth hair shards of pottery skulls the ruins of our time the debris by a lake the gleaming beer cans sable menstrual fur

Dance naked on broken bones feet bleed stain glass cuts cover your mind the dry end of vacuum boat white the people drop lines in still pools pull ancient trout from the deep home. Scales crusted gleaming green A knife was stolen. A valuable hunting knife By some strange boys from the other camp across the Lake

I

Are these our friends racing shuddering thru the calm vales of parliament

My son will not die in the war He will return numbed peasent voice of Orient fisherman

Last time you said this was the only way voice of tender young girl

Running speaking infected green jungles

consult the oracle bitter creek crawl they exist on rainwater

monkey-love mantra mate maker of brandy

The poison isles The poison

Take this thin granule of evil snakeroot from the southern shore

way out miracle will find thee

The chopper blazed over inward click sure blasted matter, made the time bombs free of leprous lands spotted w/ hunger clinging to law

Please show us your ragged head silted smiling eyes calm in fire a silky flowered shirt edging the eyes, alive spidery, distant dial lies

come, calm one into the life-try

already wifelike latent, leathery, loose lawless, large languid She was a kingdom-cry legion of lewd marching mind-men

Where are your manners out there on the sunlit desert boundless galaxies of dust cactus spines, beads bleach stones, bottles rust cars, stored for shaping

The new man, time-soldier picked his way narrowly thru the crowded ruins of once grave city, gone comic now w/ rats the insects of refuge

He lives in cars goes fruitless thru the frozen schools finds no space in shades of obedience

the monitors are silenced the great graveled guard-towers sicken on the westward beach so tired of watching

if only on horse were left to ride thru the waste a dog at his side to sniff meat-maids chained on the public poles

there is no more argument in beds, at night blackness is burned Stare into the parlors of town where a woman dances in her European gown to the great waltzes this could be fun to rule a wasteland

II

Cherry palms Terrible shores more many more

This we know that all are free in the school-made text of the unforgiven

deceit smiles incredible hardships are suffered by those barely able to endure

but all will pass lie down in green grass gaze upon her smooth resemblance to the mating-Queen who it seems is in love w/ the horseman

now, isn't that fragrant Sir, isn't that knowing w/ a wayward careless backward glance

July 24, 1968 Los Angeles, The United States, Hawaii

Ao que Jim fez antes de falecer, aconteu em Paris quando Jim vindo de ferias encontrou dois musicos na rua e os convidou a gravar com ele umas musicas num estudio perto. O resultado foram sete minutos de gravao pois Jim estava completamente bebedo nao conseguindo gravar mais do que isso. Jim apresentou se no estudio como Jomo and the Smoothies. E mais tarde foi editado pela Elektra Records com mais umas poesias que Jim havia gravado em 1969 e tem como titulo, The Lost Paris Tapes.

"Eu passei por um periodo em que bebia muito. Tinha muita presso em cima de mim que eu no podia suportar. Mas eu gostava de beber. Faz as pessoas se soltarem e as vezes estimula conversas. De alguma forma, e como jogar. Voce sai para uma noite de bebedeiras, e no sabe onde vai terminar na manh seguinte. Pode ser bom, ou um desastre." - Jim, 1969

"Eu sempre gostei das coisas que li. Claro, que elas so sobre mim. Mas elas eram muito concentradasno meu orgo progenitor, e no para o fato de que eu era um jovem razoavelmente saudavel, alguem que tinha algo mais do que braos, pernas e olhos - tinha um cerebro, o equipamento completo. A imprensa sempre faz isto." - Jim, 1970

"Eu estava menos teatral, menos artificial do que quando comecei. Mas agora, tocamos para uma audiencia cada vez maior, lugares cada vez maiores.E necessario se projetar mais, exagerar, ate chegar ao ponto do ridiculo. Eu penso que sou um pequeno ponto no fim de uma enorme arena, voce tem que compensar a falta de intimidade com movimentos expandidos" - Jim, 1969

"Eu acho que mais do que escrever e fazer musica, meu maior talento e que eu tenho uma habilidade instintiva de propraganda da propria imagem. Eu era muito bom em manipular a publicidade com algumas frases do tipo politicos eroticos'. Tendo crescido com TV e revistas de massa, eu sabia institivamente o que as pessoas iriam pegar, ento eu soltava estas pequenas joias aqui e ali, parecendo muito inocente; e claro, eu estava apenas chamando os avisos." - Jim, 1969

"Ele era sempre o mesmo. Louco. Na verdade, ele era muito mais selvagem e louco quando no estava em cima de um palco. Ele sempre estava louco por no ter se tornado maior de uma maneira mais rapida, como The Beatles ou coisa do tipo. Este era seu unico lamento." - Robbie, 1980

"Eu acho que os albuns substituiam os livros...e filmes. Um filme voce ve uma vez, talvez duas, depois mais tarde na televiso. Mas um album, e mais influente do que qualquer tipo de arte. Todo mundo cava eles, e alguns voce ouve umas 50 vezes. Voce mede seu progresso mentalmente pelos seus discos." - Jim, 1969

"Era totalmente teatral. No era planejado ou concebido no estudio, vinha do subconsciente. Jim era magico ele nunca sabia o que iria fazer em cada noite, e isto e o que era excitante, o suspense, porque nos tambem no sabiamos. Nossa musica era a estrutura, mas sem ser to rigida. De repente nos poderiamos improvisar por 20 minutos ou mais, e Jim iria improvisar uma poesia, depois voltariamos no refro da musica...era isso que fazia tudo ser to excitante. Mais ainda, ele tinha uma grande relao com o publico." - John, 1978

"O bom dos filmes e que no existem espertos. Qualquer um pode assimilar a historia do filme sozinho, o que no acontece em nenhum dos outros tipos de arte. No ha espertos, ento na teoria, qualquer aluno sabe tanto quanto o professor." - Jim, 1969

"No existe nada mais divertido do que tocar musica para uma audiencia. Ha esta bela tenso. Existe liberdade, e ao mesmo tempo, uma obrigao em tocar bem. Eu amo isto, da mesma forma que um atleta ama correr, se manter em forma. Algumas de nossas melhores viagens musicais foram em clubes." - Jim, 1969