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Tripping With Jim Morrison & Other Friends
'You have poems inside your head and you have learned to explode them with firecracker tubes of paint.' Ray Bradbury
To be an artist alone in the world dependent upon one's own art to provide a living is almost the most difficult or the most providential path anyone can choose. Thus Tripping With Jim Morrison & Other Friend s is Michael Lawrence's own jaunty Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man .
The intrepid ex-pat artist's Magical Mystery Tour odyssey travels from Hollywood to Roman ruins via foggy London town, the Spaghetti-Western movie studios of Madrid, Gaudi's Barcelona, Afghanistan, New York and L.A.
'The guys from your UCLA days sent me your way, claiming your memories and stories of Jim are among the most important.' Jerry Hopkins (Co-author of the Jim Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive )
'I won’t try to compete with you in the word department except to say how much I enjoy reading yours.' Roy Lichtenstein
To be an artist alone in the world dependent upon one's own art to provide a living is almost the most difficult or the most providential path anyone can choose. Thus Tripping With Jim Morrison & Other Friend s is Michael Lawrence's own jaunty Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man .
The intrepid ex-pat artist's Magical Mystery Tour odyssey travels from Hollywood to Roman ruins via foggy London town, the Spaghetti-Western movie studios of Madrid, Gaudi's Barcelona, Afghanistan, New York and L.A.
'The guys from your UCLA days sent me your way, claiming your memories and stories of Jim are among the most important.' Jerry Hopkins (Co-author of the Jim Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive )
'I won’t try to compete with you in the word department except to say how much I enjoy reading yours.' Roy Lichtenstein
250 pages, Paperback
Published November 14, 2015
5 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
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Michael Lawrence
264 books40 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 5, 2016
Even if Michael Lawrence had never met Jim Morrison a memoir of his would still be interesting. Lawrence’s father was actor Marc Lawrence and Michael met actors such as Errol Flynn and Humphrey Bogart, both of whom were impressed with the younger Lawrence’s drawings. Lawrence spent his formative years in Rome and at a young age decided to be an artist. He packed up his easel and paints and started his career as an artist. In his travels, he attended UCLA and met Jim Morrison. Later he met writer Paul Bowles, and had romantic adventures in Europe as an artist.
Besides being a gifted artist Lawrence is a good writer. He captures your attention right in the beginning with an encounter with Morrison’s parents, and then entrances you with a seque into the past with Morrison meeting Lawrence’s mother and they talked film and philosophy.
“Tripping with Jim Morrison and Other Friends” isn’t strictly chronological jumping around with the speed of a thought in the stream of consciousness. Lawrence has a subtle, elegant writing style. Lawrence is as comfortable on the page as he is with his easel. The hook in “Tripping with Jim Morrison” is of course Jim Morrison, but if you’re interested in art Michael Lawrence is someone you’d love to sit and talk with, and “Tripping with Jim Morrison and Other Friends” is the closest we can get to that conversation.
Besides being a gifted artist Lawrence is a good writer. He captures your attention right in the beginning with an encounter with Morrison’s parents, and then entrances you with a seque into the past with Morrison meeting Lawrence’s mother and they talked film and philosophy.
“Tripping with Jim Morrison and Other Friends” isn’t strictly chronological jumping around with the speed of a thought in the stream of consciousness. Lawrence has a subtle, elegant writing style. Lawrence is as comfortable on the page as he is with his easel. The hook in “Tripping with Jim Morrison” is of course Jim Morrison, but if you’re interested in art Michael Lawrence is someone you’d love to sit and talk with, and “Tripping with Jim Morrison and Other Friends” is the closest we can get to that conversation.
February 12, 2017
IN LIEU OF AN ACTUAL REVIEW, I'M POSTING BITS OF MY RECENT EMAIL CONVERSATION WITH AUTHOR MICHAEL LAWRENCE: On Jim's paranoia? and the interrupted career of Michael's father, actor Marc Lawrence, known for playing gangster heavies in Hollywood movies like KEY LARGO and MARATHON MAN, to name just two of 175 --
Dear Michael,
Reading your book, the scene in Venice, CA, where you run from the cops, and later on the roof of Jim's apartment as a police helicopter circles overhead: i had the feeling that something was after Jim -- in those early chapters where you just describe what happened - the other recurring theme was drugs, LSD -- and then the larger world of art, the art world, art studies, film, Hollywood, Italy, and your dad -- your dad is his own mystery -
Dear Ann,
I think Jim was tormented. Could be that he felt trapped as a human being, an insite I once felt! A sense of being locked into your body!
Or could also be a sense of not being gifted with the power to change the world, to open the flood gates of truth, love, sex, intelligence! There is a sense of touching on these issues in his poetry and not revealing this desire! This made his as you say, his mask as an artist, mysterious and compelling!
My view is simply that no one has examined the genius, merely the persona!
Re: My father Marc Lawrence: On Youtube you can see 'Pigs' a film he stars in along with my sister! 1971/Acting very interesting....also Shepard of the Hills 1940's, Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum....And about 175 others!
Only fragments from The Asphalt Jungle....but start there!
Dear Michael,
I ended up watching the first few scenes of "Johnny Cool' it gave me some insights. I think the website said the film was a kind of personal statement about his life in exile --I was struck by the backstory: Italy during the war and 20 years later, when young Gio has grown up, and particularly the "fascist" presence and how it's portrayed, ie first we see the Nazis, later unidentified helmeted troops in a helicopter - was this Operation Gladio ?- information has come out about it in recent years - the fascist "stay-behind armies" that were connected to the P-2 Masonic Lodge and wreaked havoc in Europe throughout the post-war period and ongoing today. "Strategy of Tension" -
The scene where Johnny Collini (Marc Lawrence) meets his future double, seems to happen in a church, but then Collini is not a priest - although he seems to belong to some hierarchy, so I'm guessing it's a reference to the ultra-powerful P-2 Lodge -- Sicily - the Mafia -- most of this is implied rather than spelled out or maybe some of it went over my head --
I'm wondering about your father's career, and how it must have influenced your life. One thing you left dangling in your book was exactly how your dad's testimony at HUAC affected his career -- and your future life in Italy. It seems there were other American exiles in Rome - what were they fleeing?
Dear Ann,
Of course my father's career and persona greatly affected my life!!!!
First playing bad guys and then the whole entanglement of the McCarthy period created my extreme alienated mental island. As Marc Lawrence's son a sort of atmosphere of suspicion towards me, as there was never clarity about that period for most people accept those that were blacklisted...which included my Uncle, who was a television writer!
My dad who was terrified by the ordeal used alcohol and the creation of a Damon Runyon character who "learn't nothing and just went to meetings to get close to the 'broads'. There was a blond piano player....in a sense he made fun of the whole procedure! This infuriated the 'serious' liberals, made the Senators laugh....but dad played the part all the way! Some Republicans, like John Wayne, who admired my father as an actor took his performance for what it was worth....a kind of way to get through! He had been a member! For a short time! He tried to get out of the ordeal as playing gangsters in the films and being identified as an evil communist was a verisimilitude that he realized would damage his career....it did!
As his son I sensed things were wrong! And my father who could be extremely moody wasn't given to conversation! So a heaviness was apart of the household environment! Naturally kids at school and through university days and beyond....including the art world had a certain resistance to accepting me seeing themselves as liberal and progressive...except when it comes to the actual realities of career mobility! It is complex! Why be associated with the son of a Communist!
On the other hand my dad had many admirers who, accepted his terror and decision to verify a few names of people whom he saw at cell meetings but added he not know if indeed they were members of the Communist party! Or were they just pretending? Hard to know! He did direct TV when we returned from Europe! Lee Marvin hired dad to direct most of the M-Squad Series! He came over once for breakfast! Years later I went out with his x Betty Marvin who was an artist! A lovely woman!
My dad spent about ten yrs. Writing a book basically about how he felt and the choices he made and the pain he suffered! He self- published the book...Confessions of a Hollywood Gangster! Amount others Richard Burton very much liked the book and felt it should be read! My grandfather thought my father should have just denied his involvement!
Well, all of this has given me a rather odd education! Seems finally that career and selfish behavior has no limits! Trump is a great example!
There were of course many lovely times that I spent in family! While my father could be verbally abusive, he never slapped me down! He was actually a very gentle soul and loved beauty! Sadly he was trapped by the parts he was cast in and certainly could and should have been more focused and generous with himself! But he couldn't truly forgive himself and witnessing the sense of abandonment from much of his peer group! His life is a kind of tragedy....but he was proud of me and there is much of his spirit and energy in my nature!
Well, I cover some of this in my other book Loaded Brush more fully!
We had adventures with antiquity, acting seeing theater together, his visit to me in Paris! Attending an Andy Warhol party in LA! And other art events! My mother mostly stayed home! Dad and I had a certain deep rapore emotionally, more than intellectually! That was more in my mother's department! I miss them both!
They did have the opportunity of reading the original manuscript of Tripping.... Each made suggestions!
They were there for me on many levels! It might have been more expansive but each had strong and singular opinions.... Most of the time I would have to agree with them!
Well, I know this is only a glimpse!
Hi Michael
Thanks for clarifying all that! It's really fascinating. I sense your dad was very complex, like the environment you grew up in, aand your own response growing up in the 1950s... I can sense in "Johnny Cool" a great desire for justice and even revenge for damage inflicted ... I wasn't sure if your dad was actually a communist, or possibly an informer - and was afraid to ask. I knew two daughters of fathers who were blacklisted..
I can imagine your dad facing difficult choices, with unknown consequences - and also his role as a movie heavy had to have coloured his world, populated by some real gangsters, since the film industry was of great interest to the Mafia, and began to reflect the values of organized crime after the war (if not earlier). It's interesting to see this repeated mantra (spoken by Bogart in Key Largo, and also by Lawrence in Johnny Cool) about how the war was fought to defeat an enemy that still runs the world and calls the shots -- so evil has a whole new face, while good men have to adopt the ways of criminals -- the whole film noir tradition feeds on that history.
(MORE TO COME)
Dear Michael,
Reading your book, the scene in Venice, CA, where you run from the cops, and later on the roof of Jim's apartment as a police helicopter circles overhead: i had the feeling that something was after Jim -- in those early chapters where you just describe what happened - the other recurring theme was drugs, LSD -- and then the larger world of art, the art world, art studies, film, Hollywood, Italy, and your dad -- your dad is his own mystery -
Dear Ann,
I think Jim was tormented. Could be that he felt trapped as a human being, an insite I once felt! A sense of being locked into your body!
Or could also be a sense of not being gifted with the power to change the world, to open the flood gates of truth, love, sex, intelligence! There is a sense of touching on these issues in his poetry and not revealing this desire! This made his as you say, his mask as an artist, mysterious and compelling!
My view is simply that no one has examined the genius, merely the persona!
Re: My father Marc Lawrence: On Youtube you can see 'Pigs' a film he stars in along with my sister! 1971/Acting very interesting....also Shepard of the Hills 1940's, Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum....And about 175 others!
Only fragments from The Asphalt Jungle....but start there!
Dear Michael,
I ended up watching the first few scenes of "Johnny Cool' it gave me some insights. I think the website said the film was a kind of personal statement about his life in exile --I was struck by the backstory: Italy during the war and 20 years later, when young Gio has grown up, and particularly the "fascist" presence and how it's portrayed, ie first we see the Nazis, later unidentified helmeted troops in a helicopter - was this Operation Gladio ?- information has come out about it in recent years - the fascist "stay-behind armies" that were connected to the P-2 Masonic Lodge and wreaked havoc in Europe throughout the post-war period and ongoing today. "Strategy of Tension" -
The scene where Johnny Collini (Marc Lawrence) meets his future double, seems to happen in a church, but then Collini is not a priest - although he seems to belong to some hierarchy, so I'm guessing it's a reference to the ultra-powerful P-2 Lodge -- Sicily - the Mafia -- most of this is implied rather than spelled out or maybe some of it went over my head --
I'm wondering about your father's career, and how it must have influenced your life. One thing you left dangling in your book was exactly how your dad's testimony at HUAC affected his career -- and your future life in Italy. It seems there were other American exiles in Rome - what were they fleeing?
Dear Ann,
Of course my father's career and persona greatly affected my life!!!!
First playing bad guys and then the whole entanglement of the McCarthy period created my extreme alienated mental island. As Marc Lawrence's son a sort of atmosphere of suspicion towards me, as there was never clarity about that period for most people accept those that were blacklisted...which included my Uncle, who was a television writer!
My dad who was terrified by the ordeal used alcohol and the creation of a Damon Runyon character who "learn't nothing and just went to meetings to get close to the 'broads'. There was a blond piano player....in a sense he made fun of the whole procedure! This infuriated the 'serious' liberals, made the Senators laugh....but dad played the part all the way! Some Republicans, like John Wayne, who admired my father as an actor took his performance for what it was worth....a kind of way to get through! He had been a member! For a short time! He tried to get out of the ordeal as playing gangsters in the films and being identified as an evil communist was a verisimilitude that he realized would damage his career....it did!
As his son I sensed things were wrong! And my father who could be extremely moody wasn't given to conversation! So a heaviness was apart of the household environment! Naturally kids at school and through university days and beyond....including the art world had a certain resistance to accepting me seeing themselves as liberal and progressive...except when it comes to the actual realities of career mobility! It is complex! Why be associated with the son of a Communist!
On the other hand my dad had many admirers who, accepted his terror and decision to verify a few names of people whom he saw at cell meetings but added he not know if indeed they were members of the Communist party! Or were they just pretending? Hard to know! He did direct TV when we returned from Europe! Lee Marvin hired dad to direct most of the M-Squad Series! He came over once for breakfast! Years later I went out with his x Betty Marvin who was an artist! A lovely woman!
My dad spent about ten yrs. Writing a book basically about how he felt and the choices he made and the pain he suffered! He self- published the book...Confessions of a Hollywood Gangster! Amount others Richard Burton very much liked the book and felt it should be read! My grandfather thought my father should have just denied his involvement!
Well, all of this has given me a rather odd education! Seems finally that career and selfish behavior has no limits! Trump is a great example!
There were of course many lovely times that I spent in family! While my father could be verbally abusive, he never slapped me down! He was actually a very gentle soul and loved beauty! Sadly he was trapped by the parts he was cast in and certainly could and should have been more focused and generous with himself! But he couldn't truly forgive himself and witnessing the sense of abandonment from much of his peer group! His life is a kind of tragedy....but he was proud of me and there is much of his spirit and energy in my nature!
Well, I cover some of this in my other book Loaded Brush more fully!
We had adventures with antiquity, acting seeing theater together, his visit to me in Paris! Attending an Andy Warhol party in LA! And other art events! My mother mostly stayed home! Dad and I had a certain deep rapore emotionally, more than intellectually! That was more in my mother's department! I miss them both!
They did have the opportunity of reading the original manuscript of Tripping.... Each made suggestions!
They were there for me on many levels! It might have been more expansive but each had strong and singular opinions.... Most of the time I would have to agree with them!
Well, I know this is only a glimpse!
Hi Michael
Thanks for clarifying all that! It's really fascinating. I sense your dad was very complex, like the environment you grew up in, aand your own response growing up in the 1950s... I can sense in "Johnny Cool" a great desire for justice and even revenge for damage inflicted ... I wasn't sure if your dad was actually a communist, or possibly an informer - and was afraid to ask. I knew two daughters of fathers who were blacklisted..
I can imagine your dad facing difficult choices, with unknown consequences - and also his role as a movie heavy had to have coloured his world, populated by some real gangsters, since the film industry was of great interest to the Mafia, and began to reflect the values of organized crime after the war (if not earlier). It's interesting to see this repeated mantra (spoken by Bogart in Key Largo, and also by Lawrence in Johnny Cool) about how the war was fought to defeat an enemy that still runs the world and calls the shots -- so evil has a whole new face, while good men have to adopt the ways of criminals -- the whole film noir tradition feeds on that history.
(MORE TO COME)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews