TITLE: JIM MORRISON: HIS GIRLFRIEND REMEMBERS
AUTHOR: CLASSICBANDS.COM
PUBLISHED: UNKNOWN
AVAILABLE: classicbands.com
Showing posts with label Judy Huddleston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Judy Huddleston. Show all posts
Judy Huddleston - THE DOORS COLLECTORS MAGAZINE
TITLE: LIKE HE WAS GOD : THE JUDY HUDDLESTON INTERVIEW
AUTHOR: KRISTY O'BRIEN
PUBLISHED: UNKNOWN
AVAILABLE: THE DOORS COLLECTORS MAGAZINE
Some of the best books about Jim Morrison aren't really about him as it turns out, but more about the author's own personal growth spurred by interactions with the notorious front man of the Doors. John Densmore's Riders on the Storm is a perfect example, so is Judy Huddleston's book This is the End My Only Friend: Living & Dying with Jim Morrison.
Chronicling their five year on again off again relationship that ended with his death, it's a beautifully written memoir about a teenage fan and her idol that really captures the angst of being in love with someone that can't quite live up to expectations... a journey that anyone who has ever experienced disappointment in love or disillusionment with one's hero understands. Sadly this book coveted by Doors' fans is out of print. But luckily, she has just completed an updated version Like He Was God that will be published soon by Chicago Review Press.
Judy was a 17 year old model and art student when she met first met Jim. She went on to graduate from California Institute of the Arts and received a MFA from Eastern Washington University. She continues to create art, write and teach.
Chronicling their five year on again off again relationship that ended with his death, it's a beautifully written memoir about a teenage fan and her idol that really captures the angst of being in love with someone that can't quite live up to expectations... a journey that anyone who has ever experienced disappointment in love or disillusionment with one's hero understands. Sadly this book coveted by Doors' fans is out of print. But luckily, she has just completed an updated version Like He Was God that will be published soon by Chicago Review Press.
Judy was a 17 year old model and art student when she met first met Jim. She went on to graduate from California Institute of the Arts and received a MFA from Eastern Washington University. She continues to create art, write and teach.
Kristy: For a lot of Doors fans, Jim has become an idealized anti-hero or archetype to be worshipped. You told me in a previous conversation that your book Living & Dying with Jim Morrison is about your search for God in man. What was it about Morrison that inspires such feelings?
Judy: Judy: Well, he looked like a Greek god, he had an amazing voice (which doesn't get enough attention) he was a singer-poet and visionary, and like Christ or Adonis, he followed up on the mythology. On some intuitive level, we knew he had to die...
Kristy: Yet in your book he is portrayed as a person very much alone, full of insecurities and searching for meaning, in short human just like the rest of us. Did happiness elude Morrison?
Judy: Like everyone, he had moments of happiness or joy, but clearly he was not happy. On balance, he was more tortured than most - genetics, karma, childhood, alcoholism - whatever the reason.
Kristy: How would you explain Jim's very erratic behavior? Was he bi-polar?
Judy: Yes, if not bi-polar, borderline psychotic. It was like a switch got flipped, far beyond a regular "mood swing."
Kristy: Jim told you he wanted to start a new religion. Did he mean it literally? Was he aware of L. Ron Hubbard and if so what did he think of him?
Judy: Yes, I believe he meant it literally. Unfortunately, it tied in with his death/dying god persona... he may have been able to better articulate the religion had he recovered from the side effects. As far as Ron Hubbard, I don't know if Jim was aware of him; Scientology was certainly around LA at that time.
Kristy: Would he have been the icon worshiped? What were the tenets of it and how much of it was really thought out?
Judy: I think he felt he was living out the Christ/Dionysus role, but not usually deluded enough to think he was the icon. (Maybe just his c**k. Ha.) Seriously, I sensed it was the psychosexual nature-religious urge in the tradition of the romantics and mystics, etc.
Kristy: When was the first time you saw the Doors perform? Did you continue to attend performances once you became involved with Jim?
Judy: The first time I saw them was at the Cheetah in Venice; early 67, the next was at the Whisky. Both spellbinding performances. I kept going to concerts (one could say religiously) until I slept with him. Then I stopped. It would have been too complicated, considering the groupie situation and Pam, etc. One exception: I did go to the live concert at the Aquarius because I saw Bill (Siddons, the Doors' manager and friend of Judy) by serendipity.
Kristy: Please tell us about your two new novels. Would you say Jim influenced you to be a writer?
Judy: Yes, he did, especially when I was younger. I was also influenced by everyone he mentioned as an influence - Blake, Rimbaud, Aeschylus, Artaud, etc.
The books are looking for a home: Like He Was God is an updated, rewritten version of my 1991 book This is the End, My Only Friend. Hopefully, I'm adding more perspective after 30 years - as well as adding scenes for context and background, and using past tense for more objectivity. And the stress is on how young women turn men, not just JDM, into gods/God.
Isis Leaves Idaho is a collection of short-shorts (prose poetry) about yet another addictive relationship. (Clearly my specialty).
I also have another memoir, White Lipstick Diaries, about adolescence in the mid-60's.
Kristy: Based on your actual diaries? What WAS it like to grow up in the 60s? I know most of the Doors fans are probably fascinated by that era.
Judy: Yes, I have all my old diaries, started keeping them at twelve. The first drafts had several actual entries, but I've cut many out... (It gets a bit much, too precious, etc.) The most interesting aspect is how radically the culture shifted from Kennedy era making out/drinking/surfing to hardcore sex, drugs and rock n'roll. It took quite a toll on some and seems over-romanticized to me.
Kristy: Much is made in the media about the psychedelic exploration of pushing social boundaries in the 1960s but no one seems to mention the downside... that the 70s were a more somber period of coming down from the high and dealing with addictions and disillusionment. Is this what lead to your breakdown and hospitalization?
Judy: My hospitalization was due to several unresolved issues, but yes it was also the flip side of the high. So much was swept under the rug during that expansion that the inevitable repercussions took quite a toll. Not so coincidentally, Pam had just overdosed... Some people kept it up for another decade a so.
Kristy: While you were in the hospital, a vision of Jim appeared at the foot of your bed to say "I forgive you". Have you forgiven him?
Judy: Yes. Time changes everything.
Judy: Judy: Well, he looked like a Greek god, he had an amazing voice (which doesn't get enough attention) he was a singer-poet and visionary, and like Christ or Adonis, he followed up on the mythology. On some intuitive level, we knew he had to die...
Kristy: Yet in your book he is portrayed as a person very much alone, full of insecurities and searching for meaning, in short human just like the rest of us. Did happiness elude Morrison?
Judy: Like everyone, he had moments of happiness or joy, but clearly he was not happy. On balance, he was more tortured than most - genetics, karma, childhood, alcoholism - whatever the reason.
Kristy: How would you explain Jim's very erratic behavior? Was he bi-polar?
Judy: Yes, if not bi-polar, borderline psychotic. It was like a switch got flipped, far beyond a regular "mood swing."
Kristy: Jim told you he wanted to start a new religion. Did he mean it literally? Was he aware of L. Ron Hubbard and if so what did he think of him?
Judy: Yes, I believe he meant it literally. Unfortunately, it tied in with his death/dying god persona... he may have been able to better articulate the religion had he recovered from the side effects. As far as Ron Hubbard, I don't know if Jim was aware of him; Scientology was certainly around LA at that time.
Kristy: Would he have been the icon worshiped? What were the tenets of it and how much of it was really thought out?
Judy: I think he felt he was living out the Christ/Dionysus role, but not usually deluded enough to think he was the icon. (Maybe just his c**k. Ha.) Seriously, I sensed it was the psychosexual nature-religious urge in the tradition of the romantics and mystics, etc.
Kristy: When was the first time you saw the Doors perform? Did you continue to attend performances once you became involved with Jim?
Judy: The first time I saw them was at the Cheetah in Venice; early 67, the next was at the Whisky. Both spellbinding performances. I kept going to concerts (one could say religiously) until I slept with him. Then I stopped. It would have been too complicated, considering the groupie situation and Pam, etc. One exception: I did go to the live concert at the Aquarius because I saw Bill (Siddons, the Doors' manager and friend of Judy) by serendipity.
Kristy: Please tell us about your two new novels. Would you say Jim influenced you to be a writer?
Judy: Yes, he did, especially when I was younger. I was also influenced by everyone he mentioned as an influence - Blake, Rimbaud, Aeschylus, Artaud, etc.
The books are looking for a home: Like He Was God is an updated, rewritten version of my 1991 book This is the End, My Only Friend. Hopefully, I'm adding more perspective after 30 years - as well as adding scenes for context and background, and using past tense for more objectivity. And the stress is on how young women turn men, not just JDM, into gods/God.
Isis Leaves Idaho is a collection of short-shorts (prose poetry) about yet another addictive relationship. (Clearly my specialty).
I also have another memoir, White Lipstick Diaries, about adolescence in the mid-60's.
Kristy: Based on your actual diaries? What WAS it like to grow up in the 60s? I know most of the Doors fans are probably fascinated by that era.
Judy: Yes, I have all my old diaries, started keeping them at twelve. The first drafts had several actual entries, but I've cut many out... (It gets a bit much, too precious, etc.) The most interesting aspect is how radically the culture shifted from Kennedy era making out/drinking/surfing to hardcore sex, drugs and rock n'roll. It took quite a toll on some and seems over-romanticized to me.
Kristy: Much is made in the media about the psychedelic exploration of pushing social boundaries in the 1960s but no one seems to mention the downside... that the 70s were a more somber period of coming down from the high and dealing with addictions and disillusionment. Is this what lead to your breakdown and hospitalization?
Judy: My hospitalization was due to several unresolved issues, but yes it was also the flip side of the high. So much was swept under the rug during that expansion that the inevitable repercussions took quite a toll. Not so coincidentally, Pam had just overdosed... Some people kept it up for another decade a so.
Kristy: While you were in the hospital, a vision of Jim appeared at the foot of your bed to say "I forgive you". Have you forgiven him?
Judy: Yes. Time changes everything.
Judy Huddleston - 10 December 2009 - The Collagist
TITLE: INTERVIEW : JUDY HUDDLESTON
AUTHOR: THE COLLAGIST
PUBLISHED: 10 DECEMBER 2009
AVAILABLE: The Collagist
Judy Huddleston's poem "Cold Motel Room" appears in the November 2009 issue of The Collagist. She received her BFA from California Institute of the Arts and her MFA from Eastern Washington University. Her memoir This is the End was published in 1991. She has recently completed her second memoir and first collection of poetry. She currently teaches Literature, Writing, Film and the Novel at Globe University in the Twin Cities.
The Collagist: Can you talk about the inspiration for "Cold Motel Room"? What was on your mind while you were writing this poem?
Judy Huddleston: I’d focused on that feeling between lovers when a situation should be romantic, but isn’t, so it disappoints even more. Everything seems cold and small and wrong. At the time, it seems the definitive moment of truth. However, it’s often how memory filters the experience that we remember it. In this case, his dog might have been between us, but I suspect not.
The Collagist: "Cold Motel Room" at first struck me as a confessional poem, but I always worry about jumping to that conclusion, partly because, as a fiction writer, I'm acutely aware of the dangers of having every realistic story written in the first person assumed to be drawn from my own life. Is this a concern in your poetry, if your poems aren't pulled from personal experience? If this poem is, then perhaps a different question: How do you balance the artistic needs of the poem with any responsibility to the accuracy of your experience? Is there such a responsibility?
Judy Huddleston: Most of the prose poems in this collection, Isis Leaves Idaho, are confessional, which I find somewhat embarrassing but can’t much control. Because I’ve been involved with narrative nonfiction, I do believe there is a responsibility for accuracy. I tend toward it a less so in poetry, which by its nature exaggerates emotional states.
The Collagist: Like "Cold Motel Room," the other poems of yours I've seen have also been prose poems, a strain of poetry we at The Collagist seem to be publishing a lot of. What makes the prose poem the right form for you? What advantages does it have that other types don't?
Judy Huddleston: I veered toward prose poetry partly as a solution to the problem of artistic needs you just mentioned. I wanted the freedom to meld fiction with nonfiction in a short imagistic form that holds both sides. It’s a different flow not being so concerned with literal truth as in memoir or line form as in poetry. You can take stories into poems and poems into stories.
The Collagist: Your memoir This Is the End… My Only Friend, about your relationship with Jim Morrison, was published in 1991. You've just recently completed a second memoir, almost two decades later. Especially in non-fiction and memoir, I that a writer's perceptions of her own life—and what in it is most important to get onto the page—might change dramatically over time. How was writing the second memoir different than the first?
Judy Huddleston: Some things remain the same, though I’m decades older than the girl who wrote the first book, I’m most interested in portraying the psycho-sexual dynamics of female experience. My memory still snags on personal details, but I’m more concerned with cultural context. In White Lipstick I wrote back in past tense to the tomboy at twelve to understand how she became the seventeen-year-old narrating the first memoir. We have deep bodily memories that are extremely accurate; following them can lead to a kind of unvarnished truth.
The Collagist: What other writing projects are you currently working on?
Judy Huddleston: Aside from sending out White Lipstick and Isis leaves Idaho, I just rewrote an ekphrastic collection of poems called Bitter Sea, based on the narrative frescoes of Giotto in the Arena Chapel and Chapel of Mary Magdalene. I recently began a series of connected shorts about a fatal love triangle in the 1880’s. (Thankfully none of these are memoir.)
The Collagist: What great books have you read recently? Are there any upcoming releases you're excited about?
Judy Huddleston: I’ve been teaching the Novel this quarter, a course focused on work from the 19th century. The one we’re reading now is Sea Wolf. I’m impressed by Jack London’s character Wolf; he’s complex, layered and paradoxical–the kind of compelling, cruel and brilliant sociopath we love to hate. Right now, I’m looking forward to reading Mary Karr’s and Louise Glück’s newest books.