Years ago, upon my first-ever arrival in Paris, there was no doubt as to where I would begin my itinerary …
I went immediately to the Pre Lachaise cemetery.
That’s the final resting place of such luminaries as Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Sarah Berhhardt and Chopin. If I had been there during daylight, I’m sure I would have taken my time to pay my respects to each of them and others. However, it was around 1.00am, and this was a pilgrimage to what’s become more of a shrine than a grave.
This is where Jim Morrison of the Doors is buried.
James Dean lived fast and died young. Kurt Cobain had succumbed, by his own hand, to stress and recurrent abdominal pains. Marilyn Monroe took too many pills. Mama Cass choked on that fateful ham sandwich. Keith Moon simply exploded from self-indulgence.
Jim Morrison was different. He lived hard so we didn’t have to.
I believe that there are those among us who live life on the edge for the sole purpose of conveying that experience to everyone else. I don’t think they make a conscious decision to do so, but the circumstances of their existence drew them to it. They embody a...