Interview with Judy Huddleston about the book
“This is the end… my only friend”
Judy Huddleston is a sweet and generous person. She was born in California, where she studied Visual Arts at California Institute of the Arts and teaches writing at California State University at Monterey. Her prose is realistic, vivid and raw. Her non-fiction is honest, unprejudiced and undisguised. Her poetry is deep, mystical and serene. She lives among trees, sun, deer, owls, wild turkeys and a dog called Obie. Her house has white screen doors facing a pines wood. Publisher Chicago Review Press will make "Love him madly : an intimate memoir of Jim Morrison" available in May, 2013.
“I wrote the first draft of this book when I was in my early twenties. Though I’ve been over it several times since then, I’ve tried to stay as close to the truth as the original.” p. 3
ether glow: Did you keep diaries through the time you met Jim? Did you use them as the basis of the book? Will they ever be published?
Judy Huddleston: Yes, I did, but they were mostly sketches and poems. I doubt that they are publishable.
“When I heard Oliver Stone was going to direct a film about Jim and The Doors, I was both excited and scared. As one of Jim’s countless romantic interests, I was found by his researchers. After my first meeting with Oliver, his producer asked me to work as a technical advisor on his movie.” p. 4
ether glow: What is your opinion about the movie?
Judy Huddleston: I felt it was too sensationalistic and the portrayal of Jim was too one-sided.
““I loved your manuscript. But it’ll be a hard sell.” I didn’t mention how long I’d been trying.” p. 4
ether glow: Yours was one of the first books to be published about Jim Morrison. How hard was it to get it published? How was it received?
Judy Huddleston: It is almost always difficult to get a first book published. Since the publisher went bankrupt shortly after publication, it was barely “received” at all.
“He starts talking about dreams being interesting writing material, and telling me how he keeps his in notebooks. Then he turns them into poems”. p. 18
ether glow: Did Jim give any example of a poem written that way (a dream turned into a poem)?
Judy Huddleston: No, he didn’t give any examples.
““It’s getting late,” he says.
“I know, I have to go.” I put my head against his chest for a moment, full of his pain that came unannounced. I’m bursting and suffocating with the knowledge that I can never have him – he is not something to have.” p. 23
ether glow: How were you so sure and so quickly that Jim was not something to have?
Judy Huddleston: His entire being was based on having freedom.
“Most of my time is spent in isolation, reading William Blake, Greek drama, Dostoyevsky and comparative religion. I begin writing morbidly obsessive poems and begin new fantasy drawings.” p. 52-53
ether glow: Where are those poems and drawings? Do they still exist?
Judy Huddleston: They’re in journals in storage.
“We’d had a debate over the good and bad points of L.A., and I’d taken the side that it was to flashy.” p. 75
“We’d had a debate over the good and bad points of L.A., and I’d taken the side that it was to flashy.” p. 75
ether glow: Why was Jim so fond of LA?
Judy Huddleston: He seemed mixed, but liked the straightforward city aspects.
““It never works out, something’s always wrong. You believe all these things about love, but it’s never true the way you thought. Still, you keep believing something will work, and it’s just not possible! Never.”
“What about Pam?”” p. 81
ether glow: In your opinion why did the love and friendship between Jim and Pam last for so long? And why were they so drawn to each other?
Judy Huddleston: Honestly, I don’t know how it worked. Fate, karma, love, sex, mutual addictions and codependence?
““I’ll have to give you a copy of my book. It’s really good, and I’ll sign it for you. Then, someday when I’m dead, you’ll have money ’cause it’ll be a collector’s item.”” p. 116
ether glow: What is your opinion about the book? Did you like it? Did you share your opinion with Jim (besides what is on p. 172)?
Judy Huddleston: Some of it was excellent and I liked it. Some of it I didn’t.
“I drive away, convinced that he’s incomprehensible, promising myself I’ll never again attempt to understand anything he says or does.” p. 117
ether glow: What was in Jim’s nature that made him so incomprehensible?
Judy Huddleston: Deep paradox.
““I wander what it will be like when we’re in our thirties and people respect us?”” p. 136
““I wander what it will be like when we’re in our thirties and people respect us?”” p. 136
ether glow: Did Jim talk a lot about the future? He used to say he wouldn't be around for long.
Judy Huddleston: Not much future; seemed aware he wouldn’t be alive long.
“He needs an extra dose – an extra dose of everything.” p. 136
“He needs an extra dose – an extra dose of everything.” p. 136
ether glow: In your opinion why was Jim so excessive?
Judy Huddleston: The basic addictive personality.
“I suffer mild
culture shock (I am not a hippie, I am too screwed up). I feel combined guilt,
hostility, and rebellion towards the enlightened ones. They’ve set up a new
norm, and I don’t fit it, either.
My girlfriend,
Linda, has become full-fledged hippie of pure intent. She introduces me to the
people of the village, hoping I will come out of my catatonic coma. It just
makes me worse. I can’t believe that the city gave birth to smog, jealousy,
politics, meat-eating and other bad things. I can’t passively accept each new
day as glorious. In the middle of the gentle flow around me, I want to scream,
“You’re hypocrites!”
In homespun, embroidered clothes, with no make-up and my hair hanging loose and moppy, I’m viewed as a sister; but if I wear make-up, curl my hair, and eat at Taco Bell, I’m a spiritual reject. I do both on purpose, and, I am amazed at the reactions my surface image causes. People actually believe you are what you look like.” p. 142-143
ether glow: How did Jim feel about the hippies?
Judy Huddleston: Amused, fond, misguided idealism.
“I know I can never really reach him, he’ll never really believe that I do honestly love him. I could go down on my knees, cry testimony to God, beg him to believe, but somehow it feels he never will.” p. 152
“I know I can never really reach him, he’ll never really believe that I do honestly love him. I could go down on my knees, cry testimony to God, beg him to believe, but somehow it feels he never will.” p. 152
ether glow: Why didn’t Jim believe that someone could honestly love him? Why was he so unreachable?
Judy Huddleston: Back to the wounded self.
“When I wake up, I see Jim inspecting the stack of books by my bed.
“Are these all for school? he asks, amazed.
“No. None of them are. They’re for me.” I say.
He has come upon a William Blake book, and is quoting random blurbs from memory.
“I really love Blake! He’s one of my favorite writers,” he says ecstatically.” p. 162
ether glow: What other writers did he mention he liked?
Judy Huddleston: Rimbaud, Artaud.
“Have some peace of mind.” p. 163
ether glow: Was it any occasion you saw Jim in peace of mind? What do you think tortured him constantly?
Judy Huddleston: Fleeting moments of peace. Otherwise hypersensitive and raw nerve endings tuned to pain, uncertainty, and loss.
“”Well, that line – about pulling your eyes out!”
“That,” the adult explains, “is about a contemporary issue. SMOG!” I see he does not care for criticism.
“I liked the part, about being metamorphosized from a mad dancing body on hillsides to…”
“To a pair of eyes staring in the dark,” he finishes for me, his anger forgotten." p. 172
ether glow: Did you discuss any other of Jim’s poems or lyrics?
Judy Huddleston: A feast of friends / When the music’s over / People are strange. I can’t remember if it’s in the book, but he said he wrote People are strange after a fight with Pam.
““Was it awful?” I don’t know many details about his trial in Miami, I just know he and the law can’t possibly mix. “I mean, all the bullshit. Legal games. Money for freedom…” I trail off, feeling inappropriate as he makes a meaningless gesture and dismisses further discussion of this subject by putting a wall over his face.” p. 180-181
ether glow: Do you think Miami affected him in a deep way?
Judy Huddleston: Yes, touched his fundamental flaw.
“When he reaches one painting I did more under his influence than mine, he doesn’t even notice. Anyone who was able to read and hear what his images evoked could’ve seen the blatant similarity. It’s all in muted warm and cool shades of pale yellow, the differences blocking out a highway leading to a desert horizon. Above this, there’s a moon, and a highway’s edge, stretched like a shoreline, a row of symbols: fish skeletons, round arrows, sun signs underlined, parts of an alternate language.” p. 184
ether glow: What did his images evoked to you? Does this painting still exist?
Judy Huddleston: Basic eternity. It’s in storage.
“Winter has taken its fluid California turn into spring, when I hear Jim has left Los Angeles for France. Rock hasn’t worn well, he wants to write, lose his sex-symbol image, be taken seriously.” p. 191
ether glow: Did he tell you what the real reason for leaving was? How did you know he’d be back in September?
Judy Huddleston: No. I just thought (incorrectly) that he’d be back.
“Now bending over, she gets the full view, an unmarked, but for a purple felt-pen transgression, ground grave, like a swimming pool hole filled with yellow and white growing flowers.” p. 200
ether glow: When and how many times did you visit Jim’s grave?
Judy Huddleston: 1973-74
This is an excerpt of an exclusive interview for www.etherglow.blogspot.pt conducted by email with Judy Huddleston in 2012.
