In 1964 Jim finally enrolled at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). The university just entered it’s golden age with directors like Stanley Kramer1, Jean Renoir2 and Josef von Sternberg3 and students like the young Francis Ford-Coppola4. Jim was interested in film and he somehow managed to graduate, but he did only one film which he got a “complimentary D” for, it was a montage of abstract and loosely connected scenes. During his days at the UCLA Jim wrote most of the material for his four years later published The Lords: Notes on Vision, hundreds of notes and definitions mirroring the times he lived in. After leaving UCLA (he was still enrolled, but never attended his courses) in June he moved to Venice Beach, LA’s upcoming hippy-community full of long-hairs, runaways and artists. For a while he lived on the in a warehouse rooftop and began to write songs. In August 1965 he met Ray Manzarek, who he knew from the UCLA, at the beach, telling him that he had some songs and after hearing them Ray said “Those are the greatest fuckin’ song lyrics I’ve ever heard. Let’s start a rock ‘n’ roll band and make a million dollars.”
1 Did High Noon” and “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World”; Died in Feb. 2001
2 Greatest director in the world as Chaplin once said; Died 1979
3 Did The Blue Angel” starring Marlene Dietrich; Died 1969
4 Well-know for “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now” where two Doors songs were used.