“Jesus, God.” I thought, as I approached the hotel room. I
had only left for what felt like 20 minutes to ponder this rotten assignment. I
thought a little trip to the casino downstairs would help clarify my vision of
purpose out here in the vast, lonely desert. Really, I only wanted to get the
car washed after my attorney had made a fool of himself on the elevator, brandishing
a pocket knife in front of God and everyone, and then once again when we got
back to the room, unveiling a bowie knife to “cut the limes”.
I could hear the muffled sounds of loud music before I even
got the key in, piercing through the paper thin encasements of a stale Vegas
hotel door with ease. I had no idea what kind of madness was awaiting. I barely
managed to open the door at all, but what I found in the bathroom was far worse
than the present condition of the room. All I wanted was some sleep, however I
had to deal with my attorney peaking in the bathtub on a quarter sheet of acid.
He wasn’t too keen on my intentions of moving the tape player away from the bath
either. In fact, he wanted me to turn on Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”
and throw the radio into the tub with him!
Please excuse my inconsideration, but this could not have
been more of a massive inconvenience. This type of thing is typical of my
attorney, but did he have to pull this right
now? We had been in Vegas for just over 2 days, and neither one of us had gotten
any sleep since before we left L.A. I
was ready to crash, but instead I had to keep my spiral-eyed attorney from accidentally
killing himself, on purpose. Thanks a lot, you rotten bastard.
Rather than helping with his suicide and tossing the tape
player into the soapy water, I turned the music up as loud as it goes, hurled a
grapefruit at his head when the song climaxed, ran out of there, and shut the
door as fast as I could. I had never heard a more gut-wrenching scream until
that next moment. It became apparent by the decibel level that the most obvious
move was to grab the mace and the megaphone before he opens the door in a viciously
violent rage and hurls the nearest chair in my direction. He didn’t exactly
like the concept of me needing to work, which mostly consisted of some intense power-sleeping
in the extremely near future, but he also knew that I don’t fuck around when it
comes to matters of business or pleasure, both of which I was in desperate need
of, and after making it clear that slumber was my only pacifier, he soon
retreated back to the bathroom with barely more than a moderate amount of coercion.
Don’t think for a minute I didn’t emphatically empathize
with my attorney. Being locked into a mind-warp twisting his head in ways that
will never be experienced in the same way, by anyone else, ever again, is not
something to merely overlook. This will most certainly be construed as outlandishly
irresponsible by the masses, but in reality should feel a bit more than vaguely
familiar, like déjà-vu. It’s a flash of cosmic connection, something that isn’t
remembered in a fraction of the same vivid way as it was initially experienced.
The vast majority of people won’t ever be fully aware of anything close to the
same wavelength as this, not that they can’t imagine, they just refuse to exercise
the mind-power it takes to fathom these kinds of notions, and then the real
trick becomes attempting reflection in a positive way.It’s not a matter of what is, or what isn’t,
what should be, or what will never be. The idea is to look for a shade of value,
in-between the extremes, that suits our own personal needs, and then expand on
the dissonance in the most productive ways, not just for ourselves, but for
others to try and improve on as well.
The exciting consequences of the game will vanish only when a
player has reached Jumanji and called out its name
This elaborate adaptation of a book
by Chris Van Allsburg, starring Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt, is a thrill-ride
throughout the entire flick with fleeting scenes of danger placed sporadically
with increasing intervals until the climax at the end. Alan Parrish is a 12 year
old boy who lives with his overzealous father Sam Parrish, the owner of a bustling
and prosperous shoe factory, who wants him to face his fears instead of running
away from them. After deciding to listen to his father’s advice, Alan is beaten
by a gang of young hoodlums, leaving him with a bloody lip, a black eye, and
sore feet from the walk home after having his bicycle stolen as well. This was
all because of a fling with Billy Jessup, had by a little girl named Sarah
Whittle, who just happens to be nice enough to come over and bring him his
stolen bike back. Before leaving, Sarah and Alan hear the same mysterious drums
that he had heard earlier coming from a dirt wall inside the unfinished
foundation of a house that was under construction. His instinct led him to
unearth a soon-to-be unlocked chest. After using a shovel as a skeleton key, he
opens it to find a board game buried in the sand, and then takes it home for
better observation to avoid any nosy builders. Once he is home, he opens the
game and pulls out two of the pieces which somehow magically affix themselves
to the board at two of the four starting corners. His parents are on their way
out the door to an event at which Sam is speaking publically, but they decide
first to lay a heavy one on Alan in the form of an impending transfer to the Cliffside
Boys School. This prestigious establishment even has a building named after
Alan’s grandfather General Angus Parrish who is forever iconized in the middle
of town as a statue on a horse. We can also find the same likeness in a portrait
sculpture of his face in the Parrish house, clearly a supreme role-model.
Alan finds this radical decision to
be for the birds, so he packs a bag and on leaving is when he hears that
fateful knock from Sarah at the door. After a short explanation, Alan shows
Sarah the board game. He reads the first half of the rules and asks if she
wants to play. She haughtily says, “I quit playing board games years ago.” Then
she tosses the dice as she gets up to leave and they roll a six. One of the
game pieces moves itself to the sixth space and in the glowing center of the
board comes up a message saying, “At night they fly, you better run, these
winged things are not much fun” and from the chimney comes the screeching
sounds of bats. Sarah seems a little freaked out by all this and attempts to
persuade Alan to put away the game, but he has the dice already in hand and
accidentally rolls a five when the eight o’clock chime startles him from the
nearby grandfather clock. “In the jungle you must wait until the dice read five
or eight” says the centric swirling eye, then all of a sudden Alan is sucked
into the game like a whirlpool, leaving Sarah behind screaming on the couch, while
you hear him yelling, “Roll the dice! Sarah!” But, before she can even process
what is happening, the bats come flying out of the fireplace, chasing her out
the front door.
A lot can happen in 26 years, whether
you are a father who came home one night in 1969 to never see his only son
again, or a little girl who has to convince herself that she didn’t witness a board
game completely engulf a human and make up a story about the boy’s father
chopping him up into little pieces and hiding him in the house to keep herself
from going completely loony, or if you were that little boy who was taken out
of his world and submerged in the savage underbelly of the darkest part of the
African Jungle from the preteen adolescent age of 12 to a middle-aged 38 years
old. Only after more than two thirds of his life was he transported back to his
home in New Hampshire when another set of children, named Judy and Peter, have
slyly nosed their way into finding this mystifying “game with drums”. Already
had their rolls produced massive mosquitos, and masses of monkeys, but when
Peter rolled a five on his second turn and the game told him, “His fangs are
sharp. He likes your taste. Your party better move post haste.” it releases a male
lion of generous proportion with a major attitude problem. It also releases
Alan Parrish who wasn’t so little anymore, and comes to the rescue of Judy and
Peter for the first time, but it would most certainly not be the last. Alan,
dressed in leaves and leather, with a turtle shell shield on his back, outsmarts
the lion and traps him in a nearby room. This leads to the question, “Did
somebody roll a five or an eight?” And then a wave of excitement comes over
Alan. He runs screaming toward Peter, thanking him, then runs all over the
house in joy and anticipation. “It’s me, Mom and Dad! I’m home! I’m back!” he
shouts as he circles the empty house, only to find the children standing on the
stairs. They explain that the house has been empty for years and that everyone
thought he was dead.
This news comes as a shock to Alan
so he wanders outside to look for any clue of his parents’ whereabouts. In a
spot of coincidence and inconvenient timing, local police officer Carl Bentley
is flying through the neighborhood in his shiny police cruiser, and would have
easily maimed or killed Alan had he not had the jungle-savvy cat-like reflexes
to jump up onto the hood. Out comes Carl, who instructs him to, “Get down off
my car please, and get up on the sidewalk.” “What year is it?” says Alan. “It
was brand new.” states the officer, obviously referring to the car. “No. What year is it?”
“1995, remember?” Judy (Kirsten
Dunst) cuts in and does the saving this time, with her smooth tongue she talks
their way out of a pickle when he says he’s been in “Jumanji” some Peace Corps
mumbo-jumbo distracts Carl long enough for a gang of monkeys to steal his car
and let them escape even though he was instructed otherwise. Alan runs off to
find his father’s old shoe factory, the place where 26 years ago he
accidentally put Officer Carl Bentley’s athletic shoe prototype on the conveyor
belt destroying it, getting Carl fired and inevitably destroying the “Soleman’s”
footwear career. Not much is left in the factory except an old bum who
conveniently has enough information to lead Alan to find his parents.
Unfortunately, he finds them underground in a cemetery. There was only one
choice and that was to finish the game they had started so everything would go
back the way it was before, Judy and Peter knew this but Alan is a bit more
hesitant at first. They go back to the house and let Alan clean up from his “Tarzan
uniform” and after a quick jab from Judy about shaving with a piece of glass
and Alan’s retort of the Clampett’s yard sale, peter convinces him by ways of
reverse psychology to keep playing or at least to watch, because he isn’t scared.
The only problem now is that it wasn’t any of their turns. It was Sarah Whittle’s
turn.
Alan may have been a little wary to
keep playing, but Sarah Whittle would need some serious persuasion once they
finally found her hiding reclusively under the name Madam Serena who would give
psychic readings by appointment only. She faints at the notion of running into
that little boy who was chopped up into little pieces 26 years ago, so they
carry her back to the Parrish mansion. After some quick thinking, Alan tricks Sarah
into rolling a seven and out of the walls starts coming a terrifying plant of
viniferous nature. Alan saves the day by using old Angus’ Civil War era sword
to cut the main vein on the pod. Next comes Alan’s turn and when he rolls, “A
hunter from the darkest wild, makes you feel just like a child.” appears. Van
Pelt, the notorious safari hunter, even pictured on the front of the game-board
box, who interestingly enough is played by the same actor as Alan’s father Sam,
comes out shooting elephant-sized bullets at Alan then chases him out of the
house and around the block until he makes his narrow escape. After the next
roll and a stampede bursts through the wall and through the house and out into
the streets, the next roll is delayed because a pelican flies off with the game
is his beak and down to the river. Peter manages to go out on a limb,
literally, to grab the game out of the rushing water. They run into Carl again
who arrests Alan just in the nick of time to miss being shot by Van Pelt who
has now acquired a new high-powered sniper rifle. Peter thinks he can cheat by
making the dice land on 12 but is turned into a half-monkey by the game
instead.
After Alan admits to the conveyor
belt fiasco to Carl and a long chase scene through the local Save-A-Lot, they
make it back to the house to keep playing. Sarah’s next roll completely floods
the house with a monsoon and alligators liven-up the party, then Alan’s roll
lands him chin deep in the floor when it turns to quicksand. Peter’s turn unleashes
giant hideous spiders but they are scared away from the earthquake that ensues
after Sarah’s next turn. The floor is torn apart freeing Alan, but the game
falls down as the house is completely ripped in two. He saves it by some
miraculous vine-swinging and opens the game to take his turn. He picks up the
dice to roll but Van Pelt has finally caught up to him and forces him to freeze
and drop what’s in his hand. One die lands in the game but the other rolls down
into the crevasse between the two sides of his once beautiful house. “Any last
words?” says the hunter. But the die finally lands and Alan’s piece starts to
move into the center.
“Jumanji.” He says. “Jumanji!” and
as Van Pelt fires his weapon at him, Sarah had run over as if she were going to
stop the bullet, but it slows down and starts whirl-winding around the game
like a typhoon with everything else that ever came out of the game including
the entire stampede, and the hunter himself, until it was all vacuumed back
into the board game like it never even happened. Alan and Sarah were left back
in the living room of his home in good ol’ 1969 and everything was as it should
be. Alan’s dad forgot his notes for the speech and came back to find Alan
rushing into his arms as if he hadn’t seen him for over 26 years. “I’m so glad
you’re back.” Alan says. “I’ve only been gone five minutes.” his dad says. “It
seems like a lot longer to me.” They apologize to each other for the harsh
words from earlier, he admits to putting the shoe on the conveyor belt and you
can sense his dad’s feeling of pride when he says, “I’m glad you told me, son.”
After tying bricks to the lid, and
throwing it off a bridge, Alan and Sarah never saw Jumanji again. However, they
did grow up, and get married, and they also ran into Judy and Peter again when
their parents brought them to a Parrish’s Christmas party. Jumanji eventually drifted
out to sea where it was later found by two more unsuspecting adventurers on the
verge of a wild and crazy journey, all because they heard some drums coming
from a box that had washed up on the beach.
“Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin.”
In a nutshell, The Doors have been inspiring generations
since the 60’s and will continue to do so as long as people have ears and
brains to think for themselves. Even the Library of Congress decided to include
The Doors self-titled first album in their 2014 National Recording Registry to
be preserved indefinitely along with others like Steve Martin, Joan Baez, and
Sesame Street. Jim Morrison’s mix of poetry and crooning will forever live in
the music for us all to experience.
This scene begins with the band walking down Sunset Blvd
toward the Whisky à Go-Go and already Jim seems to be a little bit sideways.
They’re trying to convince him to face the crowd, while he’s trying to convince
them to go to the desert and take that peyote. “Is that what the fuck you’re
on?”
“Yeah, man! And it’s kicking in!” shouts Jim as he jumps
onto the hood of a car in oncoming traffic. “Let’s plan a murder or start a
religion.” He says as they get closer to the entrance. “More, more, more!”
“I’ll try it,” says Pamela, encouraging him with her sweet
voice. “I’m ready, let’s go to the desert..”
“Heyyy! I am the Lizard King!!! I can do anything!” screams
Jim to the crowd of people from on top of the nearest parked car. “Come on
raise your hands if you understand! How many of you people know you’re alive?
Bullshit! You’re plastic soldiers in a miniature dirt war!” Time slows down to
a speed only familiar to those who have experienced mescaline. “Come on, how
many of you people know you’re alive? How many people know you’re really alive?”
Obviously the drugs really were kicking in.
The starry swirling street sky fades from night into a
mid-day desert and we hear the beginning notes of “The End”. You can see a red
car leaving two dust trails from the tires as it fishtails across the cracked
sandy ground. They make their way on foot up the dunes, the six of them, Jim,
Robby, Ray, John, Pam and Dorothy, and you can hear Jim narrating about a
mysterious creature. “Close your eyes, see the snake, see the serpent appear,
his head is ten feet long and five feet wide, he has one red eye and one green
eye, seven miles long, deadly.”
“All the history of the world is on its scales, all people,
all actions, we’re all just little pictures on the scales. God is big, it’s moving,
devouring consciousness, digesting power, monster of energy. It’s a monster.
Kiss the snake on the tongue, kiss the serpent, but if it senses fear, it’ll
eat us instantly, but if we kiss it without fear, it’ll take us through the garden,
through the gate, to the other side. Ride the snake. To the end of time.”
The others try to cope with the realities of life and death.
“Use our strength,” Jim says, “we’re a tribe now, a tribe of warriors.” Then as
his voice starts to echo, “Promise you, I’ll be with you ‘til the end of time, nothing
will destroy our circle, ride the snake.”
After a shortened and improvised version of “My Wild Love” Jim
glances up to notice Death riding a white horse at the top of the horizon. At
this point he realizes his fears are a reality. “I’m lyin’, I am afraid.” He
says as he gets up and wanders off into the distance.
“Jim! Don’t go away! Come dance with me!” shouts Pam as he
gets further from her sand spinning. The scene gets quite surreal as the sun
eclipses and Jim follows Death and his horse out into the vast open desert. It
seems that Death has led him to a cave wherein lies his inner spirit who
happens to be the dead Indian whose soul just kind of leapt into his, when he
was about five, riding past an automobile accident on the highway with his
parents. Flashes come of a lizard, a naked Death, the Indian spirit, the
accident, cave drawings, his bandmates, a microphone, and his eminent bathtub
death.
The energy intensifies as Jim stares into the eye of the
Indian spirit and the scene quickly changes back to the club scene and Jim is
onstage with his band. The audience seems to be mesmerized by the haunting tone
and bizarre lyrics of “The End”. Even the go-go dancers stop dancing to watch.
“The killer awoke before dawn. He put his boots on. He took
a face from the ancient gallery and he walked on down the hall. He went into
the room where his sister lived and then he paid a visit to his brother and
then he walked on down the hall, yeah. And he came to a door. And he looked
inside. Father? ‘Yes son?’ I want to kill you. Mother? I want to… fuck you all
night baby!” The atmosphere has suddenly taken a strange turn down a road only
traveled by Oedipus and now James Morrison. The crowd is shocked and the club
owner tries to pull the plug on this gig.
Jim dances around the stage as if there is a central fire
and it’s as natural as it would have been had he been born a Navajo. He spins
around chanting the F word until the music crescendos and he falls down and
lays there finishing it out with “Kill, kill, kill…”
The clip cuts to the owner kicking a belligerent Morrison
and the rest of the band to the curb, and judging by the faces of the other
people watching that performance, the world might not have been ready for The
Doors. Lucky for us, Jac Holzman was there to witness the spectacle and he
owned Elektra Records. He wanted to get The Doors into the studio immediately.
“An album of killer music in 6 days.” said Paul Rothchild, and
the rest is history. “Unreal.”
