Bucket List: February 2012

Hey Ya'll,

I'm happy to announce I have been able to cross off another item on my bucketlist. Visit the Morrison Hotel.

As long as I can remember I have always enjoyed the music from the band The

Doors. If you don't know who The Doors were click here for a quick bio. I truly enjoy listening to their music, but it is there fifth album that I am most intrigued with. The Morrison Hotel sometimes referred to as Hard Rock Café from the title of the first side of the LP, whose second side is titled Morrison Hotel.

The cover photo was taken at the actual Morrison Hotel located at 1246 South Hope Streetin Los Angeles. The band asked the owners if they could photograph the hotel and they declined, so the band went inside when nobody was looking and took the photograph. The rear cover features a photograph of the Hard Rock Café on 300 East 5th Street, Los Angeles.The founders of the later and otherwise unrelate Hard Rock Cafe chain used the name, having seen iton the Doors' album. The original cafe is no longer open for business.

Seeing that I live in Los Angeles, it just made sense to go visit these "landmarks." First, I went looking for the album on vinyl. Somehow having thealbum on vinyl made this more real and exciting. It wasn't easy finding the album. I went to a local swap meet 2 times, going around asking if anyone had the album. No! No one had it. Grrrr!!! I then went to a local record store and they also did not have it. My brother has tons of vinyl albums and I asked him if he knew of any place I would be able to find it. He suggested Amoeba records in Hollywood. On a nice Sunday afternoon I drove to Amoeba records and FOUND IT! :) Total excitement. I was ready for my visit.

Two weeks later on Saturday 02/04/12 my two best friends and I drove to what was once The Morrison Hotel. Not far at all from my home in East Los Angeles. We mapquest the address and off we went. We arrived at about 10:00AM. It's located not far from the Convention Center. We stayed there for about 20 minutes. Took pictures but of course right when we started taking pictures the memory cardwas full. I totally forgot to check the memory on the card before leaving. Ugh! I hate when I do things like that. We had to use our phones to take pictures. The building is now closed. There is really nothing to see but the outside of the building. Once we were done, we headed to the Hard RockCafe. The bar is located in skid row, not far from The Morrison Hotel. However, unfortunately there were too many homeless people around. First we couldn't find parking and second we felt uncomfortable getting off and taking pictures of what seemed to be a liquor store surrounded by homeless people. It was skid row; I don'tknow what I was expecting. So we drove away. Despite not being ableto get off we had a great time exploring these “landmarks.” Even though this was my “thing” to do, I’m glad that both my best friends enjoyed it as much as I did.

It was a little adventure, and so close to home. As I stood there posing for pictures I thought of The Doors and of Jim. Imaging how they were once there and what had become of the hotel. But above all I thought of all the people who love The Doors and pass “The Morrison Hotel” day in and day out and not even know it.