Harper Lee & Jim Morrison

Yesterday I finished listening to Sissy Spacek read To Kill A Mockingbird on audio CDs. Spacek does a masterful job of reading this timeless southern novel. What does Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird have to do with Jim Morrison’s story about “Dawn’s Highway?” For a southern guy like me who has spent two years working on a project about “Dawn’s Highway,” there are plenty of similarities.

Jim Morrison tells us the story of a childhood experience from a young four year-old’s perspective, and Morrison describes a traumatic encounter on a highway in the desert to provoke the biggest existential question on the planet, “what is death?” Harper Lee tells a fascinating story about growing up in a small town in Alabama through the eyes of a young girl named Scout. The second part of her novel focuses on a trial that provokes not only serious questions about racial discrimination, but ends on the note that “it would be a sin to kill a mockingbird.” Death is a central theme in both stories.

Both Lee and Morrison use personal experiences to illustrate how events in life can shape us. Both storytellers challenge us to reflect on the choices and quality of our own lives as we face the overpowering issue of death. Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird uses the trauma of two deaths in young Scout’s life to challenge us to cherish the lives of those who support and help us. Morrison’s “Dawn’s Highway,” challenges us in similar ways to take events from our own lives and question what shapes us, and more importantly, to question death itself. By questioning the meaning of death, we question the meaning of our own lives.

Personally, I have learned much from Harper Lee and Jim Morrison. After finishing To Kill A Mockingbird, I found my wife’s copy of a biography on Harper Lee. As I skimmed through the biography, I identified with Lee’s long struggle to produce her one and only novel. I have identified with Jim Morrison’s story, “Dawn’s Highway” on a couple of levels. The trauma in my life was the early, unexpected death of my mother. I don’t have “Indians,” in my head, but I do have one or two other things that are still in there.

This has been a long, perhaps rambling introduction to get to the point of this message. Two years ago I went to New Mexico to research Jim Morrison’s story, “Dawn’s Highway.” The number one objective was to find an accident that matched Morrison’s story. That accident has been documented and revealed on my website, www.dawnshighway.net. I tried my best to give this story to everyone connected with Jim Morrison, The Doors, and the national media. To my surprise, I found that I had to bring the research to the public by myself. A short, documentary film appeared to be the best medium for presenting the research.

The film, “Dawn’s Highway” is finished, and only a couple of minor technical steps remain from reaching a “final edit.” Yet, for reasons that I cannot state publicly, the film has been suspended. I hope that before I die, an appropriate word to use in this message, the film “Dawn’s Highway” can be released. Personally, I believe the film clearly documents that Jim Morrison actually encountered an accident that he describes in the story.

It took Harper Lee years to write and publish To Kill A Mockingbird. Jim Morrison’s film, “HWY’ has never been released to the public. Therefore, I cannot complain about not being able to release my film. But it is good to mention Harper Lee and Jim Morrison in the same sentence.

Update on the Film "Dawn's Highway"

Originally, my plan was to release Dawn’s Highway in December of 2007. In hindsight, that plan was not realistic, and it certainly was not in the best interest of the film. The project actually “became” a film when Frank Lisciandro agreed to construct a story line and do the editing. Frank Lisciandro collaborated on two films with Jim Morrison, Feast of Friends and HWY.

The film, Dawn’s Highway, currently a work-in-progress, has been edited into a rough-cut form. The film explores the story that Jim Morrison told about encountering the aftermath of a tragic accident while traveling with his parents and grandparents through the desert in New Mexico at dawn. This story was originally recorded by Frank Lisciandro.

The good news is that this is a better film than I originally envisioned. My immediate plans are to develop a final cut of Dawn’s Highway, and to enter it in film festivals. Film festivals have the potential to increase the exposure for the film, which makes it possible for more people to actually see the film.

Please visit this Blog, which can be accessed through the website (www.dawnshighway.net), periodically for updated information. We hope to have a trailer that can be viewed in the near future, and we will announce film festival information as it becomes available. If you have any questions, please contact me at brad412@blomand.net.

My objective is for the film to honor Jim Morrison in the best possible fashion. The actual first public screening of the film is probably months away, but updates about the film will be posted on the website on a regular basis.

Brad Durham
January 4, 2008

Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame

On Monday, October 1, I submitted my research to Jim Henke at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Jim Morrison's Story

Ya know, the first time I discovered death – Me and my mother and father, and I’m not sure if my sister was there or whether she was alive or not, and my grandmother and grandfather, were driving through the desert at dawn….and a truckload of Indian workers had either hit another car or I don’t know what happened, but there were Indians scattered all over the highway; bleeding to death.

And that was my first reaction to death, and I don’t know whether I’m crazy or what, but I had the feeling when that happened….like I didn’t want to look back. I’m just this little….like a child is a flower, man, whose head is just floating in the breeze, man. But the reaction I get now thinking back, looking back, is that possibly, the soul of one of those Indians, maybe several of them, just ran over and jumped into my brain.

From “An Hour For Magic”© Frank Lisciandro, all rights reserved