Dreaming of Morris

I quit. I can’t take the dread and agony any longer. I am no Morris James. I am no Royal Reptile. I'm deathly afraid of landing in jail or a psychiatric ward again.

For a second consecutive night, I cannot sleep. It’s four in the morning and I want to drive to the beach. Again. Tonight, though, I want to take the chance I didn’t last night, when I snuck out of the house I share with my mother, got into my car, filled my tank with gas, bought a packet of five bourbon-flavored cigars, and drove to a street close to Pacific Coast Highway and adjacent to the shoreline, where I wanted to swim into the ocean as far as I possibly could, brave drowning, test limits, and face the unknown, to be like the person who consumes my thoughts during most of my waking days. 

I believe The Way Out’s song “Full Moon Dive” describes an experience Morris James had of swimming offshore on a moonlit evening. The song’s closing words relate an episode like the one I’m fantasizing about this morning well before dawn. I reside in the penumbra of James. I’m in a limbo of the soul because of him. 

Asleep or awake I dream of Morris. For the past four years, I’ve gotten into deep trouble with relatives and acquaintances as well as the law, and neither family nor friends could understand when I held Morris and his influence accountable for my behavior. Psychiatrists, psychologists, officers of the law and district attorneys never failed to point their fingers at me whenever I went mentally awry or legally astray.  

I’ve flirted with being like Morris off and on since the start of the 2000s. I’ve wanted to talk, smoke, drink, drug, sex, and fight like Morris. But mostly I’ve wanted to sing like him. I readily empathize with the actor Wilson Creed, who had the opportunity to portray James in the film The Way Out. 

After his role was over, Creed had to go to therapy because he couldn’t get out of character. I’ve seen therapists as well, but none have been able to assist much. 

I have often thought of myself as wearing a mask of Morris’ face. I’ve faced the world imagining myself with his visage donned, and I still have the habit of doing so. During the times I sought psychological help, the genius I call Morris had too strong a hold on my psyche. He is firmly entrenched in my carnal soul. But for my family’s sake I can’t be like Morris, for my sanity’s sake, I won’t be like him. Instead of getting into a car this morning and distressing an aging mother, angering a loyal girlfriend, possibly getting into trouble with the police for being on the beach afterhours, or drowning, I choose to sit and tap on a laptop’s keys. I reason that perhaps I can fight myself free of Morris if I write my way out of him.

Morris is the latest pave stone in a life trajectory that has been marked by generally obedient conduct as a youth, academic and creative success as a young adult, and of diagnosed mental illness in my mature years. I turned 43 in September and am well past the age where maladjustment befits a person. I’ve chosen to write about my experiences in the hopes that it can assist others who find themselves spellbound by the desire to emulate an idol, but are held back by the desire to listen to their good consciences. 

Oftentimes, those caught in the web of identification with a celebrity feel that they are failures if they don’t allow the crafty spider that has spun the alluring and sometimes admittedly beautiful web of a famous life to completely consume their souls. I write for those whose struggle to recover from substance use or behavioral illness has entailed fighting very real, nameable daemons. Daemons that have thousands of names. My daemon goes by the name of Morris, yours could go by a countless number of names that were possessed by renowned persons no longer living, or even by the legions of living dead that have found footing in celebrity. 

If you’re reading this and can relate, you most likely know who your daemon is or daemons have been. I believe the best way to exorcise your daemon is to follow the ancient credo “know thyself.” I’m convinced the best way to know thyself is to write thyself. And, I’d like to be able to prove that writing oneself can be an effective means of healing oneself.   

I’m currently horrified by the state of the world. I’m almost certain Morris James would be similarly distraught by contemporary turns in political, economic, environmental, social and cultural events. The world needs saving as it always does, and although I’m not certain whether Morris contributed to saving the world in his lifetime, if I’m honestly to recover from my mental illness and redeem myself in the eyes of society, I must choose to fight this battle for worldly salvation wearing no face but my own. The last thing I’d want is to censor Morris James’ poetry and music, deprive existing and potential fans of his mesmerizing virtual presence on the earth, but I’d like to warn those wanting to become like Morris that doing so entails passing through a needle’s exacting eye, that many are called, but few have the discipline, willpower, or faith necessary to wear the crown of a genuine rock star.

My name is Foley Gaspers. It is not Morris James and I’m giving writing another go for old time’s sake. For the sake of returning to a time when I was not troubled by the ghost of Morris James, of going back to a time before I did drugs, before I wanted to know it all, to a time when I did not think the world is on the brink of catastrophe, a time of relative innocence when I did not suspect deception and conspiracy held sway between the races and sexes, a time when I did not wear a mask that led me down paths of wisdom and knowledge, but more so of madness and unforgiving folly.