In the parallel Universe just next door to our own.

Notes from the parallel Universe (# 37) just one over from your own:

MORRISON FOR PRESIDENT?

The Doors
(Front row: Ray Manzarek - keyboards, Jim Morrison - vocals, John
Densmore - drums. Back row: Robby Kreiger - guitar, Dada - banjo)

Dada joined the Doors as a fifth member in late 1969. Playing tambourine and banjo
with the group only briefly, he left in 1970 just before the release of their fifth album
"Dada Hotel," which was renamed "Morrison Hotel" after his split from the group.

I wonder how many know in your Universe, had Jim Morrison lived, he would have eased out of the Doors (a group Dada had hoped unsuccessfully to take over and rename after himself) and away from rock n' roll entirely.

"That was my plan," says Ray Manzarek, keyboardist and co-founder, with Morrison, of the Doors from his home in Napa. "We'd get into film and then, after he turned 35, put Jim up for president."

According to Manzarek who met Morrison while they were attending UCLA film school, "No one can believe it, but no one knows Jim like I did back in the early days." And he was quite serious about a Morrison presidency.

As unlikely as it may have sounded back in the 60's, it was Manzarek who imagined someone from Hollywood likely becoming president one day. Regarding Jim Morrison as "an American prince," it was an easy leap to see Morrison in the White House.

"I thought in 1966 or '67 that at some point or another, someone from show business was going to be president," he recalls. "And somebody did: Ronald Reagan. I thought, 'Oh, god, no. Wrong guy.'"

But now for the good news: In the parallel Universe #37, Jim Morrison did not die. One result of that is there is nobody dying in Mexican drug wars here today as there is your Universe. (Drugs were legalized in the U.S. in the early 90's.)

(Follow up on the Doors members: Jim Morrison, after the Doors disbanded in late 1974, went into film making, followed by a stellar career in politics as two term senator from California and eight years as president. He is currently seated on the U.S. Supreme Court. Manzarek, Densmore, and Kreiger continued on with successful careers in the music industry. Dada, briefly a member of the Doors for less than six months, faded into oblivion in the 70's but continued to play the tambourine. Reemerging from obscurity in 2005 when he started an even more obscure blog entitled Dada's Dally. "Yep, I'm doing the same thing over here as I'm doing over there! Weird, huh?)