One man in his time plays many parts. So said sagacious Shakespeare: internationally recognised clever clogs on many subjects and never more insightful than when musing on the human condition. The bard’s assertion is very true in the case of James Douglas Morrison, who, in his brief and turbulent public life, played many parts and donned many masks; he was a sometime student, satyr, counter cultural pedagogue, musician, lysergic picaroon, dramatist, bard/mystic, mental patient, alcoholic, street corner bum, film maker, soap box Jeremiah and intoxicated visionary priest/poet. He deranged his senses protractedly after the example of Rimbaud; pursued an erratic lifestyle whilst collaborating with his fellow musicians in The Doors; took risks and behaved foolishly; wrote well and wrote badly: sometimes awesome work was produced, sometimes an unintentionally funny and pretentious cacology; like many another erratic creative personality, he became addicted to the alcohol and drugs that are, at first, so deeply calming and inspiring to the mind of the sensitive artist. The one part/role/mask that Morrison never successfully managed to don was that of movie actor; though for a short while in 1970, he attempted to immerse himself in the world of film acting.
    The previous year, Morrison had met Orson Welles briefly. Welles was planning on making a western: a version of Oedipus Rex. Welles had asked Morrison to be in it. The lizard king, planning on relocating to Europe anyway, was delighted some eight months after the original conversation, to receive a message from Welles to make his way to a back water area of Spain, where shooting would take place.
 Morrison got stoned and watched Citizen Kane at an art house cinema. He sat in the dark and watched the impossibly gifted Welles on the screen; this amazing twenty five-year-old actor and director’s charisma and all round talent beamed out at the small audience, undimmed nearly thirty years on. Morrison knew the film well and he noticed it hadn’t lost its vitality like many other left field masterpieces.

 After Charles Foster Kane’s sled was fed to the fire, the credits had gone up and the sundry other connoisseurs and students filed out, Morrison sat alone staring ahead at the blank screen, chewing gum slowly, his eyes unfocused and reddened, his brain lost in a reverie of Welles’ images and of his forthcoming adventure. After a while he got up and went out into the street, lit a cigarette and looked up at the stars. He smiled. The people he’d known at film school would be pretty amazed when they saw that Orson Welles’ latest film featured an old alumnus of theirs. Especially since he’d abandoned film for rock and roll, and was now heavily bearded and in a state of public semi disgrace after his obscenity trial. He smiled. He wasn’t at all fond of the clichés of show business but he had to admit, in his position, to play a leading part in a movie- an Orson Welles movie to boot, had to be construed as some sort of comeback.

A small, scruffy Indian raiding party sat atop their horses on a low dusty hill overlooking the unfinished set; a ramshackle western town, which shimmered in the morning sun. They were all Spanish sailors and all grinning at each other. They were in movies.
   In the distance, beyond the town, a red flag was raised. It was the signal for action. They trotted forward; adjusting their headdress and wigs and throwing their cigarette butts to the ground. They started to canter towards the town, gradually building to a gallop. From where the second camera was positioned, on top of the baroque fronted saloon, the shot was good: a small party of Indians approaching a sinister, empty town; likewise from camera number one, set up on the ground, further up the street. 
          The raiding party had just reached the outskirts of town when a dusty Citroen light 15 veered into shot and across their paths, horn blaring; the horses scattered and the old car zoomed up the main street, a huge billowing cloud of dust rising behind it. It roared past the saloon and out the other end of the town.
Orson Welles, who was taking breakfast- smoked herrings on lavishly buttered baguette, an enormous steak and onion omelette, pot of coffee and an assortment of Portuguese pastries- at a small table underneath a Martini umbrella (filched from a café in a nearby town) and was watching proceedings, growled. His shot had been ruined and, more importantly, his breakfast had been ruined.
“God damn it. That was the last slab of Aberdeen Angus in the refrigerator. Pedro, inform the chef, tell him to make a collect call to Madrid…”
A blizzard of dust particles had isolated him in a temporary fog; now, as it began to clear, he stared down at his omelette; it was smothered in dust and sand.
“ Pedro, who the hell is that?” he asked his assistant director who was standing nearby with a megaphone in his hand and his mouth hanging open.
“I’ve have no idea,” replied Pedro, a young Spaniard, “but he has cost you a lot of money senor.”
Welles’ later productions, famously moveable feasts, didn’t always conform to the dictums of a commercial shoot: the script was often rewritten on a whim; actors appeared and disappeared according to other commitments; money would dry up; Welles himself might fly off to appear in a film or advertisement,   in order to vouchsafe some more cash to keep the project rolling. When there was film in the camera, Welles couldn’t afford to waste it. He looked down sadly at the omelette, then rose and walked out onto the main street of the set. He was impressed by the work of the motley band of set builders, and his own handiwork- he’d painted a Lautrec-esque mural on the exterior of the saloon, for want of something else to do before the cameras arrived. The frontages were built to the specification he’d sketched on a legal pad in a hotel room in Madrid at Christmas; tall and sinister in the southern gothic manner, their porches, colonnades and verandas created sinister shadows and nooks; their massive, crudely painted signboards advertised a gaudy Americana. 
         Welles stood in the middle of the street, enormous yet distinguished in a stained linen suit, and heard the car somewhere in the distance. He lit a cigar. His crew fussed around the two cameras- he was impressed with them, an efficient international skeleton crew, sporting bandannas, and scuzzy beards, they treated Welles as the master artist, grinning broadly and saying ‘si senor’ repeatedly.
   He’d gathered together a war chest of production money from a number of sources, and was hoping to work quickly and actually finish the project and release the film- he fancied the Venice film festival the following year. He had felt slightly rebuffed by some of his old friends not making themselves available: Joseph Cotton was tied up making a horror film in England, Dietrich sulking in Paris, Ray Collins and Everett Sloane were dead, Rita Hayworth attempting a stage career; Chuck Heston still involved in making ape movies. In some ways this pleased Welles- it added to his sense of being a wandering comi-tragedian, a Falstaffian cinematic freebooter, free to pick up strolling players along the way. 
     The Citroen came into view again at the other end of town, and tore up the street, dust cloud billowing behind it. The crew and extras began to shout and jeer, and also to shout warnings at Welles who wasn’t moving out of the way.
“Senor! Senor! The car!”
Welles stared forward at the oncoming vehicle, puffing meditatively on his cigar. It slammed its brakes on and came to a sliding halt two feet from Welles. For a few seconds everyone was enveloped in the car’s dust cloud; there was much spluttering, spitting and curses in Spanish. 
 The Citroen was smothered in dust, its windows caked with fine grey powder, squashed flies and other wind-born detritus; the grubby semi circle where the window wiper did its work only marginally less filthy. Suddenly a great hissing started under the bonnet, and steam began to escape, further blanching the hot morning air. Welles puffed on his cigar.
    The rear door opened and a diminutive bearded man wearing dusty goggles fell out. He rolled over on to his stomach, clutching a dusty wine bottle, and dragged his knees up underneath him. 
“…. Goddamn….”
The crew came over and looked down at the man. Welles grinned. Dennis Hopper stood up slowly and unsteadily. He pushed up the goggles and focused his inebriated disc eyes on his immediate surroundings. Finally he saw Welles. He giggled.
“O-Orson. Good morning sir.”
“Mr Hopper, I see you’ve had a bibulous breakfast.”
“Well, I can’t deny that sir. But I will say it is an honour…. An honour and a privilege….”
Hopper collapsed backwards.
“Catch him someone” Welles rumbled, “and who else is in here?” 
There was a noise in the front seat, followed by some incomprehensible moaning.
“…Uhhhhhuhhhhhuhhh death………death and my cock… Are the world.”
Welles laughed. A deep rumble.
“Mr Morrison, good morning, ‘Death and my cock are the world’ eh? A first class piece of dialogue for this film. I’d use it if I thought I could get away with it.”
Morrison was slumped over the wheel; luggage piled on the seat beside him. 
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhghghghg….”
Welles turned to the crew.
“Could you get Mr Morrison to a trailer, and ply him with black coffee. Thank you. ‘Death and my cock are the world’. Hmmm. I think Mr Morrison is ready for Sophocles, Pedro.”
“Si Amigo,” said the assistant director, grinning round his cigarette “but is Sophocles ready for Senor Morrison?”
 

 Several hours later, in an aluminium trailer, one of a cluster near the set, Dennis Hopper sat at a folding table, blinking repeatedly and licking his lips. His mooneyes darting neurotically up at a demoralised squadron of blown flies, which glided on a Gulf Stream of fetid boozy air, stirred by a droning fan. He unscrewed the lid of a small bottle of pills and extracted two, banging them down with a hit of rough Spanish wine. Morrison, sprawled on the floor, stirred and coughed violently.
“Dennis? Dennis?”
“Sshshshhhhhh!”
“What?”
“We arrived man.”
“What?”
“Quiet!”
“Why?”
“Can you remember arriving?”
“Not really. What did we do?”
“Peyote, a little acid…”
“That big bottle of Jack Daniel’s.”
“Yeah,” giggled Hopper, “when I woke up I thought I was back in Peru making my goddam movie!”
“You seen Orson?”
“I dunno, I’ve just done some speed and some downers, up and down, y’know? I’m gonna get a little loaded…”
Morrison got to his feet. He was still dressed in a bottle green corduroy three -piece suit that he’d bought on Rodeo Drive- he thought it made him look like a serious young intellectual. He’d remained straight for the flight- foregoing complimentary alcohol, and gnawing the in-flight chicken until he heard a small commotion three seats ahead- Dennis Hopper was on the plane. The actor had recently returned in triumph to Hollywood; making Easy Rider for a pittance and showing jaded studio execs that there was money in countercultural movies. He’d then de-camped for Mexico- with a great deal of studio money- to make The Last Movie, a drug addled fiasco, which ruined his newly established reputation. Storm battered Hopper responded to Welles’ offer with alacrity.
“Oedipus Rex man…” said Morrison.
“Yeah,” said Hopper, “It’s gonna rock!”
“I’m keen on improvising.”
Hopper grinned.
“For me, there is only improvising.”
“You think Orson will agree?”
“I got a lot of respect for Orson. The most. But, he’s got to understand, films are evolving, and he’s got to evolve with them.”
“Supposing he doesn’t?”
“Then we gonna have to get him high. Is all.”
 
 
 
 

Welles was shooting crazy tracking shots; the crew watched fascinated, this was not the like the westerns they usually worked on. Having given instructions to the crew for the next set up, he sat down at a small trestle table in the middle of the street, and started to tap at a typewriter. Hopper and Morrison came round the corner. Welles looked up.
“Good afternoon. We didn’t wake you for lunch….”
“Hello Orson.”
“Mr Morrison. Dennis.”
“ Look,” said Hopper, “We’re real sorry about… anything that happened.”
Morrison put his hands up.
“..Yeah, I mean, we don’t know what happened, if anything did happen.”
Welles laughed.
“Orson, what’s your stance on improvising? Are you interested in it?”
Welles puffed on his cigar and said nothing. Hopper jumped up and down.
“I am. ‘All the world’s a stage’ huh Orson?”
Welles grinned.
“Shakespeare. Who wrote his own scripts. Now get over to wardrobe, and remember, this town is under pestilence.”
Morrison and Hopper walked away.
“Pestilence man? What the fuck does pestilence mean?”
“Dennis,” said Morrison, “Have you read Oedipus Rex?”
 
 
 
 

Morrison came through the doors of the saloon. It was raining hard; the street a quagmire, through which the townspeople staggered towards him. He looked up at the sky, allowing the rain to pelt his bearded face.
“Why?” he bellowed, “Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?”
The various townspeople stared at him through the rain. He began to beat his breast, ape like.
“Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? Why have you forsaken this town? Why have you left us alone! Alone!”
Welles, seated next to the camera, underneath a large umbrella, stood up.
“Cut.” 
The water hoses were turned off and the extras relaxed. Welles walked up to Morrison, standing under the dripping colonnade. 
“Jim, you’re giving me way too much. Just give me much less.”
Morrison flicked his eyes up at Welles.
“Orson, this is a pretty dangerous situation though isn’t it?”
“Desperate, lad, desperate. But you’re the Sheriff; you have to be more…..saturnine.”
Hopper, dressed for his role as the town’s eccentric, whisky-soused dentist and soothsayer, was watching proceedings out of shot, on horseback. He trotted up to Welles.
“Hey, Orson, why don’t you get him to look up at the sky and say ‘Thanks. Thanks for nothing you ever did for me.”
Welles sat down again next to the camera without looking at Hopper; he puffed on his cigar.
“Mr Hopper,” he rumbled “Mr Hopper, you’re aware that we’re making a tragic drama here. Not ‘I was a teenage Oedipus’?’ Action.”
The hoses began to rain again, catching Hopper, who trotted out of the way, crestfallen and offended.
 
 
 
 

“Action.”
Morrison sat on the veranda strumming a guitar.
“This is the end. Beeeeeeeeeeeyooooooootiful friend, the end.”
Hopper appeared he wore a black top hat decorated with feathers. He sat down next to Morrison.
“Hey.”
Morrison stopped strumming.
Hopper continued.
“It’s you. It’s you.”
“….me?”
“You killed the old sheriff, on the forked road near Sweetwater. I didn’t want you to, ….you know maaaan I..”
“Cut.”
Hopper looked round.
“Mr Hopper, can you try and stay within the boundaries of the….historical context.”
“How so?”
“Can you not say ‘man’? It’s totally anomalous to the idiolect of this character. Besides which, it’s not even in the script.”
 
 
 
 
 

“Action.”
“You killed the old sheriff, at Sweetwater. You. He was your Father. Your real father. You weren’t born in St Louis, you were born here, here in Slaughter.”
“I don’t believe you; you lie man I..”
“Cut! You’re saying it now!”
“Sorry Orson, it’s like a habit we got.”
“Is it a habit or like a habit? People don’t know how to speak English anymore. Pedro, lets break for lunch. Did the steak come through from Madrid?.”
 
 
 
 
 

That evening Morrison and Hopper shared a bottle of wine and a joint. They sat at a table outside their trailer, watching the sunset.
“You know Jim, this movie isn’t gonna work.”
Hopper’s mind, full of speed, wine and paranoia was revving itself up for action.
Morrison was feeling stupefied by the heat, the grass, the wine and the chore of learning tomorrow’s dialogue. He looked up from his script.
“Why do you think that Dennis?”
“Because it’s not loose enough. Orson seems to be stiffening up.”
“I don’t think so, you see those tracking shots he’s doing? I can’t wait to see the rushes. I think it’s gonna be wild.”
“Sure the tracking shots, sure. But look at his approach to dialogue; jeez man, the kids want to see characters they can empathise with. Easy Rider proved that. Also I thought he was experimental; when I suggested using some of Hitler’s speeches for the sheriff he laughed in my face.”
“Yeah, but even I thought that was left field.”
“Something’s gotta give.”
“I know what you mean, but, hell, it’s not your movie.”
Hopper looked round at him, his face was running with sweat in spite of the red bandanna on his head; flies ran across his forehead; his eyes stared at Morrison, smoke dribbling out of his nostrils.
“Not my movie. Not my goddamn movie? It’s everybody’s movie Jim. We have to consider ourselves. I have to consider my international reputation.”
Morrison ran his hands across his face.
“Dennis, we’re talking about Orson Welles here. Not some TV director.”
“Art is about art Jim. It’s about what you’re doing now, not what you did yesterday.”
“Dennis…”
“I think I’m gonna take over. You gonna help me?”
Hopper looked wired, he sat there, blinking.
“You want me to help you, take over the film?”
“We’re in a unique situation Morrison, we’re out here; his producers are, well, what are they? They’re not here, they’re wiring him money from Hollywood and Rome. He’s making this goddamn movie via Western Union.”
“How do you intend taking over?”
Hopper leaned across the table, waving the flies away and taking a big hit off the joint.
“Right, we get him juiced. Start smoking with him, somehow we’ve got to get rid of him, get him to crack or something. This film has to be finished. He’s on a time limit, he fucks up and bingo, Dennis Hopper, internationally esteemed film director takes over the reins. Pure and simple.”
“You’re talking about poisoning Orson Welles?”
“I’m not talking about poisoning Orson, I’m talking about saving everybody on the film from being in the sort of ….desiccated turkey that gets shown once at the Cannes film festival. I just got panned around the world for The Last Movie. Last thing I need right now is to have this movie turn into an obscure bomb.”
Morrison stared off into the distance.
“Desiccated is a good word Dennis.”
“Exactly. Look at you trying to learn that script. You do realise that if I take over, strict adherence to the script goes out the window. You realise that?”
Morrison smiled.
“Dennis. Dennis. You’re fucking insane.”
“Insane? Insane? That’s what everybody said when I started shooting Easy Rider for 400 grand. They weren’t saying that when it made 19 million dollars.”
“Dennis, it’s not about dollars though, this is Art.”
“It’s a goddamn movie. You can’t learn your lines, Orson’s crazy, making a sterile film. Didn’t you have ambitions for film making?”
“Yeah, sure, but not strolling onto a Welles film and….. trashing it.”
Hopper was leaning forward, staring, intense.
“Wanna co-direct? I’ll give you co-director, you can have your name next to mine. You wanna do this right? You wanna escape from rock music? You want to expand?”
“Yeah man, but..”
Hopper banged his fist on the table.
“There you go then man. Let me tell you something about life, in the world of art, or the world of entertainment, you gotta grab man, grab what you can get. You wanna get somewhere you grab it. This is you. That song The End. Its perfect. It’s more than perfect, it’s the film. He ain’t gonna use that. He’s lined up some French singer. You’re gonna be dubbed.”
“What?”
“Didn’t want to tell you, but, that’s how things go in movies. You do something brilliant, it ends up on the cutting room floor.”
“I’ll speak to him.”
“Hah! Speak away. He’ll tell you different for sure. He’ll tell you anything. Anything at all. He’s like me, he’s a pirate.”
Morrison puffed on the joint. He squinted at Hopper.
“Shit. Okay okay okay, I’m game. What are we going to do?”
 
 
 
 
 
 

“Orson, would you like another drink?”
Hopper, Morrison and Welles were seated outside Welles’ trailer.
“I think I will, this Margaux has travelled exceptionally well.”
“It’s a rocker Ors’” giggled Hopper.
Morrison was slightly scared. Hopper wasn’t just slightly crazy in the usual excessive recreational drug abuse way; he seemed to be full blown insane. His eyes were constantly on patrol, moving right and left with a paranoid sheen on them. He kept looking up and winking at Morrison.
Welles’ great face looked up into the crepuscular eternity.
“What an evening.”
Hopper winked again at Morrison. Welles continued.
“Look at the stars… God…”
Hopper had been spiking Welles’ wine with LSD and downers. Welles’ head dropped back and he stared up above.
“…..Jeeeeeesus….”
Hopper grinned at Morrison. A few moments passed. Welles breathing became regular. He was unconscious. Morrison stood up.
“You fucking idiot Dennis!”
Hopper was on his feet, adjusting Welles’ head to one side. He turned to Morrison.
“Don’t fucking start getting feared out on me man! You’re in on this too!”
“What if he dies?”
“Call Pedro and shut you’re fucking mouth.”
 
 
 
 
 

The Citroen light 15 was commandeered as a makeshift ambulance and Welles was loaded into the rear by the crew, who struggled under his great bulk. Morrison helped; he felt ashamed; Hopper, meanwhile was using the only telephone on the set. Standing in the tiny production office, he held a small bottle of pills up in front of his face as he waited to be connected through to Morry Kreinstein, a financier who had the lion share of investment in the film; he counted the pills, mouthing the numbers. He was aware of sweat creeping down the side of his face.
“Hello! Morry Kreinstein? Yeah, it’s Dennis, Orson’s not well man! I dunno, I dunno, they’ve taken him away to hospital, he’s collapsed! Listen, I can take over, I can finish the movie, we got a shooting script………drugs?… you’ve have to be joking. I’m a movie director. Over budget?…… come on, don’t you think I learned my lesson on The Last Movie? Morry, you wait for Welles you’ll lose me and Morrison and money. The kids will turn out in droves for anything I do…That was last year Morry, what? All I want is an extra ten grand on my salary. A deal? You sure? Okay Morry, get the contract telexed out here or something.” He put the phone down, slugged back some wine and pills and headed for the set. Round the corner came Pedro, who walked into the office and closed the door. He dialled a telephone number.
 
 
 
 

“Action, man”
“Death and my cock are the world.”
Morrison stood outside the saloon.
“My motherwife hangs from the beams of this saloon. I am son and husband.”
Morrison dropped to his knees, flinging his stovepipe hat onto the veranda. The townspeople stared at him. Hopper, sitting forward in the director’s chair, was smoking a slow joint.
Morrison opened and shut his eyes.
“This is the end. Beeeeeeeyoooootiful friend, the end.
This is the end”
“Cut.”
Morrison’s eyes flicked up.
“Hey, Dennis, what the fuck are you doing?”
Hopper’s red eyes stared back at him.
“I-I kinda think that maybe we have to change the ending.”
There was a murmur among the crew and extras.
“What?”
“The ending man, it’s kinda metaphorical, I’m for doing something a little visceral.”
Morrison sat back on his haunches and scratched his beard, his brow knitted.
“Dennis, how could it get more visceral, I blind myself.”
“Yeah, yeah I know, but….you just blind yourself”
“That’s just what Sophocles wrote.”
“Well, how about….. er..how about you run back in there, get her body down and have rampant sex? Then you blind yourself.”
Since he was now improvising dialogue around the script’s intentions, Morrison had no need to learn his lines, so he’d began to smoke grass again heavily. This made him a little confused. Was Dennis joking?
“Dennis, are you….out of your mind.”
Hopper was standing up, a big sloppy demented grin on his face.
“No man, you gotta do this, I’ll dub your song ‘the end’ on to the scene! We’ll play it as you’re doing the scene!”
“I don’t know Dennis, it’s…”
“Over the top! Over the top is what it is. Look at you, with your music! You’re performances! You wanna play Sophocles like a school production?” 

“Action.”
Morrison had his trousers down and was thrusting away at the corpse of his wife/mother, patiently played by an unknown Spanish actress.
Hopper stood near the camera grinning.
“Sing it…” he whispered, “sing it…”
Morrison threw his head back.
“This is the end, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyoooooooootiful friend….”
Hopper leant over to Pedro.
“Hehe, is this gonna out Pasolini Pasolini or what!”
“Si Senor.”
Outside in the late afternoon sunshine, several official looking cars pulled up, plus a lorry with some soldiers. Two men got out of the leading car and trooped up the steps and into the saloon.
Morrison was know actually having sex with the actress; the crew were silent and dazed, having had their lunch heavily spiked with cannabis; Hopper stood near Morrison, ready to snap an amyl nitrate phial under his nose. He whirled around at the noise of the intruders.
“Hey hey fucko! Waddaya think you’re doing?”
“Senor Hopper? I’m am afraid this film is being shut down by orders of General Franco, it is contravening our moral code.”
The speaker was a middle aged Spaniard who’s brow and eyes were furrowed with that mixture of spleen and guile which marks out the long serving continental policeman; next to him stood a lieutenant, ready with a his revolver.
Hopper stood there, dazed, dressed in a long cattle coat and top hat. He looked at Morrison who was in orgasmic rapture.
“This is theeee end!” he cried.
Hopper grabbed the camera and pulled it around.
“Start fucking filming them, this is an international incident!”
Morrison stood up, pulling the actress to her feet.
“Fuck’s going on?”
“It’s an international incident; they’re closing down the film! We’ll film them. It’ll be intrusive on the film! A post-Brechtian alienation technique! Jesus, this’ll win us the palme d’or at Cannes.”
The crew were only too ready to surrender, they immediately began to laugh and joke, lighting cigarettes. They all thought Hopper a lunatic and downright rude after the urbane Welles. His brain was racing with paranoia, here was his film, about to be impounded in a fascist country. He threw himself through a door and saw his salvation, three barrels of gasoline, which the special effects department- a man called Juan- intended to use to torch the town for the climax of the film. He unscrewed the top of one and threw it over, gallons of gasoline flooding out over the floor. He looked through at the police and Morrison.
“Now you tell Pedro to get all the film together,” he moved forward, producing a lighter from his pocket, “or we’re all gonna go up together. I fucking mean it man!”
Morrison though he was having some sort of extra ding ding dong acid flashback.
“Dennis?”
“Shut up Morrison. You’re fuckin’ collaborating with them.”
“Senor Hopper…”
“Shut it! You shut the fuck up! Start getting the film cans together Pedro. You do it or…” he span the lighter, a small flame flickered; there was a gasp.
“I’ll drop it…. I ‘ll drop the motherfucking lighter….we’ll blow, I’ll drop it…I’ll drop it man…I mean it….”
Hopper sneezed and dropped it.
Everything seemed frozen for a long second. Then everyone threw themselves towards the door; the crew, the police, Morrison, the actress and Hopper. The gasoline licked into flame and, as they tumbled onto the veranda, rolling and tumbling over each other, the flames reached the other barrels. They all scrambled down the steps and hit the ground.
  The explosion smashed out the windows and turned the saloon into a fireball, which, in the absence of  any real fire fighting equipment, began to destroy the town. In the dry atmosphere it moved quickly destroying trailers and running down power cables. 
   Hopper was being restrained from trying to save the cans of exposed film that were in a nearby burning trailer; two soldiers had him firmly by the arms.
“My film! Take your fucking hands off of me!”
Morrison, exhausted and stoned strolled past, he had his arm around the actress and in his other hand he had a small transistor radio, he held it up to Hopper’s face.
“Come on baby light my fire, come on baby light my fire. Try to set the night on fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiire.”
“You tryin’ be funny Morrison?”
“It’s Karma Dennis, you fucked up through bad Karma.”
“You’re wrong singer boy. This is what it takes to be a fucking artist!”
They locked eyes. Crazy eyes. 
“This is what it takes to be an artist Morrison! One day you’ll realise that you cocksucker, or maybe you won’t.”
Morrison walked off and Hopper stared at the collapsing set.
“It’s like the burning of Atlanta goddamnit. They should be filming it. Fuckin’ fascists ain’t you heard of freedom of speech! Fuckin’ Fascists!”