Jim Morrison was, like many another artist, subject to strange notions and odd fancies; desires that were completely at odds with his public persona- that of a countercultural shaman who would be forever glaring back at white bread American society and finding it wanting. One imagines that Morrison would have taken this uncompromising view of the conservative end of American show business. Not a bit of it; like his contemporary Janis Joplin, he had a sneaking regard for big band singers, knock-down-drag-out crooners and the awesome sound of a swing orchestra going full tilt. Indeed, during his journey from acid drenched nature boy, babbling in wide eyed wonder at his lysergic vision, to his later incarnation as a roaring boy/prophet retailing an apocalyptic line in bacchanalian closing time croonerama, he had often considered ditching the doors and setting up shop down at the Whiskey-a-go-go as a kind of countercultural Frank Sinatra. He knew his voice had the power. 
   Moving, as he was during the late sixties, through the upper echelons of show business, he was bound eventually to run across a member of the US entertainment establishment, and in due course he did: Dean Martin. Dino: genuine lounge crooner, ladies man and hard core tippler to boot- a kind of Eisenhower era version of Morrison himself, who played golf and watched westerns instead of dropping acid and writing sub existential doggerel. If not the king of the crooners, then at least one of the princes, Dean Martin, ex-boxer and barker was for real; he’d moxied his way out of the steel mills of Steubenville, Ohio and struggled right to the top of the greasy pole of American showbiz. He had no time for longhaired druggy beatniks, famously attempting to take the piss out of the Stones on his TV show in ’64. So when he clapped eyes on the Lizard King in the bar of the Troubadour in late ’69, he rolled his shoulders and stroked his jaw. He wasn’t about to let a loudmouth, overweight junior juicer get the jump on him.
 

Morrison had been indulging himself; he’d beguiled the afternoon with a succession of whisky sours, a plate of burritos, three bowls of beer nuts and several twinkies. He was leaning against the Naugahyde bar, wearing his toy store Indian headress and scat mumbling like Geronimo on mushrooms.
“Itchacoola hoola, perhoo hoo hoo hoo ha…bumshoolalalala..”
Dino, who’d just managed to avoid an encounter with one of Peter Lawford’s old pimp acquaintances, moved round the bar, sipped his Cutty and water, ate a couple of beer nuts and nudged Morrison. 
“Hi there”
Morrison, surly with scotch and his usual James-Dean-on-a-speed-comedown mental outlook, looked up sharply.
“Hey fuck you! Fucko! Hey fuck off maaan. Do you know who I am- oh I beg your pardon sir, you’re Dean Martin! Jeez! I love your show!”
Dino smiled broadly, adjusted his bow tie in the bar mirror and looked down at the dishevelled poet.
“Really pally?”
Morrison nodded enthusiastically.
“Why certainly, you may not know who I am but I’m pretty big with the kids……I- sing these rock ‘n roll songs but…I guess that’s just a phase. In a way, and –hic- don’t let this get around, I’d like to be like you and Frank- crooners.”
Dino’s smile broadened yet more.
“Really pally?”
Morrison scratched his face in a slow, crapulent fashion.
“I’m –hic- serious, I want the pardies, the barbecues, the fun. Salami…sex…and whisky…-hic.. No drugs. Good clean fun. The old way.”
Dino sipped his drink,
“That’s good pally. You know Frank and I, we call sex ‘salami’.”
“Really? Hah! So it’s salami, salami and whisky!”
“Whisky first pally.”
Morrison frowned and looked earnest,
“The kids today, well, between you and me, they’re getting a little too louche.”
“Tooloosh? Say pally, wasn’t he a French painter?”
Morrison erupted into laughter and slapped his knee.
“Hahahahahaha  Sir! Sir that is a great gag… Sir, one evening, would er would it be possible to go back stage and see you guys? You know, when you do the show together?”
Dino had had a number of drinks already that afternoon, and an idea was forming in his head.
“How’d you like to go on stage with us, eh pally?”
This hit Morrison between the eyes like an arrow.
“Really?”
“Pally, if you get a haircut, freshen up and put a tux on, you could join us tonight. Lawford’s out and Joey Bishop’s got the clap. I’ll have to speak to Frank first.”
Morrison stood up unsteadily. He was flapping like a prom queen.
“Mr Martin, do you know if there’s a barbershop nearby?”
Dino had a glow on; he slapped Morrison on the back.
“You’re a good kid. Let me buy you a drink.”
Morrison smiled a cheesy, drunken grin,
“I sure am a good kid. I was brought up the right way, my Pa was Admiral- just don’t tell Rolling Stone magazine. What are we going to sing?”
Dino did a shuffle on the spot.
“When you’re drinking, when you’re drinkin’, the world looks good to you…”
“Oh I get it, like to the tune of ‘When your smiling’?”
“Sure pally, and then we’ll do a little dance; it’s a thing me and Sam do sometimes, you know a little shtick.”
They locked hands and began to do a tango around the bar.
“That’s good pally, you’re a real mover.”
   They staggered around the bar humming tango music whilst the waiters laughed at them. It wasn’t the best time for Frank Sinatra and his minder, Harry ‘The Irish Ballbreaker’ Quengerhetti to walk in. Sinatra hated rock stars, their music, their clothes, their bad habits and, most of all, their damage to his record sales. Seeing his pal Dean drunkenly waltzing with a fat drunk with long hair and a kid’s Indian hat on enraged Sinatra and he darted forward and slugged Morrison behind the ear with his fist. The Lizard King crumpled like a sack of potatoes; he lay on the floor, looking up at Sinatra, who was shouting at a crestfallen Dino.
“Jeez Dean” bellowed Sinatra, “Fucking fag haircut! Jeez, this guy got his goddamn dick out on stage!”
Dino waved his hands.
“He was gonna get a haircut! A shave!”
“I wanted the pardies,” groaned Morrison, “the…salami…”
Frank looked down at Morrison.
“Shaddup”
“Pally,” said Dino, “he was gonna get a shave, he was gonna play stooge tonight with you me and the nigger.”
Sinatra crossed his arms.
“Dean, sober the fuck up.”
“But pally, his father’s head of the navy, I wanted one of those hats, like John Ford’s got?”
Sinatra turned to Quengerhetti,
“Get Dean out of here”
The henchman bundled the sozzled singer out; meanwhile, whilst the awestruck bartenders look on, Sinatra began to kick the recumbent poet in the head. He sang as he worked.
“They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, when he said the world was round….oh oh who’s got the last laugh now……..oh it’s such a koo koo day…….”