Totally Gonzo - Rory Feehan [3] - Influences

Anyway of all the movies that I watched about Vietnam the one that really blew me away was Apocalypse Now. Between that and The Godfather movies, Francis Ford Coppola is something of a god in our house. That opening scene where the Vietnam jungle goes up in flames from napalm as The End by The Doors floats over the destruction is just seared into my brain. Of course it is through Apocalypse Now that I also indirectly encountered the world of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the poetry of T.S. Eliot, two favourites of Thompson who would reintroduce me to their work years later. It was The Doors music that really captured my attention in that movie though, along with the infamous Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner. However it wasn’t until I saw Oliver Stone’s take on the story of The Doors and Morrison that I really became obsessed with their music. I went out and bought all their albums and every single book on Jim Morrison that I could find. I was about 16-17 at the time and as far as I am concerned that was when my second education began, the one that I consider to be the most important.

I was always good at school and a voracious reader but I was also completely bored with school. I was 17 when I first started university and for some absurd reason I was advised to take a course in computers. I obviously hadn’t a clue what I wanted to do for the rest of my life at that age so I just went with the flow. I knew after a week that it was the wrong choice. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing though, I could have changed courses but didn’t know that at the time. I was totally lost. Being stubborn though I stuck with the course for a year and it all ended in disaster, which is a whole other story…I ended up hating the place, not because I didn’t like the course but for a whole different reason, lets just say that fate intervened and saved me from that mind numbing course and the awful feeling of being reduced to a 7 figure identification number. Feeling totally miserable was not my idea of what university should be like. You have to remember that Ireland was at this point gearing up for the whole Celtic Tiger frenzy of stupidity and wanton greed. Computers were considered a one way ticket to a secure job and a big fat salary. Thanks to a series of unfortunate events I had something of an epiphany about that whole place and I decided to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. It was a real eye opener but a tale for another day. Anyway before I jumped ship I was doing some serious thinking about my future, some serious drinking too I might add. That is when Jim Morrison really took centre stage, I was hugely interested in his life and work and I just soaked up his whole attitude and philosophy to life. Morrison was also a voracious reader and I made a point of reading every single book that he had read, either mentioned by Morrison himself or in the various books about his life. There was no turning back after that, that was my ticket out of the world of computers and the campus from hell and I never looked back. After a few months of some serious soul searching I transferred to another campus to study English and Philosophy.

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