{"id":14,"date":"2010-07-05T10:10:34","date_gmt":"2010-07-05T10:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/07\/jim-morrisons-ghost-in-a-mexican-restaurant.html"},"modified":"2010-07-05T10:10:34","modified_gmt":"2010-07-05T10:10:34","slug":"jim-morrisons-ghost-in-a-mexican-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/07\/jim-morrisons-ghost-in-a-mexican-restaurant.html","title":{"rendered":"Jim Morrison’s ghost in a Mexican restaurant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have seen this article I wrote for AOL News<\/a> in the last few days. The headline blared, “Jim Morrison’s Ghost said to Haunt Restaurant Bathroom.”<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Given the amount of mail I received about the piece, and how many times it was reposted, re-tweeted, re-whatever-else-you-can-do-to-a-link these days, I thought I’d address the piece here.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Originally, I’d pitched AOL on the idea of a visit to the aforementioned restaurant bathroom on the anniversary of Doors lead singer Jim Morrison’s death (I’m a regular contributor to AOL News and that’s basically how it works–each week or so I pitch a series of new ideas and then go write the ones they choose). <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Why visit the bathroom? Well, it was also the vocal booth where Morrison recorded the “L.A. Woman” album. See, the building once served as Doors headquarters back in the early 70s-functioning as a crash pad\/office\/recording studios.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Well, in the course of interviewing the folks who own\/run the restaurant today, some of the focus of the story shifted. That’s because to a person, they all described the strange sensations they feel in the place–the feeling that the restaurant (“Mexico”) still holds some restless spiritual component of Jim Morrison.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Some of the mail I started receiving accused the owners of contriving the story as a means of attracting customers. That’s why I wanted to write this piece – to say that based on my experiences as a journalist, interviewing hundreds of people each year, that these folks were completely earnest, honest and genuine. <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
They spoke independent of each other, and again, it’s not the story I set out to cover. <\/div>\n
But over the course of my questions they all sort of delicately broached the subject and so I explored the topic further, resulting the story.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
That said, much of the mail I received also reflected a genuine interest in the possible spiritual presence of Morrison–and the satisfying fact that the bathroom had been honored with a gold record and hand-written lyric sheet.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Anyway, just thought I’d clarify that –  the people in Mexico believe what they believe and I believe they believe what they believe.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Make sense? ?:)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
… do you believe? <\/div>\n
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(p.s. – if you’d like to listen to this week’s Pop Culture Road Trip radio show, it’s here<\/a>)<\/div>\n
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\"36191_404039931289_69859551289_4878135_5863797_n.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have seen this article I wrote for AOL News in the last few days. The headline blared, “Jim Morrison’s Ghost said to Haunt Restaurant Bathroom.” Given the amount of mail I received about the piece, and how many times it was reposted, re-tweeted, re-whatever-else-you-can-do-to-a-link these days, I thought I’d address the piece here.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nJim Morrison's ghost in a Mexican restaurant? - The Pop Culture Road Trip<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/07\/jim-morrisons-ghost-in-a-mexican-restaurant.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jim Morrison's ghost in a Mexican restaurant? - The Pop Culture Road Trip\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You may have seen this article I wrote for AOL News in the last few days. 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As an author, Epting has found that unearthing and chronicling \"\"hidden\"\" locations offers him a challenge. What began as an inquisitive hobby soon developed into the writing and photographing of 18 books based on his discoveries, including \"\"James Dean Died Here\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6The Locations of America's Pop Culture Landmarks,\"\" \"\"Elvis Presley Passed Here, Even More Locations of America's Pop Culture Landmarks,\"\" \"\"Roadside Baseball,\"\" and \"\"The Ruby Slippers, Madonna's Bra, and Einstein's Brain: The Locations of America's Pop Culture.\"\" As an extension of his efforts to chronicle the unique, Epting joined Hampton Hotels for a sixth exciting year as national spokesperson and consultant for the Hidden Landmarks program in support of the brand's national \"\"Explore the Highway with Hampton Save-A-Landmark\u00c3\u201d\"\" campaign (the program recently won the President's award). Chris is a frequent featured guest on numerous radio and television programs such as National Public Radio's \"\"All Things Considered,\"\" \"\"The Savvy Traveler,\"\" \"\"Access Hollywood\"\" and FOX TV's the \"\"Best Damn Sports Show Period,\"\" plus radio and TV programs around the world. He has contributed articles for such publications as the \"\"Los Angeles Times,\"\" \"\"Westways,\"\" \"\"Travel + Leisure\"\" and \"\"Preservation\"\" magazine, and hosts the weekly syndicated radio show, \"\"The Pop Culture Road Trip.\"\" Chris's latest book, \"\"Hello It's Me\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Dispatches from a Pop Culture Junkie\"\" will be released in July, 2010. Chris lives in Huntington Beach, CA with his wife and their two children.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/author\/cepting"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}