Our quarry that afternoon was the spirit of Judy Garland, who had just passed away a year or two before; why Judy Garland would choose to visit a bunch of anonymous  12 year old suburban kids in a wood paneled basement in Westchester was something I couldn’t ever quite figure out, but hey, she was famous and famous people, the presumption went, were unable to resist curtain calls, at least if we all acted like adoring and bereaved fans. We were barely past the age when The Wizard of Oz sparkled with pre-Lucas wonderment for us, and the idea that Judy Garland had died was a challenge to our sense of age and time.

The lights went out, we sat nervously around a dancing candle flame, called out to Judy (we called her by her first name), and waited. And waited. And waited. And all of a sudden, the fluorescent light in the adjoining laundry room flicked on. I got up to investigate – the light was controlled by a simple pull-chain, which was still swinging gently when I reached it. There were five of us in the circle, no one else in the house, and everyone was around the candle when the light came on. Screaming, pandemonium ensued.

Never did figure that one out.

But I was immediately reminded of that odd event when I bumped into this piece from the Rolling Stone magazine archives, a brief bit on a guy who claimed to be photographed (accidentally) with the ghost of Jim Morrison at The Lizard King’s final resting place, Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, where he was interred in 1971 after suffering heart failure in a hotel bathtub. (Or ingloriously OD’ing in a Paris nightclub bathroom, depending on which story you believe…)

Here’s the pic…or more precisely, the promo video for the photo subject’s book on the photograph and the subsequent curse he believed that Morrison’s spirit placed on him):

Needless to say, the photograph was attacked as a fake and yet another in a lengthy parade of publicity stunts aimed to cash in on Morrison’s enduring and gruesomely self-destructive legacy, and the photo’s owner, one Brett Meisner, seemed to dodge any pointed or scrutinous inquiries into the alleged apparition photo or the subsequent ills that befell him , and this post by Rev Sinthyia (um, really???) from the Miami Paranormal Research Society, while claiming to actually debunk the photo, merely complains that Meisner was unwilling to present the photo or the negative to her group for serious analysis.

Ah…when ‘paranormal societies’ stiffen their scorn. Great fun.

In any case, evidently Mr Meisner passed away in 2010 (assuming he was ever a real guy to begin with – there seems to be some skepticism about that), we’re not sure where the original photo or negative resides these days, Pere Lachaise now guards Morrison’s perpetual-care grave from vandalism, and one wonders if the real celebrity and the photo-associated semi-celebrity will have a chance to share a tall cold one in the between-worlds twilight and have a few laughs at everyone’s expense.

Maybe they’ll pop in to visit the Miami Paranormal Research Society, drop some serious evidence on the esteemed Rev. Sinthyia,  and they can all get some real publicity.