Mr. Mojo Risin . . .

Pere Lachaise Cemetery was perhaps the most peaceful place I've ever been and the home to more than a million famously dead people. Jim Morrison (pictured above) is one. With rabid cultist Doors fans, I being one but not as much as some, defacing tombs showing which way to Jim, the cemetery has installed gates and a permanent guard at the Lizard King's grave. When said guard turned his head, it gave me the opportunity to steal a stone for my middle son's rock collection. The highlights of my tour here included Marcel Marceau, Frederich Chopin, Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde. Oscar's grave stood out as unique. A modern art tomb surrounded by Gothic structures it was easy to point out. That and the thousands of female lipstick kisses that adorned the facade. As the line in that Smith's song goes, "Let's go where we're happy, and I'll meet you at the Cemetery gates. Keats and Yeats are on your side, while Wilde is on mine." I have never been so happy surrounded by so many dead. That's the real magic of this place. Reverence and joy. "With love and hate and passions just like mine, they were born and then they lived and then they died."