Light My Fire

by Ray Manzarek

  In San Francisco it was relaxed. That’s why we loved it. Everything seemed looser and freer up there. You could be a lover up there. Hell, you could be a loser up there and still enjoy life. In L.A. you had to be a winner, hang the cost—especially in the film industry—and you still do. San Francisco played an altogether different game. It was called…elegance. I liked that game better. Much more civilized. Much more sophisticated. Much more adult. So off we went in Judy’s new car. Off to Mecca. Looking for art. Looking for inspiration. Looking for the new paradigm.

  And we found it. And it was Beat. As in beatific. As in Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, and so many other poets. We found it in Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Bookstore. A little handbill was on the bulletin board in the City Lights Bookstore and it read: “Poetry! Free Way Reading! Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch—Welcome Home!” The place—something like the Longshoremen’s Hall—and the date. “Hey, that’s tomorrow night,” I said to Dorothy. “These are real beatniks. I’ve never seen an actual Beat poetry reading. Have you?” “No,” she said excitedly, “let’s go!”

  Now Jim and I had both read On the Road, Jack Kerouac’s great tome of freedom. For me it was 1959 back in Chicago. A little paperback edition, back-pocket size, that fit snugly in the red-tagged pocket of my blue denim Levi’s. Very rebellious with illustrations of scenes from the book on the cover; kind of a come-on to the potential customer, your everyday, garden-variety teen-angst-rebel. Chicks, car, open road, and a guy in a blue-and-white striped sweater with a bandanna around his neck. Looked cool. But it also looked French to me. And with the name Kerouac, I thought it might be a European existentialist novel. Thank God it wasn’t. It was American. All-American! And it was free and wild and hip and cool and dangerous and sublime all at the same time. A cascade of images. The first book I ever read that said, “There is another way to live, kids. You don’t have to put on the yoke of conformity. You don’t have to become a button-down mind in a gray flannel suit. You don’t have to become a corporate entity. You don’t even have to remain a Judeo-Christian-Muslim God-is-other kind of person if you don’t want to. You can find the Buddha, the Christ within. If you dare. If you have the courage to throw off all convention. All dogma. All orthodoxy. All traditional, time-honored, acceptable, long-standing Establishment codes of behavior.” Can you stand free, the book asked. Can you stand alone? Can you stand on your own two feet and shout to the heavens, “I am alive!”? Can you look life square in the eye and say, “I am all things!”? Can you simply say, “I am!”?

  That was the challenge of On the Road. And that was its promise. To head off into the Wild West and find that one last freedom. The freedom of the mind.

  The West is the best.

  Get here, we’ll do the rest.

  I resolved to head west as soon as I could. Jim Morrison did the same. I came from frozen Chicago, he came from swampy Florida; but we both came for the same reason—freedom! I suppose if Jack Kerouac had never written On the Road, the Doors would never have existed. It opened the floodgates and we read everything we could get our hands on: Go, John Clennon Holmes; Howl, Allen Ginsberg; Gasoline, Gregory Corso; A Coney Island of the Mind, Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Peyote Poem, Michael McClure; Naked Lunch, William Burroughs; The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur, Doctor Sax, Jack Kerouac; Letter from Kyoto, Gary Snyder; The New American Poetry 1945–1960, Grove Press.

  All mind-benders, soul-twisters, heart-openers, foot-tappers, bone-crushers, eye-wideners, refreshers, inspirers, instigators, and general fine things. I suggest you read them all—and there are many more—and get that taste of the possibility of freedom that Jim and I felt.

  So there we are, Dorothy and I, in San Francisco, and an actual Beat poetry reading is taking place. Now the Beat scene is virtually over by this time, ’63, ’64…except everybody is still around. There’s just not a media hype going on anymore. But the poets are alive and well and still writing and still reading. And they are reading right here and now and we are going! Yes! And here’s the bill: Lew Welch, who has just come out of the forest after being in solo hibernation—isolation for the last two or three years—is going to read his new poems. Gary Snyder has just come back from Japan after studying Zen Buddhism and Asian culture and calligraphy and ukiyo’e and umeboshi. He’s going to read his new poems. Philip Whalen—yet to become a Zen roshi as he is today—is also reading his new and fierce and wild and inspired poems. What a night, huh? Dorothy and I were definitely going.

  The next night we borrowed Judy’s car and drove across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco from Berkeley. We arrived at the Longshoremen’s Hall and the place was packed! Must have been two thousand people—at a poetry reading. And it was electric! The air was charged with a psychic electricity and the crowd was attuned and energized and ready to GO. There was so much vitality and energy in the air I thought I was in Russia, early revolutionary Russia, and Vladimir Mayakovsky and Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Bulgakov were reading. The house lights dimmed, a hush fell on the room, and Lew Welch took the stage. He started to read…and it was sizzling, it was crackling. I mean, it was just amazing. He was trying to be peaceful and gentle, telling about the forest and diving into his soul, and what was going on in there and what was going on all around him in that beautiful northern California redwood fern-floored forest. But his joy and enthusiasm were palpable. And the audience picked up on it. It tickled their receptor sites and they began to call out to him, “Go, Lew. Yes! Get it, Lew.” And once again the electricity took over the auditorium.

  After Lew Welch, and a standing ovation, with two thousand people shouting “Lew! Lew!” applauding and stomping for him and Lew grinning and bowing in a stiff, embarrassed, and most charming manner, out comes Philip Whalen. He takes the microphone, sets his papers on the podium, and proceeds to read at the fastest pace I’ve ever heard. He is smoking. Roaring. Racing. He’s riding on the energy in the room and he’s definitely breaking the speed limit! The energy of the audience is so intense he’s just surfing across the top of it. Borne aloft by static electricity, he’s going as fast as he can possibly go. And clear and precise and well enunciated. Nothing is being lost. Ten minutes into his reading, some guy stands up and shouts out, “Read slower! Philip, for God’s sake, read slower.” Whalen stops the runaway train, pauses, looks at him, and says, “Listen faster!” and just jumps right back in. Tearing on furiously for another half hour. Whew! We were exhausted. But then out came Gary Snyder. Dressed in a Japanese schoolboy’s blue uniform, he was absolutely mesmerizing in his Zen-like explorations of man, God, and existence. He was very humble and very intense at one and the same moment. He read for over an hour, stepped away from the podium, bowed to us, and left the stage. A huge roar erupted from the audience. Another standing ovation. Gary came back out, smiled, bowed again, and was gone. The evening was over. Dorothy and I looked at each other, spent. “Wow!” she said. “What a night.” I could only nod my head and smile.

  When Jim came along with his poetry in the summer of ’65, I thought, Man, this is going to be fantastic. Jim has that same kind of aura about him that the Beats had. He’s got that same literary gift. And he definitely was gifted. He could string words together like no one I’d ever met. Words that would probe your hidden places, your secrets, your joys and delights, and…fears.

  Words got me the wound and will get me well

  But this was all in the yet-to-be. This was all to come. Off in the distance and undreamed of. However, the fates did have a sneak preview in store for us. Just a taste of the fortuitous coincidences to come. Just a glimpse of our partnership yet to be. And just two days later.

  Playing in Berkeley, on a community theater screen, two days after our poetry intoxication, was the West Coast premier showing of Jean Genet’s now-famous, then-infamous film Un Chant d’Amour. That’s right. Jean Genet, the legendary French Beat/existentialist novelist, famous for Our Lady of the Flowers, Querelle (Fassbinde
r made a film of this novel), the theater pieces The Maids and The Blacks, and many other writings about homosexuality, depravity, sensitivity, love, anguish, philosophy, and delight in the senses. I had heard of his film; highly controversial, banned in France, it played a few times in New York and was pulled from the Bleecker Street theater by the New York City vice squad. And here it was, in Berkeley. We saw a small ad in the local paper, said, “Holy shit!” and ran out to buy tickets immediately.

  And two nights later, there we were. At a Bernard Maybeck–like brown Craftsmen public-assembly facility—must have been part of the University of California complex. Another one of those wonderful redwood buildings that dotted the hillsides in Berkeley. A line had formed, and at 7:45 the doors were opened. We pushed in hurriedly to get seats in the middle. Not too close, not too far back. Just the right spot for this truly “special” event. How they could get away with showing such a controversial film in a community theater I’ll never know. I guess it’s just the way things are in Berkeley. After all, someplace in America has to be hip besides New York City. And the Bay Area is it.

  The room filled quickly. The house lights dimmed slightly at precisely eight o’clock, and a teacher type stepped in front of the screen. He told us we would be seeing “a film by the French novelist and playwright Jean Genet. It is entitled Un Chant d’Amour, or Song of Love.” A few titters from the audience, a defiant remark or two, “Yeah, man. We know that,” and “That’s why we’re here.” A shuffle of feet by the professor, a nervous throat-clearing, and he continued: “But first, an anthropological film from Africa, The Giraffe Hunt. A film of the Bushmen. I think you’ll find it quite fascinating.” And he left the stage. Five or six people applauded. Must have been his wife and members of the Anthropology Department of Cal Berkeley.

  So that’s how they got the Genet film, huh? It’s part of an anthropology department screening. Okay, fine. So what? Well…let me tell you so what! Here’s the first flick: five skinny guys on the plains of Africa stalk a female giraffe for an ungodly long time. They creep and stalk and jump behind a bush and crawl and hunker down and run behind a tree—only four trees in the entire film, a very dry place. Lots of tall grass, however. Finally they creep up on this giraffe, spears at the ready, and proceed to hurl their dull weapons at this poor animal. Three spears bounce off, one sticks in the shoulder, another in the rump. These guys grab the fallen spears and start poking at the giraffe’s flanks. Someone draws blood. The audience is disgusted, people are booing. Some reprobate calls out, “Kill the damn thing and let’s eat!” Secretly, we all hope they do so the film will end. Can we just see the Genet, please?

  But no, those spears have only opened flesh wounds. Those aren’t killing wounds. The poor animal could maybe bleed to death, eventually, but it’s not going to fall now…and the movie’s not going to end now. The giraffe, goddamn it, runs off! And the five guys follow it! Three with spears—the other two spears are stuck in the animal—and two with long knives. And they run after the giraffe. And it runs, too. Off into the distance. And then the camera begins to run after the Bushmen. Bouncing and bobbling over the veldt of Africa. And we’re all running, and it’s awful! They run and stop and catch their breath and run again and stop and eat and run and finally it gets dark. They stop and go to sleep and we all sigh in a collective relief. “Thank God, it’s over. The giraffe got away.” Hell no! The next shot, fade in, the next day. They pick up the blood trail and off they go…for the next three days! We were going insane. It was going on for an hour and a half and these five guys are still on the blood trail of this beast. And, you’ll love this, the movie is in black and white! No colors of Africa. No gold, no sunsets, no blue sky. Nothing but shades of gray. And even more sadistically…it’s silent! No music! Nothing. You see, it was an anthropological film. It wasn’t made for entertainment. It was made as a study of tribal mores. We were dying…like the giraffe. Which finally did. The film finally ended as the five guys began cutting the meat off the bones of this poor, dead animal. What a bummer!

  Intermission. Everyone bolted for the door. Air, please! Large throng of people, milling about, pot smoke in the atmosphere. Dorothy and I moved off to the side of the Maybeck building and lit up a number. We inhaled the mild intoxicant, got properly elevated, and moved back inside to our seats in the center. Now, finally, it was time for Genet. The room was packed with people, the lights dimmed, the film began. It, too, was in black and white and silent, but we knew that going in. The newspaper told us. The title, Un Chant d’Amour, hit the screen—a big round of applause. Mise-en-Scene: Jean Genet. Applause, whoops, shouts! We were ready.

  And a tale of homosexual love in a prison presented itself to us. Steamy, racy, extremely sensual. And yet very little actual contact or nudity. It was all desire and the frustration of non-consummated desire. Men in cages. Knowing a lover is in the next cell but being unable to touch the love object. Terrible frustration creating only a deeper desire. The more that physical release was denied, the more carnality was enflamed. And what heat. The screen was practically smoldering. At least a third of the audience was gay. They were in a swoon of lust. Murmuring noises spontaneously erupting from deep inside the body. Little sighs of desire and grunts of want. All inadvertent, of course. A nice counterpoint to the silent film. A kind of human sound track—differs with each showing. Pure chance. John Cage, our great American composer who worked with silence and found sounds and chance, would have loved the film. Hell, John Cage may well have lived the film.

  Here’s a couple of shots: camera dollies past four cells, inmates languishing in various states of deshabille. The first three are white guys—in almost a tableau—the camera moves slowly, languidly exposing each cell and dwelling on each motionless occupant. Caressing each young man, who stares back into the lens. Into us. And of course they were beautiful young men, as John Rechy calls them in City of Night (the great Los Angeles homosexual novel that lent its title to lines in the Doors’ song “L.A. Woman”).

  Are you a lucky little lady in the

  City of Light…

  Or just another lost angel…

  City of night.

  City of night….

  The camera finally arrives at the fourth cell and it’s a slender, glossy black, young man—dancing his tight ass off. Moving to unheard music. Bopping around his cell…and completely naked. Can you see the contrast with the first three cells? What a surprise! And what a fine young man with a fine full member. It bounced about in perfect time with his dancing rhythm, forcing a few people in the audience to actually cry out, “Ohh, my.” How happy they were. Another example of the power of the cinema.

  Another shot—two inmates, lovers, separated by bars and a thick, dungeonlike wall between their cells. Too far apart to touch. However, one prisoner of love had found a small hole in the stone that went through to the other cell. He put his tongue to the hole, his lover put his tongue to the hole on his side, and in their minds they proceeded to lick each other’s bum holes, feeling the air, the vibrations, the heat, and saliva from the other cell. All very discreet but very sensual. And then one of the prisoners put a straw into the hole and proceeded to blow into it. The other inmate placed his cheek to the hole—the straw came just to the edge—and received the breath of his lover in the adjacent cell. He made love to that blowing breath. He let it caress his cheek, his eye, his ear…and he was in love. And we, the audience, were getting hot. Homo, hetero—it didn’t matter. This was so seductive and sensuous we could all identify with it. That breath caressing our own cheeks, the breath of a lover upon our faces. My hand went to Dorothy’s thigh and I became even hotter. And harder. I rubbed her thigh and then placed her hand on my crotch. She held my swollen tool for a moment, squeezed it twice, and whispered in my ear, “Later,” as she put her hand back in her lap. Whew! I was on fire. Genet had done his job.

  The film ended—far too quickly, it was only thirty minutes long—much applause, house lights up, I turn to see the audience
and who is sitting two rows behind us, a little off the left, but Jim Morrison! At this hippest of hip events in Berkeley, 450 miles from UCLA, who should be there but half the Doors.

  I call to him, “Hey, Morrison.”

  He sees me and grins. “Ray.”

  “What are you doing here, man?” I ask.

  He pauses for a beat. “Well, I’ve come to see the movie. What about you?”

  I smile. “Ditto.”

  He says, “Some flick, huh?”

  I can only nod my head, raise my eyebrows, and say “Whew!”

  “Hi, Jim,” Dorothy says. “I kind of thought you’d be here.” And we both look at her.

  Is she psychic, too? I thought.

  Jim’s head tilts slightly to one side and he does his lazy-boy grin. “Why?” he asks.

  Dorothy smiles. “You’re hip,” she says, and takes my arm. We head out into the Berkeley night. The three of us. Together, as if it were fated. In the same place, at the same time, for the same art. It was simply meant to be.

  There was an easy camaraderie amongst the heads at the UCLA Film School. A relationship of artists mimicking the bohemian lifestyle of the twenties. We were all dadaists in a way. All a little mad, a little over the top, and all in love with life. John DeBella was a poet. Jim was a poet. I was the jazzer-musician-blues guy. Phil Oleno was the Jungian. Felix Venable was the older, boozier talker. Dave Thompson was the mod rocker. Bill Kerby the intense writer. Kit Gray the consummate eyeball cameraman. Frank Lisciandro was the artistic wanna-be. There was a small New York contingent, but most of the other guys and girls were from scattered places around the country. Very few locals.

  Of all the people at UCLA, I would say Jim was the guy I liked the best. Now, I wouldn’t say we were “best friends” or anything like that, because I think that’s rather a childish concept. I don’t think artists of our age group—twenty-something—have a best friend. Except for the work. (The work itself becomes your best friend. That’s one of the reasons people become artists. What you do is your friend. We’re all basically lonely guys finding companionship and solace in art.) We instead had circles of acquaintances. Groups of people with whom you felt comfortable, with whom you shared common views. In our little circle there were perhaps a dozen or so people whose apartments were always open to you, at any time. You could drop in night or day and find a welcome. People simply went over to each other’s “pads.” Dorothy and I would be doing something at home on Fraser and DeBella would walk in, maybe with Phil Oleno. Or Morrison would walk in. “Cool, man. Want to smoke a joint? You had dinner yet?” The greetings were always cordial. “What’s going on? What do you guys want to do?” Or we’d go over to Jim’s place. A very nice apartment on Goshen. He lived by himself, although he had a girlfriend, Mary Werbelow. She was his junior college sweetheart. She had followed him out from Florida. And was now going to school at L.A. City College—LACC—on the other end of town, but she was around with regularity. And, man, what a fox. We’re talking nectar here. Hard, tight body. Large breasts, firm and pointy. Long, straight auburn hair. A body and a half and a dancer of sorts—she went on to become “Gazzari’s Go-Go Girl of 1965,” a nightclub on the Sunset Strip; the Doors played there in 1966. Jim wanted her to stop the go-go-girl, shimmy-shake dancing and go back to school. Continue on with her education; she was taking painting courses and seemed to really enjoy them. But she was seduced by fame and thought being Miss Gazzari’s 1965 was the beginning of her show-business career. Unfortunately, it was her career. That was all the fates had written on her slate: “Queen of the Sunset Strip—Summer 1965.” Nothing more ever happened. In her hubris at the time, however, she had constructed grandiose fantasies. And when Jim told her to go back to school and continue with her painting, she told him to go back to school and get a master’s degree. She told him his career was hopeless—she didn’t like the Doors—and his band was going nowhere and he would never amount to anything. I don’t think he ever saw her again after that exchange. She had fallen into the tar pit of Hollywood—“show business,” don’t you know—and it destroyed their relationship. She was just too naive, too beautiful, too foolish to make the right choice. Ten years later I heard she was a belly dancer at a Greek restaurant in Honolulu, “the Mad Greek,” or the “Passionate Greek,” or “the Flaming Greek,” or something equally Dionysian. However, she had taken up painting again, as Jim told her, except the moment had passed. Jim was dead. It was all too late.