by Ray Manzarek
“A pizza duo, like Two Guys from Italy,” I said. “I like it.” I did my Groucho Marx: “But seriously, folks…really, you got any ideas?”
“Sure,” he said. “We call it…the Doors.”
I said, “The what? Come on, that’s the most ridicu—” and then stopped, mid-word. I flashed on the logic of it. It made perfect sense. Of course! “You mean, like the doors in your mind?” I continued. “Like opening the doors of perception? Like Aldous Huxley?”
“Exactly,” he said. “Cool, huh?”
“Ohh, man. Too cool!” I was floored. “That’s just too hip.” And I thought to myself, You know, the Beatles have the whole teeny-bopper thing. They’ve got four plucky lads. All happy, peppy, and poppy! Close harmony, terrific. They’re as cute as all get-out. No one could ever fault the Beatles for their cuteness. But let’s face it, it’s lightweight. (This is the summer of ’65, don’t forget. They were doing “She Loves You” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” They had yet to consume the magic substance, LSD.) And the Rolling Stones were doing Chicago blues. And that’s all well and good…but so what? I can do that in my sleep. They look great and they’re doing Muddy Waters. But, hell, I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, so that doesn’t really mean that much to me one way or the other…bunch of white guys playing the blues…I’ve been doing that since I was twelve years old. In other words, I surveyed the competition and found it vulnerable to a challenge from a different direction. A psychedelic direction.
“Jim, man, with your words and my keyboards…there’s nobody doing this. What we’re gonna do, nobody on the planet is doing. This music, our music, is called…psychedelic.”
“All right, Ray!”
“First order of business is, we got to get you off Dennis’s rooftop,” I said, leaping to my feet. “You’ll catch pneumonia or, shit, pleurisy for cri-sake sleeping in that night air.”
He slowly rose to his feet, languidly stretching like a cat. “Naw, I won’t. I’ve got a good sleeping bag, keeps me warm.”
“Doesn’t matter, Jim. The damp creeps in through your nose and mouth. Every breath, it goes down into your lungs. And before you know it, bam, pleurisy! End of Doors. Back on the dole. Call Mom and Dad, ‘Send more money!’ And what if they don’t?” I poked him jokingly. “What then?”
“Jesus,” he laughed, “what is this, a new script you’re working on?”
“Could be, huh? A kind of true-life…”
“Here’s a title, Portrait of the Artist as a Dead Dog.”
“I like it. I’ll have to remember that. Maybe I can use it someday.” I laughed. “Maybe a book or something.”
“Too late, Joyce beat you to it,” he rejoined.
“I know, but I like your version better. It’s punnier.”
“Oww, so is that, Ray.”
We both laughed, secure in our art and charged with energy over our newly conceived plan of action.
In that year we had an intense visitation of energy.
The energy had brought us together. It was only a matter of how far we would go and what price the fates would extract for the journey. Little did I suspect back then, back in that light, that they would demand the ultimate price.
I started to walk through the sand, back toward Fraser. “Come on, man. Let’s go.”
“Where?” he asked.
“Home. You’re moving in with me and Dorothy.”
“All right, Ray!” he whooped.
And off we trudged. Through that deep, golden sand. Away from the soft blue and toward the land, toward the city, back into the Western Dream.
Now it was time for casual speak. “How did you lose all the weight, man? You look great.”
“I wasn’t eating,” he said.
“What do you mean you weren’t eating?”
“I was taking acid and getting high. I hardly ate anything since we graduated.” He hit his slab of abs. A good, solid whack. “Hard as nails, Ray.”
“Shit, I wish my gut looked that good.”
“Well…don’t eat.”
“Can’t, man,” I said. “I love the sheer, sensual pleasure of it.”
“Ray”—and he spoke in that slow, laconic way of his when he wanted to make a point—“you’re nothing but a sybarite.”
“Guilty!” I laughed. And we walked on through the golden.
A small retaining wall awaited us at the end of the beach separating sand from sidewalk. We approached it and climbed over, and I caught a glimpse of Jim’s profile. I don’t know why, but this realization waited for that precise moment. He was handsome! His jawbone had come out and it was four-square and straight. He was all-American in his handsomeness. He shed his softness and a hard, lean, angular WASP face had emerged. High cheekbones, hard jaw and chin, strong neck. He was now a good-looking man. No longer a boy. And I thought to myself, The girls are going to love this guy. They are just going to absolutely fall in love with this Jim Morrison. He’ll be irresistible to them. He’s charming, polite, witty, and handsome as the devil. Irresistible. I had to smile to myself at our prospects. The lyrics are great—they’re poetry—and the music is going to be great—I’ll handle that. We’re going to be spooky, weird, and psychedelic. And on top of it, we’ve got the best-looking guy I’ve seen in a long time—since Steve McQueen. It was like a running battle. Who was the best-looking guy? James Dean? Yes, but he was gone in that silver Spyder. So you’ve got Steve McQueen and now the challenger, Jim Morrison. My bet goes on the challenger. I thought he looked better than the reigning heartthrob sex object, Steve McQueen. “Man, we’re going all the way to the top!” I knew it. I could feel it.
Over the wall, onto the street, and up Fraser we floated. Borne aloft by this new dream. We had entered a new reality and it was the fates that had brought us together. It was pure serendipity that he should come walking through the shore break at that exact moment in time. It was serendipity that placed me in the exact spot to see him in the shore break. Fortuna. Destiny. And we were ready to rock!
We turned up the driveway of the gray Craftsman-style California bungalow and climbed the stairs of our little apartment over the garage. Dorothy was already home. The door was open for some cross-ventilation. I hit the top step…
“Honey, I’m home!” I called out.
“Me, too, Ray,” she answered.
“Somehow I knew that,” I joked as I went in, grabbed her, and hugged her close.
“Oh, you…wise guy.” She smiled and pressed herself close against me. I could feel her hard, sweet little breasts against my chest.
“Guess who’s coming to dinner?” I whispered in her ear.
“I’ll bet you are,” she grinned.
“That’s for later…that’s our dessert.” I flicked my tongue into her ear. She shivered for an instant. I broke off our embrace reluctantly.
“You’ll never guess who I brought home.”
Jim did a little leap around the corner and into the room.
“Jim Morrison…,” Dorothy cried out.
“Hi, Dorothy.”
“…I thought you were in New York!”
He looked at me, grinning. “Didn’t we just have this conversation?”
“Sounds familiar,” I said.
“What are you doing here, Jim?” Dorothy queried.
“We…uhh…I’m going to live with you.”
Dorothy’s almond eyes got very round. “What?!! Why?”
“Let me explain, honey,” I said.
“Did you lose that apartment on Goshen?” she asked.
“Yeah, I gave it up,” Jim replied.
“And you don’t have anyplace to stay?”
“Uhh…let me explain, will ya, honey,” I repeated.
She looked at me. “Well, Ray, he’s got to have a place to stay.”
“I know, honey.”
“He can’t be living outside, he’ll get pneumonia or something.”
“Ray said possibly pleurisy.”
“Exactly,” Dorothy agreed.
“Something awful, like pleurisy.”
“See why I love her?” I asked Jim. “Two people, one mind.”
“I can see that,” said Jim.
I turned to Dorothy. “And if he catches pleurisy he won’t be able to sing.”
She looked at me, her head slightly askance. “What is he going to sing?”
I grinned. “Our new songs!”
“Your what?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. We’re getting a band together. It’s gonna be called the Doors…”
“Like The Doors of Perception?” she jumped in. (High IQ—147. Jim’s was 149. What a couple of smart asses. And mine at only 135. Shit.)
“Exactly. And Jim is gonna be the lead singer.”
“Whose words?” she wisely asked.
“Jim’s—he’s the poet.”
She paused for a beat, looked at Jim…and Adonis registered himself in her eyes. “Ohh.” She looked at me, back at him and then back at me. Sizing us up. Judging the cuteness factor. Seeing if we could compete with the Beatles and Stones.
“Works for me,” she said, and grinned.
I grabbed her and hugged her again. Jim put on his best happy face and laughed. He was home.
“Wait until you hear the words,” I said.
“Good?” she asked.
“Poetry,” I said.
“And the music?”
“Jazz-rock…and psychedelic!”
“Wow,” she said. “Poetry and jazz-rock. Like the beatniks, huh?”
“Maybe even better,” I said.
“Uhh, Ray,” Jim warned, “we’re gonna be good but let’s not go that far…hubris, you know.”
“This is just between us.”
“We have to appear humble on the outside,” he joked. “Even if we’re all arrogant as hell inside.”
“Speak for yourself, Jim Morrison,” Dorothy rejoindered.
“Hell, I’ve got enough arrogance for all three of us,” I said.
“That’s for sure,” Jim responded.
“But I’ll try to conduct myself with a proper degree of humility…”
“Good,” he said.
“…at least in public.”
Dorothy laughed. “That’ll be different.”
We all smiled and the angel from Jules and Jim passed overhead. We sighed. And a quiet descended.
Jim broke the sweet silence. “Man, I’m hungry!”
“You look like you haven’t eaten in a month, Jim.” Dorothy said.
“About a month and a half, to be exact,” Jim corrected her.
“Let’s go to the Lucky U and get some of Pancho’s chile rellenos,” I said, my taste buds beginning to go bazooka. “I’m starved.”
“Pancho’s, yes!” said Jim.
“My treat,” Dorothy said. “I suppose I’m going to have to support you guys while you put this all together…so I might as well get started now.”
“All right, Dorothy!” Jim exclaimed.
And off we went. We piled into the Volkswagen Bug and headed into that warm California night. Young, alive, and on fire!
Later that night we shuttled back and forth from Fraser to Dennis’s apartment on Speedway and loaded Jim’s gear into the Navy gray Chevy. Thank God he had sent his books home to his mother and father, who were now living in San Diego. He had only one box of selects. Among them were Joyce’s Ulysses; Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night; all of Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell, etc.; Kerouac’s Doctor Sax, On the Road, Visions of Cody, and The Town and the City; Allen Ginsberg’s selected poetry, other Beats; Norman Mailer’s The Deer Park and Advertisements for Myself; Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms; Tennessee Williams’s plays; Carson McCullers’s Reflections in a Golden Eye; William Faulkner’s The Mosquitoes; Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises; T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land; and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. He also had his electric blanket…and his expensive socks.
We put Jim in the bedroom. Dorothy and I moved our mattress into the living room, near the heater. We weren’t going to let him have an electric blanket and sleep next to the heater. He was already spoiled. Why spoil him any more? Of course, we all were spoiled. Indulged and pampered by our parents. Doted over since childhood. We were spoiled brats now on our own. We had cut our ties with polite society and had entered the world of art. Do or die. “Look out, destiny, here we come!”
And destiny looked back at us hard and square in the eye and said, in her sweet and seductive voice, “Look out Ray Manzarek, Dorothy Fujikawa, and Jim Morrison, you’ve now entered my sphere of influence and you have no idea what I have in store for you.”
So we set up house together. And the mornings came and Dorothy would go off to work. Jim and I would drive her and when we didn’t have our usual breakfast of tea and English muffins with peanut butter and honey at home, we would treat ourselves to breakfast at the Snack-O-Rama, Dorothy called it the Snake-O-Rama, on the corner of Santa Monica and Sepulveda. Eggs, hash browns, and whole wheat toast on a paper plate. Sometimes Dorothy and I would share a humongous cinnamon sugar snail swirl, with big cups of hot steaming coffee to ward off the morning ocean damp. And it was a mighty fine snail swirl, too. It was all good, honest food at a price you don’t even want to hear about today. Man, it was a lot less expensive back then. Of course we made a lot less money, too. Ultimately, isn’t the trick called “living within your means”? Don’t want more than you can afford. Simple, right?
So we would drop her off at work and Jim and I would go on to UCLA, into the music school practice rooms in the basement—little sound-baffled rooms with little spinet pianos—and work on the songs. “Moonlight Drive,” “Summer’s Almost Gone,” “My Eyes Have Seen You,” “End of the Night,” “I Looked at You”—that silly little ditty that, although a love song to a girl, almost defined our present situation.
I looked at you, you looked at me
I smiled at you, you smiled at me
And we’re on our way, and we can’t turn back
Yeah, we’re on our way, and we can’t turn back
(Here’s destiny’s part)
’Cause it’s too late, too late, too late,
too late…too late!
And we worked those songs. Cajoled them into shape. Tickled them when they were obedient, shook them at other times, and beat on them when they were naughty. “Go Insane” was both wry and raucous. Faux innocent, mock naïf, and then goofy, South Bay–style rock and roll–blues progressions.
“The Crystal Ship” was a great song to work on. A beautiful descending melody line to which I put a harmonizing and descending chord structure. Moving underneath it, supporting Jim’s words…and his voice. I put a radical for rock and roll B major 7 as the third chord in the descending phrase of the verse:
Before you slip (Fm) into uncon(Cm)sciousness
I’d like(B maj 7) to have another(D) kiss
Another (F) flashing (B7) chance (C) at (B)
Bliss (F) another(E) kiss (F)
Another (E) kiss (F)
I knew that the B major 7 chord would cause trouble. Rock and roll’s foundation was basic major and minor chords only. You could add sevenths, of course. But only minor sevenths. Hell, minor sevenths were the very foundation of the blues. A dark, mournful chord that carried with it the weight of slavery and oppression. It was the sound of the South Side of Chicago. The sound of rhythm-and-blues radio. The sound of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, Magic Sam, Jimmy Reed, Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, and a host of black geniuses. The minor seventh was the darkness; but the major seventh (a half step up from the flattened seventh) was cool! It was jazz, it was cabaret nightclub singers, it was smoke-filled lounges and cool chicks and West Coast mellow. And it had never been used in rock and roll. When we played the song in person during our early years on the Sunset Strip, Carl and Vito and their band of hippie gypsy trance dancers (who prowled the strip from club to club and party to party) did psychedelic, arm-wavin
g, liquid-love slow dancing to it. But Carl or Vito (who could tell) would always complain to me after our set, “Ray, I hate that jazzy chord in the middle of ‘Crystal Ship.’ Can’t you change it?” And then the hippie-harpies would descend on me, agreeing with their leader like a Greek chorus punctuating Euripides’ The Bacchae: “We don’t like it, either. It’s corny. It’s old-fashioned. It’s not groovy. It’s just not with it. Change it!”
Are their teeth actually sharpening and elongating as they speak? I thought. Am I actually calling forth succubi, Furies, night things? Or are these just lame-ass Valley chicks looking for a know-nothing scene to glom onto, to stick their two cents into, all too ready to agree with whatever the mob, the cud, the herd sanctioned? I opted for the latter, smiled, and said, “Sorry, I like it. It stays.” They hissed at me and backed away. Five minutes later all was forgotten as the Strip gypsies came up to me again all a-twitter and said, “Ray, are you guys going to play ‘The End’ next set? We love it, it’s so groovy.” I had to smile to myself. “You bet we will, and it’ll be special for you guys. Would you like that?” They leapt and fluttered and twittered and all was right again with the world. What a hazarai over a B major 7. But, then, it does kind of represent the difference between childhood and adulthood. The sophistication of that jazzlike chord requires a putting aside of the things of a child. And as Yeshua ben Joseph, the great Jewish mystic and heart master, once said, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I played as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put aside the things of a child.”
When we didn’t feel like hammering on the forge of those songs, Jim and I would stay home and Dorothy would tool off in the Volkswagen to the only job that our little collective had. When the weather was good—and that was most of the time—we’d head out to the beach. Straight down Fraser, to the water’s edge, hang a right, and continue north all the way to the Santa Monica Pier. Pacific coast shorebirds, plovers and sandpipers, would dart in front of us as we walked. Long-legged little things rushing back and forth as the waves would break. Staying just to the edge of the water’s farthest point, running rhythmically with the ebb and flow of the sea foam, looking for tiny crabs that would quickly bury themselves in the sand as the water passed over.