by Ray Manzarek
I was doing time in the Universal Mind,
I was feeling fine.
I was turning keys,
I was setting people free.
I was doing all right….
I’m the freedom man,
That’s how lucky I am,
I’m the freedom man.
Billy then said, “Is there anything you guys need?”
I laughed. “Man, I’ll say. We need some money.”
Jim added, “Is there any front money on signing?”
“Sorry, guys, money I can’t get you. But anything else? Like, how about equipment…can you use some new equipment?”
My eyes lit up. “Yes! What kind, Fender?”
“No, we just bought Vox. You can have anything you want that Vox makes.”
“Really?” I gushed.
“Would I make it up?”
Now here’s the cool part: Vox made the organ that the Animals and the Dave Clark Five used. The red-and-black Vox Continental Organ. Alan Price played one with the Animals, and he was good…and it was very groovy. The black and white keys were reversed and it had two chrome Z-shaped legs. It was sleek and loud. You plugged it into a guitar amp and cranked the sucker. A keyboard player could then compete with those maniacs of loud…the guitar players. Volume to equal Robby. And Super Beatle amps. The very amps the Beatles used on television. On the Ed Sullivan Show, no less. Big chromed pre-Marshall monster amps. All the top English groups used them, and we could have them for free?! Yes, Lord, the fates do move in mysterious ways.
“How long would it take to get a Vox organ?” I asked. “Couple of weeks, or what?”
Billy smiled. “Hell, tomorrow if you want. The Vox plant is out in the Valley.”
“No shit?”
“Would I make it up?” Billy put on a Lower East Side New York accent. “So go, already.”
We laughed, stood up, shook hands, grinned at each other like a bunch of potheads, and were out the door.
Billy shouted to his secretary, “Joan, give them the address to the Vox plant and then call Ed Whozits out there. Tell him the Doors are coming.”
God, that felt good.
We called John and Robby from a pay phone in the lobby. They were ecstatic. We told them to bring the VW van, meet us at Fraser tomorrow, and we’d all head out to the Valley and load it up with Vox equipment.
Robby the realist said, “Vox stuff’s not that good, Ray.”
“What are you talking about?” I shouted into the phone. “The Vox organ is great! Alan Price plays one.”
“I don’t know about the organ,” Robby said, “but the amps aren’t better than Fender amps.”
“But it’s free!”
“So what?”
“You could get a Super Beatle for free!”
“I don’t want a Super Beatle.”
“Why not?”
“I’d rather have a Fender Twin Reverb.”
“But Columbia doesn’t own Fender, they own Vox.”
“Well, they should have bought Fender.”
“Robby! Jesus Christ, do you have to be so picky? Just be at my house tomorrow morning. Early!”
Jim grabbed the phone. “Hey, man, we got a fucking deal! I want to hear you laughing and singing.” Pause. “No, there’s no front money.” Pause. “I don’t know how long the contract’s for.” Pause. “He didn’t say how many albums.” Pause. “Billy James.” Pause. “I don’t know, I haven’t read the contract yet.” Pause. “I can read a fucking contract.” Pause. “Fine, whatever you want. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jim hung up, turned to me and Dorothy, and shrugged his shoulders.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said we need a lawyer. His father will get us one.”
Robby the realist.
The next day we did it. We were in the Vox plant, the five of us, and it was a showroom of the British Invasion. The music of the British Empire ruled the airwaves and we were in the armory. And anything we wanted was ours! We were taken to the display room, where samples of all their equipment were set up for public scrutiny. What a mass of chrome and plastic and wire. There was a brace of Super Beatles, all gleaming and almost six feet tall. The biggest amps I’d ever seen. Riding on their own chromed caster support stands for ease of the wheeling about of those monsters of wattage. There was a myriad of smaller amps in a rainbow of colors. Guitars everywhere—even the Brian Jones teardrop-shaped beauty. There were posters on the walls of all the warriors of the British armada who used Vox—the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, the Spencer Davis Group. And in the middle of this psychedelic cornucopia…the Vox Continental Organ. My organ. Waiting for me, waiting to go home to Venice.
Everything was irresistible. I would have taken one of each but Billy said not to get greedy. “Just take what you need,” he had said.
“Well, I need that Vox Continental and I need an amp,” I said to the man in charge, Ed Whozits. I asked Robby…
“Should I get a Super Beatle?”
“The speakers are too small, Ray.”
“But it’s almost six feet tall. How can it be too small?” I asked him.
“It’s just a bunch of eight-inch speakers. They break up too easily. Get something with two twelves. It’ll hold the bottom better.”
He pointed to a black amp low to the floor. “Get that one. It’s as close as they have to a Twin Reverb.”
“Are you going to get one?” I asked Robby.
“No, I want a Fender.”
“Then how about a Brian Jones guitar?”
“Fuck no. That’s a piece of plastic junk.”
“It looks good.”
“So what, it’s already been done.”
Jim spoke up. “I want a Super Beatle to sing through.”
Robby said, “Are you going to carry it?”
Jim paused. “Uhh…I’ll take one like Ray’s getting.”
“Two Royalton amps,” I said to Ed. “And a Continental.”
“I’ll take this guitar, too,” Robby said. He had picked out a guitar not unlike his Gibson. “I’ll use it for bottleneck. I can keep it in open tuning. That way I don’t have to go back and forth all the time,” he said to me.
“Groovy,” I responded, not really sure of what he was talking about.
Jim said, “John, anything for you?”
“Forget it, man,” John said, “I don’t see any drums on the floor, do you?”
“Come on, John, don’t get cranky now,” Jim chided. “Just because you can’t get any free equipment is no reason to sulk.”
We all laughed, and of course John sulked because we laughed.
Jim turned to Dorothy. “How about you, Dorothy. Want a Brian Jones Teardrop guitar?”
She grinned. “I want a Super Beatle.”
“Are you going to carry it?” Jim asked.
More laughter, even from John. He was okay again. We were all okay. We had our loot!
We went to the loading dock and stuffed the Volkswagen with our new equipment. What a haul. We were delirious. We were floating. Jim made a graceful, slow-motion leap from the loading dock onto the roof of the VW van, landed securely, spread his arms, and proclaimed to the world…
“Now we’re ready for some gigs!”
the beach house
Eureka! We found it. Dorothy and I found the apartment of our dreams. Right on the beach. Northstar and Speedway. And I mean on the beach! The front yard was the sand of Venice Beach. The ocean was fifty yards away from our front window. You stepped out the double Mondrian doors and onto…sand! The California dream. A beach house.
It was the downstairs front apartment of an old, dark shingled Craftsman-style two-story duplex home that had been divided into four units. The landlord was upstairs front—the best unit—and we were below him. He was never home in the daytime. We could do anything we wanted without having the whistle blown. In fact, everybody was gone during the day. No one was there, everyone was at work. We could rehearse o
n the beach! We could crank all that new Vox equipment and no one would be around to complain. Our nearest neighbor was at least seventy-five yards away in another old home on the beach. We were five or six blocks north of the Marina Channel and everything was all spread out. Our neighbor to the south was a praying-mantis-headed oil pump that just kept bobbing its head up and down, endlessly agreeing with everything. To the north was “the bad boys” house. A small group of priests in black took care of a small group of probable juvenile delinquents. We could never exactly scope out the kids because it was too far away to discern any features and thus read any personalities, but it definitely gave off vibes of a halfway house. So there was nothing to interfere with our creation of the dreaded “live” music. We could set up all the equipment in the living room and blast!
And what a living room it was. Fifty feet of glass windows looking out on the beach, the ocean, the setting sun. It was originally the sunroom—back in the twenties and thirties—before the division. It was all wood and glass and warm. What a creative environment. It couldn’t have been more sun-infused, more light-washed, more solar if we had designed it ourselves. The wheel had turned in our favor again.
A small bedroom, a small bathroom, and a small kitchen were all connected to the sunroom. It was, essentially, all sunroom. The other rooms were an afterthought, a mere courtesy to the residents. Had to eat and sleep somewhere in between bouts of lizardlike sun basking. I brought the guys to see it. They loved it.
“We can rehearse right here!” Jim said.
“We can set up the equipment and just leave it,” said John. “I don’t have to keep moving my drums back and forth and tearing them down after every rehearsal. This is so groovy!”
“And now that we’ve got all the electric stuff, we can’t play at my house anymore,” said Robby. “The neighbors would shit a brick if they heard us wailing.”
“Live music!” I mockingly nodded.
“They hate live music in Pacific Palisades,” Robby finished.
“And well they should,” said Jim the trickster. “Can you imagine the caterwauling of untalented rich kids electrified?”
Robby was mosquito stung. “Fuck you, Morrison. I’m not a rich kid.”
“Oh, yes, you are,” laughed John.
“Well, your father’s an architect,” shot back Robby.
“Yeah, but he’s not rich like yours.”
Robby thought for a beat. “But he’s only been rich for a couple of years now.”
We all laughed at the absurdity of that one.
“When can we set up, Ray?” Jim asked, ready to rock. We were all ready to rock.
“Yeah, when can I bring my drums?” asked John. “Can I bring them tomorrow?”
“I haven’t rented the place yet,” I replied.
“Well, close the deal,” said Robby.
“Yeah, take it.” Jim said. “Don’t let someone else get it.”
“There’s only one problem…,” I said.
Their faces fell. A collective pall hit the sunroom.
“What…?” they said almost in unison.
“I can’t afford it,” I answered.
Another pause. Brain wheels turned.
Robby spoke first…“We’ll pay for half.”
John was shot with an electric arrow. “What?!” he shrieked. “Why do I have to pay for Ray and Dorothy to have a place to live? That’s not fair!”
“You’re not paying for them, idiot. You’re paying for our rehearsal room,” answered Robby.
John saw the logic but needed to worry himself a bit more. When he had one of those “hot flashes” it took him a while to subside.
“Damn, it’s just not fair,” he grumbled.
“It is fair, John,” said Jim. “If we went to a rehearsal place we’d have to pay for that. Why not pay for this one? Hell, and it’s right on the beach.”
“Yeah, but Ray gets to live here.”
“Do you want to live here?” Jim asked.
“No!” he said. “But why should Ray get to live here?”
John could be such a pissant sometimes. Most of the time he was cool; a funny guy, a good guy, but when he got a “surprise”…holy shit! Get out of his way. When he got a hot flash he became mean, and vindictive.
Robby brought the subject back to reality. “How much is the rent, Ray?”
“Two hundred a month.”
John shrieked again. “Two hundred! That means I have to pay…” The wheels turned but they wouldn’t cog together. “I have to pay…uhh…”
“About thirty-three dollars,” said Robby.
“Ohh. Yeah, thirty-three dollars. One-third of a hundred. That’s right.” And then logic took over. The hot flash passed and his blood rush subsided. “Hey, that’s not so bad. I can afford thirty-three dollars. Shit…that’s not so bad at all.”
John was back. The hysterics were gone. Who knows, maybe that volatility is what makes him such a great drummer.
“But can we afford a hundred?” I asked Dorothy.
All eyes turned to her, imploringly. She looked around the long sunroom and then out to the beach, as if evaluating both the place and our entire situation. She paused, took in a large breath of air, and said, “We have to. We have no other choice. This is it.” She turned away from the window and spoke to the Doors. “This is where you guys are going to perfect your songs. Right here. In this light.”
“All right, Dorothy!” Jim whooped.
John and Robby were giddy.
I hugged her. She was so positive that I didn’t even worry about the fact that we had only three hundred dollars in our little savings account.
“Maybe my father will give us a loan,” she whispered as the celebration began.
“Well, mine sure won’t. ‘The twain don’t meet,’ you know,” I said, remembering my father’s line.
“Oh, yes, they do,” she said as she hugged me tighter. “We’ll make it.”
Jim had a six-pack of Tecate. He passed them out, we cracked them, and toasted our new digs.
“To our new rehearsal studio,” Jim said.
“Damn right,” said John.
“To the beach,” said Robby.
“To the sun,” I said.
“To the Doors!” Dorothy said.
We touched our Tecates and guzzled our ceremonial brew. We were home. We were together. And it was good.
Within a week we had shifted everything out of Fraser and over to the beach house…except for Jim.
“It’s time for me to get my own place,” he said to me. “I can’t keep living with you guys.”
“There’s plenty of room,” I said to him. “You’re welcome if you need it.”
“Thanks, man…but…uhh, I’m gonna get something for myself. We can’t keep up this platonic ménage à trois.” He smiled. “It’s unseemly.”
“Who cares?” Dorothy replied.
Jim shuffled his feet, a bit embarrassed. “Well, to tell you the truth…sometimes I feel like I’m your son or something. I don’t want to be your kid.”
“You’re not!” I protested. “You’re our friend.”
“Yeah…I know,” he said. “But sometimes, well, you know how it is, Ray.”
Now I was embarrassed. I didn’t realize he’d felt that way. I’d always thought of us as equals. Even though I was older, I felt he had a great wisdom in his soul. He seemed much older than his years, as if he were privy to an ancient knowledge. As if secrets had been imparted to him and it was his obligation to now pass them along to the lovers of America. And the secrets were joy and passion and intoxication with life. The Dionysian secrets.
I was turning keys
I was setting people free
I was doing all right….
But he was also vulnerable. He was very open and trusting, and of course adventurous. A most dangerous combination. It meant he could easily be seduced. His openness and sense of adventure meant that the forces of evil—the self-destructive powers—saw a potential subject
for trasmogrification in James D. Morrison. Just as the satyr saw the reemergence of Dionysus in Jim, so too did the always present, always lurking shadow creatures of destruction see prey in the tender psyche of the lead singer of the Doors. They knew they had the seductive powers of alcohol and fame in their arsenal. They knew that fame would indulge Jim’s “bad boy” side, and booze would open the trapdoor to the monsters of his id. The battle would be Manichaean. The power of the light—what he was when we first put the band together: that fine and decent and spiritual poet. That young artist who had combined the American WASP aesthetic with Native American shamanism and had the potential to heal the psychic split in the peoples of this country, and had the potential to become president of the United States. (I felt, back then, that a person from the arts or entertainment had the public access to elevate himself to the White House. I projected we would make our run in 1980. Who better than Jim? Certainly not that fascist show-biz guy who did run in 1980.) That guy. That Jim of light against the power of the darkness—the forces that would destroy all potential, the forces of greed and lethargy and viciousness and sloth and power for power’s sake. The evil forces that would deny man his rightful due, his birthright…his enlightenment!
But I didn’t know that such a battle would take place. I was riding on the first flush of our creativity, the energy of inspiration. It was all blue skies and clear sailing for this Pollyanna. I was having a ball…and so was Jim. I’d never seen him happier. Or more full of life and enthusiasm. He was a blazing fire and his heat and light were joyous to be near. He was my friend and I loved him.