by Ray Manzarek
And then came New Haven! Busted! December 9, 1967—arrested right onstage. Captain Kelley and a brace of his blue meanies hauled Jim Morrison off the stage, roughed him up behind the curtain, where another half dozen evils in blue were waiting, and carted him off to the hoosegow. Into the slammer. For breaching the peace and inciting a riot! Of course the blue men were the only ones who rioted. This highborn son of military aristocracy; this arrogant, snot-nosed college punk; this pretentious, anti-war peace-nik, dope-smoking, commie-pinko, sarcastic son of a bitch pressed every one of their buttons and they went over the top. He had no respect for the police—just because they had maced him in a bathroom before the show, just because he was making out with a girl and refused to stop and received a full blast of mace, that was no reason for him to call them “little blue men in their little blue suits and their little blue caps” from the stage. Just because he had been blasted with tear gas and was choking and crying his eyes out, that was no reason for him to say, “I thought their motto was ‘protect and serve,’ the fascists!” Just because a doctor had to attend to him and the girl and flush their eyes with saline solution; just because the concert had to be delayed for an hour because Jim could barely breathe, just because it was a violation of his civil liberties and rights as a human being, it was no reason for him to bait the police and call them “little blue pigs.” That was too much! That was when they they charged the stage…and stopped him.
And for good measure they also arrested, in the backstage mělée and ensuing commotion at the stage-door parking lot, Michael Zwerin, jazz critic of the Village Voice, Yvonne Chabrier, a Life reporter, and Tim Page, a noted photographer just back from assignment in Vietnam. The New Haven blues were doing a fine job of shooting themselves in the foot…cutting off their toes.
Jim spent a couple of hours in jail, had his mug shot taken, nursed a few lower body bruises, and was finally released when Bill Siddons made his bail of $1,500 from the night’s receipts. Eventually the charges against Jim and the three journalists were dropped. Insufficient evidence.
So, obviously, it took a while for Dorothy and me to get around to tying the knot. We had our license and blood test and whatever else of official paper was needed to make it “legal” for God, man, the nation, and the IRS. All we had to do was set a date and pick the place.
We didn’t want to do a traditional wedding with formality and whiteness of the bride. Dorothy wasn’t hung up on having that “one perfect day” that seems to obsess today’s young women. In the sixties, the young people of the world were trying to create a new tradition that had to do with personal involvement, commitment, and freedom. The ceremonies would be our ceremonies. We would create the set, setting, and words of our new joining.
I asked Dorothy, “Do you want to do a ceremony on a hillside or by the ocean or something?”
“Not really. Do you?”
“No…not particularly. It’d be too embarrassing.”
“God, yes! I couldn’t stand in front of our friends and recite some kind of ‘I love you truly’ vows.”
“What about your relatives…and mine?”
“Ray!…No! I’d die.”
“Me, too,” I laughed.
“But you can get up and play in front of thousands of people. You’re not embarrassed then.”
“I can hide behind the music. This would be you and me naked. We’d be standing there, exposed to the world, and everybody would be going, ‘How cute, don’t they look sweet, aren’t they adorable!’ I don’t want to be adorable. I don’t want my mother and your mother crying.”
Dorothy agreed, “I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand everybody just looking at me like that.” Then she laughed….“I guess I’ve smoked too much pot. Am I paranoid?”
“Hell no! You’re realistic.” I thought for a second. “And what about the reception?”
“Ohh, God. And then we have to feed them?”
“Sure. Wedding equals food and drink. Hell, they’ll want champagne and smoked salmon.”
“Caviar!”
“Something sumptuous and luscious.”
She scrunched up her face again….“Well, they can’t have it. That’s just too much. I’m not going to put on a show for them and then treat them all to a feast, too.”
“So…what do we do? Time’s a-wastin’! We have to do this before the year is out.”
She paced the floor, thought a bit, and said, “City Hall!”
“You mean, just go downtown?”
“Absolutely. This is a governmental function, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes.”
“We’re doing this for the legality of it, aren’t we?”
“No,” I protested. “I love you. I want you to be my wife.”
She smiled shyly. I loved her like crazy when she smiled like that. All shy and vulnerable, as if I had touched some deep and private part of her. “I am your wife,” she said.
I took her in my arms and held her tightly. “But now it’s going to be a legal commitment, on paper, before the whole world.”
“So let’s go legal. City Hall.”
“When?”
“Hell, let’s do it tomorrow!”
And we did. With Jim and Pam as best man and maid of honor. On the judges’ lunch hour. There was a large waiting room adjacent to the judges’ chambers and it was filled with what must have been seventy-five couples and their attendants. Fifty Chicano couples, twenty-four black couples, and one mixed-race hippie couple. Us.
Eventually, the judge’s herald—who would call out a couple’s name and lead them into the sanctum as they alternately wept and giggled—got around to us. “Manzarek and Fujikawa” came the cry. We rose, the four of us, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t shaking ever so slightly. I was nervous and Dorothy was nervous. I could feel her arm shaking as I took it for our triumphal march to the gallows. This was it. The real deal. Marriage! And there was no turning back.
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
’Cause it’s too late, too late, too late,
too late…too late!
Jim and Pam were right on our heels, grinning like fools. No pressure on them. Just fun. It was good having them there. They were a fine couple. And I really needed Jim’s support in this extreme moment of truth.
My mind goes blank at the enormity of that moment. I remember a man in black, white haired, in a paneled room. He asked, “One ring or two?” “One,” I replied. I had purchased, from a novelty store on Broadway that morning, a large, garish snake ring with a glass ruby on its head. It was something a cholo biker or his mama would wear. I thought it would lighten the mood, sort of disrupt the official solemnity.
Jim and Pam signed in as official witnesses and the words began. The judge read from a book, quickly. I don’t remember the phrases. They were standard. We both said, “I do.” And he said, “You may place the ring on your bride’s finger.” And out it came. El serpente grande! I lovingly placed that monster of silver and black and red on my wife’s finger and Jim Morrison almost fell to the floor with laughter. He grabbed his mouth and doubled over at the sight of the ring. Pam hit him on the side of the arm. The judge didn’t blink. “You may kiss the bride,” he said. We kissed. She was mine. I was hers. “Next!” said the judge. The herald checked his list, opened the door, and called out into the bullpen of remaining couples, “Sanchez and Obregon!”
We went off to Olvera Street, the old Mexican “City of the Angels” thoroughfare. It was the first street in L.A. and was now a delightful collection of shops and restaurants. This was going to be our reception.
“Margaritas all around, por favor,” Jim called out as we took a table on the patio under a hundred-year-old grape arbor. “We have newlyweds here and we want food and drink!” He was beaming. Dorothy and I were beaming. Pam was glowing. We w
ere radiant with love and warmth and joy. And four big margaritas hit the table with chips and salsa.
“To the newlyweds! May you dance together forever,” Jim toasted.
“Forever!” repeated an ebullient Pam.
And we downed those frost-salty concoctions of tequila, triple sec, and lime juice, the cold hitting the back of our throats as the sweetness of the triple sec tickled our tongues. The burn of the tequila worked its way down our gullets and settled tranquilly in our stomachs, adding an internal blush to our festive revel. We were happy. We were young, successful, in love with each other, and all things seemed possible on that twenty-first day of December, 1967.
“Food!” Jim cried out. “More margaritas and food for my people.”
“Enchiladas for me,” shouted Pam.
I took up the cry, “I want chile rellenos… with salsa verde!”
“Enchiladas for me, too,” shouted my bride. “Cheese enchiladas, with a little chile colorado on top.”
“Me, too!” shouted Pam. “Put whatever Dorothy said on mine, too.”
The waitress in her ruffled Mexican peasant outfit came running up with another round of drinks and, smiling and laughing with the gringo newlyweds, took our order.
“Carne for me!” said Jim. “I want beefsteak and beans and rice…and guacamole….”
“And tortillas, maíz…” I added. “Mucho tortillas.”
The waitress spun on her heels, her skirt flaring in a saucy fandango, and raced off, giggling.
“I feel great!” I said as I dipped into the second margarita.
“That didn’t hurt at all,” said Dorothy, beaming.
“No, Mrs. Manzarek,” I said, “That didn’t hurt a bit.” I kissed her and Pam squealed.
“It was so easy,” she said. “I didn’t know getting married could be so easy. Did you, Jim?”
Jim coughed and dived for the chips and salsa. “Uhh, no…no, I didn’t, honey,” he mumbled under his breath, caught. He knew what was coming. She was going to be on his case to marry her for the next three years. “Jiiim, it’s so easy. Remember how Ray and Dorothy did it?”
“Hey, Ray. You’re ready for another one, aren’t you?” Jim quickly asked. “I’ll just go inside and get our waitress,” and he was gone like a shot. Out of harm’s way, before Pam could utter another word about the ease of knot tying.
So we drank and ate and laughed into the late afternoon. Four young friends, in love with life.
The next night we played at the Shrine Auditorium. With the Grateful Dead, again. Our honeymoon was a weekend with the Doors and the Dead. Psychedelic lights were everywhere. Of course the Dead played too long and out of tune, as they usually did in those days. And when the Doors finally took the stage, Jim dedicated the entire set to “the newlyweds.” It was a fabulous night. Halfway through the set I brought Dorothy up onstage. Jim announced “Mr. and Mrs. Ray Manzarek!” I kissed her, she blushed from ear to ear, and the band and our roadies all laughed and applauded. And the entire audience joined in and applauded as “the newlyweds” held each other tightly.
The next night the cops busted the whole damned thing. Shut us all down. Shut down the Shrine. No arrests…just shot the bacchanal to pieces. “No more music!” the blue meanies said. It seems the promoters were in violation of multiple city ordinances, so L.A.’s finest took the opportunity to harass the hippies once again. “No more music! Clear this facility…now!” And that was it. Shut down!
And that was the end of 1967!
In that year we had a great visitation of energy.
waiting for the sun
Now we needed a place to rehearse. We no longer had the beach house in Venice, and Robby’s parents had moved to an ersatz Frank Lloyd Wright house that was not hospitable to kick-ass rock and roll. We needed something professional. A piece of commercial property that would allow us to have creative space and an office. I scoured the West Hollywood area, being central to everybody, what with Robby and John now out of their parents’ homes and sharing digs in the Hollywood Hills, Jim and Pam ensconced on “Love Street” in Laurel Canyon, and Dorothy and me in our cool, new house that we had purchased in November with the 50K royalty check. Two bedrooms with a swimming pool, a paneled living room, a newly remodeled kitchen, and a fish pond! For $49,500. Corner of Vista Grande and Hammond. A hip little area later to go totally gay. But we were there pre–boys town and it was cool. The deal was consummated at about the same time our marriage was consummated. Me…house and a wife. Far out!
And then I found it. Our rehearsal space. Corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica. Little two-story building. Large room downstairs, two rooms upstairs. Perfect. Music on the first floor, business on the second. Elektra was half a block away on La Cienega, Duke’s—the great health-food-style coffee shop/restaurant—was a block west on Santa Monica, the legendary Barney’s Beanery was a block east on Santa Monica, right across the street was the Alta Cienega Motel—where Jim spent many a night after fights with Pam—and the Phone Booth—a topless bar where Jim also spent many a night…resulting in many arguments with Pam that resulted in his spending many a night across the street at the Alta Cienega Motel.
We immediately moved into the Doors’“workshop.” Bought a couple of desks, a file cabinet, lounge chairs, a small refrigerator, and a couch for the upstairs office. A pinball machine and another couch for the rehearsal room downstairs. Siddons moved the equipment in, set it up, and we were a go. We fired Bill Siddons and hired Vince Treanor—a Boston pipe organ fanatic and electronics genius—as our equipment manager and immediately rehired Siddons as the Doors’ official manager. Bill would now be responsible for all the phone calls coming in. He would deal with Elektra in terms of publicity, promotion, and distribution. And he would book our gigs. We would tell him what to do and he would tell us what requests and gig offers came in during the week at our Friday band meeting. It was a big job for a twenty-two-year-old surfer, but he was up to the task. And Vince was a godsend.
We brought in Leon Barnard to handle the press and, eventually, after a few mistakes, Kathy Lisciandro as our secretary. She, of course, was running the whole show within three months. And a fourteen-year-old kid named Danny Sugerman kept coming around. Jim took a liking to him and made him the Doors fan mail answerer. I thought the kid was sharp. A high IQ. Good work habits. He eventually became our manager…some ten years later. And he still is. Even if he is prone to take a walk on the wild side every once in a while.
So the office upstairs was staffed and humming. Downstairs was for art. And the four of us dived into the songs for the third album. “Hello, I Love You,” “Love Street,” “Summer’s Almost Gone,” “Wintertime Love,” “The Unknown Soldier,” “Spanish Caravan,” “My Wild Love,” “We Could Be So Good Together,” “Yes, the River Knows,” “Five to One” and “Not to Touch the Earth.” We worked on “The Celebration of the Lizard” but it kept resisting us. Its time for the birthing process was not upon us. The lizard needed a longer gestation in its egg. But we did manage a very intense completion of the “Not to Touch the Earth” section, including Jim’s infamous line…
I am the Lizard King,
I can do anything.
The press loved it. It was their new hook for him. Jim would now be known as “the Lizard King.” There was “the King”—Elvis—and “the Lizard King”—Morrison. Easy, neat, a buzz phrase, a nobrainer. Hell, the people loved it, too. Lizards, snakes, and reptiles tapped right into the Judeo-Christian mind of all real Americans. And here was Jim Morrison, the beautiful, androgynous lead singer of that rock band that the press called “the Kings of Acid Rock” and the “Kings of Orgasmic Rock,” calling himself “the Lizard King.” It was perfect. They couldn’t resist it. It pressed those damned Freudian buttons and gave the country a cold shiver shot right up its collective spine. Kundalini rising!
We recorded the album at TTG in Hollywood. It was located next to Stan’s Drive-in, a car-hop fifties anachronism of Suzie Q fries and patty m
elts and cherry lime rickeys. Hot-rod eating, California style. Good stuff. I filled up on plenty of those corkscrew Suzie Qs during the making of Waiting for the Sun.
So did the execution rifle squad we brought in to open and close the bolts on a dozen M-1s for the firing-squad shooting of Jim in “The Unknown Soldier.” They were all empty, of course. Paul rented the rifles and we called a bunch of rock writers, including Paul Williams of Crawdaddy and Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice, to come and take part in a Doors’ recording session…to actually be on a song. They immediately cottoned to the idea, and when they got to the studio and saw real rifles, they flipped. They opened and closed those bolts, pointed those weapons at everything in sight, shot each other with ammo-less clicks of the hammers, and ate Suzie Qs and drank Cokes like a bunch of little kids. Writers with guns! And they were going to be a firing squad that kills Jim Morrison? Man, they loved it. The rock writers were a rare breed in those days. Actual intellectuals. And they were all writing at the top of their form.
The album was fun to record. The ballads were sensitive and beautiful. The rockers like “Five to One” were insane hard-on over-the-top crunchers and all was well with the creative process…except for Jim’s drinking.
It was starting to become excessive. He would say, “I’m depressed, let’s go get a drink,” or “I feel great, why don’t we get a drink.” Too much booze and too much Jimbo. He was hard to live with when that redneck came out. That hillbilly/cowboy/honky trailer-trash creature was not the Native American–inspired poet whom I knew and loved. Jimbo was another personality altogether—a mean and desperate man. A man of roughness and crudeness. A man on a hell-bent-for-leather quest for domination, power…and kicks. Jimbo was Felix’s Frankenstein monster, the destructive golem. And he was Jim’s doppelganger. An evil homunculus brewed up by the immersion of Jim Morrison in a wash of grain alcohol. And the blood secrets of the tribe. And Jimbo attracted scum like flies to feces. Or did he seek them out? Out of some need for validation of this alter ego. A need for companionship in his dissolution. Or did they simply, serendipitously find each other? Like finding like in this holographic universe of vibrating entities. Even as Jim and I had found each other on the beach in Venice, in the sunlight, in what was beginning to seem like a long time ago.