by Ray Manzarek
And then the phone call came. “You’re busted,” said Bill Siddons.
“How can we be busted? We’re in Guadeloupe,” I said into the French phone. “Where are the other guys?”
“In Jamaica,” said Bill.
“Well, how can we be busted? We’re free. We got away. They didn’t bust us in Miami…how can they bust us in the middle of the Caribbean?”
“It’s after the fact, Ray. They didn’t take out warrants until yesterday. They’re claiming that if they would have arrested Jim at the gig there would have been a riot,” said Bill.
“There was a riot!” I shouted into the phone. “That’s bullshit. They’re lying dogs. We drank beers with the cops in the dressing room after the concert. Nothing happened.”
“I know. I was there. I even paid one of them fifty bucks for the hat he lost onstage.”
“You mean the hat Jim ripped off his head and threw into the audience?”
“Yeah, that one.”
“Christ, they devoured that hat like sharks on a wounded tuna.”
“Yeah, the audience loved the whole show.”
“So did I…it was crazy.”
“John didn’t like it, though. He’s pissed.”
“When isn’t he?”
We both laughed at the foibles and anguish of John Densmore, Doors’ super drummer and resident whiner.
“So what do we do?” I asked Bill.
“Finish up your vacation and then come home.”
“Home? I thought we had Jacksonville next.”
“Not anymore. They canceled.”
“Well, what’s after that?”
“Nothing. They’re all canceling.”
We had booked our first real tour. Miami was the first gig of a twenty-city jaunt across the country. We had never done more than four gigs in a row. This time we were going to barnstorm the entire country. Siddons had been planning it for weeks. He had been working like a dog and had done a superb job. And it all fell apart. Like falling dominoes. One after another. They all canceled. The way Southeast Asia was supposed to fall to the Communist hordes, our tour fell.
Public performance permits for the Doors were revoked in Jacksonville, Philadelphia, Providence, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Houston, Boston, Syracuse, and all the rest. We were personae non gratae. We couldn’t play anywhere. We had caused an outrage and the press had a field day. Jim was on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in a mock-up western-style wanted poster. “Wanted in the County of Dade (the dead). For: Lewd and lascivious behavior in public by exposing his private parts and by simulating masturbation and oral copulation. A Felony: Jim Morrison of the Doors.” Articles appeared slamming the “dirty Doors” in every city we were to play. It seemed the entire country was outraged at Jim Morrison’s penis. His male member had driven them irrational. (Pan and that damned little satyr again.) “Rallies for Decency” were convened in the name of “decent, wholesome, traditional Christian values.” Thousands attended. None was quite so spectacular as the one held at the Orange Bowl in Miami, however. It’s rumored that upwards of fifty thousand people attended the rally hosted by Jackie Gleason (notorious reprobate) and Anita Bryant (homophobic orange juice queen). Local bands provided the music in between the speeches exhorting the youth of Dade to keep their flies zipped. Hell, they could have had the Doors. All they would have had to do was ask us. We would have played. Bigger crowd than we had in the hangar.
Well, it was all a fiasco. We went home and entered the doldrums ourselves. We sat around doing nothing. We watched the charts, and The Soft Parade did so-so. A lot of radio stations refused to play the Doors. Jim hardly spent any time editing film with his trio of “Media Manipulators.” He was bored with the laborious process. He mainly drank with Babe down at the Palms. He was even beginning to look like Babe. He seemed to be adopting a new persona. He sported a full, bushy beard, and the high-caloric booze consumption was packing on the pounds. He was beginning to look like a disciple of Bacchus. No longer a lean Dionysian. No longer the young god of resurrection. Of rebirth. Of freedom and rebelliousness. Of the dark and green and fecund powers of the underground.
It was beginning to seem as if Jim would never be that again. It was time for me to do something to save him. To try to save him. If that was possible.
At rehearsal, I talked to John and Robby. Jim was off, who knew where, with Babe.
“We have to confront him,” I said. “We’ve got to sit him down and tell him to stop drinking. Face-to-face.”
John breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I’ve been waiting for you to say this for a long time, Ray.”
“Well, it’s time now.” I said. “I was waiting for the real Jim to come back. I thought it was all a phase he was going through.”
“It’s no phase, Ray. It is Jim,” said John.
“I don’t know if the guy you knew will ever come back, man,” Robby said. “But we have to try something…before it’s too late.”
“I’m going to call a meeting for the four of us.”
“Where?” asked John.
“We shouldn’t do it here,” said Robby. “Too many ears.”
John said, “Can we do it at your father’s house, Robby?”
“Sure. If we can get him there.”
“I like that idea,” I said. “It’s quiet and your father’s vibes are there. It’s serious.”
“It’s not gonna be easy,” John said.
“Jim’s not gonna like it,” Robby said. “If he shows up at all.”
“He’ll show up.” I said. “He has to.”
We resolved to confront him that week. And it was a hard resolution to make. The sixties were a non-confrontational time. You didn’t get in someone else’s face. You let everyone “do their own thing.” Whatever that might be. An entire generation didn’t want to become authorities with one another. Saying “do this, don’t do that.” That was bullshit. That was for the Establishment. For the fascists, the military, the generals, the admirals, the organized religions, the industrialists, the politicians. For Nixon, our new president. For all of them. They would tell you what to do. Hell, they loved telling other people what to do.
But not the new people. Not the psychedelic people. We left each other alone. Free to go about our own business in our way. Free from moral confrontations.
And here we were. Robby, John, and Ray. About to confront our friend, our singer, our poet. About to confront Jim. It was anathema. It was scary. But it had to be done. And there was no support group to help us. No twelve-step, no Musician’s Assistance Program, no detox, no Betty Ford clinics, no nothing. None of that existed yet. Only AA, and that was for old winos and left-over fifties rummies. Strictly skid row and Days of Wine and Roses types. We were on our own.
The next day, I told Jim. I put on my best serious yet friendly tone. No one else was around.
“We want to have a meeting, Jim.”
“Sure, man. Let’s meet.” He was too friendly. Too damned agreeable. He was Jim. “When?”
“How about tomorrow?”
“Fine. ‘Bout two o’clock?” I nodded. “I’ll tell Kathy to fill up the fridge. You want Tecate or Corona? Ohh, and some juice for our meditators. Maybe pear-apple. John’s starting to like that. And Robby will go along with whatever John wants.” He laughed.
I almost laughed, too. Here he was being pleasant, civilized, and magnanimous. And I’m going to bust his ass. Shit. I put back my serious face.
“No, man. Not here…Robby’s father’s house.”
“Ohh.” His demeanor instantly changed. “This is serious, huh?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”
He got it immediately. He instinctively knew what was up. And his voice got very soft.
“Okay, Ray. I’ll see you there.” And he was gone. I saw him cross Santa Monica and turn into the Alta Cienega Motel, where he now kept a permanent room. Sort of an escape hatch. He would spend the rest of the day and that
night alone with his thoughts.
The next day, the three of us arrived at one-thirty and Jim was on the dot at two. We went out to the patio, sat at a table, and began our confrontation.
All I could think of was my first encounter with Jimbo, when he yelled at me, “No one tells me what to do!” Would that happen again? Or would it be worse? If we said to him “You’ve got to stop drinking or we’re going to quit,” he’d probably say, “Fuck you! I quit!” After all, Jimbo was looking for any excuse to break up the band. That was not the tack to take. We had to be supportive, not threatening. There was no need to give him an ultimatum. That was just what Jimbo was waiting for. And no one, including Jim, wanted to break up the band. We all loved what we did. It was sacred to us. But not to Jimbo.
We all looked at each other across the table on that pleasant California afternoon. A great tension was in the air. Jim tried to smile, to make a little small talk.
“This is a nice patio. I like the whole backyard.”
“My father and mother really like it here,” Robby said. “I told them it’s too big for two people.”
“Maybe they think you and Lynn are going to move in with them,” Jim laughed.
“There’s enough room for Ron, too.”
We all laughed. Grateful for anything that would short-circuit the electrical web of anxiety that had enveloped the four of us. But it wasn’t going away. Not that easily. And we lapsed back into silence. And into paranoia. A dark, electrical paranoia. An evil thing.
Someone had to speak. I was the oldest, it was up to me to begin the inquisition. My heart was racing. All our hearts were racing. The Doors’ communal mind was in a state of panic. You could feel it at that table, racing through our brains, our spinal columns. “Uhh…listen, man,” I began. “The reason we…uhh, called this meeting is because…uhh…well, we’re all, uhh…concerned…about…your drinking.” There, it was said. And almost immediately the weight began to lift from our collective psyches.
John jumped in. “You’re drinking too much, Jim.”
Robby spoke, wisely. “It’s ruining your health, man. You don’t look healthy anymore.”
Jim nodded. He knew he was busted. And he knew we loved him. His voice was almost imperceptible.
“I know,” he said.
“You gotta stop drinking so much, Jim,” John said. “You’re really hurting yourself.”
“You’re killing yourself, man,” I said. “The booze is killing your spirit.”
And he looked at me…a deep sadness in his eyes.
“I know I drink too much, Ray.” And then he looked at John and Robby. “I’m trying to quit.”
And that was it. That’s all we needed to hear. “I’m trying to quit.” That’s all he had to say. That’s all he needed to say. The tension was broken. The electrical paranoia dissipated back into the subterranean evil it had crept out from. The afternoon light flooded the table and we all nodded and smiled at each other. No Jimbo. No screaming. No ultimatum. No fear.
“I know I drink too much. I’m trying to quit.”
But he never did. He couldn’t. It was beyond him.
We didn’t know it at the time…but it was the beginning of the end.
the aftermath
Jim turned himself in to the FBI in Los Angeles. Five thousand dollars’ bail. They had become involved because of Jim’s going to Jamaica. It seems that that was unlawful flight across state lines to avoid prosecution, even though he had been in Jamaica three days before the warrants were issued. They opened a file on him, too. And on Janis and Jimi and John Lennon and all the other rock and roll, left-wing pinko players. It was definitely “us against them.” The lovers, artists, and poets against the powers of the Establishment. We lost. They won. And here we are today…waiting for the end of the world. Waiting for the first or second coming of the Messiah, depending on whether you’re a follower of Jewish or Christian mythology. Waiting for the end times. Waiting for the apocalypse. Waiting for death. The death of all things. And while we wait, the only thing we’ve accomplished is the death of joy. We’ve succeeded only in killing our euphoria. We live in a garden of earthly delights and we’re slowly dying of ennui, whimpering about our impotence and inability to change anything. We’re Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise…and we’ve forgotten it.
Have you forgotten the keys to the kingdom?
Have you been born yet, and are you alive?
Let’s reinvent the gods,
All the myths of the ages,
Celebrate symbols from deep elder forests.
We need great, golden copulations.
We could take it all back at a moment’s notice. We could reclaim our joy. We could reclaim our natural, God-given birthright to joy and delight and happiness and adventure and danger by merely stepping into the energy. By trusting in the energy. By trusting in “the Father,” if you need to call it that. The Essene rabbi of Jerusalem called it that two thousand years ago.
I and the Father are one.
—John 10:30
And so can you be. So can we all be. All you have to do…is do it! Immerse yourself in the energy. The divine energy of creation.
Please, please listen to me, children,
You are the ones who will rule the world.
And perhaps we will. Perhaps one day the world will belong to the lovers. I’d like that. Wouldn’t you?
Things were not going well. However, the Doors’ film footage was finally cut. Paul Ferrara said a screening would be held at a little professional screening room in Hollywood. We all went down. Robby and John, Dorothy and I, and the entire office staff, including our gopher/fan mail boy, Danny Sugerman. And, of course, the “Media Manipulators,” Jim, Paul, Frank, and Babe. The faux Doors.
We took our seats with eager anticipation. What had they come up with? What had three UCLA graduates and the beer-barrel polka man produced? Would it be good…or would it be not quite adequate, as were their UCLA student movies? I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, they had thousands of feet of footage. They had enough raw material to cut together a very exciting feature-length documentary film. And they had the Doors. And Jim Morrison while he was still in his Dionysian persona! The real Jim Morrison. But I was skeptical. I knew their work from school.
The room darkened. The screen glittered with light. “Strange Days” played on the sound track, and we were off. There were some great shots. Paul was an excellent cameraman. But it was a jumble. There was no rhyme or reason to the juxtaposition of elements. It pinballed from one thing to another, jumping about randomly, as if decisions as to form and content had been made under the influence of some new stupid drug. I later learned that this was exactly the case. Cannabinol was the intoxicant of choice at the editing sessions. Cannabinol and alcohol, a lethal combo as far as artistic judgment was concerned. Jim wasn’t trying hard enough to quit. He was back to his pre–Doors, Phil and Felix, belladonna modus operandi. Except he was getting too old to do that again. It didn’t play well with a public figure. It didn’t work with a man of responsibilities. But then, perhaps, Jim was seeking to rid himself of those responsibilities. Now I realize he was trying to throw off the mantle of stardom. He wanted it, he attained it, and he found it too heavy. The very thing he wanted was the thing that destroyed him. How ironic. How tragic. The success we so ardently dreamed of at the beach in Venice was the very thing he was now trying to shed. And, ultimately, it would be the thing that would finish him.
And the film came to a close. With a very nice boating sequence of the Doors on a two-masted sailing ship, somewhere off the coast of Maui. Out of Lahaina, the great whaling port of the Hawaiian Islands. The music was glorious. It was Venus from Gustav Holst’s The Planets. It worked like a charm. It must have been Paul Ferrara’s idea.
But the whole thing was only forty-five minutes long! And fifteen minutes of those forty-five were “The End” from the Hollywood Bowl. And it was slightly out of sync. I looked at the blank scree
n as the lights slowly came up. I was incredulous. That was it? Forty-five minutes? All that footage and you faux Doors, drinking buddies, “Media Manipulators,” could come up with only a forty-five-minute cut…fifteen minutes of which was a single live performance? That’s all?
There was a polite smattering of applause. We filed slowly, languidly out of the screening room. I couldn’t bring myself to say what I really thought. Guys, this was a waste of time. None of you receives your master’s degree with this exercise. It’s only half a feature. It’s even too short for a one-hour television special. What the fuck do you do with a forty-five-minute film? Enter it in some third-rate film festivals…Kuala Lumpur or Vladivostok? Well, that’s exactly what they did. The Atlanta Film Festival. Jim and Frank went down. Received an honorable mention plaque in the documentary division. They were very proud, very puffed up. Public acknowledgment of their filmmaking abilities. Jim was so filled with himself that he hired Frank and Paul and Babe to do another film: Hwy. The story of a hitchhiker killer. One of those delightful proto-American types who hitchhike out in the wilderness, somewhere beyond the gates, somewhere east of Eden, and then kill you for your car if you’re charitable enough to stop for this vermin. And Jimbo was howling with anticipation. It was a part he was born to play. It was Jimbo.
The Doors had paid a weekly salary to the faux Doors trio. That was now over. We had pulled the plug after the screening. “Thanks very much, you guys. The dole is over.” But Jim picked up their nut at the same time as he was paying for Pam’s hippie-dippy clothing shop on La Cienega. Themis it was called. It was costing him plenty, considering that peacock feathers were being used to cover the entire ceiling. That bit of excess luxury was thought of in an opium haze by one of Pam’s advisers. She had surrounded herself with an unsavory group of very fashionable, very languid, very downer boys. They were very pretty things. Some were even prettier than Pam’s girlfriends. They were all, both faux male and female, helping her fill her shop with sensual delights. And they were spending Jim’s money. Rapidly.