Post by darkstar on Jan 24, 2005 13:18:30 GMT
FEATURE - Ray Manzarek's Garden Of Eden
By Pamela Des Barres
April 17, 2000
I was one of the lucky hippie-dolls who got to see the Doors play
dozens of times. In fact, they were the house band at my second home,
the Whisky A Go Go on the Sunset Strip, where I saw the Lizard King
shred the place on many different occasions. I even made out with him
a couple of times! (Hey, it was the '60s.) The Doors' groovy blonde
keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, created the sound for those divine few
Summers Of Love, filling the air with infinitesimal possibilities; I
still feel stoned out of my skull whenever I hear the intro to "Light
My Fire."
I saw Jim Morrison stagger down the Strip and slowly succumb to his
demons (drugs, but mainly alcohol), and then one day he upped and
went to France. I hoped he might finally pull himself together near
the fine ghosts of Oscar Wilde, but he wound up lying next to them at
the Père LaChaise Cemetery instead. However, nobody wanted to accept
that Jim was really gone. An entire passel of people insisted he had
never died at all, preferring to believe that he had faked his death
and was living on a desert island somewhere, eating mangoes and
smoking copious amounts of weed.
Now it's three decades later, and Ray Manzarek has invited me to his
lovely Beverly Hills pad to discuss his swell new book, Poet In
Exile, a fanciful, spiritual tome in which he addresses the "is Jim
alive?" issue with his usual upbeat aplomb. We relax in the elegant
living room and chit-chat about the good old daze...
PAMELA: How did you feel when the rumors about Jim being alive
started?
RAY: I thought it was so bizarre the first time I heard the rumor.
That's the deep human need for a dying and resurrecting god. Not that
Jim Morrison was a god, but the human impulse for resurrecting the
dead--Osiris from the Egyptian, Dionysus from the Greeks, Jesus from
Christianity. So it's been 2,000 years since somebody's done that
dying-and-resurrecting-god routine. Elvis and Jim are doing that.
PAMELA: It seems people are always looking for some kind of god
outsidethemselves.
RAY: Yes, that's the problem with Christianity--we've projected
everything outside of ourselves, and God is "other" and at a
distance. Like that song, "God is watching us from a distance..."
What is that all about? Who wrote that?
PAMELA: Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you."
RAY: "I and the Father are One--what I am, so you can become."
Christianity is certainly not the religion of Jesus Christ, which was
about love. He's the original love-nut. Love they neighbor as
thyself, love, love, love...that's what it was all about.
PAMELA: You can't love your neighbor until you love yourself.
RAY: Good point.
PAMELA: Your new book is chock-a-block with Truths with a capital T.
RAY: The dying and resurrecting Morrison is at it again! I wrote the
book for all the people saying, "He's alive, he's alive, he's alive,"
and I've been denying it. So I said, "I'm not denying it anymore--
he's alive!" Now, the important thing is not that he's alive, but
what became of him? What did he do for the next 30 years? My hope is
that the journey the poet goes through in the book is what Jim would
have ultimately gone through in one fashion or another.
PAMELA: It's cool that you take him to India and he winds up on a
desert island!
RAY: I thought, "Let's make it entertaining, let's take him
somewhere." And he says it in the book, "If enlightenment can happen
to me, this drunken jerk a--hole, it can happen to anybody!" And
that's his message for the new millennium, the new times, the new age-
-the message the keyboard player wants to bring back with the poet to
start the band up again.
PAMELA: You sure gave him the benefit of the doubt.
RAY: I actually had the term "New Age" in there, and the publisher
said, "We can't use it, because it will be a New Age book." What
difference does it make? It's coming, man, you cannot stop the new
age--the Aquarian Age. I've been waiting since the '60s. "I wrote the
book for all the people saying, 'Jim's alive!' The important thing is
not that he's alive, but what became of him? My hope is that the
journey the poet goes through in the book is what Jim would have
ultimately gone through."
PAMELA: Me too! Do you really think earth can be a Garden Of Eden
again?
RAY: Absolutely. The Garden Of Eden is still here. We haven't been
expelled from the Garden; the veil of Maya has been put over our eyes
and we can't see the Garden Of Eden for the Garden Of Eden! Once we
open our hearts, we'll say, "Oh my God, this is the Garden Of Eden,
let's start planting as many plants as we can, and stop cutting the
trees down!" People ask me, "Ray, what can I do?" First of all, every
woman has to plant one tree in their lifetime. The guys have to throw
their guns away. That's all you have to do. Very simple.
PAMELA: Those ideals remind me of how hopeful we felt in the Summer
Of Love days.
RAY: That's what the hippie movement was all about" "We can actually
have love-ins and psychedelic rock concerts, and guess what, if we
want to smoke a little pot, we can smoke a little pot. Nobody's gonna
tell me what to do with my body as long as I'm not out there killing,
stealing, robbing. What do you care what I put into my body,
especially a little marijuana? What, are you insane?"
PAMELA: What about psychedelics?
RAY: When the government realized that LSD would really part the veil-
-youcould see that the Wizard of Oz was really "Pay no attention to
the man behind the curtain"...my God, that's the government, that's
the Pope, that's my teacher, that's my mom and dad, that's every
stupid organized religion! That's why they stopped LSD, because you
could see behind the curtain. We've opened the doors, to show ensuing
generations what the possibilities are. The kids are gonna have to
take it into the 21st century.
PAMELA: How do you propose they do that?
RAY: They will have to go after the administration that's in power
now. "We hold these truth to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal"--and natural food is better for you that processed
food and solar power is better than burning fossil fuel and oil.
PAMELA: It's pretty uptight nowadays, Ray. We came from an era where
we said, "Let's f--k!" We released a lot of energy for people.
RAY: Sex is designed to be incredibly good. There's nothing that
feels better. We're designed so that those two parts fit
together: "You mean that thing goes in there? Wow!" What is a better
feeling than two naked bodies entwined? Flesh is holy, so divinely
holy and delicious.
PAMELA: I couldn't agree more. Did the Doors feel they were opening
the doors of perception for people?
RAY: We knew we were up against an establishment that wanted to keep
everything closed. For instance, when the Doors played The Ed
Sullivan Show, we weren't allowed to say the word "higher" on
national television. We, of course, did it anyway. One of Ed's
minions said to us, "Ed wanted you for six more performances--you
know what that would have meant to your career? You'll never work The
Ed Sullivan Show ever again!" And Jim looked at him and said, "So
what? We just DID The Ed Sullivan Show. Don't you get it?"
By Pamela Des Barres
April 17, 2000
I was one of the lucky hippie-dolls who got to see the Doors play
dozens of times. In fact, they were the house band at my second home,
the Whisky A Go Go on the Sunset Strip, where I saw the Lizard King
shred the place on many different occasions. I even made out with him
a couple of times! (Hey, it was the '60s.) The Doors' groovy blonde
keyboardist, Ray Manzarek, created the sound for those divine few
Summers Of Love, filling the air with infinitesimal possibilities; I
still feel stoned out of my skull whenever I hear the intro to "Light
My Fire."
I saw Jim Morrison stagger down the Strip and slowly succumb to his
demons (drugs, but mainly alcohol), and then one day he upped and
went to France. I hoped he might finally pull himself together near
the fine ghosts of Oscar Wilde, but he wound up lying next to them at
the Père LaChaise Cemetery instead. However, nobody wanted to accept
that Jim was really gone. An entire passel of people insisted he had
never died at all, preferring to believe that he had faked his death
and was living on a desert island somewhere, eating mangoes and
smoking copious amounts of weed.
Now it's three decades later, and Ray Manzarek has invited me to his
lovely Beverly Hills pad to discuss his swell new book, Poet In
Exile, a fanciful, spiritual tome in which he addresses the "is Jim
alive?" issue with his usual upbeat aplomb. We relax in the elegant
living room and chit-chat about the good old daze...
PAMELA: How did you feel when the rumors about Jim being alive
started?
RAY: I thought it was so bizarre the first time I heard the rumor.
That's the deep human need for a dying and resurrecting god. Not that
Jim Morrison was a god, but the human impulse for resurrecting the
dead--Osiris from the Egyptian, Dionysus from the Greeks, Jesus from
Christianity. So it's been 2,000 years since somebody's done that
dying-and-resurrecting-god routine. Elvis and Jim are doing that.
PAMELA: It seems people are always looking for some kind of god
outsidethemselves.
RAY: Yes, that's the problem with Christianity--we've projected
everything outside of ourselves, and God is "other" and at a
distance. Like that song, "God is watching us from a distance..."
What is that all about? Who wrote that?
PAMELA: Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you."
RAY: "I and the Father are One--what I am, so you can become."
Christianity is certainly not the religion of Jesus Christ, which was
about love. He's the original love-nut. Love they neighbor as
thyself, love, love, love...that's what it was all about.
PAMELA: You can't love your neighbor until you love yourself.
RAY: Good point.
PAMELA: Your new book is chock-a-block with Truths with a capital T.
RAY: The dying and resurrecting Morrison is at it again! I wrote the
book for all the people saying, "He's alive, he's alive, he's alive,"
and I've been denying it. So I said, "I'm not denying it anymore--
he's alive!" Now, the important thing is not that he's alive, but
what became of him? What did he do for the next 30 years? My hope is
that the journey the poet goes through in the book is what Jim would
have ultimately gone through in one fashion or another.
PAMELA: It's cool that you take him to India and he winds up on a
desert island!
RAY: I thought, "Let's make it entertaining, let's take him
somewhere." And he says it in the book, "If enlightenment can happen
to me, this drunken jerk a--hole, it can happen to anybody!" And
that's his message for the new millennium, the new times, the new age-
-the message the keyboard player wants to bring back with the poet to
start the band up again.
PAMELA: You sure gave him the benefit of the doubt.
RAY: I actually had the term "New Age" in there, and the publisher
said, "We can't use it, because it will be a New Age book." What
difference does it make? It's coming, man, you cannot stop the new
age--the Aquarian Age. I've been waiting since the '60s. "I wrote the
book for all the people saying, 'Jim's alive!' The important thing is
not that he's alive, but what became of him? My hope is that the
journey the poet goes through in the book is what Jim would have
ultimately gone through."
PAMELA: Me too! Do you really think earth can be a Garden Of Eden
again?
RAY: Absolutely. The Garden Of Eden is still here. We haven't been
expelled from the Garden; the veil of Maya has been put over our eyes
and we can't see the Garden Of Eden for the Garden Of Eden! Once we
open our hearts, we'll say, "Oh my God, this is the Garden Of Eden,
let's start planting as many plants as we can, and stop cutting the
trees down!" People ask me, "Ray, what can I do?" First of all, every
woman has to plant one tree in their lifetime. The guys have to throw
their guns away. That's all you have to do. Very simple.
PAMELA: Those ideals remind me of how hopeful we felt in the Summer
Of Love days.
RAY: That's what the hippie movement was all about" "We can actually
have love-ins and psychedelic rock concerts, and guess what, if we
want to smoke a little pot, we can smoke a little pot. Nobody's gonna
tell me what to do with my body as long as I'm not out there killing,
stealing, robbing. What do you care what I put into my body,
especially a little marijuana? What, are you insane?"
PAMELA: What about psychedelics?
RAY: When the government realized that LSD would really part the veil-
-youcould see that the Wizard of Oz was really "Pay no attention to
the man behind the curtain"...my God, that's the government, that's
the Pope, that's my teacher, that's my mom and dad, that's every
stupid organized religion! That's why they stopped LSD, because you
could see behind the curtain. We've opened the doors, to show ensuing
generations what the possibilities are. The kids are gonna have to
take it into the 21st century.
PAMELA: How do you propose they do that?
RAY: They will have to go after the administration that's in power
now. "We hold these truth to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal"--and natural food is better for you that processed
food and solar power is better than burning fossil fuel and oil.
PAMELA: It's pretty uptight nowadays, Ray. We came from an era where
we said, "Let's f--k!" We released a lot of energy for people.
RAY: Sex is designed to be incredibly good. There's nothing that
feels better. We're designed so that those two parts fit
together: "You mean that thing goes in there? Wow!" What is a better
feeling than two naked bodies entwined? Flesh is holy, so divinely
holy and delicious.
PAMELA: I couldn't agree more. Did the Doors feel they were opening
the doors of perception for people?
RAY: We knew we were up against an establishment that wanted to keep
everything closed. For instance, when the Doors played The Ed
Sullivan Show, we weren't allowed to say the word "higher" on
national television. We, of course, did it anyway. One of Ed's
minions said to us, "Ed wanted you for six more performances--you
know what that would have meant to your career? You'll never work The
Ed Sullivan Show ever again!" And Jim looked at him and said, "So
what? We just DID The Ed Sullivan Show. Don't you get it?"