Ray Manzarek on Barry Kibrick's "Between the Lines" - 2001 - Full Episode

today on between the lines Ray manzer along with his best friend Jim marrison they were the co-founders of the legendary rock and roll group The Doors I'm Barry kibri in Ray's book The Poet in Exile we'll learn if the lead singer of America's most notorious rock and roll band was really buried in Paris or was it just an elaborate hopes to Break On Through To The Other Side I'm a writer today because I was a reader when I was 11 years old and it was you do need need you do not need to prove your state of Happiness to anybody most of these speeches were as much as a month in preparation characters the heroes and this Booker Seekers of Truth in in a story that that involves a lot of corrupt don't get a chance to really talk about what's and for years rumors about the death of Jim Morris incre created a mythology that to this day still surrounds the doors was his death just a hoax and if so why with the poet in Exile his best friend and co-founder of the doors Ray manzar travels to a remote island in the Indian Ocean where he fulfills a vow of friendship and adds an astonishing unexpected chapter to the legend of the doors Ray as always welcome back and a pleasure to have you here this time though I hinted a little bit you faked me out when it came to Light My Fire that was I don't want to say an obvious book but it was a factual book it was easy to to follow through autobiography this is a novel this is a novel but it's a novel with a Twist because what you did in Light My Fire you do the same thing here to me you bring the reader right behind your shoulder so when you're reading it you you get a sense it's a very different feel and even though this is fiction when I'm done I'm still not certain that this is fiction and I'm going to start right off the bat is you have to ask because what's going on here is and the world's kind of familiar with what everyone thought was the hoax of Jim Morrison's death because everyone thought no it was a closed caset it was all of this ex you now take that concept and you go to an an island in the Indian Ocean and you meet Jay Joseph Now Phoenix right right and you're by the way Roy trying to fake out not Ray and I'm through with the book and I'm still not certain did you or did you not because it is written as if you had to have well it seems that way thank you well that's that's a compliment because it's a work of fiction unfortunately James Douglas Morrison entered the ether uh leapt upwards into the LOM as Jim said once um exited the planet on July 3rd 197 71 and there just been so many rumors and stories that I thought you know what I'm going to give them everybody's saying to me he's not dead he's not dead he's not dead tell us the truth Ray all right I'm going to tell you the truth but it's a work of fiction he's not dead now even more important is what happens to him that's that's but you know something you just said something and I don't know if it's Freudian not but you said he's not dead and that is what's kind of interesting because he's not dead yeah I know that sounds strange whether he's physically left the planet into the L he's not dead and his words in fact you say something about the the book is called poet in Exile and you as you indicate we are all in Exile we are all searching and this book is a continuation of that search and a man who's left so much behind never really does die yeah exactly well uh the ancient Egyptians felt that if you say uh a person's name that person is still alive so if I say um the Pharaoh akenaton the the sun worshipping pharaoh who may have started monotheism uh and Freud wrote the book Moses and monotheism about aanat and he's still with us he's still alive Jim Morrison you hear you hear him singing on the radio somewhere in America once a day you know somewhere in Los Angeles somewhere in America once a day in every city Jim Morrison is singing a song so he's still with us you know he's still with me I got to tell you you know and and when you read this book his it's the spirit that is with us and that's what I want to get into because I remember when I had you on for Light My Fire there was a scene in Venice where you guys were carrying on on these bars and you were swinging and I remember saying to you the the words it reminds me of this the the song it has the monkey in me because you were really feeling back to that primordial stage while you were doing this thing and when I come back into this book again that term comes up few times because the monkey brain and it is the thing that Jay you all of us is trying to quiet and in a sense he quiets it when his death is achieved because he's that 3:00 a.m. in the morning guy he can't quiet that monkey brain and you say it even when that moment comes you say the blood in my own brain pan was just swishing around and is that not what we're going for that sense of peace well that's what life is all about life is all about the uh the ultimate ultimately finding peace within yourself and finding your peace on the planet that's what the poet does what you do is you become you you know the Indians say the Kundalini power it rises up the spine into the top of the head and you just blow out of the top of your head and you find ultimately your Oneness with everything that's what it's all about it's all about the state of Oneness we talk you talk about it in the book you talk all the way from the uh Hebrew prayers of the Lord is one I am to Jesus saying I am the father we are one that is this search this Einstein did it scientifically in the search for the unified field Theory looking for this Oneness that is at the essence of it all well for me the energy God if you will or the energy is we are the energy because we are the creation of the energy we are God God Is Us my mind is a is a little distillation as yours is of the great Universal energy the great mind that is is God that's that's what the poet finally discovers it's an actual experience that you can have that's the point of it you can't you can talk about it philosophically but you have to experience it and the experience is like one of bliss and joy you know the poet is running down the hill down to the Ganges River and just opening yourself up you know you're on the beach in the summertime you're lying in the park under a tree you're on a uh the side of a river and you just feel God this feels good that's what it's all about that great feeling God it's good to be alive you know you have that every we all have that you just expand on that and carry that for the rest of your life and that's what he's questing that's what the poet is questing and that's what you're that's what you're discovering as and it has this what is it Carlos castanares on you mentioned some of this kind and I even thought of it a little bit as I remember having uh Socrates Cafe the author and I it's going to escape my mind for a second but it's all about Plato who was really Socrates in the sense because Socrates didn't write anything Plato was the one writing it down and I always think of you as as Plato to Morrison's Socrates because you're the one really writing it down that's why I even thought the poet in Exile was you at first and it wasn't you were writing he's the poet we're call we call Jim Jim's the poet um you know I'm the keyboard player and I'm not the poet I'm the uh uh the literalist I'm the uh you know I'm the the appolloni cut cut cut put it all together into um you know word after word after word afterward into a sentence into a paragraph into a page into a chapter you know whereas Jim was like picking something from here and something from there and something from there and putting them in the most amazing combinations but without either one of us I think without the two of us working off of each other well you know the doors probably never would have happened well you know it's funny because my wife and my we were talking a little bit and my wife even said you know at first it was very hard for her to listen to D's music because it made her depressed and and and the reason and it's very funny because even Jim as he's talking or or Jay as he's talking in this it was your haunting organ that haunting this of it but at the same time as he says at the end of it there's always that light that little speckle of light that then brings and that's when when people start getting into it they see just that perfect ying and yang that perfect uh give and take that and that that's what you even talk about the two of you guys were the the the the poet and the literalist the one who puts it allian madman and the appolloni and Order man I my it was my job to uh to play the keyboards to keep the whole thing uh in order and Jim's job to stand up there in front of you know 20,000 people as the front man in Madison Square Garden with everything on him and he talks about that too he says you know it was on me I was the guy standing out front we played the Smothers brother show and John and Robbie and I just did finger sinking you know we we had a track pre-recorded track of the song touch me without the vocals Jim had to go on national television and sing his butt off live and be sexy and charismatic and on Pitch whereas the rest of us are in the background going going you know nothing's happening I mean I could we had the Smothers Brothers Orchestra on stage with us they were driving there's a whole bunch of people goofing off just having the grand time on national TV and Morrison carrying that weight oh and he feels that in this book you get the sense that that burden is what kills him ultimately that's what that's what made him start drinking you know that's what that's what uh that's what the alcohol uh uh assuaged you know it got rid of that burden of carrying that weight I who got arrested in Miami I didn't get arrested in Miami John and Robbie didn't get arrested grabb Jim Morrison you you know and I should have been arrested for playing the riot I mean the stage was collapsing there are people in Jim's been thrown into the audience of snake dances going on people are charging the stage it's Miami it's hot it's sweaty cops everywhere strange things happening the it's a riot is going on John and Robbie left the stage and I said well I can't leave the stage somebody's got to score the riot if there's going to be a riot you've got to have at least so I'm smashing on the Oregon the base making just thunderous noise turn the amps up I mean I should have been arrested for talk about inciting a riot or disturbing the piece and get the keyboard player too he's guilty as guilty as the poet is for God's sake but they never get the the musicians Jim had to carry all of that weight you know cool that's a song in there isn't it but that's yeah well so did the band yeah um you know it's you are notorious the band as being counter cultured to some extent read B AEM don't know how to this I don't want to put you a bad light so if I am you let me know but there's a tremendous patriotic americanism that I get a sense out of when I read this and I don't mean like a nationalism like um what would be the word you know where America love it or leave it jingoistic I don't mean America love it or leave it or you know M up my country it's nothing like that but yet there is this element in here where the whole quest in a sense is if you're able to bring back Jim and do this again it's to shed a new American Vision a new light and you actually leave us with this term that Jefferson said and and I thought this was something that the audience has to know Jefferson said I am a warrior so that my son could be a farmer so that my grandson could be a poet an artist and there was something I don't know it just rang a patriotic Bell in the most positive sense to me and and I got a sense that that's what you actually wanted it to do this is our country this is a great country it's the only country well we started it anyway it's the only country where democracy you vote for the people to represent you in that form of government that we have it's a country that accepts all Races all religions we are the Aquarian Age Country we haven't even stepped into the Aquarian age yet we haven't even begun to fulfill our destiny and our destiny of America Is the destiny of a country in which people can actually live together in harmony you know live side by side in harmony I don't care what color you are I don't care what race you are what religion you are let's live together in harmony and love and peace that's Morrison was an American he loved America he said I'm an American first and foremost I was we might have been Counter Culture we were counter the war in Vietnam and we still are we're counter the the despoiling of the ecology of the planet the ruining of the water let's get some salmon the Pacific salmon coming back into the California streams there was actually a salmon was cited in the Hudson River in New York but you know there was a lot of activism in that Hudson River there was a lot of who were the some great musicians in fact I can't remember pet Seager that's who it was he was involved I was on that boat in fact at one time that still floats up there a lot of work was done and you can see uh the difference of that and and you know part of this Quest is to bring cuz this is a quest this book is about a quest it's it's it is fictional but it's about a quest and it's a to find Jim then it's Jim's quest to find the story that the poet then tells is the story of his adulthood his manhood his Enlightenment his ultimately his search for Nirvana foror I think you used the the Van Morrison's word back to the Mystic yeah it's that Mystic that that gives you that peace that sense of Serenity that sense that wherever I am that's where I am I mean it's that sense of peace that living in the moment you actually even said what amazed you most sometimes was that Jim was able to be or Jay and I again I excuse me call him was was able to now finally be in that moment not just write the words and the Poetry of it but felt that he was there at that time and settle into it yeah it's a it's a Zen State too it's very Zen it's that be here here now be here now this is a moment is even as we're sharing a moment of of just totally femoral it'll come you'll watch it on TV and it'll be gone and yet it's an infinite moment because we are ultimately that Infinity you know that Einstein that einsteinian Infinity we are that and U it's divine and it's good feels real good too and you get that's the best part well you know what the best part is too is when you read it you can't help but feel good to that's what I was say you did this to us in in Light My Fire you seem to be able to and I can't even find the right words I've had you know I have hundreds of authors on this show and it it rarely happens that you feel you're physically there and that's why I had to ask you it seems as fictional as you know it is you have this little weird Knack and it's not it's I don't know that's why I said I thought the poet was you because you have this Knack of of putting us there I don't know how you do it but you do uh well it might have something to do with going to film school for one Jim and I were students at UCLA and uh the idea of writing film scripts and translating those I you know your ideas onto a screen what I do when I write is I see those scenes taking place and uh I write them down as fast as I possibly can but then you hypnotize yourself too because I WR in the morning 5 six 7 o'clock in the morning for a couple of hours I'm sitting with Jim Morrison having a Planter's Punch at a bar oh and you feel that that's what I'm saying you feel it I see it that's what I'm telling you I had to go back and I had to say I swear to cuz you were there and I knew that when I read it I knew that whether you were there or not physically there you were there and that's what you feel when you read it absolutely ABS I see the cigar and the Brandy too and I was going oh man that looks so good right now why can't I be there with Ray and Jim with that cigar and Brandy did we have a good time I mean I sat with my buddy and he told me the rest of his life he told me the next years of his life and it's a real Adventure it's not just you know I did this with these girls and that and you know and somebody said to me what what is this all this spiritual stuff I thought he'd have like a girl actually said this to me a woman said I thought he'd have like four or five women he'd be living somewhere I said sorry darling this is a whole another story you know you talk about women and there's a great line U he's married now as the story takes place it's a SEL Island yeah AEL was a very lovely seal was mixed race woman and she is there and she asks you she says Roy how do you look and I now it is Roy in the book so I don't want people to think I don't know your name right how do you uh how do you look so good and your words were I exercise I eat right and I love my wife and both of our wives we met when when years ago when you did Light My Fire we're both of them sitting there watching this thing go on there is something about those three elements the and I think everyone would say right off the bat well sure if you exercise and eat right but love my wife and this is something that even Jim has got this experience so that the three of us now can share how important that is well you're only half a human being you know you're a human being but you're only half the show you know in in the in the cabala in the sephiroth there's the kether at the top and it divides itself immediately the first thing is male and female it's it's the one divides into two now when you find your other half as a woman if or or you find a man that's bringing you back up to the crown chakra to the kether to the the very top of the sephar off so you you you have to you complete Yourself by finding a good woman to love and you know it's it's real nice in fact part of Jim's problem is a shame yeah a shame that he may not even be heterosexual this is kind of an now we know he is and when you you write about it he is but he suff uing from this shame part of it is not finding that other half of his soul exactly exactly sure I mean well I think I think every man or certainly every artist at some point or another has a confrontation with their own homosexuality you know am I or am I not um because you embrace the feminine side to become an artist you have to brace embrace the feminine side within yourself and with that feminine side comes a certain softness a lightness a delicacy and you begin to wonder you know am am I attracted to men uh you know uh you know and for Jim it was like why am I so pretty look how pretty I am now Jim was a greatl looking guy was really a fabulous looking guy so the idea of homosexuality occurs to I think to every artist and uh and Morrison talks about it or the poet talks about his you know his concern with it now one thing about the search that's interesting is when this whole search is going on for both of you I'm going to may I quote you it's your words you are still my poet whether I don't know Jim I know you the search brought him back to where he started to the man I always was who I hadn't yet known exactly well you it's in you it's in you you just have to discover it you know that's the hard part you have to find the discovery uh isn't it said that we know everything in the womb and immediately forget it at the moment of birth you know all knowledge in that womb is ours certainly all feeling I mean what could be what could be a more Divine feeling just floating in the amniotic fluid of your mother you know and it's just absolutely Gorge but we forget as soon as we're born then we spend the rest of our lives trying to recapture that security and we can we can recapture that security in that security is our manhood we discover our manhood our Womanhood our adulthood is what we what we have to become it's funny if there's any thing and I know this got you mad even when when originally when Oliver Stone wrote the the biography on you guys the film biography I remember this getting you mad and I remember it getting me mad because it is portrayed that there was a pessimism for some reason in this cultural change that was going on it and and you so eloquently always bring that out no this isn't pessimism it is only via this optimism and Jim mentions this about you in the book over and over again and but people don't realize it it was the optimism that drove you it was not the pessimism it wasn't the State of Affairs looking so Bleak that drove you guys it was the State of Affairs that could be can be what we can be what we can be as human beings what we can be as America what did Kennedy say didn't Kennedy say that's not what your country can do for you what can you do for your country let's take it up to that next level the music with the Poetry that's the root because it seems that that is what penetrates everyone more so than the philosophy the philosophy you have to spend the time to read absor but the music and the Poetry that can hit right there where does it go what is that music you know you plunk a guitar string you know what that string does it's vibrating yeah that stuff just comes right in here I I remember having talk about a cigar in cognac I remember just being blessed with having a cigar and cognac with two people that were very interesting Wolf Man Jack remember wolf and Jeff skunk Baxter oh yeah you know Jeff skunk a famous musician doie Brothers he said literally just that he said to me when you pluck a certain cord they could physically measure the difference in stress levels on your body yeah they could actually and you with that that organ and that keyboard you that's what made that door's music they' hear that keyboard and you felt it right in there vibrating physically not just emotionally no absolutely absolutely and and then there was the uh my people said why didn't the doors a Bas player and I said they did have a Bas player oh yeah is Lefty Lefty's the bass player you know he's a good solid steady fellow he's not incredibly bright he's not ambitious but he's very steady and very solid so you know that Light My Fire boom bum bum a minor to B minor he just plays that he loves to play that while righty does all the little boach filigrees and whatnot but that's where that door's hypnotic sound comes from over and over and over and over and ding ding ding ding ding ding ding dinging Robbie's hitting his guitar notes and I'm playing this Den Moore's whacking on two and four Jim singing over the top of it and it just keeps pulsing it's hypnotic it's very primitive it's very it's very African you discuss a few reasons and we mentioned some of it what what was destroying Jim on the inside even while all of this was going on but as I said all with a positive light but there's an element there that you bring out that I feel so important and I and I want to overemphasize it and you talk talk about the role of a father because you say in the book one of the things was that there was a void in Jim's life without this fatherhood and this hug and literally there was another character I believe it was a manager of yours later later on also with a drug addiction again and heroin was as you said their missing father it gave them the warmth of the father's hug where the mother gives you the nurturing the father is there to protect you and that element of hug and protection is something that was very enlightening as you you you brought it out and you you you seem to show the effect negatively when it's not there and positively when it's there uh the father is your hero he's your Champion he will defend you against what the bullies bears lions and tigers whatever are coming he will defend you your mother as you say nurtures you feeds you and Tucks you in but Dad hugs you and the hug is again right where the music goes right where the energy of the music goes you pull that you hug a person and you're holding heart to heart it's the heart chakra as it's called the chakra to chakra heart energy to Heart energy that's where the warmth comes from and if you don't have that if your father father is an absentee father um Denny Sullivan in the book uh Jim's father was an admiral away a captain on the ship away all the time La you lack that that warm War right in the basic heart chakra and that's exactly what heroin FS all junkies will tell you that they spend the rest of their lives the rest of their addictive lives chasing that first high it's never as good as that time and you know something in a sense Jim is chasing that first High when he's in in that water isn't that what's going on that's what his that's what the searches he has the Epiphany in in the ocean uh drunk as a skunk hangover and just flops into the ocean one morning and has an epiphany in the ocean after five solid years of drinking see it's not me it's you I just realize it we're talking about it as if it's actually happened as well and this is fiction that's what I'm saying when you read the you're telling me Jim didn't stop drinking he was dead beforehand but you see what's happening you do this am I right this is what you do and I'm sitting there going and I'm thinking boy how did he find and I'm realizing it's just make believe and you get caught up in it that's how you do it he fell into the ocean I'm telling you bar he did and he was swimming in the ocean and he felt the ocean and the water and the Oneness in but that's it that's then he rolled on his back you know and he looked up into the sky and the sky was just blue and the sun was golden and he just left his body and went into he went into it he just left his body he had an outof body experience all right you know you do it to me all the time I'm going to end on this note you say how quickly life moves when you finally become aware of of its sweetness you make it so sweet buddy hang out here thank you so much for joining us thank you for joining us if you'd like to comment about our show or just care to get in touch with me you may do so by email at bookshow AOL.com or write us at between the lines kcsv 1061 West Temple Street La 912 now before we go I'd like to leave you with these words by Rayman Zar from the poet in Exile all we have to do is open up to the beauty of the world to break out of our shells our egos to go beyond the you and the me I'm Barry kibri as a great poet once said Break On Through To The Other Side read between the lines thank you right very cool man thank you the n

Channel: Eli Kibrick

Views: 31,504

Keywords: Episode, the doors, Ray Manzarek (Record Producer), ray manzar, btl, between the lines, barry kibrick, pbs, Full, archive

Id: GEuazaJ4xN0

Length: 28min 38sec (1718 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2013