Ray Manzarek

Kelly called me yesterday and asked me if I'd like to participate in a poetry and music workshop at University of the Pacific with Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist from The Doors, so I agreed that it sounded like something we both should do. We arrived at five after three, after having locked ourselves out of Kelly's car; his key doesn't work, so he leaves it unlocked all the time, which I didn't know when I locked it. He said, "Oh no, I can't go in now! This is going to take me three hours to get fixed, you go ahead." I said, "No, I have triple A, let's go." The irony of having almost been foiled by a car door when we were about to go hear one of The Doors lecture was not missed by us as we hurried to find the theater which we imagined would be full of people already listening to Ray's words of wisdom. We had to call Pete Hackett to ask where the theater was, and were surprised to be two of about six or seven other people in the room. We sat in the empty front row with Lisa and Pete. One of the people there was Rob North. He and his dad were sitting behind us, and they came up to join us. At about ten minutes after three, Ray and his wife Dorothy and the poet Michael Ford walk in and say, "Hey everybody, we're here." They took the stage and found that the sound system was "fucked." Kelly volunteered Pete's equipment, and Pete and Lisa drove to the Allan Short Center to fetch the PA and keyboard. I called Jim Ricks and told him to get his ass to the theater pronto, and he brought a keyboard amp. Meanwhile, one of the UOP students in the audience suggested going to a rehearsal hall where there was an acoustic piano Ray could play until the equipment showed up. The handful of us still there followed her there, and Ray played for about fifteen minutes. I recorded all of it on the Edirol, and it sounded really good. Finally, we went back to the theater and got the poetry and music workshop, complete with Q and A after. Kelly asked a few good questions and so did Pete, and the music student requested the piano solo from The Crystal Ship. There were several times when I felt overcome with emotion, but when he was playing that one I was almost in tears. Anyway, I ended up hanging out with Ray Manzarek of The Doors for a couple of hours today, got my LA Woman record autographed, and got a bootleg cd of the whole experience, which I think is pretty blog worthy. I'll post some pictures soon.