Just A Minute With: The Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters Life!) - Ray Manzarek, co-founder and keyboardist of The Doors, says it's disappointing to see how little things have changed in the 40 years ago since the Summer of Love in San Francisco.
Manzarek, 68, renown for keyboard riffs on songs such as "Light my Fire," spoke to Reuters as he attended a Summer of Love reunion concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park:
Q: In your memoir you say attending the "Human Be-In," a giant hippy party in San Francisco in January 1967, was one of the great events of your life. Why?
A: "We get to Golden Gate Park and there are 30,000 hippies, a sight unlike any that we have ever seen, colorful dress, long hair, jewels, dancing ... The feeling was so free and spiritual and loving. It was like the beginning of the change. A new generation had been born that day, conceived in liberty, peace and love. And we thought, this is it, we are going to change the world."
Q: Are you disappointed that not so much has changed?
A: "Yes. The direction America has gone in is a great disappointment to me and all the people who were at that Love In and to an entire generation ... but the fight is still going on."
Q: Do you have a favorite (presidential) candidate?
A: "I'm rooting for Obama. He is so Kennedy-esque."
Q: But your life has been good in many regards?
A: "Sure, financially, it's been great. Spiritually it's been great. I'm married to the same woman. Dorothy and I, my UCLA student girlfriend, we got married in 1967 and we are celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary at the end of '07."
Q: When you look back, were those days excessive?
A: "Excessive was Jim Morrison dying of alcohol poisoning, Jimi Hendrix dying in his own vomit. Excessive was not knowing when to stop."
Q: Did you come to a point where you renounced drugs?
A: "No, moderation, it's the golden pathway of moderation. You can do anything, you can do any substance you want if you can do it in moderation and you're the master."
Q: So the problem wasn't the drugs, just knowing when to stop?
A: "You can open the doors of perception with psychedelics, LSD and other psychedelics. You will open the doors of perception and see life for what it is - infinite."
Q: Do you still...
A: "No, no, no. You only do that in your 20s or early 30s. Beyond your early 30s it's kind of a perversion. Once you open the doors of perception they stay open."
Q: How do you spend your time now?
A: "We live up in the Napa Valley, so we have two and a half acres that we farm. I've got a hobby farm. Dorothy and I raise vegetables, we've got some chickens, we've got some fruit trees. It's a lot of work taking care of two and a half acres. I would say three-quarters of my time is as a hobby farmer, gentleman farmer, one quarter of it is touring, making music."
