Remembering Ray Manzarek at the gym on Sepulveda

MEMBER COLUMN

by Jon Michaels

LW contributor

One thing I love about living in Southern California is the opportunity to meet celebrities. I used to be a member of a gym in West L.A. that had a variety of famous members, one of whom was Ray Manzarek, keyboardist of ultra-famous The Doors rock band. Is there a human on planet Earth who isn’t familiar with the first 15 seconds of “Light My Fire?” That’s Ray.

We often nodded to each other between exercising on the Nautilus machines (and blasting our glutes). But we never really spoke.

Once we even shared a steam. It was Ray. And me. And at the other end of the bench was Fee Waybill, lead singer of the rock band, “The Tubes.”

So there was a Tube. A Door. And a dork.

Anyway, Spotify was exploding at the time. So I decided to check out The Doors catalog, hoping to find some great obscure tunes of theirs that I’d never heard.

Happily I did find a few amazing tunes by them that I didn’t know. One in particular was “Crystal Ship.” It’s now my favorite Doors tune.

The very next day at the gym, I picked up an LA Weekly newspaper, and while pedaling on an exercise bicycle, I noticed that Ray was playing at the Highland Grounds coffee shop that very weekend. After my workout, and showering and changing, I walked into the hallway and there was Ray himself standing in front of me, talking to two women.

I heard him say, “I don’t know what I’m gonna play!” I figured these women had just rushed him to say they were excited to see his upcoming show.

So when I passed Ray, I blurted out, “Crystal Ship!” And he turned toward me and gave me a big thumbs up. And I smiled and waved back.

Sadly, a few months later Ray died of cancer.

But I’ll always be grateful that Southern California provided me with a genuine moment where Ray I connected, no matter how brief.