LIGHT MY FIRE

�Everybody Loves Raymond!�

Ah! If only the television show hadn�t taken this title first�.. Ray lives in paradise, full of sunshine, tweeting birds, and blue skies with his perfect wife, good salary, friends, and house- and that big meanie John Densmore and the spoilsport Oliver Stone want to take it all away from him (enter Brad Garrett). But the truth is, Ray just can�t stand when anyone else wants a share of his success.

Ray Manzarek somehow thinks that it is manifest destiny that he should be lucky enough to settle down with his dream partner (whom he talks constantly about having sex with), be in the biggest, greatest, bestest band in the whole wide world, and be rich out of his mind (which he seems totally out of throughout this entire book). Not everybody is as lucky as you, Ray. Deal with it.

It is almost unnecessary to talk about what the actual book is about, because it is 90% bitching and hippie-dippy rambling all the way through. Ray won�t mention anything that doesn�t pertain directly or indirectly to him -except for any poor bastard who is lucky enough to be the recipient of his many negative blows. Where he SHOULD be mentioning tours, concerts, and new people he meets, he blabbers about flower power, LSD, chi, and any other subject that he thinks makes him sound deep and philosophical. He doesn�t even mention a good number of tours, concerts, albums, and songs AT ALL!

Instead, we also have to hear about how the lovely Oriental LA native Dorothy Fujikawa- the Twentieth Century Fox- who wears a short sexy skirt (who didn�t back then?) blew his (probably acidic) mind with her naked beauty, which sparked off the chi inside his soul and set into motion the neverending concept of the yin-yang which Dionysus and the ancient Greek and Asian gods set forth blah blah blah�...

The most entertaining thing Manzarek (now I can spell his name) does, however, is sheepishly try to defend every bad thing Jim Morrison ever did. He was not a drunk- that was just his spiritual dual and alter ego, Jimbo. He never threw the TV at my head- that was his alternate soul. Furthermore, anyone who disagrees with that is not going to go to heaven when they die. Please, will you pack it up, Ray?

In conclusion, Ray Manzarek is basically just Ray Barone from the sitcom. He lives in his perfect little Shangri-La, wants everybody else to wipe his bum for him, and throws whiny temper tantrums whenever anyone tries to take him off his golden throne. Only Ray Barone is way more likeable.