Today in Lewdness (Lizard King Getting Some Air Edition)

Nick Gillespie | March 1, 2006

From Rotten.com's daily history lesson:

Mar 1 1815: Jesse Sharpless is convicted in Pennsylvania of exhibiting a "certain lewd, wicked, scandalous, infamous and obscene painting, representing a man in an obscene, impudent and indecent posture with a woman" in his own house. It is the first obscenity trial in the United States....

Mar 1 1969: While performing with the Doors, Jim Morrison asks the audience "Do you wanna see my cock?" then exposes himself briefly on a Miami stage. For thus showing his peepee Morrison received a sentence of six months hard labor.

More tidbits here.

Rotten documents that a far more disturbing bit of obscenity happened yesterday in 1993:

Feb 28 1993: Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco use armed force attempting to serve Branch Davidian leader David Koresh with a search warrant (one with no actual evidence of any illegal activity whatsoever), in what the BATF viewed as a publicity stunt to improve their image. While the agents carefully coordinated the raid with eleven different media outlets, something apparently tipped off Koresh and things do not go well: six Davidians and four ATF agents were killed. The warrant instead could have been served peacefully, while Koresh did his daily morning jog.

Reason on Waco here.

Anniversary goes "almost unnoticed" here.

Comments

|3.1.06 @ 1:47PM|#

"While the agents carefully coordinated the raid with eleven different media outlets, something apparently tipped off Koresh and things do not go well"

I know it's third-party content and thus Reason isn't responsible for writing it, but wouldn't "because" be more accurate than "while" in that sentence?

|3.1.06 @ 2:02PM|#

I think the implied absence of a causal connection may have been intended sarcastically, SR.

|3.1.06 @ 2:19PM|#

Rotten.com swiped this picture from me
http://smoke.rotten.com/rat/
after I swiped it from The Journal of Irreproduceable Results after they swiped it from Y. Greenfeld. Apparently it's also on the DARE website.

|3.1.06 @ 3:01PM|#

A bit off topic, but I had forgotten what the pre-redesign Reason looked like.

|3.1.06 @ 3:15PM|#

I remember Waco vividly. The day things went to shit I was home from school sick and watching television. The moment the compound caught on fire was probably the most (conscious)emotionally painful moment of my life to that point. This was before I had any political opinions whatsoever. I was just a thirteen year old nobody thinking about all the children burning to death in that building.

|3.1.06 @ 3:20PM|#

Re: Morrison...

Let me put the controversy to rest: I have it from a reliable source (i.e. a friend of my brother) who was actually there for the concert. No two ways about it...he did it.

(One thing on which everybody agrees is that the show itself sucked to high heaven; Riders On The Storm notwithstanding, it was already well beyond Jump The Shark time for Jimmy and the boys).

|3.1.06 @ 3:50PM|#

Morrison's real crime was writing all that bad poetry.

|3.1.06 @ 4:18PM|#

And, last but not least,
March 1, 1975: linguist was born!

|3.1.06 @ 4:25PM|#

Happy birthday, linguist!

|3.1.06 @ 4:28PM|#

a friend of my brother who was actually there for the concert

Uh huh, and his ancestors came over on the Mayflower.

Tim Cavanaugh|3.1.06 @ 4:32PM|#

Mr. Mojo Risin',

According to Ray Manzarek himself, there was no cock, as you'll discover from this must-read celebration of an erection that wasn't there.

|3.1.06 @ 4:51PM|#

...a reliable source (i.e. a friend of my brother)...

Isn't there one of those in every urban legend. :)

|3.1.06 @ 5:52PM|#

March 1, 1975: linguist was born!

Well, happy birthday!

|3.1.06 @ 9:27PM|#

Linguist, happy birthday! :)

Warren|3.2.06 @ 9:06AM|#

Anyone who doubts the depth, profundity, and ultimate greatness of The DOORS has never sat in a 69 Chevy wagon outfitted with 16 speakers, stone out to Saturn on Maui-Wowie, and had "Not to touch the Earth" blasted into their brains at 120 dB.

...
The mansion is warm, at the top of the hill
Rich are the rooms and the comforts there
Red are the arms of luxuriant chairs
And you won't know a thing till you get inside

Dead president's corpse in the driver's car
The engine runs on glue and tar
Come on along, not goin' very far
To the East to meet the Czar
...
Some outlaws lived by the side of a lake
The minister's daughter's in love with the snake
Who lives in a well by the side of the road
Wake up, girl, we're almost home
...
I am the Lizard King
I can do anything

Total fuckn' genius. Oh and Ray Manzarek is every bit as cool as he thinks he is. High water mark of Rock n' Roll indeed.

|3.2.06 @ 9:28AM|#

Total fuckn' genius

I think you had to be there, W.
Pop music lyrics are the lowest form of poetry.
Worse than Hallmark.

R C Dean|3.2.06 @ 9:41AM|#

I think you had to be there, W.

I wish I had been there.

Wait, I think I was . . .

|3.2.06 @ 1:40PM|#

Anyone who doubts the depth, profundity, and ultimate greatness of The DOORS has never sat in a 69 Chevy wagon outfitted with 16 speakers, stone out to Saturn on Maui-Wowie, and had "Not to touch the Earth" blasted into their brains at 120 dB.

Nah, Pink Floyd's The Wall was always my best bet for that sort of activity. More weird sonic shit going on to absorb into the bloodstream.

I was a big Doors fan once upon a time. And then I turned 13...

|3.2.06 @ 2:15PM|#

I think you had to be there, W.
Pop music lyrics are the lowest form of poetry.
Worse than Hallmark.

Pop music lyrics:
The worst form of poetry.
You need the music.