Post by darkstar3 on Jan 27, 2011 2:34:28 GMT
Apathy For The Devil
Rock magazine
September 27, 1970
Nobody really cares what happens to Jim Morrison in Miami.
This dawned on me the other day while we were waiting for the trial to start. The groupies are there in court mainly to be "on the scene." After all, what they're seeing makes great conversation, doesn't it? The press acts as if the whole thing were going on behind a glass wall. They could give less of a shit whether or not Morrison goes to jail for five years. They're in court to do a job and that's that.
What is behind this apathy for the devil who supposedly corrupted Miami youth beyond recall? I think it has to do with Morrison's head. He is so used to relating to people on a mythic level- as shaman, sex symbol or poet-philosopher- that he finally has become a living legend. You can sense this when reporters interview him. They approach the whole thing as if they were entering a church. The questions are so respectful as to be meaningless. The attitude of sacredness that surrounds this 25-year-old man is nothing short of astonishing.
I got my first flash of this score when prosecutor Terry McWilliams read the charges to Morrison. He walked from his side of the court deliberately, stopped, paused and then started reading from the complaint, ". . .lewdly and lasciviously exposed his penis. . .simulated masturbation and oral copulation. ...exposed his penis in a vulgar or indecent manner with intent to be observed. . .used profane language. . .performed under the influence of intoxicating drugs or liquor." When he finished, he still stood there as if it would be disrespectful to leave so quickly. Then he looked at Morrison as if he were seeing Christ.
Strange.
I wish I were more up on The Golden Bough. This trial has a mythic, archetypal feeling to it, but I can't put my finger on it. The only corollary I can see is the old Norse trial by fire (If you're innocent you won't burn. If you're guilty you die). However, this must be Trial By Boredom. The amount of excitement generated so far could easily fit into a butterfly's stomach. And the feeling of pervading unreality makes everything even more meaningless.
Take the first prosecution witness, Colleen Clary. She's 17 and a checker at a supermarket. She looks 50, her eyes sunken-dead. She testifies that she was shocked by what she saw. "He pulled down his pants and stroked...(blushing) stroked it. . .It was disgusting." Now you gotta feel for the little lady, right? Then Max Fink, the Doors' L.A. attorney, starts cross-examining her. Reading from a deposition she made earlier, he catches her in a whole chain of inconsistencies. Finally, he asks, "Have you had trouble with your memory of late?" and she breaks into tears. The court gallantly recesses, and I'm sure everyone felt sorry for the girl. Here is the poor innocent confronted with the lizard king doing his thing and she just can't hack it. Right?
Wrong.
On the lunch break, a teenybopper goes up to her and says, "You're really being mean to Jim." Replies the flower of Miami youth, "Fuck off, you little bitch."
Ya couda nokt me over wid a fedder.
Then her boyfriend, one Carl Huffstutlear, gets on the stand and goes into riffs about how tender-hearted Colleen is. Her mother, who has the face to go with her completely disagreeable personality, seconds the motion on the stand. Either the Clary clan was weaned on pickles or they work underground for the prune council.
The next day of trial a very attractive lady cop named Betty Racine testified that Morrison pulled his pants down, said, "Do you want to see my cock?" and pulled his pants back up again. Unfortunately, her deposition of eleven months ago shows she heard or saw nothing of the sort when originally questioned. A photographer named Jeff Simon said he was five feet from the stage the entire time and saw nothing. His 160 photographs likewise revealed no exposure.
The real excitement of the day came when the prosecution tried to enter a misleading negative as evidence when 8x10 prints were available. Morrison's local attorney, Robert Josefsberg, was furious and approached the bench.
Said Judge Goodman, "Don't get upset. They made a nice try and it didn't work." The judge's cavalier attitude infuriated Josefsberg even more and he was heard mumbling about judicial ethics the rest of the day. Goodman is either stupid or insane. Certainly, no intelligent judge could compliment the prosecution on a nice try at introducing misleading evidence.
Anyhow, after you finish getting upset about that sort of thing, you see it on the same mythic level as everything else in this case. It's as if the gods were testing Morrison against the worst possible odds in the hope that he overcomes all the handicaps and gets acquitted, thus coming out of the trial even better than when he went in.
The essential hypocrisy of the whole trial came to light last Thursday when the state's star witness, Robert Jennings, testified. First of all, he's six foot nine, has a red beard and freckles, obviously is no stranger to dope and - WORKS IN THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE. Did ja ever? Not only that, but he's the guy who signed the original complaint against Morrison- 39 days after the concert. You see, to extradite someone from another state, you have to formally charge them with having committed a felony offense. Since nobody else in the city of Miami felt up to it, Jenning's signed the complaint charging Morrison with lewd and lascivious behavior. This started the extradition riff which wound up taking eleven months.
Jennings testified that Morrison put his hand in his pants and rubbed it up and down, put the microphone in his pants and later exposed himself, poured wine over somebody's head and so on. He was a very convincing witness and there was gloom on the defense side of the courtroom momentarily. Max Fink then began to tear Jennings apart. He mentioned a conversation with another attorney in which Jennings said, "I don't see why they want me to testify. What do they want from me?" There were several other inconsistencies which helped destroy Jennings' testimony. The crusher came when Jennings' best friend, James Wood, testified that he sat next to Jennings the whole concert and saw no exposure, no simulated oral copulation, etc. etc.
All of this provided only momentary satisfaction.
Judge Goodman then dropped the bomb of the day by ruling that the defense could not take the jury to see "Woodstock," "Mash," "Hair," or read excerpts from controversial bestsellers like "The Sensuous Woman" or "Portnoy's Complaint." Since the defense's case rests on the fact that these books, movies and plays use words like "fuck" and display nudity and open love-making, this was quite a blow. The judge's ruling is so obviously wrong that other attorneys not connected with either side said that on appeal, the case would be reversed and Morrison acquitted or retried. This was little satisfaction at the moment. Max Fink asked that the jury be excused and then delivered a blistering argument about the court's ruling. The audience responded quite warmly but Goodman remained unmoved.
The feeling of surrealism started again. Goodman turning down Fink's motion was like Pharaoh turning down Moses when he asked for water in the desert. Maybe I've just read too much Vonnegut, but I can't escape the feeling that the transcript of the trial has already been written down somewhere, the verdict already decided and that we are all just going through the motions.
I asked Morrison about this and he agrees but likewise can't explain it.
For the most part, he sits in court scribbling his own impressions of the trial, giving all the jurors nicknames, being courteous to interviewers and well-wishers, etc. He is on his best behavior and has been in court every day on time with no sweat. He is really getting interested in the mechanics of making the law. When we sit down after the trial to talk or have a drink, he will lapse into legal jargon deliberately to be funny.
Yet, lately, there is an underlying seriousness to his court rap. Aware of the mythical aspects of the trial, he is also slowly becoming aware of the changing faces in the gallery of the courtroom. At the beginning of the trial, every seat was packed with a teenybopper and this continued for the first few days. Now, however, numerous elderly people have become daily spectators. This all serves to underline the fact that the law- and-order types, in the final analysis, are more interested in defending their way of life than the teenyboppers and hippies. For the latter, the trial was a lark. Now that it's getting serious, it's time to move onto pleasanter subjects. With the astounding availability of Jamaican Red, it's easy to see how a serious court case would come in second to grooving as a social activity.
This is not meant to be a blanket condemnation. There are many loyal kids who have been at the trial every day; however, the whole of Miami youth are being very lax in the defense of their own civil liberties. This is a very political case and will indirectly have a bearing on the legalization of grass, the promotion of festivals in the Miami area, and so on. Under such circumstances, these kids are goofing when demonstrations, offers to testify in Morrison's behalf and other public displays of support are more in order.
From this, you can see that Morrison is "locked in a prison of his own devise." The political content of the first three Doors albums apparently didn't make an impression- at least on Miami's music fans. All they seem to have heard were sexual implications. Thus, the 12,000 fans who went to Dinner Key to get their rocks off are indirectly hanging Morrison by their inaction.
One can't help feel that in political cities like Boston, New York, Washington, etc. that things would be different. The climate of Miami (and for that matter L.A.) does not lead one to take anything seriously, much less politics. It is therefore a shame that this great political test should happen in such a nonpolitical environment.
I guess suntan lotion and social justice just don't mix.
END.
Rock magazine
September 27, 1970
Nobody really cares what happens to Jim Morrison in Miami.
This dawned on me the other day while we were waiting for the trial to start. The groupies are there in court mainly to be "on the scene." After all, what they're seeing makes great conversation, doesn't it? The press acts as if the whole thing were going on behind a glass wall. They could give less of a shit whether or not Morrison goes to jail for five years. They're in court to do a job and that's that.
What is behind this apathy for the devil who supposedly corrupted Miami youth beyond recall? I think it has to do with Morrison's head. He is so used to relating to people on a mythic level- as shaman, sex symbol or poet-philosopher- that he finally has become a living legend. You can sense this when reporters interview him. They approach the whole thing as if they were entering a church. The questions are so respectful as to be meaningless. The attitude of sacredness that surrounds this 25-year-old man is nothing short of astonishing.
I got my first flash of this score when prosecutor Terry McWilliams read the charges to Morrison. He walked from his side of the court deliberately, stopped, paused and then started reading from the complaint, ". . .lewdly and lasciviously exposed his penis. . .simulated masturbation and oral copulation. ...exposed his penis in a vulgar or indecent manner with intent to be observed. . .used profane language. . .performed under the influence of intoxicating drugs or liquor." When he finished, he still stood there as if it would be disrespectful to leave so quickly. Then he looked at Morrison as if he were seeing Christ.
Strange.
I wish I were more up on The Golden Bough. This trial has a mythic, archetypal feeling to it, but I can't put my finger on it. The only corollary I can see is the old Norse trial by fire (If you're innocent you won't burn. If you're guilty you die). However, this must be Trial By Boredom. The amount of excitement generated so far could easily fit into a butterfly's stomach. And the feeling of pervading unreality makes everything even more meaningless.
Take the first prosecution witness, Colleen Clary. She's 17 and a checker at a supermarket. She looks 50, her eyes sunken-dead. She testifies that she was shocked by what she saw. "He pulled down his pants and stroked...(blushing) stroked it. . .It was disgusting." Now you gotta feel for the little lady, right? Then Max Fink, the Doors' L.A. attorney, starts cross-examining her. Reading from a deposition she made earlier, he catches her in a whole chain of inconsistencies. Finally, he asks, "Have you had trouble with your memory of late?" and she breaks into tears. The court gallantly recesses, and I'm sure everyone felt sorry for the girl. Here is the poor innocent confronted with the lizard king doing his thing and she just can't hack it. Right?
Wrong.
On the lunch break, a teenybopper goes up to her and says, "You're really being mean to Jim." Replies the flower of Miami youth, "Fuck off, you little bitch."
Ya couda nokt me over wid a fedder.
Then her boyfriend, one Carl Huffstutlear, gets on the stand and goes into riffs about how tender-hearted Colleen is. Her mother, who has the face to go with her completely disagreeable personality, seconds the motion on the stand. Either the Clary clan was weaned on pickles or they work underground for the prune council.
The next day of trial a very attractive lady cop named Betty Racine testified that Morrison pulled his pants down, said, "Do you want to see my cock?" and pulled his pants back up again. Unfortunately, her deposition of eleven months ago shows she heard or saw nothing of the sort when originally questioned. A photographer named Jeff Simon said he was five feet from the stage the entire time and saw nothing. His 160 photographs likewise revealed no exposure.
The real excitement of the day came when the prosecution tried to enter a misleading negative as evidence when 8x10 prints were available. Morrison's local attorney, Robert Josefsberg, was furious and approached the bench.
Said Judge Goodman, "Don't get upset. They made a nice try and it didn't work." The judge's cavalier attitude infuriated Josefsberg even more and he was heard mumbling about judicial ethics the rest of the day. Goodman is either stupid or insane. Certainly, no intelligent judge could compliment the prosecution on a nice try at introducing misleading evidence.
Anyhow, after you finish getting upset about that sort of thing, you see it on the same mythic level as everything else in this case. It's as if the gods were testing Morrison against the worst possible odds in the hope that he overcomes all the handicaps and gets acquitted, thus coming out of the trial even better than when he went in.
The essential hypocrisy of the whole trial came to light last Thursday when the state's star witness, Robert Jennings, testified. First of all, he's six foot nine, has a red beard and freckles, obviously is no stranger to dope and - WORKS IN THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE. Did ja ever? Not only that, but he's the guy who signed the original complaint against Morrison- 39 days after the concert. You see, to extradite someone from another state, you have to formally charge them with having committed a felony offense. Since nobody else in the city of Miami felt up to it, Jenning's signed the complaint charging Morrison with lewd and lascivious behavior. This started the extradition riff which wound up taking eleven months.
Jennings testified that Morrison put his hand in his pants and rubbed it up and down, put the microphone in his pants and later exposed himself, poured wine over somebody's head and so on. He was a very convincing witness and there was gloom on the defense side of the courtroom momentarily. Max Fink then began to tear Jennings apart. He mentioned a conversation with another attorney in which Jennings said, "I don't see why they want me to testify. What do they want from me?" There were several other inconsistencies which helped destroy Jennings' testimony. The crusher came when Jennings' best friend, James Wood, testified that he sat next to Jennings the whole concert and saw no exposure, no simulated oral copulation, etc. etc.
All of this provided only momentary satisfaction.
Judge Goodman then dropped the bomb of the day by ruling that the defense could not take the jury to see "Woodstock," "Mash," "Hair," or read excerpts from controversial bestsellers like "The Sensuous Woman" or "Portnoy's Complaint." Since the defense's case rests on the fact that these books, movies and plays use words like "fuck" and display nudity and open love-making, this was quite a blow. The judge's ruling is so obviously wrong that other attorneys not connected with either side said that on appeal, the case would be reversed and Morrison acquitted or retried. This was little satisfaction at the moment. Max Fink asked that the jury be excused and then delivered a blistering argument about the court's ruling. The audience responded quite warmly but Goodman remained unmoved.
The feeling of surrealism started again. Goodman turning down Fink's motion was like Pharaoh turning down Moses when he asked for water in the desert. Maybe I've just read too much Vonnegut, but I can't escape the feeling that the transcript of the trial has already been written down somewhere, the verdict already decided and that we are all just going through the motions.
I asked Morrison about this and he agrees but likewise can't explain it.
For the most part, he sits in court scribbling his own impressions of the trial, giving all the jurors nicknames, being courteous to interviewers and well-wishers, etc. He is on his best behavior and has been in court every day on time with no sweat. He is really getting interested in the mechanics of making the law. When we sit down after the trial to talk or have a drink, he will lapse into legal jargon deliberately to be funny.
Yet, lately, there is an underlying seriousness to his court rap. Aware of the mythical aspects of the trial, he is also slowly becoming aware of the changing faces in the gallery of the courtroom. At the beginning of the trial, every seat was packed with a teenybopper and this continued for the first few days. Now, however, numerous elderly people have become daily spectators. This all serves to underline the fact that the law- and-order types, in the final analysis, are more interested in defending their way of life than the teenyboppers and hippies. For the latter, the trial was a lark. Now that it's getting serious, it's time to move onto pleasanter subjects. With the astounding availability of Jamaican Red, it's easy to see how a serious court case would come in second to grooving as a social activity.
This is not meant to be a blanket condemnation. There are many loyal kids who have been at the trial every day; however, the whole of Miami youth are being very lax in the defense of their own civil liberties. This is a very political case and will indirectly have a bearing on the legalization of grass, the promotion of festivals in the Miami area, and so on. Under such circumstances, these kids are goofing when demonstrations, offers to testify in Morrison's behalf and other public displays of support are more in order.
From this, you can see that Morrison is "locked in a prison of his own devise." The political content of the first three Doors albums apparently didn't make an impression- at least on Miami's music fans. All they seem to have heard were sexual implications. Thus, the 12,000 fans who went to Dinner Key to get their rocks off are indirectly hanging Morrison by their inaction.
One can't help feel that in political cities like Boston, New York, Washington, etc. that things would be different. The climate of Miami (and for that matter L.A.) does not lead one to take anything seriously, much less politics. It is therefore a shame that this great political test should happen in such a nonpolitical environment.
I guess suntan lotion and social justice just don't mix.
END.