On March 1, 1969, when the Doors played the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Morrison showed up late, drunk, and in the mood to experiment with confrontational theater. In an antagonistic monologue, he told the crowd, “Your faces are being pressed into the shit of the world,” and then later doffed his shirt and asked, “Do you want to see my cock?” Some eyewitnesses swore that he then flashed the audience; others insist that he tugged at his pants but never actually revealed his lizard. Organist Ray Manzarek (presumably an expert on the Doors’ organs) said Morrison was using the shirt as a matador’s cape in front of his crotch, and it was impossible to tell: “I don’t know if he pulled it out… I think he hypnotized everybody.” In a trial the following year, Morrison testified that he kept it in his pants, and had even been wearing boxer shorts that night: “It was kind of unusual, really, because I don’t usually wear undergarments. I got out of the habit four or five years ago.” Morrison was found guilty of indecent exposure and open profanity, both misdemeanors. His sentence (six months of hard labor, plus a $500 fine) was on appeal when he died in 1971.

(Excerpted from the 2006 book Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed, published by Three Rivers Press, written by Gavin Edwards.)