Saturday, January 26, 2013

TEX WATSON IS A PAIN IN THE ASS


 There is a lot you don’t know about Eviliz personally.  For example, Eviliz rarely talks in the third person like Panamint Patty does.  And-Eviliz digs Kathie Lee Gifford (and Panamint Patty I guess too).  Go ahead and laugh about it but keep in mind you are about to benefit from Kathie’s book titled ~
“Just When I Thought I Dropped My Last Egg.” 
From the chapter titled One Degree of Separation Anxiety.

It’s become a joke in the hair and makeup room at the Today Show  that I have about one degree of separation from pretty much anything on the planet.  
  Something will come up on the t.v monitor, and I’ll say, “Well back in ’62 I was….” and inevitably there’s some weird linkage.  We’ll, I’ll take weird linkage any day over weird leakage, but that’s another essay.
  Anyway it’s well established among my colleagues that I have lived along time, met a lot of awful interesting people, and found myself in way too many strange situations.
  The other day we were all getting ready for the show when suddenly someone being interview mentioned the possibility that there were yet more victims of the Charles Manson family, long buried somewhere at his ranch in the desert.  Everyone looked at me and waited.  At first I pretended I hadn’t heard the t.v. 
“Well?”  Hoda goaded.  I hesitated. 
“Finally!”  Somebody laughed.  “No degree of separation.”
I cleared my throat.  “Actually….”
“NO!”  They all screamed.  They couldn’t believe I could somehow have a connection to Charles Manson. 
I can’t believe it myself but I do.
Let me take you back in time….
  I’m not exactly sure what year it was, but it was definitely sometime in the late seventies. 
  Michie (her sister) and I did a lot of gospel singing back then.  One day I got a call from a wonderful man, Chaplin Ray, who had a very successful prison ministry.  He told me that he and Pat Boone were going to tape a television special at the Men’s Penal Colony in San Luis Obispo, California.    He asked if Michie and I would want to join them and perform a few songs.
  I checked with Mich, we checked our calendars, and I called Chaplin Ray and accepted his invitation.
  Michie got there first.  I was scheduled to fly in the next day.
So I was anxious to hear how it was going.  She took a long time calling to give me an update, and I began to worry.
Finally the phone rang.  It was Michie.
“Okay, there’s good news and bad news,” she said.
“What’s the good news?”  I asked.
“I went through the worst thunder storms you can possibly imagine.  The plane almost crashed and I almost died.”
“Wow.”  I said.  “What’s the bad news?”
Michie hesitated.
“The bad news is I lived and now Tex Watson is my bodyguard.”
‘WHAT!”  I SCREAMED.  “Tex Watson, the Texas kid who is actually the one who butchered every single victim in the Manson murders.”
I couldn’t believe it.
“Yep.”
I still couldn’t believe it.
“Oh my God, Mich- are you all right?”
“Oh yeah,”  she answered.  “He’s really nice.”
“NICE?”  I am getting on the next plane out and I am coming to get you right now.”
  I hung up the phone and busted my butt getting to the airport, praying the whole way.
  How could this have happened?  I mean, Chaplain Ray had mentioned Pat Boone, whom some people find scary, but he had somehow neglected to mention that one of the worst mass murders in the history of the world was going to be our bodyguard?
  I mean, Tex Watson is no Kevin Costner.  That’s who I think of when the word “bodyguard” comes to mind.
  Now I was losing my mind.  But the worst was yet to come.    When my plane touched down in San Luis Obispo, it was 114 degrees Fahrenheit.  Michie and I had been asked to wear clothes that were in no way provocative- heaven forbid we look enticing to any of the twenty four hundred maximum security inmates.
  I met Mich at the hotel.  She seemed okay and informed me that Tex Watson had been raised in a deeply devout home in Texas, but had gotten into all kinds of crazy drugs when he’d come to California to “find himself.”  Instead, he’d found Charles Manson and had found himself serving multiple life sentences for seven horrendous murders.
  Apparently in prison he’d also found God.  As Mich and I entered the security gate, I was praying that this part was at least partially true.  We were searched and were asked to leave everything we’d brought (purse, etc.) at the entrance.  No lip gloss allowed.
I cannot describe the suffocating heat, made worse by the polygamy-cult style dresses Mich and I were wearing.
  It turns out that meeting Tex Watson was the easiest part of the day.  The worst came a few hours later when Chaplain Ray, Pat Boone, Tex Watson, and Michie and I were standing on stage for the finale. 
  The warden and his wife were sitting in the front row, and twenty four hundred of the unhappiest men you can imagine were screaming (Eviliz almost peed her pretty pink panties after reading this-).
‘SING HELTER SKELTER’! in the bleachers.  (AHHHHHHH---LMAO)
By now it had been close to 120 degrees inside the prison.
Most of the inmates had taken of much of their clothing and were either fanning themselves or masturbating in front of us.  (Wtf?)  I guess those dresses turned them on.  Who knew?
  Anyway, it was almost over, when suddenly the unthinkable happened : (How could it possibly get any worse?)
THE POWER WENT OFF!
  We were completely in the dark, and the only thing I wasn’t afraid of was Tex Watson.
  You sort of go into a weird Twilight Zone mode when something like this happens.  I looked at the warden and suddenly realized how truly precarious the situation was.  He was terrified.  His wife was apoplectic.  I actually squeezed Tex’s hand for support!  I looked at Michie, and she looked at me.  We were both thinking the same thing.  “I don’t want to die in this dress.”
  Now for one hour that was a distinct possibility.
  So you ask, what did we do?  Well, I’ll tell you what we did.  We all stood there on the stage, hand in hand, soaked in fear and sweat, (No miss fired semen?  I am surprised.) and sang “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”
That’s exactly what we did.
  It had never been my favorite hymn before, but it became my favorite hymn that very day, I promise.
  Suddenly as quick as the power went out, the power came back on. 
  The warden and his wife were rushed out of the auditorium, and so, somehow, were we.  I can’t remember what happened next, nor do I want to.
  But I do recall Tex wrote me several times afterward, asking me to speak for him when he came up for parole.  He deserved to stay in prison for the rest of his life for the terrible suffering he’d cause.
  He finally stopped asking, got married, had conjugal visits with his wife, and ended up fathering several children.  He still works in the Chaplain ministry and by all accounts has been a model prisoner. 
  Pat Boone went out to enjoy a long and illustrious career.
  Chaplain Ray continued his magical mystery tour through America’s prisons.
  Michie moved out of California.
And me?
I got out of gospel music.
It’s just too dangerous.
P.S. They should change the name of the prison to the Men’s Penile Colony.

And Eviliz?  Well she still can’t stop laughing after picturing/reading the whole ordeal.






30 comments:

  1. Great story, Liz! Shows you never know where your going to find something related to the Family.

    I wonder if Bruce was in the audience!?!?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Liz, that Great Gatsby font is godawful. But, Patty has definitely missed the pink and lilac color scheme.

    Patty once heard Kathie Lee say that she had met Tex, but she had never read Katie's entire story. Thanks, Liz!

    ReplyDelete
  3. PS Heidi, that is a beautiful dog. Is he yours?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Patty,
    Thanks and yes! His name is Bear. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. interesting thought the sisters had - not so much that they didn't want to die, they just really didn't want to die IN THOSE DRESSES.
    I know it was probably written for humor but it fits into Kathie Lee's personality too.
    Just not my type.
    I wonder how many times Tex spanked it thinking of her. Did you know Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, used to jerk off forty plus times a day in prison. That's what they say, but I still question if it is humanly possible.
    Wait, I've gotten off track here. Kathie Lee will do that to a man.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks, Leary. Just when I thought I hadn't learned anything today...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Albert was an interesting case, Matt. There is serious doubt he was the Boston Strangler, but he was definately the "Green Man". He used to knock on women's doors and say he was with a modeling agency and offer to measure them for photos and such. For a rather ugly fella it is amazing how much nooky he got.
    He also made some serious cash in prison making "choker" necklaces.
    I still clearly remember the fear he caused in Boston in those days. It must have been similar in L.A. in 8/69.
    By the way Matt, I hate to ask this but I may have screwed up referring to CieloDrive as "she". Is the blogger Cielo a he or she?
    Maybe I should ask this in a seperate post from one about strangling. Just kidding.
    I love the Cielo site, just didn't wnat to insult the person who runs it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. LOL. Cielo is of the male persuasion. One of the most knowledgeable TLBers on the planet.

    ReplyDelete
  9. i think there's an interview of kathy lee telling this story on a daytime talk show, very funny stuff. could any of you just imagine watson's face when he figured the inmates where chanting "sing helter skelter, sing helter skelter!"

    ReplyDelete
  10. Much thanks Matt, but I am not worthy of such praise. I used to think I actually knew something about all this stuff. Nowadays I don't even know what I believe. This whole case reminds me of the show LOST. You watch it looking for some answers and all you get are more questions.

    But no worries Leary, I'm not easily insulted.

    ReplyDelete
  11. If he's stabby and you know it and you're not afraid to show it, SQUEEZE HIS HAND!

    ReplyDelete
  12. beauders I remember seeing that vid, too somewhere. I guess since it was daytime TV they skipped over the um ... onanazing and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  13. It's difficult to believe inmates were allowed to masturbate in the audience without being returned to their cells. Could someone who's been in prison comment on this?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Matt said... onanizing

    Matt,
    Did you coin that term or is it a Catholic expression?
    Orwhut :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. For those who wondered ….

    Onan is a minor character in Genesis. He was the second son of Judah and died young (allegedly by Yahweh's will) on account of his wickedness.

    Onan had a brother, Er. When Er died, their father Judah ordered Onan to impregnate Er’s widow, Tamar. This practice was not as immoral as it sounds and was later framed into the concept of the ‘levirate marriage’, which required a brother of a deceased male to provide his childless widow with the means to preserve the family line.

    But Onan wasn’t playing the game, and when he and Tamar got down to it he pulled out prematurely and spilled his seed [read ‘semen’] on the ground. Although Genesis is unclear on this, the common interpretation is that as any issue of this conjoining would not be his own heir he wasn’t interested. Perhaps he would have had to support the sprog and his mum as well as his own family? Anyway, by breaking the law with regard to the obligations of a levirate union, he was condemned to an early death. For the whole story, read Genesis 38:3-10, preferably in the King James version.

    So what does this have to do with wanking? Well, Genesis is strong on the spilling of seed, and the idea that sex should not be used for purposes other than that of procreation. Somehow the pulling out early seems to have become conflated with playing with Mrs Hand and her five daughters, although the Levitical regulations of the time would in fact have pardoned the latter with a mere ritual washing and the injunction to refrain from such temptations. The former was much more serious.

    The way I see it is that poor Onan, for his own good reasons, merely practiced coitus interruptus (as no doubt many of us here have), but somehow his name got attached to masturbation on the grounds that both involve spilling of seed outside procreational purpose.

    Now, what was I doing …

    FrankM

    ReplyDelete
  16. Stunning post, Frank. I do, indeed, bow.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Frank, I made the word up in High School when my English teacher explained the "sin of Onan" in relation to a book we were reading. It still cracks me up...

    ReplyDelete
  18. "mean"

    Ok, I'm done for the day. LOL.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Yes, I have referenced this before on various blogs, along the lines of "Tex Watson had an opportunity to kill KLG but didn't?...Goddam"

    But like she said, he probably thought she might be better suited to help with his chances at parole. Wonder if he had Bruce turn off the lights...?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Ah yes, Frank...for thrills and chills you can always count on the Old Testament...kind of puts Helter Skelter to shame, doesn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Inmates masturbating in front of each other? I don't believe it. Perverts are on the bottom rung in prison. Like all men (except me) convicts do masturbate but it's done in private.
    Like my father said, "there are two types of men, those who do and those who lie".

    ReplyDelete
  22. Doc,
    Thanks. The masterbation part sounded unlikely to me but I wasn't sure.

    ReplyDelete
  23. It is always nice to see Starship here and-the back of his head. LOL

    ReplyDelete
  24. Hi guys. I am not an expert on inmate masturbation (at least, it is not on my resume) but I have watched some TV and something once caught my peurile attention.

    There is a Louis Theroux documentary where he goes into prisons and interviews inmates and guards. Several of the (female) guards tell him it is not at all uncommon for inmates to masturbate in front of them when they are walking past, locking cells, etc. Louis also talks to an inmate who is notorious for this and is basically told that when you have a high sex drive (i.e. you are male) and are in prison it is hard (ha ha) not to jerk off when ANY lady walks past.

    I would like to think that if I am ever incarcerated I would have greater self-control than that, but who knows??

    So, to sum up- inmates do, apparently, openly masturbate in prison when women are about. Normally this results in Punishment, but I imagine when there are hundreds of them doing it in a vast crowd (picture that) it is much more difficult to sanction them.

    I hope this has been educational for you all. I swear that I am not normally such a font of masturbatory knowledge, but I AM obsessed with Louis Theroux and that one scene in that one documentary did stick in my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  25. i would assume the guards preferred the inmates to masturbate than riot and it was dark by the way, no electricity, very romantic.

    ReplyDelete