"There's something happening here, what it is
aint exactly clear"
-Stephen Stills (For What It's Worth)
"Do you think the universe fights for souls to
be together? Some things are too strange, and too strong to be
coincidences."
- Emery Allen
"At Stanford in 1959, Ken Kesey volunteered to take
part in a CIA-financed study named Project MKULTRA at the Menlo Park Veterans
Hospital where he worked as a night aide. The project studied the effects of
psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT, and
DMT on people. Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these
drugs, both during the Project MKULTRA study and in the years of private
experimentation that followed.Kesey talked in detail to the patients in the
hospital. Kesey did not believe that these patients were insane, rather that
society had pushed them out because they did not fit the conventional ideas of
how people were supposed to act and behave. Kesey's role as a medical guinea
pig, as well as his stint working at a state veterans' hospital, inspired him
to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1962"
( Ken Kesey was the founder of Merry Pranksters and an initial proponent of "The Acid Tests")
I just got finished re-reading one of my favorites, Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of The Hippy Generation. Written by Dave McGowan, this is an incredibly interesting read. Especially if you are into conspiracies, as I know a few of us are lol. It is broken up into many (Almost 30 and ongoing) long chapters, and covers a whole bunch of areas. Charlie and the Family are covered quite thoroughly in many of the chapters. There is one segment about an old abandoned secret compound that was really funny to revisit. To get there, you have to walk down a long, old, stairway cut into the mountain. McGowan actually gives you the number of steps you have to go down. I realized, re-reading this, that I was at this place on the Last Manson Blog Tour with George while searching for the alleged "Gary Bus". Really far out old dwellings, and scraps of vehicles, down at the bottom of Rustic Canyon in the middle of nowhere. I looked back at great pictures that George took down there while we were looking for the Gary Bus, and I realized, these are the same old gates, stone stairs, and abandoned buildings in the pics accompanying McGowan's chapter on that location. Total Stoner deja-vu moment lol Check out Chapter 10 of the Inside The LC series, and then go look at the pics George posted with his "Gary Hinman Bus- Not" post. Same place. A coincidence I guess.
I just got finished re-reading one of my favorites, Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of The Hippy Generation. Written by Dave McGowan, this is an incredibly interesting read. Especially if you are into conspiracies, as I know a few of us are lol. It is broken up into many (Almost 30 and ongoing) long chapters, and covers a whole bunch of areas. Charlie and the Family are covered quite thoroughly in many of the chapters. There is one segment about an old abandoned secret compound that was really funny to revisit. To get there, you have to walk down a long, old, stairway cut into the mountain. McGowan actually gives you the number of steps you have to go down. I realized, re-reading this, that I was at this place on the Last Manson Blog Tour with George while searching for the alleged "Gary Bus". Really far out old dwellings, and scraps of vehicles, down at the bottom of Rustic Canyon in the middle of nowhere. I looked back at great pictures that George took down there while we were looking for the Gary Bus, and I realized, these are the same old gates, stone stairs, and abandoned buildings in the pics accompanying McGowan's chapter on that location. Total Stoner deja-vu moment lol Check out Chapter 10 of the Inside The LC series, and then go look at the pics George posted with his "Gary Hinman Bus- Not" post. Same place. A coincidence I guess.
McGowan calls a few of
the old relics he shows pictures of " Mansonesque" artifacts implying
it was just the type of place, and close enough to some of their known hangout spots,
which the Family would have had to at least visited. Anyway before he gets too
into Charlie or The Family, McGowan starts his series by pointing out some really freaky
coincidences that were going on in that area during the time in regards to a
couple of things. I am going to summarize for you, but here is the theme from
the Author himself, before I go into the specifics:
" Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking, that it’s
around 1967, and you have recently arrived in Laurel Canyon and now find
yourself fronting a band that is on the verge of taking the country by storm.
Just a mile or so down Laurel Canyon Boulevard from you lives another guy who
also recently arrived in Laurel Canyon, and who also happens to front a band on
the verge of stardom. He happens to be married to a girl that you attended
kindergarten with, and her dad, like yours, was involved in atomic weapons
research and testing, her husband’s dad, meanwhile, is involved in another type
of WMD research: chemical warfare.
This other guy’s business partner/manager is a
spooky ex-Marine who just happens to have a cousin who, bizarrely enough, also
fronts a rock band on the verge of superstardom. And this third
rock-star-on-the-rise also happens to live in Laurel Canyon, just a mile or two
from your house. Just down a couple of other streets, also within walking
distance of your home, live two other kids who – wouldn’t you know it? – also
happen to front a new rock band. These two kids happened to attend the same Alexandria,
Virginia high school that you attended, and one of them also attended
Annapolis, just like your dad did, and just like your kindergarten friend’s dad
did.
Though almost all of you hail from (or spent a
substantial portion of your childhood in) the Washington, D.C. area, you now
find yourselves on the opposite side of the country, in an isolated canyon high
above the city of Los Angeles, where you are all clustered around a secret
military installation. Given his background in research on atomic weapons, your
father is probably familiar to some extent with the existence and operations of
Lookout Mountain Laboratory, as is the father of your kindergarten friend, and
probably the fathers of a few other Laurel Canyon figures as well.
My question here, I guess, is this: what do you
suppose the odds are that all of that just came together purely by
chance?"
So, let me fill in
some blanks so that makes more sense. There was a secret base, it
seems, called the "Lookout
Mountain Laboratory" operating in the Laurel Canyon area back
around that time. As well some kids, related to some Government or Military Intelligence Players, all
moved into the area - simultaneously becoming famous at the same time. Is that
connected? Who knows. But, it is interesting. Let me show you what I mean:
In the first week of
August 1964 US Admiral George Stephen Morrison had alleged that US warships
under his command had come under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. This, of course,
is the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" which led to the "Tonkin Resolution",
which basically got us into the Vietnam War. McGowan starts the entire series
going into some decent detail about this occurrence, and goes out of his way to
point out the alleged attack on the US never actually happened. Then the Author
points out that right around this exact time, musicians seem to start sprouting up and flourishing, in the area of
Laurel Canyon, although there was no real music business in LA at the time yet.
He mentions NY, Memphis, and Detroit as the places people went at that time to
"Make-it" in the music business. McGowan argues that the players who
made it happen did not go to LA because of the music business, but that the
music business became big in LA due to them. He also insinuates that the military
complex might have had something to do with it. He points out some interesting things. It is a very long series and each chapter is very thorough. So please
go give it a shot if you are up to it. It is well worth the read. Mcgowan
goes into all the mysterious deaths that occurred in the area, including TLB.
Mcgowan also goes into great detail about legendary characters such as Carl
Franzoni and Vito Paulekis, the original "Freaks", and the ones who
got the Sunset Strip bars dancing. You can also read about legendary Laurel
Canyon locations like the "Log-Cabin", and "Houdini House"
with it's secret underground tunnels. For this post, I am sticking to famous
people in Laurel Canyon connected to any type of government, or military
presence, in Laurel Canyon in late 60's during Charlie's run around the area. Also I will talk about my idea of why he thinks they may have been there. Here are the examples McGowan used to make his point (Filling in the blanks for the riddle he asked in his above opening remarks)
He starts his list
with the son of the aforementioned Admiral Morrison. He is the Lizard King- Jim Morrison.So as the dad is off fabricating a story to get our Country in a very costly
war, his son is one of the earliest residents of Laurel Canyon's musician scene. One of the first hero's of the hippy movement. Jim had no prior musical experience or interest. He did go to film school though, as did Ray Manzarek, which is interesting because- as we will see- there is a secret military/film base very close. Jim never learned to read or write music, nor play an instrument. When he was asked later in life if he had ever been interested in learning, he replied "Not Really". But, Jim was not alone in that regard either, as we will also see later.
Frank Zappa - He made the Log Cabin infamous which was
right at the intersection of Laurel Canyon Blvd, and Lookout Mountain Ave. McGowan points out the Frank was an anti-drug, pro-war, control freak which shouldn't
surprise us- as his father Francis was a Chemical Warfare Specialist who was
assigned to the Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood was well known for Chemical
warfare research, and rumored to be a location where Project
MKUltra experiments took place...
**Quick explanation : Project
MKUltra—sometimes referred to as the CIA's mind control program—was the code name given to an illegal program of
experiments on human subjects, designed and undertaken by the United States
CIA. Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and
procedures to be used in interrogations and torture, in order to weaken the
individual to force confessions through mind control. MKUltra used numerous
methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions,
including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD).
Herb Cohen - Franks
Zappa's Manager. Former US marine who had come to LA from the Bronx with his
brother before the music and club scene took off. He had spent the few years
prior traveling around to places like the Congo in 1961 at the exact time our
CIA was killing their Prime Minister.
Gail Zappa- Franks
wife. Comes from a long line of career Naval officers. Her dad spent his life
working on classified nuclear weapons research for the US Navy. Gail herself
once worked for the Office of Naval Research and Development. Gail also once
went to a Naval Kindergarten with Jim Morrison, who then moved on to an
Alexandria High School which had also been attended by John Phillips and Cass
Elliot.
John Phillips- Mamas
and Papas. "Flowers in your Hair". Son of US Marine Corp
Captain Claude Andrew Phillips. John went to a series of elite military
prep schools in the DC area and got an appointment to the US Naval Academy in
Annapolis. McGowan points out that after leaving Annapolis Phillips married
Susan Adams who is a direct descendant of Founding Father John Adams. Her
Father did "Covert Operations" for the Air-force in Vienna, and Susan
herself would work at the Pentagon along John Phillip's sister who worked there
for 30 years. John Phillips apparently went to Cuba at one point to "Fight
for Castro". He got out of Cuba in time for the missile crisis, and was
staying in Jacksonville Florida, not far from the Mayport Naval Station.
Stephen Stills- Buffalo Springfield and CSN/CSNY. Did
you know the follow-up single to "For What It's Worth" was a song
called "Bluebird"? Another coincidence I guess, but that was the
original code-name assigned to The MK-Ultra program. Stills was the son of a
career military family. he grew up in places like; El Salvador, Panama Canal,
Costa Rica. Still was educated on Military bases, and elite military academies.
He used to get high and make up stories about serving in Vietnam. I have read
that myself in two different books that have noting to do with this subject
matter. That is another weird coincidence. Stills use to tell stories bragging about being in the military when he got really wasted.
David Crosby-
The Byrds. CSN/CSNY. "Almost Cut My Hair"- Hippy Anthem. Son of
Annapolis Graduate and WWII Military Intelligence Officer Major Floyd Delafield
Crosby. In addition, Crosby comes from a family tree that includes Senators,
Mayors, Governors, Civil and Revolutionary War Generals. Crosby goes all the
way back to Alexander Hamilton. David Van Courtland Crosby. Go take a close look at this cat's
history. He is from The Most Elite of our society. They based Easy Rider on
him. That movie defined an era. But we will get to the actors in a minute.
Jackson Browne -
Helped write songs for Eagles, among others, in addition to his great solo
career. Jackson was born in a Military Hospital in Heidelberg Germany where his
dad was assigned doing "Post-War Reconstruction". McGowan feels
this was code for OSS work. The OSS were the precursor to the CIA.
Gerry Beckley/Dan Peek/Dewey
Bunnell- America "Horse With No Name",
"Ventura Highway". all three products of military intelligence
community. Beckley's dad was a commander of an Air-force Base, and the other
two's dads were career officers serving under him. That is where the three boys
met.
Corey Wells - 3 Dog
Nite. Had been in Air-force.
Mike Nesmith -
The Monkees. Also had done time in Air-force and had inherited 25 million.
Gram Parsons -
Byrds/Flying Burrito Brothers. Son of Major Cecil Ingram "Coon Dog"
Conner II. a decorated Military Officer and Bomber pilot.
Now in another Chapter
he points out how the "In-Crowd" of young actors on the scene have
similar backgrounds, but before I go there lets look at another coincidence
McGowan points out involving "The Family":
"Along with the victims, the alleged killers also
lived in and/or were very much a part of the Laurel Canyon scene. Bobby
"Cupid" Beausoleil, for example, lived in a Laurel Canyon apartment
during the early months of 1969. Charles "Tex" Watson, who allegedly
led the death-squad responsible for the carnage at Cielo Drive, lived for a
time in a home on- guess where? Wonderland Avenue.
During that time, curiously enough, Watson co-owned
and worked in a wig shop in Beverly Hills, Crown Wig Creations, Ltd., which was
located near the mouth of Benedict Canyon. Meanwhile, one of Jay Sebring's
primary claims to fame was his expertise in crafting men's hairpieces, which he
did in his shop near the mouth of Laurel Canyon. A typical day then in the late
1960s would find Watson crafting hairpieces for an upscale Hollywood clientele
near Benedict Canyon, and then returning home to Laurel Canyon, while Sebring
crafted hairpieces for an upscale Hollywood clientele near Laurel Canyon, and
then returned home to Benedict Canyon. And then one crazy day, as we all know,
one of them became a killer and the other his victim.
Then McGowan goes on
to explain that the musicians were only partly responsible for the explosion of
the LA music scene. The musicians provided the soundtrack. Vito and Carl provided "The Freaks", and the Dancing. But the
"Vibe" was created by young Hollywood stars who flocked to the Sunset
Strip bars to listen to them. It was the presence of this group, who had close
ties to the musicians, which made it all "Happening". These actors
also gave more credence and exposure to the Hollywood "Hippy Scene".
Before I go through their connections, Allow me to let McGowan explain more
about his "Young Turks" in his own words:
"From the symbiotic relationship between Laurel Canyon
actors and Laurel Canyon musicians arose a series of feature films that are now
considered counter-cultural classics. One such film was 1967’s The Trip, an
unintentionally hilarious attempt to create a cinematic facsimile of an LSD
trip. Written by, of all people, Jack Nicholson, the movie starred fellow Turks
Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Bruce Dern. Seated in the director’s chair was
Roger Corman, who, throughout his career, worked side-by-side with David
Crosby’s dad on no less than twenty-three feature films. Recruited to supply
the soundtrack for the film was Gram Parson’s International Submarine Band
(Parson’s music, however, was ultimately not used, though the band does make a
brief on-screen appearance). The house where most of the film was shot, at the
top of Kirkwood Drive in Laurel Canyon, was the home of Love’s Arthur Lee.
Another ‘psychedelic’ cult film of the late 1960s
with deep roots in Laurel Canyon was the Monkee’s 1968 big-screen offering,
Head. Also scripted by Nicholson (with assistance from Bob Rafelson), the movie
included cameo appearances by canyon dwellers Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and
Frank Zappa. The music – performed, of course, by The Monkees – was a mix of
songs written by the band and contributions from Canyon songwriters like Carol
King and Harry Nilsson. And shockingly, some of that music is actually pretty
good. Even more shockingly, the movie overall is arguably the most watchable of
the 1960s cult films. It is certainly a vast improvement over, for example,
1968’s wretched Psych Out (starring Nicholson and Dern).
I do realize, by the way, that some of you out there
in reader-land cringe every time that I mention The Monkees as though they were
a ‘real’ band. The reality though is that they were every bit as ‘real’ as most
of their contemporaries. And while the made-for-TV Beatles replicants were
looked down upon by music critics and fans alike, they were fully accepted as
members of the musical fraternity by the other Laurel Canyon bands. The homes
of both Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork were popular canyon hangouts in the late
‘60s for a number of ‘real’ musicians. Also regularly dropping by Dolenz’ party
house were Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.
The difference in perception between their peers and
the public was attributable to the fact that the other bands knew something
that the fans did not: the very same studio musicians who appeared without
credit on The Monkee’s albums also appeared without credit on their albums. And
then, of course, there was the fact that so many of Laurel Canyon’s ‘real’
musicians had taken a stab at being a part of The Monkees, including Steven
Stills, Love’s Bryan MacLean, and Three Dog Night’s Danny Hutton – all of whom
answered the Monkees’ casting call and were rejected.
There were undoubtedly other future stars who
auditioned for the show as well, though most would probably prefer not to
discuss such things. Despite persistent rumors, however, there was one local
musician who we can safely conclude did not read for a part: Charles Manson.
Given that the show was cast in 1965 and began its brief television run in
1966, while Charlie was still imprisoned at Terminal Island awaiting his
release in March of 1967, there doesn’t appear to be any way that Manson could
have been considered for a part on the show. And that’s kind of a shame when
you think about it, because if he had been, we might today remember Charlie
Manson not as one of America’s most notorious criminals, but rather as the guy
who made Marcia Brady swoon."
That is another weird thing about these early "Stars" of the LA music scene. There is another coincidence to consider here. Most of them couldn't play instruments. These early music stars didn't necessarily even know that much about music. The first Laurel Canyon and American "Break- Through" rock act were The Byrds. In his first autobiography David Crosby basically said the only one who knew how to play an instrument was Roger McGuinn. When the Byrd's became a band, most of them, didn't even own instruments and Michael Clarke had never even tried the drums in his life. But they made it, and made it big. Here is who you are really listening to when you play records from many of the early Laurel Canyon rock bands:
That is another weird thing about these early "Stars" of the LA music scene. There is another coincidence to consider here. Most of them couldn't play instruments. These early music stars didn't necessarily even know that much about music. The first Laurel Canyon and American "Break- Through" rock act were The Byrds. In his first autobiography David Crosby basically said the only one who knew how to play an instrument was Roger McGuinn. When the Byrd's became a band, most of them, didn't even own instruments and Michael Clarke had never even tried the drums in his life. But they made it, and made it big. Here is who you are really listening to when you play records from many of the early Laurel Canyon rock bands:
"The Wrecking Crew" (sometimes called "the Clique" and "the First Call Gang") was a loose-knit circle of top Los Angeles studio session musicians whose services were constantly in demand during their heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s. In varying configurations, often anonymously, they backed dozens of popular acts on numerous top-selling hits of the era. They are considered one of the most successful session recording units in music history. The group's ranks began to materialize in the late 1950s, but in the early 1960s they fully coalesced into what became their most recognizable form when they became the de facto house band for Phil Spector, sometimes credited as the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra, playing on many of the hits that he produced at the time, and contributing to the development of his Wall of Sound production methods. After the initial success of Spector's records, they became the most requested session musicians in Los Angeles, playing behind many popular recording artists such as Jan & Dean, Sonny and Cher, Barry McGuire, the Mamas & the Papas, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Sinatra. They were sometimes even used as "ghost players" on recordings credited to rock groups, such as the first two albums by the Monkees and the Byrds' cover version of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" (1965). The unit supplied the backing tracks on many of the Brian Wilson-produced Beach Boys' recordings of the 1960s, including the album Pet Sounds (1966).
Anyway, back to
Mcgowan and the Actors:
"Returning then to the counter-cultural films of the
1960s, the most critically acclaimed of the lot, and the one with the deepest
roots in Laurel Canyon, was Easy Rider. Directed (sort of) by Dennis Hopper,
from a script co-written by he and Peter Fonda, the film starred Fonda and
Hopper along with Jack Nicholson (the only one in the movie who did anything
resembling actual acting). Hopper’s walrus-mustachioed character in the film
was based on David Crosby, who was regularly seen racing his motorcycle up and
down the winding streets of Laurel Canyon (that motorcycle, by the way, had
been a gift from Crosby’s good buddy, Peter Fonda). Fonda’s absurd ‘Captain
America’ character was inspired either by John Phillips’ riding partner, Gram
Parsons, or by Crosby’s former bandmate in The Byrds, Roger McGuinn (depending
upon who is telling the story.) That very same Roger McGuinn scored the
original music for the film. His contributions were joined on the soundtrack by
offerings from fellow Canyonite musicians The Byrds, Steppenwolf, Fraternity of
Man and Jimi Hendrix. And the movie’s hippie commune was reportedly created and
filmed in the canyons, near Mulholland Drive".
So then, let us take a
look at the "Young Turks" in a little more detail:
Bruce Dern- "Bruce Dern's Godparents were: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and future two-time
Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson (he lost both times, in 1952
and 1956, to Eisenhower). Bruce’s paternal grandfather was a guy by the name of
George Dern, who served as Secretary of War under President Franklin Roosevelt
(for the youngsters in the crowd, ‘Secretary of War’ is what we used to call
the ‘Secretary of Defense’ in a slightly less Orwellian era). George had also
served as Governor of Utah and Chairman of the National Governors’ Association.
Bruce’s mother was born Jean MacLeish, and she happened to be the sister of
Archibald MacLeish, who also served under Franklin Roosevelt, as the Director
of the War Department’s Office of Facts and Figures and as the Assistant
Director of the Office of War Information. In other words, Archibald MacLeish
was essentially America’s Minister of War Propaganda. He also served at various
times as an Assistant Secretary of State and as the Librarian of Congress. By
far the most impressive item on his résumé, however, was his membership in
everyone’s favorite secret society, Skull and Bones (class of 1915, one year
before Prescott Bush was tapped in 1916)"
Peter Fonda (Jane)- They are the children of Henry, or course. Henry served as a Naval intelligence Officer in
WWII. and McGowan points out that:
"Not too many years after the war, Hank’s wife,
Francis Ford Seymour, was found with her throat slashed open with a straight
razor. Peter was just ten years old at the time of his mother’s, uhmm, suicide
on April 14, 1950. When Seymour had met and married Hank, she was the widow of
George Brokaw, who had, curiously enough, previously been married to prominent
CIA asset Claire Booth Luce."
Dennis Hopper-
About him McGowan states: "Most official biographies of Hopper would lead one to
believe that he was the son of a simple farmer. Dennis recently acknowledged,
however, that that was clearly not the case: “My mother’s father was a wheat
farmer and I was raised on their farm. But my father was not a farmer.” To the
contrary, Hopper’s dad was “a working person in intelligence” who during WWII
“was in the OSS. He was in China, Burma, India.” Hopper has proudly proclaimed
that his father “was one of the 100 guys that liberated General Wainright out
of prison in Korea,” which might be a little more impressive were it not for
the fact that it was actually the Red Army that freed Wainright and other
prisoners; the US intel team just came to pick them up, debrief them and
transport them home … but that, I suppose, isn’t really relevant"
Warren Beatty- "Warren Beatty, whose father, Ira Owens
Beaty, was ostensibly a professor of psychology. Young Warren, however, spent
all of his early years living in various spooky suburbs of Washington, DC. He
was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1937, after which his father moved the family
to Norfolk, Virginia, which I think I may have mentioned is home to the world’s
largest Naval facility (the reason for that, by the way, is that Norfolk is the
gateway to the nation’s capital). The family later relocated to Arlington,
Virginia, home of the Pentagon, where Warren attended high school and where he
was known on the football field, as John Phillips (who attended a rival school)
remembers it, as ‘Mad Dog’ Beaty.
Ira Beaty’s relatively frequent relocations, and the
fact that those relocations always seemed to land the family in DC suburbs that
are of considerable significance to the military/intelligence community, would
tend to indicate that Warren’s dad was something other than what he appeared to
be – though that is, of course, a speculative assessment. But if Ira Beatty was
on the payroll of some government entity, working within the psychology
departments of various DC-area universities, then it wouldn’t require a huge
leap of faith to further speculate about what type of work he was doing, given
the wholesale co-opting of the field of psychology by the MK-ULTRA program and
affiliated projects."
McGowan seems to have
been reaching at that point in my estimation, but he does bring up something
every interesting about Jack
Nicholson, and then he sums it up from there:
"It is said that Nicholson was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, but there is no record of such a birth at the hospital or in the city’s archives. As it turns out, Jack Nicholson has no birth certificate. Until 1954, by which time he was nearly an adult, he did not officially exist. Even today, the closest thing he has to a birth certificate is a ‘Certificate of a Delayed Report of Birth’ that was filed on May 24, 1954. The document lists John and Ethel Nicholson as the parents and identifies the location of the birth as the Nicholson’s home address in Neptune, New Jersey. It appears then that there is no way to determine who Jack Nicholson really is. He has told journalists that he has no interest in identifying who his father was, nor, it would appear, in verifying his mother’s identity.
What we do know is that the nucleus of the 1960s clique known as the Young Turks (and Turkettes) was composed of the following individuals: the nephew of a Bonesman; the son of an OSS officer; the son of a Naval intelligence officer; the daughter of that same Naval intelligence officer; the daughter of an Army intelligence officer; the daughter of a guy who openly associated with prominent gangsters throughout his life; the son of a probable spychologist; and a guy whose early years are so shrouded in mystery that he may or may not actually exist..."
The one "Daughter of an Army Intelligence officer" he mentions, in his above summary, who I did not give a definition for was another young actress who occasionally ran with this crowd you will have heard of:
Sharon Tate.
I would encourage all of you to go read all of this entire series yourself if this sort of thing is interesting to you. It does raise some interesting questions. Why would all these people from military backgrounds be drawn to this area at the same time and wind up in the entertainment business?
Well, maybe because it
was an intersection of the budding Hollywood music/entertainment industry and
the Military Industrial Complex? McGowan seems to keep hinting that the
military has something to do with this. And it is also teased
that this secret lab was somehow involved with the migration to the Laurel Canyon area. He sort of teases that the Government somehow "created"
the counter culture themselves to serve its own purposes.
Then, it seems, he attempts to show how they caused the same movements demise. But why? That never seems to get answered. McGowan just floats questions, and theories:
Well, I am not sure quite what to make of that. As for the secret Lab back in Laurel Canyon. What was going on there? Here is some information I looked up elsewhere about the secret "Lookout Mountain Lab":
"Why did Jim Morrison never denounce, or even mention,
his father’s key role in escalating one of America’s bloodiest illegal
wars?"
"Why did Frank Zappa never pen a song exploring
the horrors of chemical warfare"
"CoIntelPro. Entire books, for example, have
been written examining how presumably virtuous musical artists were subjected
to FBI harassment and/or whacked by the CIA."
“What if the musicians themselves (and various other
leaders and founders of the ‘movement’) were every bit as much a part of the
intelligence community as the people who were supposedly harassing them?”
"Cynical
exercise in discrediting and marginalizing the budding anti-war movement and
creating a fake opposition that could be easily controlled and led astray?
"The harassment these folks were subjected to
was largely a stage-managed show designed to give the leaders of the
counterculture some much-needed ‘street cred’? What if, in reality, they were
pretty much all playing on the same team?
“Some on the left even theorized that the hippies
were the end result of a plot by the CIA to neutralize the anti-war movement
with LSD, turning potential protestors into self-absorbed naval-gazers.” An
exasperated Abbie Hoffman once described the scene as he remembered it thusly:
“There were all these activists, you know, Berkeley radicals, White Panthers …
all trying to stop the war and change things for the better. Then we got
flooded with all these ‘flower children’ who were into drugs and sex. Where the
hell did the hippies come from?!”
"Jerry Brown was a long time resident of a little
place called Laurel Canyon"
What does Jerry Brown Have to do with any of this I wondered? So I poked around a bit and found this:
That operation was directed primarily through the
MK-Ultra experiment in the use of hallucinogenic drugs in mind-control and
brainwashing. The final phase of that operation was the creation of mass
countercultural movement of LSD cults of rock music and ritualistic death.
described in recent FOIA documents as the "testing of MK-Ultra materials
on unwitting subjects in normal life settings." By the late1960s, spread by the infamous
"Merry Pranksters" operations
of Ken Kesey and others, it had
destroyed thousands and thousands of America's youth. With the establishment of Jerry Brown as the governor of California. MK-Ultra became the
government of California. Brown's leading advisers are the leaders of the
Kennedy-linked support operations for the development of the counterculture,
and his government and personal friends include top operatives of MK-Ultra and
associated networks.
One such would be STEWART BRAND: an original Merry Prankster, recruited by Bateson, publisher and editor of The Whole Earth Catalogue and its successor CoEvolution Quarterly. Brand is an official "special consultant" to Brown. Who Brand recently described in print as "in effect a contributing editor for CoEvolution Quarterly, at no pay."
Another would be Ken Kesey. Kesey was the leader of the Merry Pranksters and orchestrator of the so-called "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests." Kesey, a former jailbird, was invited by Brown in October 1977 to address the Governor's staff on the subject of police practices.
Yet another is Gregory Batesman: controller of the initiating MK-Ultra experiments at the Palo Alto. California Veterans Administration Hospital from 1950-1962. Bateson is a Cambridge University-trained "Anthropologist," friend of Huxley's from the 1920s, for 15 years was husband of the late Margaret Mead, and a regional Ethnology specialist in the Office of Strategic Services from 1944 to 1947. Bateson was the personal psychiatrist of Alan Watts, Buddhist guru and founder, with Huxley, of the Esalen Institute. In the 1950s, Bateson became spiritual leader and drug supplier for a group of young artists gathered through Stanford University. the Palo Alto VA Hospital, and California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. This group became the original Merry Pranksters. Bateson addressed Jerry Brown's State Prayer Breakfast in 1976 on the subject of peyote. He is currently a Brown appointee to the California State Board of Regents and a Scholar in Residence at the Esalen Institute.
Jerry Brown was picked up as a perfect combination - a 1960s counterculture neo-cultist with a big name and a thoroughly amoral, moldable public profile. Brown's cultism is indicated in his early Jesuit training, in 1956-60, and represents a key to his psychological makeup. The training he underwent in a Jesuit seminary in California was overtly expressive of the (sadistic) military discipline and mind control around which the elitist Jesuit intelligence apparatus is built.
Brown is a totally synthetic politician, a
combination of the brainwashing apparatus of MK-Ultra with the heavily
entrenched Hollywood-based Kennedy machine in California which together put him
into power. Brown's entire career (even given his position as the son of a
popular former governor) is inexplicable except as a totally controlled media
project of these two apparats. By the time of San Francisco's 1968 "Summer
of Love." the number of "freaks" in California had reached major
proportions. Haight-Asbury was run by the so-called "Diggers," which
included key figures previously involved in the founding of the Los Angeles
Free Press. one of the earliest models for the underground press, which would
later be instrumental in the success of Jerry Brown's first electoral
campaign. Haight leaders held their power on the basis of their known
connections to MK-Ultra drug sources. Their control of San Francisco's LSD
culture was institutionalized in the creation of the Haight-Asbury Free Clinic. Which was founded by an MK-Ultra connected psychiatrist, Ernest Dernberg, and
Roger Smith, a street-gang organizer and parole officer of later mass murderer
Charles Manson.
What does Jerry Brown Have to do with any of this I wondered? So I poked around a bit and found this:
(Excerpts Taken From EIR Volume 5, number 47 December
5,1978)
One such would be STEWART BRAND: an original Merry Prankster, recruited by Bateson, publisher and editor of The Whole Earth Catalogue and its successor CoEvolution Quarterly. Brand is an official "special consultant" to Brown. Who Brand recently described in print as "in effect a contributing editor for CoEvolution Quarterly, at no pay."
"Charlie Manson, of course, was using our tools
and techniques from the Merry Prankster days." These are not the ramblings
of some spaced-out zombie in the backwoods of California. They are the comments
of Stewart Brand, a top adviser to California Governor Jerry Brown.
Another would be Ken Kesey. Kesey was the leader of the Merry Pranksters and orchestrator of the so-called "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests." Kesey, a former jailbird, was invited by Brown in October 1977 to address the Governor's staff on the subject of police practices.
Yet another is Gregory Batesman: controller of the initiating MK-Ultra experiments at the Palo Alto. California Veterans Administration Hospital from 1950-1962. Bateson is a Cambridge University-trained "Anthropologist," friend of Huxley's from the 1920s, for 15 years was husband of the late Margaret Mead, and a regional Ethnology specialist in the Office of Strategic Services from 1944 to 1947. Bateson was the personal psychiatrist of Alan Watts, Buddhist guru and founder, with Huxley, of the Esalen Institute. In the 1950s, Bateson became spiritual leader and drug supplier for a group of young artists gathered through Stanford University. the Palo Alto VA Hospital, and California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. This group became the original Merry Pranksters. Bateson addressed Jerry Brown's State Prayer Breakfast in 1976 on the subject of peyote. He is currently a Brown appointee to the California State Board of Regents and a Scholar in Residence at the Esalen Institute.
Then there is Sim Van Der Ryn: key provocateur of Berkeley's
"People's Park" riots; technical adviser to Brand's CO; protégé of
Buckminster Fuller. Founder of the Farralones Institute. a West Coast think
tank specializing in solar energy research. Van der Ryn met Brown at the San
Francisco Zen Center; he was appointed the California State Architect and head
of the Brown-created State Department of Appropriate Technologies.
Jerry Brown was picked up as a perfect combination - a 1960s counterculture neo-cultist with a big name and a thoroughly amoral, moldable public profile. Brown's cultism is indicated in his early Jesuit training, in 1956-60, and represents a key to his psychological makeup. The training he underwent in a Jesuit seminary in California was overtly expressive of the (sadistic) military discipline and mind control around which the elitist Jesuit intelligence apparatus is built.
Well, I am not sure quite what to make of that. As for the secret Lab back in Laurel Canyon. What was going on there? Here is some information I looked up elsewhere about the secret "Lookout Mountain Lab":
"Lookout Mountain Laboratory was originally envisioned as an air defense center. Built in 1941 and nestled in two-and-a-half secluded acres off what is now Wonderland Park Avenue, the installation was hidden from view and surrounded by an electrified fence. By 1947, the facility featured a fully operational movie studio. In fact, it is claimed that it was perhaps the world’s only completely self-contained movie studio. With 100,000 square feet of floor space, the covert studio included sound stages, screening rooms, film processing labs, editing facilities, an animation department, and seventeen climate-controlled film vaults. It also had underground parking, a helicopter pad and a bomb shelter"
"Located in the hills of Hollywood, California, this
secret film studio produced as many films as those of the Hollywood majors, yet
most of those films were of a highly classified nature and unseen by all but a
few. The mission of Lookout Mountain, also known as the 1352d Motion Picture
Squadron under the command of the Air Force, was "to provide in-service
production of Classified motion picture and still photographs for the
Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Dept. of Energy)
between 1947 and 1969 when the studio was deactivated."
"The facility retained as many as 250 producers,
directors, technicians, editors, animators, etc., both civilian and military,
all with top security clearances – and all reporting to work in a secluded
corner of Laurel Canyon. the secret bunker had been up and running for more
than twenty years before Laurel Canyon’s rebellious teen years, and it remained
operational for the most turbulent of those years The existence of the facility
remained unknown to the general public until the early 90's. Svali, an Illuminati
Defector, stated that the Cult had a location in California which made all of
the training films for "Trauma-based mind control". No other place
has been identified besides this one. These training films were undoubtedly
also a part of the MK-Ultra program."
So the Government was doing secret mind control experiments, in part, using acid. And, McGowan is sort of implying that this would be tied to both the Lookout Lab and potentially Charlie. But, this whole series is built on one conspiracy after another. I would need to see more to believe what we have, so far, is more than a bunch of coincidences. But, I am willing to take a look. So, is there anything out there anywhere else which talks about Charlie being tied to anything like this?
Well I have read elsewhere, but never took too seriously, stuff like:
"It appears that part of Manson's own supply of LSD
may have come directly from the CIA. A new type of LSD known as "Orange
Sunshine" was being used by the Manson Family immediately prior to the
Tate-LaBianca murders according to Family member Charles "Tex"
Watson, who wrote in his memoir that it was the use of Orange Sunshine LSD that
finally convinced him that Manson's violent, apocalyptic vision was real.
Orange Sunshine LSD was manufactured and distributed exclusively by a group known
as "The Brotherhood of Eternal Love" who operated out of a beach
resort near Los Angeles. The Brotherhood had among it's drug manufacturers and
dealers, one Ronald Stark, who is believed to have manufactured 50 million
doses of LSD, and had known connections to the CIA." "It was this very same batch of acid that was
available in abundance four months later during the fateful free concert held
at Altamont Speedway. Four people died at that concert, one of them after being
brutally stabbed to death by a group of Hell's Angels who had been given access
to multiple tabs of Orange Sunshine. Many people who attended that concert
noted that the LSD seemed to be "contaminated" and that the general
vibe one got from using it was that of extreme negativity, violence, and death.
Additionally, Orange Sunshine was in use among American ground forces during
the Vietnam War. It was smuggled into that country from the California coast..."
"In the book, Helter Skelter, Manson prosecutor
Vincent Bugliosi discussed Manson's programming techniques in depth, likening
much of Manson's programming abilities to those used by the U.S. military.
Manson was in prison during the time that the CIA was known to be using inmates
at Vacaville prison in the MKULTRA experiments, a fact that leaves one to
speculate that perhaps Manson was some sort of mind-controlled guru created by
the CIA and set loose against the "subversive" left-wing elements in
order to discredit them."
Then I re-listened to
an old Mae Brussell (whom I also never took seriously) live interview. Mae claims:
"California was where the flower children
were." "California was an important state to affect National Policy
and part of the Military Industrial Complex".
" The Murder of Sharon Tate the others in the
home was a Political Massacre."
"The fact that the same lawyers, planners, the
same teams originated this particular massacre and what affect it would have on
our society." "It was planned well in advance"
" All of these people involved were "Agent
Provocateurs".
"Charles Manson is a Patsy, Identical to Lee
Harvey Oswald." ( She names a couple more) "Identical to James Ray. Charles Manson was used by News Media to
slam down on the Hippy's."
" Very interesting in my research.The very first
man to publish an article on the Sharon Tate murders in my collection, before
they had a suspect, the murder was in August and they found the suspects in
December, was a man named Ed Butler. In October 69 he wrote an article. the man
who publishes the newspaper he works for is Patrick Frawley of Schick Razor,
Technicolor who is one of the third largest supporters of Richard Nixon. Far
right wing person, and he hires Ed Butler to write articles for him. Ed Butler
is an Agent Provocateur who worked with Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans. When
Oswald had the cover story that he was a communist, he wanted to get into Cuba
if he could, he said Ed Butler made a record for him where Oswald said he was a
member of The Fair Play for Cuba. Ed Butler worked with Lee Harvey Oswald. So,
its interesting that in 1969 the first person who has an opinion on who
murdered these 7 people was Ed Butler. Now what is this article called?
"Did Hate Kill Tate" And he goes into the fact that the Black
Panthers did this murder, because they were tied into communism...
Now this is what we call Agent Provocateur clandestine government where
somebody is the first one in and he is tied in to with all these other
people"
"A Prominent attorney by the name of
George Shibley(SP?) who works with groups in the Middle East, and Beverly
Hills, has powerful connections, Met with Charles Manson just before he got out
of jail, Terminal Island. And no one will know what conversations transpired
between Mr. Shibley, or why he was up there. Or why Charles Manson, its
unknown. This illegitimate child from a 16 year old girl, no family or kin.
Nobody would know how Charlie Manson would get such a famous Beverly Hills
attorney to visit him before he made parole. No one will ever know the
conversation that transpired between those two men, but what we do know is that
when Charlie Manson got out of Terminal Island in 1967, at the height of the
Haight-Ashbury Scene he had a bus, a large bus. And he did not buy it, he did
not have a job. And he had credit cards for gasoline. Now in the trial some
story was made up that one of the girls stole a credit card from their parents
to buy Charlie Gasoline. I am sure the parents would have had him arrested
before too long, you cant go two years with a stolen credit card. Charlie was
never arrested. Where was this money coming from from the day he left
that jail to the day of the Sharon Tate Murders?"
Ya know- Mae Brussell is sort of the text book definition of a raving lunatic, but she has one fair point. Charlie never did seem to get
arrested. I didn't re-type the entire hour long interview, but she brings up several times how little Charlie, or any of them, ever got arrested. Mae also makes a big deal about money, and repeatedly questioned how Charlie financed all of them for two years. Brussell felt like they couldn't have stolen it all. Especially the guns and field radio type of equipment. Brussell called it "Warfare" possessions. But, I can account for most of that stuff based on several explanations of how they got by from multiple actual family members who recount where the money and drugs came from. However, Charlie staying out of jail for so long while on parole/probation, and continually getting arrested is something that I always ask myself about. It makes no sense. It reminds me about some of the things
Preston Guillory said:
“We had been advised to put anything relating to Manson on a memo submitted to the station, because they were supposedly gathering information for the raid we were going to make. Deputies at the station of course started asking, "Why aren't we going to make the raid sooner?" I mean, Manson's a parole violator, machine-guns have been heard, we know there's narcotics and we know there's booze. He's living at the Spahn Ranch with a bunch of minor girls in complete violation of his parole.”
“We had been advised to put anything relating to Manson on a memo submitted to the station, because they were supposedly gathering information for the raid we were going to make. Deputies at the station of course started asking, "Why aren't we going to make the raid sooner?" I mean, Manson's a parole violator, machine-guns have been heard, we know there's narcotics and we know there's booze. He's living at the Spahn Ranch with a bunch of minor girls in complete violation of his parole.”
“The raid was a week after the Sharon Tate thing, and
the intelligence information was coming in for about three weeks prior to the
raid. They just didn't want any arrests made. It was obvious they wanted the
intelligence information we were gathering for some other reason. Three days
after they were arrested, 72 hours later, they were all released for lack of
evidence, right after this mammoth raid. This raid involved two helicopters,
102 deputies and about 25 radio cars, and all the charges were dropped against
everyone”
“It appeared to me that the raid was more or less
staged as an afterthought. It was like a scenario that we were going through.
There was some kind of a grand plan that we were participating in, but I never
had the feeling the raid was necessary or that it required so many personnel.
Now, if you were a police official and you were planning a raid on the Spahn
Ranch, utilizing 102 deputies and helicopters and all that, one would think
that with all the information coming out a month prior to the raid, wouldn't
you have them under fairly close surveillance? If you did have them under
fairly close surveillance, wouldn't you see them leave the Spahn Ranch to go
over and kill seven people and then come back?”
“You have to remember that Charlie was on federal
parole all this time from '67 to '69. Do you realize all the shit he was
getting away with while he was on parole? Now here's the kicker. Before the
Tate killings, he had been arrested at Malibu twice for statutory rape. Never
got imprisoned for parole violation. Somebody was watching every move he made,
somebody was controlling from behind the scenes. Somebody saw that no parole
hold was placed.”
These types of things always bothered me too. It is so very strange. But, Back to Mae
Brussell for a minute- just to make sure that maniac is not on to something as far as expensive lawyers. She had another example of that....
"We dont know much because its never brought out
these trials about the background of Charles Watson, except he did appear with
a beard and become part of the Charles Manson family. But when Charles Manson
was arrested, a law firm sent two lawyers went to Texas to see this particular
boy Charles Watson. And Judge Brown, Judge David Brown, said to these lawyers
from Beverly Hills California- you take the next plane back to California. That
I will put you in jail for 72 hours or fine you if you dont get back to
California. And the lawyers said well wait a minute - that's our client, we
want to see him. The lawyer who wanted to see Charles Watson was named Mr.
Deloach. He called a press conference at a Dallas Hotel. And Deloach said this
at the press conference- I came to see my client. That Charles Watson had been
in his office in Los Angeles California 30 or 40 times prior to the killing of Sharon
Tate, and the other 6 people in Los Angeles. Deloach said his own background
was that he was a Republican candidate for State Assembly in 1964 and he was
Chairman of the Young Republicans. He belonged to a law firm on Santa Monica
Blvd. in Los Angeles. At the jail to keep Mr. Deloach from seeing Charles
Watson were 20 Texas highway patrolman, sheriffs deputies guarding him and they
fought his extradition for 8 months.
I have seen no records publicly that Mr. Watson had a traffic violation or any kind of problem that this 20 year old boy needed an attorney from the Republican National Committee 40 times. I know what the expenses are to meet with any attorney even for one hour. People use attorneys or public defenders if they have small altercations. But to go to a prominent law office of a man named Mr. Deloach 30 to 40 times prior to the time you are going to kill 7 people is worth investigating."
I have seen no records publicly that Mr. Watson had a traffic violation or any kind of problem that this 20 year old boy needed an attorney from the Republican National Committee 40 times. I know what the expenses are to meet with any attorney even for one hour. People use attorneys or public defenders if they have small altercations. But to go to a prominent law office of a man named Mr. Deloach 30 to 40 times prior to the time you are going to kill 7 people is worth investigating."
Actually, Mae Brussell is
probably not on to anything at all. lol If you read "Will You Die for Me", then you know that Tex does have an answer for this:
"As 1968 began, my life started quietly
disintegrating, so quietly I wasn't even aware of it at the time. It began with
a car accident one rainy morning on the way to work with Rich, who'd been
working at the shop with me for a month or so. Laurel Canyon is tricky,
especially when wet, and the friend who was driving us skidded into a head-on
collision that messed up my knee badly enough to put me in the Hospital for an
operation. Although the whole thing didn't seem all that important at the time,
the accident and the lawsuit that followed had a number of consequences later,
keeping me out of the army, involving me with two lawyers (who would later come
to Texas and fight for the right to represent me in order to obtain the
publicity such a trial could bring them), and creating an insurance claim that
would later be the excuse for a bizarre odyssey back to Death Valley and
Charlie after I had run away from him.
So, then I just stop.
It starts to make my head spin. None of it can be real. This is all just crazy talk
combined with a bunch of coincidences. I mean all these internet articles/stories, and Mae Brussell Radio interviews, are not hard facts. I would need to deeply research all of these claims to verify them before we could believe any of them. There is no real proof that, for example, MKUtlra experiments were going on at Vacaville in the mid 60's while Charlie was in a California prison...
Right?
MEMORANDUM
TO: Members of the Advisory Committee on
Human Radiation Experiments
FROM: Advisory Committee Staff
DATE: February 8, 1995
RE: CIA Documents Describing Human Radiation
Experiments The CIA has located
three additional documents that describe on their face CIA support for human experiments involving radiation as part of project MKULTRA.1 [The CIA apparently failed to notice these
documents when it previously searched the MKULTRA files. See Interim Report, at E-1.2 for a description of MKULTRA.]
The CIA has informed staff orally that the radiation research described in one of the
documents (Attachment 3) was the cover story for the underlying
psychological research that the CIA was really interested in, and that it did not fund the radiation work.
The attached documents
are redacted copies that were publicly released by the CIA in the 1970s. The Committee has requested that the CIA declassify the documents in full as soon as possible.
Document 3 is a letter dated March 30, 1965, from Dr.
James A. Hamilton concerning research under MKULTRA Subproject 140 (at that
time renamed MKSEARCH # 3). The letter
is requesting a grant to continue research on the "Measurement of Thyroid Function in the
Puerperium." 2 [The "puerperium" is defined as the state of a
woman while bearing a child or the period immediately thereafter- the post-partum period.] The
letter notes that the funding will also support "a new series of experiments on 100
prisoner-subjects, in which radio-active iodine uptake of the thyroid and T-4 uptake of red-cells, and several other measures which we have developed, are being related to previously studied
variables."
The CIA has told staff
that the radiation research described in this letter concerns the cover activity relating to independent work of Dr. Hamilton, and that the CIA was interested only in non-radiation
research activities involving the testing and effects of drugs. Dr. Hamilton has informed staff that the CIA provided him funds to set up and operate a laboratory, whereby he could do his own research but also do research for the CIA at their request.
Dr. Hamilton stated that he therefore set up a lab in the Vacaville California Prison Medical Facility and did radioisotope studies to measure thyroid
uptake in male prisoners as part of his own research in understanding the effects of the thyroid on post-partum depression. The stated that the prisoners were paid and were informed about what he was doing. [Dr. Hamilton said he would send the Committee a bibliography of his
publications on this research.] He
stated further that the CIA never utilized the lab before his relationship with CIA was made public and the lab was shut down. He states that he
did, however, provide information to the CIA on the effects of LSD and other drugs based on his clinical experience as a psychiatrist.
Dr. Hamilton also stated that he did experiments concerning covert markers using flourescents, but not radiation, on himself and his assistants.
OK, Yes- some strange things were going on. But, do I believe that Charlie Manson was...
Nope to all of the above. But, I believe he was close to, or gained more than the usual information about, most of them at some point. I believe that made Charlie a guy who know a little bit, about an awful lot, that mattered to the children of the counter-culture in the late 60's. And, I also believe that listening to someone speak who had some exposure to, and understanding of, all of this, must have sounded pretty impressive to a bunch of young stoned, tripping kids who were hanging out by the fire in the woods at night.
One of the most fascinating elements of the, latter years, parole hearing transcripts is listening to a mid-50's Leslie Van Houten telling the board about searching for the Hole in the desert they were going to go through. You can hear the frustration and humiliation, over being so stupid, in her explanations. That is why until I have more proof of something else, I can't rule out a "crazy" motive like Helter Skelter. Some in The Family bought what Charlie was selling. All of it. Besides, is the idea of a Helter Skelter motive any more "crazy" than the idea that Charlie was a CIA mind-controlled asset who was pre-programmed by the Government to help them kill the Hippy Movement? Some seem to be buying into that.
Sometimes things can look really weird in hindsight, but we can't always assume that everything is connected. Take the case of Mrs. Mia Farrow.
In 1968 Mia Farrow had just completed the movie Rosemary's Baby Directed By Roman Polanski. This movie used the Dakota Building in NYC to film most of its exterior shots. Mia then went on a retreat to see the Maharishi Yogi with her Sister Prudence and a couple of celebrities. Also on this trip was John Lennon who wrote about 18 of the songs for the White Album on the retreat, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys. At about this time, half way around the world, Mike's cousin- Dennis Wilson- was housing Charlie and the Family....
Which says to me that:
Mia Farrow was hanging out with one guy while he was writing a record which would inspire the house guests, of the cousin of another guy she was also with, to murder 5 people in the home of the Director of the movie she had just made- which was filmed in a location where the the guy writing the record that inspired the first 5 murders- would eventually be murdered himself.
Strange Days Indeed...
- Your Favorite Saint
OK, Yes- some strange things were going on. But, do I believe that Charlie Manson was...
- A product of MKUtlra?
- A member of The Process Church of Final Judgement?
- A Scientologist?
- A member of the Mafia?
- A member of the Church of Satan?
- A Significant player to the inner circle of the Laurel Canyon music scene?
- An Agent Provocateur or Asset of the CIA?
Nope to all of the above. But, I believe he was close to, or gained more than the usual information about, most of them at some point. I believe that made Charlie a guy who know a little bit, about an awful lot, that mattered to the children of the counter-culture in the late 60's. And, I also believe that listening to someone speak who had some exposure to, and understanding of, all of this, must have sounded pretty impressive to a bunch of young stoned, tripping kids who were hanging out by the fire in the woods at night.
One of the most fascinating elements of the, latter years, parole hearing transcripts is listening to a mid-50's Leslie Van Houten telling the board about searching for the Hole in the desert they were going to go through. You can hear the frustration and humiliation, over being so stupid, in her explanations. That is why until I have more proof of something else, I can't rule out a "crazy" motive like Helter Skelter. Some in The Family bought what Charlie was selling. All of it. Besides, is the idea of a Helter Skelter motive any more "crazy" than the idea that Charlie was a CIA mind-controlled asset who was pre-programmed by the Government to help them kill the Hippy Movement? Some seem to be buying into that.
Sometimes things can look really weird in hindsight, but we can't always assume that everything is connected. Take the case of Mrs. Mia Farrow.
In 1968 Mia Farrow had just completed the movie Rosemary's Baby Directed By Roman Polanski. This movie used the Dakota Building in NYC to film most of its exterior shots. Mia then went on a retreat to see the Maharishi Yogi with her Sister Prudence and a couple of celebrities. Also on this trip was John Lennon who wrote about 18 of the songs for the White Album on the retreat, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys. At about this time, half way around the world, Mike's cousin- Dennis Wilson- was housing Charlie and the Family....
Which says to me that:
Mia Farrow was hanging out with one guy while he was writing a record which would inspire the house guests, of the cousin of another guy she was also with, to murder 5 people in the home of the Director of the movie she had just made- which was filmed in a location where the the guy writing the record that inspired the first 5 murders- would eventually be murdered himself.
Strange Days Indeed...
74 comments:
Jim Morrison was allowed to become rock star so his dad could fight a war in asia while making the anti-war kids look like drug addled self-centered egocentrics?!
Who knew?
St C said somebody said:
-------------
"In the first week of August 1964 US Admiral George Stephen Morrison had alleged that US warships under his command had come under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin."
---------------------------
George Morrison was not an admiral yet in 1964, that promotion came after the Gulf of Tonkin.
You know Jack Black's parents were rocket scientists too, and nobody seems to have a conspiracy theory for that.
I've had this book for a few years if I didn't I would now nice job St.
Mike Nesmith's mom invented Liquid Paper...or did she?
He said not everything was accurate !it's a fascinating book
St C said:
-------------------------
" Mia then went on a retreat to see the Maharishi Yogi with her Sister Prudence"
_________________
Mia's sisters name is Tisa, Dear Prudence is the White Albulm song Lennon wrote about her while they were there in India.
Part of Murphys Ranch was scheduled for demolition on February 23 this year. The area is now closed with no trespassing signs. When I was there at the beginning of March police were posted at the main gate warning the public of trespassing. The Sullivan hiking ridge remains open.
McGowan was Mae Brusell/Maury Terry rolled into one really bad writer. The way his book is written reminds me of this guy in the town I grew up in as a kid. He had some mental disordered that caused him to just walk up to random stangers and start running down facts about different topics, like baseball. He never listened to a work anyone said, never conversated. Just spoke rapidly fast giving people facts.
Thanks saint outstanding!! Did dave mcgowan die recently ?...and i read somewhere that Jared Leto bought the Lookout.!
I read Eric Clapton's autobiography. My favorite part was his story of the first time he says he took LSD, at a party that was (according to him) the first time all four Beatles dropped acid at the same time. The punch line is he says the Monkees provided the LSD that they had brought with them to London.
Possibly the finest, most satisfying closing paragraph I've read on this site, St. Fascinating post
I love the domestic conversations implied by this idea:
"Dad, I want to follow your footsteps and join the military."
"No son, I'm afraid I'm going to need you to form a rock band."
"But dad, sir, I don't even own an instrument!"
"I've bought you a guitar son, here."
"I don't know how to play it, I can't read music, I'm tone deaf."
"Son, listen to me: that's not going to matter. It's all been.... arranged..."
"So I don't get to be a colonel in the navy...? That's all I ever wanted!"
"Sorry son. We need you to learn a few chords, play your guitar, earn millions of dollars, and take lots of drugs. Oh, and sleep with as many young girls as you can."
"But, but.... Oh..... OK sir. If you insist..."
"Oh, and here are your tight snakeskin pants, go try them on."
Lotta work there St. Maybe the Commander In America (CIA) will give YOU a call for a job.
Maybe EVERY possible connection to the "established power" in America is just coincidental.
I WISH !
Or the simpler explanation could be that like many hippies, the musicians of Laurel Canyon were merely the children of privilege. It wasn't really a conspiracy, but just business as usual in 20th century America.
I enjoyed the Laurel Canyon book, but I enjoy it in the same way that I enjoy Maury Terry's fanciful fever dreams.
Years ago, I had a free morning in NYC after an international vacation. I was stuck waiting a day for my cheap flight back to west coast. My friend put me up in his parents' West Side co-op for the night. I had no tourist intentions as I had done the tourist deal in Manhattan years before. So next morning I decided to walk over to Central Park by myself and chill before my flight.
About 10 minutes into the walk I get the strangest sense of Deja Vu I've ever felt. It startled me, because I knew I had never been to that particular part of Manhattan before.
Then I crossed the street over to the park and happened upon the Strawberry Fields memorial - I had just strolled past the Dakota driveway.
WoW great post St!
Is it possible for a creative mind to find enough commonalities and coincidences to make a case for conspiracy almost anywhere? Is that the case with the goings on in Laurel Canyon? While I'm trying to figure that out, my little mind will be occupied and I probably won't be causing unrest in the streets. Just exactly what "they" wanted me to do all along.
Well, Well; I think I got the answer, if there is really a question.
Paul Watkins said Charlie wanted to program the young love, through HIS music.
Thus, this sounds like the CIA was trying to get the so-called Laural Canyon musicians to program ALL the young'ins through THEIR music. AND to a certain extent, it looks like it worked.
BUT maybe THEY needed C.M to finish the job. OR maybe C.M. said: I better show these draft dodgers how to play ball.
It sucks to drive in L.A. - just as much back then as it does now. Living in Laurel Canyon was cool AND close to where you wanted to drive to for that rock star nightlife. These stars didn't converge there by any mystical force, it was convenient. If you wanted seclusion you drove the extra half hour to Topanga. It was way cheaper than Beverly Hills and even closer to Hollywood Strip.
Fiddy I once wrote a post called Canyons where I focused on Topanga. The Topanga Allstars. The Corral. Neil Young And David Briggs. I didn't know much about Topanga before I read a Neil Young bio that made me aware it was the "Haight" of Southern California according to some for a time.
Also a very interesting place to be at that time
ORWHUT & ST: Great POST, especially where the issue of Commonalities = Conspiracy reveals that ONLY "humans" have the ability to CREATE a conspiracy out of several commonalities. Animals do NOT have that talent. A detective and a lawyer MUST create conspiracy theories, otherwise THEY are ONLY suited to chasing ambulances.
That was exactly what made Bugliosi such a GREAT attorney. He knew HOW to spin a "conspiracy" web out of several "commonalities" and that is exactly what makes the Helter Skelter murder case so fascinating. As the Helter Skelter story unfolds the common man actually witnesses a physical "transformation" right before HIS eyes - NOT unlike where a super hero removes his cape and wala "super human" Only here we have the unveiling of the "anti-hero."
Long live the "Creators" for without THEM we would NOT even know we existed.
Thanks Sir.
Thanks All :)
Saint, you left out the most important lyric of all :
"The girl with colitis goes by"
The Beatles - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
3/5ths of Buffalo Springfield were Canadian. Manson family member Cathy Gillies (Cappy) was a Buffalo Springfield groupie.
Canadian member of Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young, lived in Topanga. Neil Young has long been one of the only famous people to publicly praise Manson's music.
David Crosby's onetime girlfriend, the Canadian songstress Joni Mitchell, was also a resident of Topanga.
Warren Beatty ("You flew your lear jet off to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun"), who put up part of the $25,000 reward for the Tate Murders, spent his summers in Nova Scotia as a child (his mother was from there).
Canadian Denny Doherty of the Mamas and the Papas - the group that John Phillips, whose wife Roman Polanski had an affair with and who Roman suspected of the Tate murders and who also put up part of the $25,000 reward with Beatty - also spent his summers in Nova Scotia as a child, because he lived there.
Nancy Pitman's father was Canadian, served in the Canadian military and later moved to the US and in the late 1950's was appointed to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which led to the creation of NASA by President Eisenhower.
Danny DeCarlo was Canadian, as was Yvonne De Carlo of "The Munsters", the show that Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) - who claimed to have hired Manson as a babysitter - also starred on.
Ruth Ann Moorehouse aka Ouisch - who once said to Danny DeCarlo "I can't wait to kill my first pig!", and also gave Barbara Hoyt a hamburger laced with ten doses of LSD - was Canadian.
Two of the original suspects of the Tate murders and Voytek Frykowski's alleged MDA suppliers, Tom Harrigan and William Doyle were Canadian.
What does all of this mean?
"Absolutely nothing."
War - Edwin Starr
Lol. But you had my attention Ziggy lol
Was it just a coincidence that Ruth Ann Moorehouse said "I can't wait to kill my first pig!" before she gave Barbara Hoyt a hamburger laced with ten doses of LSD?
Or does her statement make the crime premeditated?
In fairness Ziggy she said, "I can't wait to kill my first piggie."
Not "I can't wait to feed my first piggie."
LOL. I love you, Matt.
NOW, where else can YOU learn about ALL the great American "Yes it is, BUT no it isn't" rules that govern our man made God machine ?
It is ONLY a series of "coincidences" BUT if the coincidences make for a good story, IT may be considered a "legal" conspiracy.
This year is the FIRST year I've EVER been interested in Politics, so NOW I find out that Donald Trump may get the most primary delegate "votes," BUT that can result in a "convention" where ALL the "delegates" go and get drunk, laid and stupid, in order to substitute Mitt Romney as the Republican Presidential candidate.
Maybe the great mastermind of deception had it right: "NO sense, makes sense."
God...what a thought! Romney...makes Trump look sane ...from all the way over here the US looks foobared.....
YES Penny, Donald Trump is already predicting RIOTS in the streets IF the Republican Party dismisses HIS winning in the Primaries.
Of course, in a round about way, Charles Manson predicted this kind of revolution long ago.
The $$ power $$$ of the U.S. Presidency in certain ways makes for the "money people" to do ANYTHING to protect THEIR $$$ interests in foreign countries.
A specific "interest" is the sucking of GOLD out of Latin American soil. BUT Trump's "WALL" could and probably would raise a barrier to such an enterprise.
I'm sure a price for Trump's head is already in the negotiation phase. I mean we're talking
Ga-billions here and without $$$ America would become merely an extension of South America.
My God Matt you could have told me the Blog was dead we might have saved it!
You don't even need to listen to Trump to realise he's a fuckwit, just look at his hair! What a prize retard, I'm genuinely scared in case he gets in and starts world war 3.
Oh sure. What a fuckwit. "Look at his hair"... how original. Think of all the dollars poured into the pockets of political consultants and focus-groups and advisors and fixers by the GOP, but then along comes this "fuckwit" who plays completely by his own rules, skips debates, doesn't have to *buy* media airtime because he knows how to manipulate the media into starving his "serious" rivals of airtime, and one by one the fuckwit takes his rivals out of the game. He may be a lot of things, but he's destroyed Jeb and Marco, and once he gets his teeth into her lying rape-facilitating ass, who's to say he won't destroy Hillary too? I'm not a fan, believe me, Trump worries me, but to dismiss him as a fuckwit and a "retard" (classy insult, really classy) at this stage seems exceptionally stupid, as well as being cliché beyond belief.
Agreed MHN. He gives the impression that he's always winging it but that's far from the case. He calculates every word. Every move. Every expression. I think he's mapped this whole thing out over the last four years. He's not only brilliant, he has the balls to gain the nomination in ways no one else has ever had the balls to try.
Like you, I'm no fan. I'm frightened.
His recent veiled threat of street riots to me brings reminders of the Beer Hall Putsch.
Erich Ludendorff was Adolph Hitler's co-leader of the Putsch.
By the time Hitler came to power, Ludendorff was no longer sympathetic to him. He said of Hitler:
"I solemnly prophesy that this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery. Future generations will damn you in your grave for what you have done."
I'm with you there, Matt. Worrying language indeed. It's always advisable to take threats at face value. Too many people assumed that Hitler's threats and even his racism were simply political poses designed to win him mass appeal. Sometimes the clever, subtle people think they spot subtlety and nuance where there really is none. The only difference here would be that it would be the GOP committing an anti-democratic putsch if they sidelined Trump at some brokered convention. If they did that I can quite see Trump's riots prediction coming true, sadly, stoked at least in part by his having put the idea "out there" to begin with. Ugly days we're living through. Interesting times. Hope you're doing very well, Matt.
On the other hand.... (last word before I slink back into lurkersville)...
A quote from a long time ago, the words of a friend who lived in a beautiful house in the woods of Northern California: "Michael, believe me this is very serious. I'm absolutely sure; if George W Bush becomes President then I know, firstly people like me will be imprisoned just for our political beliefs, and there will likely never be another democratic Presidential election in our country, Bush would find a reason to suspend democracy here". As far as I know she still lives at liberty, working as a doctor, running a local theater, and voting Democrat in every election. There are always dark words and ominous apocalyptic warnings about EVERY Republican candidate. It's always the end of abortion, the end of democracy, the banning of condoms and gay sex, and the construction of concentration camps. And lo and behold, it never really happens.
But then.... Donald Trump isn't a Republican or even a politician, so all bets are off this time...
Not so much stupid,more sarcastic.It's an English trademark.
At least TRUMP has awakened the "Blue Collar" man to the fraud that has been long put upon HIM.
OUR political system and the money powers behind it are finally being exposed. WE get to vote for Ying OR Yang, and that is ALL.
I was fortunate enough to realize that between LBJ (a liberal) and Nixon (a Republican) there was NO significant difference - they both LOVED war and money.
It is ONLY a matter of time before America drifts totally into the Communist realm existence - and I only want to film the complete "takeover," but certainly NOT live under it.
Of course, the UN-aware will claim that I am merely a "conspiracy" theorist and that is THEIR explanation for why they cannot understand how to PLAY chess. (Chess is a game where YOU must conspire to capture the KING. BUT the common man has been programed from birth to question: Why would I want to capture the KING - he loves me and will protect and provide for ME ?
This is WHY we LOVE the story of MANSON. He "defied" the love of our beloved KING and was severely "punished" for it. That's proof that LOVING our KING is a "good" thing.
Long live the KING !
Oh fuck, where are my marbles and the keys to the car.
Boywonder, as a fellow Brit I'm not unfamiliar with sarcasm. "Trump is a pragmatic centrist who supports the status quo and appeals to voters of all classes and colours, and never opens his mouth but to speak words of healing and conciliation"- THAT would be sarcasm. " Trump is a fuckwit and a retard with dumb hair" is just the absolutely typical Britview of Trump, a view mostly informed by the mainstream media here who for some reason want to highlight only one side of the story. Robert has very eloquently described another side of the story. One thing that fascinates me here is how disturbed Fox News and the National Review are by Trump. Is that because he is smashing up the political status quo and channelling the disenfranchisement most conservatives feel under the elitist rats leading the GOP, or are they just worried the guy is not a genuine conservative, OR do they fear he guarantees a Hillary in the White House? The overall impression I have is that a crazy fox has been let loose inside a very exclusive henhouse. Part of me is loving it. It's like watching a drunk man driving a bulldozer through a countryclub.
Apologies for my lack of eloquence, it was a Roy Walker situation "say what you see".
One thing that fascinates me here is how disturbed Fox News and the National Review are by Trump. Is that because he is smashing up the political status quo and channelling the disenfranchisement most conservatives feel under the elitist rats leading the GOP
Faux News is run by GOP insiders. They turned away and giggled while he stirred the birther pot, not realizing just how popular he was becoming with their knucklehead viewers. They aided and abetted the creation of this monster.
Then, beginning when they sent Megyn Kelly after him they started to see that the SOB was hijacking their ship.
or are they just worried the guy is not a genuine conservative
That's their public gripe. He isn't a conservative (and he isn't). But there's much more at stake that they obviously can't say publicly.
OR do they fear he guarantees a Hillary in the White House?
In my opinion the nomination of anyone other than Kasich guarantees a Clinton presidency.
The overall impression I have is that a crazy fox has been let loose inside a very exclusive henhouse. Part of me is loving it.
I'm loving the shit out of it. However there's always that small chance he pulls off a miracle and wins. Then what?
Then what? President Trump would be inevitably targeted for assassination by *ahem* a lone nut...
Maybe someone should try the tactic Hunter Thompson described in the great shark hunt? "you can't call him a pig fucker" "no but you can start a rumour and make him deny it" pure genius.
This is Americuh, people. The Goldman Sachs bought and paid for candidate always wins. The peace-loving Hillary "We Came. We saw. He died." Clinton will be your next Fuhrer.
Hills the milf it is then, plus we all know she inhales maaan.
"Hills the milf" is definitely sarcasm. I can vouch for The boy wonder on this one.
"Okay, as long as we've got a voucher"
Fiddy 8 said...
I read Eric Clapton's autobiography. My favorite part was his story of the first time he says he took LSD, at a party that was (according to him) the first time all four Beatles dropped acid at the same time. The punch line is he says the Monkees provided the LSD that they had brought with them to London
Clapton doesn't actually say it was the first time the Beatles dropped acid at the same time and he doesn't say the Monkees provided the LSD. He says he and his woman were at the Speakeasy Club when the Beats brought an acetate of Sergeant Pepper for friends to hear. He doesn't connect the Monkees with the acid, he just says that not long after they arrived someone {he never says or even implies who} brought out some little white pills that turned out to be STP and he says he ended up tripping for three days.
Oh.
Thanks for the correction Grim.
But, I'm sure Mia's sister is named Tisa, and not Prudence, Lennon just made the name up.
And, I'm equally sure George Morrison was promoted to admiral well after Gulf of Tonkin - seems the promotion was just before Jim became the icon of drug addled egomaniac anti-war activists.
And, in Densmore's book he said he was confused at the time with Jim's nonchalance about the possibility of being drafted - Densmore never knew about the admiral until later...hmmm.
Of course everybody knows Jim was more booze soaked than drug addled - It's just that it's fun to *say drug addled rock star*.
For those who can't decide between Hilary and Trump, just ask yourself, who do I trust to pack my parachute ?
BTW: Let me repeat myself. Trump is being demonized, NOT unlike Charlie was / is, and thus I find the subject commonalities possibly making for a conspiracy. I also find it bizarre that TRUMP is never talked about as a "builder." Because "building is exactly what this planet and its inhabitants is all about. Again, we may begin to witness the unveiling of the corrupt few who actually rule this once great nation. This should also be important for our "across the pond" neighbors, because the same folks also have a hand in YOUR pie also.
Wasn't Charlie Manson really just a "babysitter" with a far-out imagination ?
Robert Hendrickson said...
Wasn't Charlie Manson really just a "babysitter" with a far-out imagination ?
Were they still around, you'd have to ask Gary Hinman, Lotsapoppa Crowe and Shorty Shea about that one !
RH - On your advice I looked in my pie. I think I found one of your famous marbles. Can I keep it or should I mail it to you?
My friend's 4 y.o. son was recently hospitalized. Turned out he swallowed a marble. It was eventually recovered. Michael I hope that wasn't the one in your pie.
MICHAEL: I very unique man once said: If you LOOK, SEE and FIND a precious marble, it is then yours to keep, IF you enjoy sharing it.
MATT: How sad, cause NOW the "government" must BAN marbles.
GRIM: In America, we BLAME the "babysitter" if our child swallows a "marble." YOU folks will reach that step of the ladder some day. BUT would Gary, Crow and Shorty "all" NOT have a different "response" to being KILLED. AND which one would blame the EVIL "mastermind" for using THEIR life in an attempt to ignite Helter Skelter.
You SEE: the quick and the dead do SPEAK from the grave, but in a different language.
Robert's marble was the highlight of the pie.
But in case it ends up hospitalizing me...
Is there an antidote?
MICHAEL: If you have to ask, NO there isn't.
BUT on this side of the POND we are NOW preparing for the "revolution" and as Brenda says: "We are getting our guns together and IF people don't, they should."
The opposing forces just blocked the highway so TRUMP supporters could NOT get to HIS rally in Arizona.
So they got out of their cars and started walking the remaining 3 miles. Just like at Woodstock and Altamon. Make sure you are admitted to a hospital that has CNN News or you might miss the "revolution."
AND that's a REAL bummer.
Robert, this isn't the real revolution.... This is just a bunch of reality happening. It only becomes a revolution after the event, if a Hendrickson or a Bugliosi writes it that way. Every revolution is an exercise in mythologising random chaotic facts.
Maybe in 45 years well be remembering the race war the assassinated madman Trump was attempting to ignite. Wannabe popstar, wannabe President... Same shit different hairstyle.
MICHAEL: Well said, but are YOU actually saying an author / filmmaker CAN manipulate the TRUTH to suit his own agenda ? What about a politician, preacher, prosecutor, school teacher or even a wild and crazy guy ? Don't they get a say in the matter ?
Personally, I think TRUMP is awakening the "revolutionary" spirit in a once visionary culture and that could be a GOOD thing, or NOT.
Of course, the ONLY significant "revolution" left to be created in this overly distracted WORLD is the "perpetual motion motor." Just think - no need for gasoline to run your car or fuel to create electricity. AND no need for batteries to power-up the old dildo. Maybe women would be satisfied to stay out of politics and men would let go of their egos.
Hello again, long time! My take on some of this:
If you look at Manchester in 1989 you will see the same people coming up over and over. Thats because music needs people of energy who are willing to take risks and not have day jobs They can be on the dole or they can have family backing. Most people havent got the energy and persistence and discipline to be rock stars. Got a friend in Manchester with looks, talent to burn, charisma..simply couldnt get the energy and discipline together to turn up on time and put in the work. So its not surprising that a small group gathers together,and forms close friendships.
Plus, music just tends to do that: explode in one place. Liverpool in the 60s, for example. when Madchester was at its height in 1989, there were new bands every damn day and all you had to do was be from Manchester and be young to be cool. (This was me)
And it is also not surprising they came from military families. First, the military is huge. Add defence contractors, etc, and practically everyone was working for it. Look at those California suburbs where everyone works for one big company . Second, thee 60s kids were rejecting their parents. It makes sense military kids would go the whole hog: 180 degrees from their parents straight square life
And that means they would have stuff in common and would naturally clan together.
Mia (Maria de Lourdes) has three sisters: Prudence, Tisa (Theresa), and Stephanie.
"A Prominent attorney by the name of George Shibley(SP?) who works with groups in the Middle East, and Beverly Hills, has powerful connections, Met with Charles Manson just before he got out of jail, Terminal Island."
Does anybody know where Mae Brussels got that quote?
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