Monday, March 23, 2026

The Charles Manson Story Hollywood Didn’t Want You to Know

 

17 comments:

Milly James said...

Thanks for posting, of course. I had to skip through it though as the over excitability of the comperes really grated on me. Too much marching powder in the green room? So inappropriate...

Medium Patty said...

Agreed. I don't watch all of these but its important that they are all in one place. This seems to be the last active blog, the abandoned ones are full of broken links

Matt said...

This seems to be the last active blog

It seems so. I'll keep it alive as long as I can. We could use some fresh blood if anyone is interested in creating good content.

Torque said...

I have plenty of active research going on currently, with an emerging post in the pipeline based upon recently discovered documents. Let us always work to maintain this important blog for new research and discussion of the massive story that interests us all. Also happy to share I recently visited Spahn Ranch, where I ran into Stoner. Visited Cielo Drive, too, and was able to check out the former Asin house on Cielo, which is under renovation. Visited several other TLB sites in LA through the kind assistance of Scott from Dearly Departed Tours. I highly recommend Scott's tours to anyone who wishes to check out the sites.

Dan S said...

You guys heard the fork one before, huh... I thought it was pretty funny. . We can spend some time reminiscing, ; Matt saying he'd tap this or that was always hilarious

Jay said...

I have done some movie and book reviews here in the past. I might need to start contributing again

TabOrFresca said...


Torque,

If you haven't seen it, Nancy, over at "True Crime and Moonshine" did an episode inspired by your "Witold K letters" article.

The link to video,

"Manson Murders: Were the Tate Victims on Mescaline or MDA?":

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3f5_cnh4hYY


The link to substack written article,

"Were the Tate Victims Really on Mescaline?":

https://nancyrowina.substack.com/p/were-the-tate-victims-really-on-mescaline?r=qdfuv


Torque said...

TorF, yes I have seen that. Nancy has mentioned several posts from the blog on her show.

Milly James said...

This is a genuine question. Drugs have got far too complicated for me. What is MDA or Molly or Ketamine? In my day, it was a bit of puff, a whiff of billy or getting heavy on a line of coke which a friend's flatmate had sourced from a long distance lorry driver from Basingstoke.

brownrice said...

MDA (very loosely speaking) was an early version of MDMA .

MDMA (or Molly as it's called in the US) is better known in the UK as Ecstasy (or XTC)... the drug which got a lot of publicity in Britain in the 90s when the kids started using it at dance parties or "raves".

Both MDA & MDMA are phenethylamines. So is mescaline. The phenethylamines are part of the amphetamine family but vey different to other forms of speed. While they'll still keep you awake (and dancing) all night, they have a much warmer and more "friendly" vibe than the traditional forms of speed and very little of the "jangly", potentially violent & psychotic propensities that are common with extreme amphetamine use. Mescaline however has a much more psychedelic (and some would say life-changing) effect. It's far more hallucinogenic, visual and awe-inspiring (like LSD or mushrooms), whilst still having lots of the feel good, friendly qualities associated with MDMA... a nice combination in my honest opinion. :-). Unlike traditional speed, none of the phenethylamines or the psychedelics are physically addictive... though some folk unravel pretty quickly on 'em.

Ketamine is a whole other ball of wax... a dissociative anaesthetic with all sorts of nasty side-effects and long term potential problems (once again, in my opinion).

Hope that helps. :-)

Loegria15 said...

One memory I can clearly recall is when I was 10 years old and saw the book-club edition of "Helter Skelter" at a friend's house, not reading it but looking at the pictures and not getting it/getting it on an unconscious level. When I got to be a teenager, I of course got a paperback copy and read it over and over...and wondered if creepy-crawling happened in residential east side Detroit in the late 1970s/early 1980s. I'm glad this site is here because there is no one I know IRL that is as interested in Manson & Co. as I am.

Milly James said...

Brownrice - Many thanks for your very helpful reply. I had no idea Molly was the same thing as Ecstasy. The club scene of the E days rather passed me by. Perhaps too long in the tooth but I wasn't really into the music more than anything. I'd go to the Utah desert and listen to Hank 3 rather than rave it up in Ibiza. Should I understand it that neither MDA and MDMA are the 'billy whizz' of the 1980s. Spotless kitchen overnight stuff? I always thought mescaline came from a cactus so that's another revelation. A friend of mine was once spiked with Ketamine. She said it was the most frightening experience of her life. I wonder why people take it for fun. It sounds simply hideous. Sincere thanks again.

Milly James said...

Loegria - I know the feeling. I was somewhat relieved, not to say enchanted, when it turned out someone in our local poetry group was eager to borrow some of my books. I've started her off with Dianne Lake's autobiography. She already had some knowledge of the case, but had no idea of the range of material available. Our respective partners think we're both ghastly.

Milly James said...

I thought he'd packed up. Good to know that's not the case. Thanks for your research.

Doug said...

Just spent a few hours with Scott. Down in the dez from my Vancouver home base

Cheers

brownrice said...

Milly James said:
"I always thought mescaline came from a cactus so that's another revelation."
You're absolutely right, Millie... but it can also be synthesized.
As for electronic music, some of it I quite like but I was never much of a one for clubs. My kids used to drag me off to outdoor dance parties (or "forest doofs " as they're called in oztralia) 20 or 30 years ago which were often quite nice. They were more acid than E-based though and you could always wander off into the forest if the music got too much. Way too old for that sorta thing now though
:-)

Loegria15 said...

Milly James - isn't it nice to be loved even when one might be just a touch "ghastly"? My late dad bought me books like, "The Wills of the Rich and Famous" and "The Encyclopedia of the Dead" (I think that's it). The latter was a list of movie and entertainment personalities, sorted by date of death, cause of death, and one more way that I can't remember. The former has actual reproductions of some of the wills. Mom would say with a smile that I was "ghoulish".