January 28th, 2010 | Author: andrewcolvin
Next we have a selection from Chapter 23 of The Mothman’s Photographer III, where we look at the enigmatic Charles Manson, who grew up next to the Carbide plant in Mothman’s old stomping ground of Mound, WV. The Manson family has been in the news in recent months, as former Manson girlfriends Sara Jane Moore and Squeaky Fromme – who both tried to shoot Pres. Ford and thus bring an unelected Nelson Rockefeller into the White House – were released early from prison.
“He was great. He was unreal – really, really good. He had this kind of music that nobody else was doing. I thought he really had something great. He was like a living poet.”
-musician Neil Young, speaking about Charles Manson
“War, fascism, concentration camps, rubber truncheons [and] atomic bombs are what we daily think about, and therefore – to a great extent – what we write about (even though we do not name them openly). We cannot help this. When you are on a sinking ship, your thoughts will be about sinking ships.”
-George Orwell (1903-1950)
“The Constitution has never greatly bothered any wartime president.”
-Francis Biddle, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Attorney General during WWII, on Roosevelt’s 1942 decision to place Japanese-Americans into internment camps.
———
Charles Manson is probably America’s most famous criminal, convicted of directing members of his “family” to commit the gruesome Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, which effectively ended the peace movement by making it seem as if “hippies” were wildly dangerous. As time passed, researchers learned that Manson was actually not a hippie at all, but a fascist and possible police informant with dreams of a one-world government. The random “Helter Skelter” murders began to look more and more like the contract hits that Manson always implied they were, with drugs and sex looming in the background… Manson lived for at least a couple of years on my street in Mound, WV. Even in the more exhaustive Manson bios, this is usually alluded to only indirectly, embedded in the tale of his mother stabbing a patron in the head at Mound’s Blue Moon Tavern. When his mother was on the run, Manson’s guardian was a matriarch in the Fisher family. The Fishers are friends of my extended family in the Sissonville area. While attempts have seemingly been made in the media to overlook or perhaps sanitize the Charleston connection to Manson, the connection is real. Van, the owner of “Van’s Never Closed Market” in Mound, once stated on TV in the early 1980s that he remembered Charlie and Sara Jane Moore coming into his store together, arm in arm. The mile or so of land between Van’s and the Blue Moon Tavern straddles Blaine Island’s Union Carbide plant… The other place Manson was known to have lived in WV is the town of McMechen, along the Ohio River, upstream from Pt. Pleasant. It happens to be very close to an infamous Hare Krishna Temple and to Moundsville, a town with a haunted prison built over leveled mounds. McMechen is also close to Wheeling, where ET “believer” Budd Hopkins was raised. Wheeling’s Sterling Corp. bought and helped reconstitute the Bayer Corp. after its links to I.G. Farben and the holocaust were exposed. Wheeling was a bustling industrial town in the war years, known for its freewheeling nightlife. It could have been in Wheeling, or nearby Pittsburgh, that Manson’s purportedly promiscuous mother might have run into Judge Francis Biddle, federal prosecutor for W. Pennsylvania. In this suppressed interview with the BBC, Manson alludes to being raised by the “judge at Nuremberg.” This had to have been one of two men: Robert Jackson, whom Manson does not resemble, or Francis Biddle, whom Manson greatly resembles. Manson makes a number of interesting comments here that paint a puzzling picture of man who seems, on the one hand, to be an idealistic ecologist who cares about the planet yet, on the other hand, admits to being intimately involved in organized crime, secret societies, and – as should be obvious to anyone who looks at his forehead – Nazism and the New World Order.
Manson, Charles – “Freemansonry” Interview – 1994
 |
| Photo of Manson prior to attending Boys' Town. Manson's biography is
hazy, confusing, and incomplete, but he would have been living in WV and
hanging out with Sara Jane Moore around this time. Attempts were made
to construct a public profile for Manson, even early in his youth... The
tight-lipped Moore was known to go missing for days at a time, possibly
with Manson. As an adult, she more or less abandoned her three kids and
went missing for ten years starting in the mid-1950s. She later emerged
after marrying an Oscar-winning film editor from Hollywood. The
secretive Lookout Mountain editing studio was at the top of Laurel
Canyon, one of Manson's favorite neighborhoods. One wonders if Manson
and Moore reconnected there during the tumult of the late 1960s. |
Q: Somebody once said you’re the most dangerous man alive. Do you think you are?
CM: It makes no difference… All men are dangerous, although mainly to themselves. I’ve studied criminology. I’ve studied all the “ologies” from Sean Connery to the Hindus. Through time [I’ve gotten smarter. I have become more] literary. And, I speak a little Gaelic on the side…
Photo of Manson prior to attending Boys' Town. Manson's biography is hazy, confusing, and incomplete, but he would be living in WV and hanging out with Sara Jane Moore around this time. Attempts were made to construct a public profile for Manson, even early in his youth... Moore was known to go missing for days at a time, possibly with Manson.
Photo of Manson prior to attending Boys' Town. Manson's biography is hazy, confusing, and incomplete, but he would have been living in WV and hanging out with Sara Jane Moore around this time. Attempts were made to construct a public profile for Manson, even early in his youth... The tight-lipped Moore was known to go missing for days at a time, possibly with Manson. As an adult, she more or less abandoned her three kids and went missing for ten years starting in the mid-1950s. She later emerged after marrying an Oscar-winning film editor from Hollywood. The secretive Lookout Mountain editing studio was at the top of Laurel Canyon, one of Manson's favorite neighborhoods. One wonders if Manson and Moore reconnected there during the tumult of the late 1960s.
Q: You’re certainly one of the most famous people in the world.
CM: Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news…
Q: A lot of people don’t know you and your mission. Let’s talk about that a little bit.
CM: [It started] years before I got to California. I tried to tell that to the court in California, but I haven’t been able to find anybody in California yet. There doesn’t seem to be “anybody home.”
Q: Because you started in San Francisco playing the guitar?
CM: No, it started in Morehead, Kentucky in 1945…
Q: Did you ever learn to write music?
CM: No, I’ve never slowed down [enough] for that. I move awfully fast. My mind is [like] a rattlesnake.
Q: [You knew] some pretty famous musicians. Do you remember Dennis Wilson?
CM: He had trouble with the truth, because he was raised in Hollywood. Hollywood is a seedy place. Hollywood is a hard place. It’s not [what] you think it is. It’s about control. [It’s the] mind control center of the world.
Q: How did you meet him?
CM: At Elvis Presley’s house…
Q: You did some recording with him?
CM: Yes. They opened up their own house. I wasn’t into what they were doing. I rejected it because I’d just gotten out of one prison and wasn’t looking for another one. The lifestyle that they lived was pretty much controlled by [their] business manager from NYC with the red Ferrari. Did they tell you about the red Ferrari? The electricity [of political power] runs off of a brotherhood that runs off of a cross. It runs off of a piece of clover, that runs off of “666,” that runs up and down the hallways in juvenile hall in Boystown, Nebraska. The heart of man [pumps from] the Brotherhood [of] the Cross. The Brotherhood, on some levels, is very violent and very nasty and very mean. It’s a struggle for points of reality. Some people say that the Maharishi from India is the living God. I say, “No, our Father which art in heaven is the only God.” Then, there’s an argument. And the fire is thrown on me, and I burn up with that. And then… Union Carbide blows up, and a whole bunch of them burn up. [But] who’s burning who up? Where is the center of the mutiny? France, wearing the pants with Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton?
Here Manson seems to be referencing a global ideological battle between West and East, Christianity and Islam. The references to the “Ferrari,” piece of “clover,” “666,” and “Brotherhood of the Cross” seem to indicate Irish-Italian political and religious involvement, perhaps using occult front groups seeming to be “satanic…” Manson’s reference to fire being “thrown onto him” seems somehow reminiscent of both the Garuda mythology and the Philadelphia Experiment. According to Karl H., an informant in my last book, Manson liked to draw fearsome bird imagery. In addition to claiming links to the Philadelphia mob, Manson also refers to Union Carbide, France (perhaps a reference to the Masonic orders), the civil rights movement and mass mind control. Is this an oblique linking of the Jesuits to the CIA’s Operation CHAOS? It was known at the time of Manson’s interview that Pope John Paul II had worked for Solvay Chemical, which had corporate links to I.G. Farben and Carbide. Solvay now has a facility 5 minutes away from where Manson’s “uncle,” Darwin Scott, lived. Scott was brutally murdered about a year before the Tate killings.
Q: That was all [back] in those days.
CM: It’s still [happening] today. They’re all [having sex] to Michael Jackson. They’re controlling the music in the abortion clinics. Music controls little girls, you know.
Q: Did you like that the Beach Boys changed the name of your song “Cease to Exist”
CM: Not at all. You see in prison, you write songs and send them to people outside, to brothers at recording companies. When the brother’s recording company gets them, they don’t exactly use [it the way it was meant]. I wrote a song: “I know I know I know I know I know I know I know; I know I know I know I know I know I know I know…” It’s a meditation song. I send a tape to someone. They send the tape to the brother’s recording company, and then you hear the song, “Ain’t No Sunshine (When She’s Gone).”
This may be true, because the singer of “Ain’t No Sunshine (When She’s Gone)” was Bill Withers, a native of WV who may have met Manson at one time or another.
Q: So they change [the songs]?
CM: Yes… They take the catchphrases and the feeling that you put into the music. Then that becomes a part of what they call “soul.” All the sound and the soul that comes off of prison [is altered by the time] it gets to your ears. You hear the bottom part of what’s really happening on the top… All [the woman] is doing is giving up sex. She’s going to back up to her fear. A man doesn’t back up to his fear. He goes straight into his fear. We’ve got to have a one world government. We’ve got to have it, man.
Q: You were talking about the music…
CM: The whole world [makes music]. You do it automatically. For instance, you’ve got a music called “Rock and Roll.” Where does it come from? What does it mean? Do you have a level on this [microphone] that you can’t go any louder than?
Q: Don’t worry about [the volume]. You’re fine…
CM: Okay [but] how loud can I go with this? [screams loudly!] Now that’s where Rock and Roll comes from… Music comes from the Crown. Music comes from your King. Music comes from your lord. Music comes from your soul. Hollywood plays music to little girls. I don’t play “little girl” music. I play music for God. I play music for myself. Then, I come up with a song, and they [go and] change the words. I say, “Don’t change the words!” If you change the words, my shadows are running fast, man. I’m running out of monk school. I’m running out of Boystown – Father Flanagan’s in Nebraska. I’m running out of an Irish Catholic Church. I’m running from the IRA. I’m running from everyone that wants to live on the planet Earth, man. I’m running from nowhere and doing nothing. I’m all the same, on and on, as if Shakespeare was a clown.
Q: [So] Shakespeare changed it?
CM: He changed it for his little girls – for money. He compromised himself for money. You don’t compromise yourself for money. If you got a poker game you can’t win, you take your pistol and take the money. You play, and [if] you see that you can’t win, you just take it. You pull your Claymore out and do what any black pirate does: you take everything on the board and go in another direction. This [technique] is very intricate… The Black Hand that comes from the Catholic Church [and] the Romans have been using [it] for years. The Black Hand is supposedly the Hand of God from the cross that’s really upside down and comes from the Negroes and slaves that Abraham Lincoln played with.
Was this a reference to the Moorish/Egyptian underpinnings of Catholicism, or to an amoral, “pirate” intelligence unit within the Catholic Church, such as the Jesuits?
Q: Do you remember any of the famous people you [hung out with]?
CM: Yes, it was alright. I used to play around at Frank Costello’s and Abbot and Costello’s. I knew those people. I got around. That was my neighborhood. Jimi Hendrix lived 3 doors from Dennis, and Elvis lived 2 blocks [away. Still] that is like looking in somebody else’s icebox. See, here’s the thing: I’m not impressed very easily by much. I more impressed by my counselors and associate wardens, to see if I can get a guitar [here in prison]. Everything here is upside down. Everything you do goes off someone else. Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney were not real criminals. The real criminals died somewhere in San Quentin and Folsom, and the actors took them off – what we call a “take off…” Prison is a big machine. A prison is run by black inmates. It’s run by the fear of black inmates. Fear has a lot to do with music. Music has big controls that come out of Boston… They use the black people to control the music. They’ve got a lock on it from James Brown, and from the chain gang. They got a lock on it from the prison. Playing music [onstage] is not the same as “getting down” with music. Getting down with music is going into the mountains, throwing up a fire, getting the drums, and getting down. It’s getting “funky.” The Buffalo Springfield comes off the Kentucky rifle. The Kentucky rifle comes off the Queen of England [because] she comes over to Kentucky to get her horses. It is a horse’s head on the front of that Ferrari – that 200 horsepower car that the business manager drives. He’s got the hitmen on the telephone over there at the brother’s recording company. In other words, they’re in a poker game losing the house… We got into spiritual music, Indian sweatlodges, peace pipes, peyote, and mushrooms. I got the mushrooms from a mighty warrior in the underworld. I live in the underworld. There’s a lot of clarity to the underworld that would be fantasy to you. [It] really is real on other levels. You go out into the desert. You get into the mushrooms and the peyote of the Sundance. The Sundance is another place music comes from. There’s a reality in the Sundance that brings up all the music in you. It brings out all of the cross in you – all the suffering in you. It brings out all the majesty in one’s soul.
Q: What about things like Scientology?
CM: I was in prison when Dianetics first started in 1950. A lot of the guys were interested in studying ways to process the mind [in order] to clear it from past confusion – to resurrect the soul and be reborn within yourself. That’s where Scientology started. Then, they started selling it. Then it got to be The Process Church of the Final Judgment [in England]. I couldn’t go myself, but I sent some people there to do certain things – to [create] an effect. To cause an awakening – an awareness in death… See this mark on my forehead? Do you know how the occult [operates]? You get involved in all kinds of darkness running under [the surface]. It would take too long to explain it all [but, either] God or the Devil opens up – whichever one you’re going to use. [You might begin] believing [certain] things, but then the wind blows in another direction and you [end up] saying, “Woah, that hurts too much. I change my mind.” [If you’re] in the [dungeon] and you’re laying up on the rack, you’re going to do whatever they tell you to do. It’s simple.
Q: I guess we don’t know the answer to that but [are you a Satanist]?
CM: Satan? What is that? They’ve got guys play-acting that for the public. What is a Satanist? No [I’m not a Satanist.] I’m too stupid for any of that… You don’t lay with the snake, because the snake is going to eat you sooner or later.
Q: [What about] the Beatles’ song “Helter Skelter?”
CM: [They] didn’t know what [they] were doing. “Helter Skelter” was their song. It didn’t have any particular meaning to me. The District Attorney picked up on that and made it into his trip. You’ve got to [understand] a convict’s mind… In 1944, the music was [a certain way, and] people were on that level. Say you got locked up; you were in a vacuum. If you got back out in 1950, they were singing a little faster. Then you got locked back up again. [Your contact with trends] stopped again. You got out in ’59 and people were really [rocking, but] you got locked back up and [the fun] stopped until you got back out in ’67. You went over to see the Grateful Dead, and it was [far out]. That [very process] is what I call confusion, or “helter skelter.”
Q: What does “helter skelter” mean?
CM: It just means “confusion.” The Beatles came up with it [but] they were playing for teenyboppers. I’m not a teenybopper. I liked their music; their music was okay. But my music is still on the bagpipes, you know. I haven’t lost the perspective for that…
Q: So you weren’t getting messages about “helter skelter” [from the music]?
CM [pleadingly]: Oh come on, man! Music gives everyone messages. That’s what music does. Why do I have to be some kind of maniac because I could hear something that the music says? When the music said, “Somewhere over the rainbow,” I was over the rainbow. When Kate Smith came out with There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the Righteous, I was still in Dover. I don’t think anything went wrong… If I could get to somewhere where I could write or have a tape recorder, I could explain a lot of this. It’s very difficult to explain ten or fifteen years in two or three minutes. Words only say so much. The reality of motion in prison – life and death on what they call the “mainline” – comes from handball and weightlifting, from somebody dropping weight on somebody else’s head, of somebody owing something, of a blood-family debt, of the way it burns back and forward. If Watson has something he can’t face, I go face his death for him. Then, he owes me back. Then the Frenchman takes his foils and goes off into battle for me, and I owe him one. So then I come back to Watson and I say, “You pay the Frenchman what you owe me.” He says, “How do I pay it?” I say, “Don’t ask me how. I’m not your father. Do what you’re told. Pay your debt or get off my road.” So, he pays what he has to pay, and does what he has to do. I didn’t direct him to do anything. I told him to be a man and stand up for himself. I didn’t tell him what he should do, or how he should do whatever he had to do. I [simply] said that he has to do what he has to do. Wilson knows that. The street knows that. The penitentiary knows that. And, the Brotherhood knows that…
Q: Didn’t you direct [people] to kill?
CM: I never directed traffic about anything, man. I haven’t got time for that. I’m not going to get involved. I’m not that insane. I may be crazy, but I’m not going to take a chance of putting myself back in jail. For what? You deal me the hand, I’ve got to play it. You gave me the cards [that say] I’m a “mass murderer” – a “hippie cult leader.” I’m [supposed to be] all the things that the D.A. was laying out, so that he can bring in the mafia from New York [like] Rambo in the movies. In other words, he’s got a lot more going on than Helter Skelter. Helter Skelter is just one little [scam] he’s playing. He comes back to me from Geneva and wants to be my sunshine if I’ll agree with him on his “helter skelter” theory. I didn’t have any “helter skelter” in my mind. Let me tell you something: the oven has “SS” written on it. I came out of the bake in 1954. I’m Duke on the yard. There was nobody on the yard who could beat me. They had one or two German kids that were raised in the Hitler youth movement of WWII that were very good, but they couldn’t beat me. I ruled the cigarettes. [At some point] someone had to be killed. Somebody told somebody some lies and somebody had to kill somebody. I came out of the bakeroom pushing the broom. They had this guy in the butcher shop stabbing him to death. I’m walking the line. I’m not a snitch. I don’t run and tell the cops tales. I stand on my own two feet. One of them looked over and said, “Manson, get on the point.” So I took the broom and got on the point. I was watching and thinking, “That tramp better not move for me. If he moves for me, I’m going to take him home to his mama,” you dig? He didn’t move for me and I didn’t move to him. They stabbed him to death. You [normally aren’t supposed to] kill anyone in the penitentiary kitchen, because it makes it bad for the food. It’s bad for everyone; it creates a lot of paranoia. [But] they were cutting this guy in half, trying to put him in a garbage can. They got the elevator and smashed the elevator down [on him] – trying to put him in the can. [They ended up putting] half in one can and half in another can. They smuggled him out of the kitchen. I was [the lookout]. The [guard] comes up and asks, “What happened? What did you see?” I said, “See what? What are you talking about? I didn’t see nothing man.” All of my life, I’ve been on that [same] line. I don’t ever see anything. I know nothing; I’m zero. I don’t get involved. I don’t run and tell. I protect myself. And whatever happens happens, man. People getting killed around me is no new thing. There are people getting killed in prison all the time. [It would be nice to] wear a shield, man. You’ve got all kinds of violence and fear that runs in these places. When you live a life like that, it becomes a natural thing.
Q: Did you give Tex [Watson] orders to kill?
CM: Tex was a rumpkin. He came to town. He was a “momma’s boy.” The prostitutes took his money. He said, “Can I live with you?” I said, “Can you live with me?” He said, “Yeah.” [So I said] “Let me have that pickup truck.” So he gave me an old pickup truck from Texas. I’m letting him stay around the ranch. He’s hanging around. A lot of guys like to hang around me, because I’m underground. I’m what you call “cool.” I’m what everybody tries to be. When I’m down on the street, I ride a motorcycle and I get a lot of girls. I play. That’s my road for a while, until they grab me up and put me back in the cage again. But anyway… Tex sees women lighting my cigarettes. He’s saying, “Yes, ma’am, can I open the door for you?” In other words, he’s the matriarch and I’m the patriarch. He sees the way I’m doing it. He wants to do what I’m doing, so he’ll get his money back. He went and burned the [prostitute] for five grand. He beat her for five grand. Some black guy called me and said, “You took my money. All you white brothers are together. I’m coming up there. I’m going to burn everybody up and take that ranch.” I said, “No, not around me you’re not. You [may] talk that shit to them little girls [but] when you come to me, I’ll take your hat home.” I told Tex to go down there and face that man. He said, “I can’t. He’ll kill me.” He couldn’t do it, so I had to go down there. I ended up shooting the guy and cutting some other people up. That’s the world I live in. I ride in a motorcycle group of crazy people. We’re fighting and cutting each other all the time. That’s no big thing. I’m always smart enough to get away without killing someone, because I don’t want to go to that gas chamber. I’m not going to kill anybody. If I can get away, I’m going to wiggle, jiggle and push that broom and [say] “I didn’t see anything…” There’s a place called Indian Mesa where we’d have fires and play music. We’d make big circles like you do with the stones. We’d put our souls in each other. We’d have sex. We’d do all the things that you guys are not allowed to do in your culture. In the culture I lived in, we’d throw all that out the window. I guess that’s what you would call “Satan.”
Q: That’s right…
CM: I wouldn’t call it Satan. I’d just call it “whatever.” You can call it the time of day if you want. But that’s what was happening in those days. A guy from Texas, who’s a momma’s boy, got me in trouble… Now here’s one of my sins [which] I’ll confess clearly and openly to the world. I never realized how much [power] I held with those people. I never realized how weak people outside [of prison] are. I’ve been raised up inside with these powerful guys – strong men. I’ve been amongst men all my life. I go outside and tell someone, “Come over here and sit down.” They go, “Whoops,” and sit down. How did I do that? I don’t know. They did it to me in prison. The [guard] goes, “Get over here against that wall. Put your hands up.” I learned to do what he said. So, I’m reflecting reflections that are reflected to me. I can [amplify] them… Remember when you were in school and the bully came by and said, “Are you looking for trouble?” You said, “No, no, I wasn’t looking for no trouble.” That’s calling you up. It calls your mind up to start looking for trouble. You’re not thinking about trouble until someone comes to yell in your ear. Pretty soon, you start looking for trouble [even though] you don’t know why… You’ve got [hundreds of] people running through Hollywood, playing music, smoking dope, having sex orgies, and riding motorcycles. I was just [a member of a] small music group called The Family Jams.
Q: [Did] you seduce young girls?
CM: Wait a minute! All those girls that you keep attributing to me were just girls that happened to be in the “free love” subculture. The only reason they’re still with me is because I’ve never lied to them. I don’t lie. I quit lying a long time ago.
Q: You don’t lie to us now?
CM: I’ve got no reason to… The time is done… Damn, I don’t know whether you’ll understand it or not. [Let’s say] a young kid is walking down the street… A cop comes up to him and shines a flashlight in his face and says, “Up against the wall!” This scares the kid, so he gets up against the wall. The cop says, “What are you doing out here? It’s after ten o’clock at night. Are you out here to burglarize the stores?” The kid says, “No, sir. I’m not here to burglarize the stores.” The cop is a rookie cop. He doesn’t realize that he is programming this young mind to burglarize stores. Being a juvenile delinquent, I went through that. I burglarized stores and I ended up in reform school. That’s how I figured that out, you dig? So they came and they raided the ranch. They [asked] “Are you causing trouble, Manson?” I said, “No. I’m not causing trouble, and you’re not going to program my mind to [cause] trouble, either.” Fear don’t work on me anymore. You can pile ten dead bodies up there and [let them] bleed all day. It don’t bother me one bit. I’m not affected by fear games. [However] I didn’t realize that they were setting everybody else’s minds [against] me. I didn’t realize [that I was about to become] “His Holy Majesty” [of evil]. I was just a dumb kid who had [recently] gotten out of prison. I had just done 22 years, from 1944 to 1967. I had no idea what was going on outside. I was at that ranch just like I was in the joint. I was still walking that same line that I was walking in prison. I was not [about to] break any laws. Creepy Karpis once told me, “Son, you want to stay out of jail? [Then] don’t break the law. If you don’t break the law, you don’t have to go to jail. It’s that simple.” I said, “I’ll try.” And I tried it. There are a whole lot of people who know me that will witness and tell you that I did not break the law.
Q: You had nothing to do with [the killings]?
CM: I was on the edge of everything that happened. I unknowingly affected everything that happened. But I didn’t realize the affect I was having on people. I never in a second flashed about being a “walrus.” I’ve been in the minds of millions, but I have never been in my own. I’m not in my own mind until I get outside. I’m living in the mind of the guards. I’m living in the mind of the people next to me, down the hallway. I [always have] to balance everything around me to stay alive. In prison, you have to get along with everybody [in order] to stay alive. If you don’t, you get crissed and crossed, and somebody’s going to push you over the edge.
Q: Why did the girls go to that house that night and kill those people?
CM: Alright, this is going to get heavy…. The Jewish [music bosses] rejected me – on a universal level – from Cary Grant’s apartment space, because I wouldn’t [exploit] the black people. I wouldn’t get into the middle of the [music industry] sexuality that [started] after we lost the Korean War. We had to give them Doris Day and let Rev. Moon come in [as payment. That same sexuality is now being sold] to build kibbutzes and machine guns in Israel [while] the Arabs [only] have rocks [to throw]. So when I passed on that, I fell into the Beach Boys’ [scene]. The Beach Boys are being run by the Italian Mafiosos from the East Coast. The Mexicans kicked the [Italians] out of Rosarita and told them stay out of California. They didn’t like them. When I went to the Beach Boys [about them] owing me money for music, they put me onto the Italian business manager. He said, “You get nothing. Sue me…” I said, “I won’t sue you. I’ll bomb your car and blow your house up.” He said, “I’ll call NY and the Mafia.” So, I backed off. That’s why I moved in with Denny. I was [thinking] “If you won’t pay me on one level, I’ll sneak you on another level. You’re going to pay me sooner or later because I’m that guy that always gets paid. And I always pay.” In other words, I walk a line, and it’s hard.
Q: Tell me about the other reasons why [you don’t lie now].
CM: One thought can change a million perspectives. One word changed Tex’s head. Somebody else was being called up into a negative thought by harassment from others.
Q: What do you mean by that? What happened?
CM: Well, the ranch was being raided every other day by the L.A. sheriff. Every time [authorities] would become afraid of black [riots] they’d run over and raid the white people to make themselves feel a little more powerful. When you’re white and you’re “underneath” the establishment, you’ve got to deal with all the white people in the establishment who are afraid of blacks… I don’t want to start pulling people’s covers, but all the [Hollywood stars around Polanski] weren’t as wonderful and nice as you think. There are all kinds of things happening in the darkness. How does someone [like Polanski] come from Poland to Hollywood and go all the way over the top and have [blockbusters like] Valley of the Dolls? I don’t play on the level of little girl music. I play on the level [where you] flat out see Christ dying on the cross. In other words, it’s scary. It’s really, really far out. A lot of people try to copy [it] but it’s got to come from the soul – from certain levels of the mind… Your mind is a pattern. If it gets [interrupted, you] go crazy. When you open up the soul, you open up the hole in the soul.
Q: Great [but] we’ve still got a pile of bodies in this house. How did they get dead?
CM: The [Oriental] came up to me and said, “You must be [the leader of The Family].” I said, “Get away from me with that.”
Q: Who’s The Oriental? Do you remember his name?
CM: A blond-haired, blue-eyed Oriental came to me and [said] “This music is mine, you little bitch. I’ll take your heart out of your chest, tramp.” Terry Melcher (Doris Day’s son) had sent this clown over to me. To Terry Melcher, Rev. Moon was “the man.” He’s not the man to me. Put [Rev. Moon] in the mainline of San Quentin, and he’s not the man [anymore]. Put him over on death row and he’s not the same guy he was in the clown outfit, playing some game. There’s a lot of men on this road. Don’t touch what you don’t even know exists.
Q: So, it’s got something to do with Terry Melcher…
CM: The Oriental came there wanting to fight. I told him I didn’t want to fight. I ducked him and ran out behind the barn. Somebody else fought him. I [ended up] putting [a canvas bag] over his head. I laid him down and asked, “Do you want me to cut your head off? I [can] take your life right now.” I got him right up to the point of taking his life then said, “Look man, I don’t want to go to Death Row for you. I don’t want to go to San Quentin for you.” He said, “Stay out of the music or cut my head off.” I said, “Go back to your wife and get under her bed and beg her for forgiveness. Because if I take your head, it won’t be where anybody will know it.” And I said, “Now get.” I ran him off. But when I ran him off, the war didn’t end.
Q: But we’ve still got these dead people in this house. Everyone points to [you].
CM: That’s because the DA told them that. He told them the Helter Skelter [story].
Q: So you didn’t send them [to the Tate-Polanski house]?
CM: I didn’t send them anywhere. I’m not the director. I don’t send people places.
Q: It wasn’t for Helter Skelter? You weren’t going to start a big revolution?
CM: [I was in prison for] 25 years. I [have almost] no intelligence. Doesn’t it make any sense to anybody [that maybe] I wasn’t [the leader]?
Q: But what you’re saying now isn’t making a lot of sense to a lot of people.
CM: You can’t just explain it [easily]. It’s not that simple. There [had been] two to three years of sex orgies, and fights [around those sex orgies]. When you open up a sex orgy, what happens? You get 4 or 5 bulls in the same ring [and] all the bulls start banging on each other. You get all kinds of fights. Outlaws are always fighting and killing each other. This ain’t no new thing where I live, man.
Q: So, you’re saying the people in the house were outlaws. too?
CM: The only thing that made any difference is that [Sharon Tate] happened to be an actress. If she hadn’t have been an actress, nobody would have even heard about it. And probably no one would have gotten busted… At the L.A. morgue, they bring in [dozens of] bodies every night. In other words, “that’s life.” People are killing all the time.
Q: They didn’t go [kill] for you?
CM: They did not go for me.
Q: I’m going to accept for a moment that they didn’t do it for you, okay? So I’m asking myself, “Why did they do it?”
CM: They did it because they had to do it.
Q: They did it because they had to do it? They had a beef with those people?
CM: No, life pushes them to do that. Life pushes them, and it’s got to be done. It’s got nothing to do with personality. It’s not me.
Q: Of course it has to do with personality.
CM: What am I? God?
Q: If you [are saying] that they didn’t do it because of a beef with those people, you’re almost joining up with Bugliosi, because you’d be saying it was done at random.
CM: All Bugliosi had was a bunch of murders and a bunch of people. He wanted to win [the case]. He took advantage of it completely. Let’s face it, everybody in this world is out for number one. Everybody uses everybody else, any way they can. He wasn’t doing it for the betterment of humanity, because he doesn’t give a shit about humanity…
Q: But if it had anything to do with it being Terry Melcher’s house once…
CM: Yes, it was Terry Melcher’s [former] house. People at that ranch were mad at Terry Melcher because he didn’t [sign us to a music contract, and because] he sent somebody over there to fight. He caused some trouble. He almost got some other people killed. Some people put their life on the line because of Terry Melcher. Terry Melcher didn’t even know about it. No one ever told him about it. This is the first time I’ve ever even brought it up. A lot of that poison goes under the bridge. I just forget it, and let it go. Because it doesn’t matter… To dig it up only brings up more negativity. The time is done. The crimes are over. It went through the changes. [All I can say now is] give me my rights. Give me the rights you didn’t give me [at trial].
Q: Some people say you should get a new trial.
CM: If you don’t give me a new trial, I’ve got no rights at all. I’ve been kept in handcuffs for 23 years. They can do anything they want. They take my mail any time they want. They do anything they want to me. Where does that put you? You’ve got no rights [either]! It all comes back to the King. You’ve only got the right to do what the King tells you to do. The rights go to the King. You know who the king is? King George, who is from Ohio, you dig? In other words, we’re in this world together. Don’t put it all on me and leave me locked up the rest of my life. Be responsible for your part of it.
Was Manson referring here to former Pres. George H. W. Bush, who was from Ohio and descended from British royalty? If so, how did Manson come to know these relatively obscure facts? I have often joked that Charles Manson and George W. Bush have similar speech patterns and somewhat resemble each other. Could they be related? There have long been rumors that Manson was associated with the Solar Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis, which was founded by Aleister Crowley – possibly Bush’s grandfather. In the next section, Manson alludes to using a sword as a power object, not unlike the SE Asian shamans with their rattling Garuda swords. He also mentions spending time in Mexico City, where famous patsies James Earl Ray and Lee Harvey Oswald also visited.
Q: If you were ever going to have another trial, you’d have to go into court and give reasons why those people were killed.
CM: [It’s just] semantics. I didn’t push them. They did what they wanted to do. The only thing I did [was] hang a Confederate sword in the kitchen. I said, “Don’t lie. Anybody at this ranch, don’t lie. You lie, the sword might jump off and come and get you.” But I never had anything to do with directing traffic. I don’t know how many ways it can be said. Give me my rights in a courtroom. You’ve had a little time to listen to me talk. Do I sound like I’m incompetent? Why did they take my rights in a courtroom? Because Bugliosi was scared to death… I knew what had happened. I could have taken it apart and explained it. There was nobody in that family that wasn’t willing to tell the truth. All of them said, “Yes, I did it to stop the war.” You’re saying, “It’s all Charlie’s fault.” [But] I didn’t write the songs. That’s not my generation. My generation was Bing Crosby, not the Beatles. I was Charlie Tuna in the penitentiary during the 1960s. I was in Mexico City in the 1950s. I wasn’t even in the U.S. I was in jail south of the border.
Q: There was a story that you went to the house after the killings. Did you?
CM: No, and do you know [where that came from? My] lawyer, Fitzgerald [colluded with] the D.A. Why? Because [selling out is] easy. That’s why the Reverend Billy Graham’s daughter is having Italian babies right now. [That’s why Protestants become] Catholic. The Queen of England is [practically] doing it with Gandhi, a convict out of prison. Hitler [was an ex-con]. All [ex-cons] are in the same spot I was in when I got out. Fitzgerald read up on the law and [found] that the only way they could keep from giving me a trial was to prove that I was in the house when, or after, someone was killed.
Q: Okay. So you didn’t [go to the house]?
CM: No.
Q: But somebody did. Somebody went back to the Cielo Dr. house after the killings. Somebody on the other side of the canyon heard people in that house, at 4:00 in the morning – 4 hours after the killings – having an argument. Who do you think they were?
CM: Probably the maid. Maids do a lot of things. Maids get around a lot, you know.
Q: No, she didn’t get in until later on. [Plus maids] don’t move a lot of bodies around.
CM: You are an intelligent being. [Listen, it’s all] rumor. There’s not a cockroach, rabbit, or fox in that town that I don’t know. There’s not a raccoon or rat in the sewer pipe that I don’t know. I tell you, nobody was in that house from that ranch.
Q: So somebody from outside the ranch?
CM: That house was randomly [chosen] by mistake. It just was there, man. The whole thing jumped from the soul. The guys took it off and decided what they wanted to do. There was no direction. [Say] we’re standing in a circle, and it’s hot. Someone comes in with an orange sweater. Somebody says, “Man, I sure wish we had something cold to drink.” Someone says, “How about some orange juice?” Someone else says, “Alright.” Whose conspiracy is it to go get the orange juice? The guy with the orange sweater? The guy who said it was hot? The guy with the air conditioner? Who are we going to blame it on? Let’s blame it on somebody we can get away with blaming it on! Let’s blame it on some convict who ain’t got no money. Let’s blame it on somebody with no education. [As soon as] Bugliosi saw me [he knew] I was custom fit for his ambition. When he got what he wanted, he moved from New York City to Hollywood. [He imagined himself as] Rambo in the dune buggy with the machine gun. [He imagined] himself being on Rat Patrol, with the black box [and] the helicopter. [He imagined] himself as Tom Selleck [fighting] the Blackfeet Indians, playing all the games [of the old West]. The whole thing was a play – a [drama]. A game that [some] children got stuck in. This is important.
Q: There’s [obviously] more to you than just the murders. But I tell you… All of these people all over the world, when they hear your name, they just think, “Sharon Tate.” That’s all they know about you. So [your story is that] Bugliosi comes along and dumps it on you. It wasn’t your fault – it just happened around you. You once said that you weren’t even there – that you were in San Diego that night. Is that true?
CM: [Yes] I got a ticket in San Diego.
Q: How come you got a ticket? Did anyone else see it?
CM: I got a ticket for driving in a milk truck. It was an old raggedy truck. Deputy Schramm, Highway Patrol, gave me a ticket. But, they moved me to the East Coast. The D.A. has the power of the Supreme Court. The court system in the U.S. needs a lot of work if it’s ever going to get back on its feet. It needs a lot of readjusting. The D.A. has the arbitrary power to indict anyone. He can control time. That’s the reason Bugliosi said I stopped his watch. Actually, he stopped his own watch. But he keeps blaming it on me because he [can]. I got a note from him from Geneva, Switzerland [asking me to] compromise with him, because he was beginning to see the “immediacy of the soul.” Let me say this to all of you: the soul moves things beyond our comprehension. We can’t blame one human being for the Second World War. We’re [probably] going to keep blaming Hitler, but Hitler was just [another] person who was thrown into the world…
