The Last Supper and 10066 Cielo Drive

Apparently, Jon Aes Nihil has been hosting what he refers to as the Last Supper for the past 35 years at El Coyote. This year, Patty was lucky enough to get invited to sit with him, Matthew Roberts, Stoner van Houten and his roomie, Michael Channels, folks from the Museum of Death in Hollywood, "Uncle Paulie" from whatuphollywood.com (who worked for the LA Free Press in 1969) and a mysterious gentleman named "Ed" from Pennsylvania who refused to be photographed.

What a night. Of course, no one showed up on time for 6:30 cocktails (Jon Seger, where were you?). No one showed up on time for dinner either: Reservations were for 7pm, but nearly everyone waited until 8pm to make their appearances. The wait staff was freaking, Stoner was freaking, and Patty successfully resisted the urge to pop an Ativan. Once the table was full however, a good time was had by all as we passed books, photographs and an El Coyote baseball cap around the table to be signed.

By 9:30pm. the wait staff was again freaking. One of them came to the table, looked Patty square in the face and said, "There's a shit ton of people waiting for this table, its time to leave."  Stunned, Patty replied, "Well, I'm not in charge here." "Who is?," he asked?  Patty shrugged, so he stood further down the table and repeated his same line as if he'd been rehearsing it for a while. A gentleman at the table next to the Sharon Tate booth took Patty aside and offered to buy the whole table another round, just to piss dude off.  However, we complied. Michael Channels' video of the occasion can be seen here.

Cielo was next.  David Oman was hosting a party at his house that we were told was a paid event.  Patty didn't ask how much Oman charged per person to tell his ghost stories and serve Foster's on tap.

On the way out, Patty, Stoner and Stoner's roomie Dave Finkelberg noticed Scott Michaels coming up the hill with a group of very sober looking tourists who didn't say a word. Stoner walked up to him and introduced himself.  "Yeah, I've heard of you," he replied.

The next day, a friend of Patty's forwarded her a link from tmz.com: Oman is claiming that the ghost of Sharon Tate set off his fire alarm around midnight. Um...okay...

This Week In Baseball

Well, it's been a busy week, hasn't it? First the NY Times story highlighting the upcoming Krenwinkle documentary, all the 45th anniversary attention and then the anticipated decision by Gov. Brown on Bruce Davis.

There were other things too, like the tasteless timing of Manson's announcement of his intention to marry an emotionally and perhaps mentally unstable 20-something year old. This will be the last we should mention that. It is less than relevant and more than nauseating.

The stats have been through the roof and we've had a record number of sign-ups onto the email list. We've also had lots of emails form first-time readers. Welcome, all of you!

Regarding the Krenwinkle doc, I plan on getting a copy. It looks really well done and possibly informative. But on a personal note, I wanna punch Krenwinkel and the Doc maker in the nose. It kinda makes me nuts that there's any type of sympathy given to any of these killers.

The 45th anniversary was covered in the mainstream media which got people searching the subject in Google again. It shows that this whole story still fascinates more than just us TLB Junkies.

Then there's the down-to-the-wire veto by Gov. Brown of the parole board's decision to release Bruce Davis. BTW, kudos to Deb for being on top of things and getting the documentation first - even before the media! That Deb is bad ass!

I can't say I was shocked by Brown's veto - I more or less expected it - but it's sad that he got some of his facts wrong. There's also that crazy hunger for knowledge buried within me that thinks a prison release or two would help us get closer to the truth. Damn, could you imagine the swarm around here from a Bruce Davis book?

Now please don't get me wrong. Davis deserved what he got. He (at the very least) stood by as Gary Hinman was sliced across the face by Manson. He also was (again, at the very least) present at Shorty Shea's brutal murder. But I, just like my crazed cohorts on this blog and the rest of you, want to hear more. To be clear,  Davis should not be freed to get the truth from him - that's like rewarding someone for bad behavior. And, perhaps if he ever stopped lying, or changing his story every time he sneezed during his hearings the governors would have much less ammunition to overturn.

As Alisa Statman has said , "there is no restitution for murder, there is no making it right. Murder is final and there's no taking it back by saying 'I'm sorry' or 'I've changed'". And as Statman quoted Doris Tate in her comment to Watson: "Are these 7 victims and possibly more going to walk out of their grave when you get paroled?"  Or to quote Van Houten as Statman did in Restless Souls: "It's hard for me sometimes to accept the fact that people choose to believe that I absolutely cannot change. That I was something at nineteen and what I am at thirty-three is irrelevant because the life of the one they loved ended when I was nineteen. And though I understand it, it's very difficult because life goes on. And I go on." The glaring problem with her statement is, no matter how you break it down, the LaBianca's lives and their loved ones lives stopped going on that night.

One parting shot from this blogger: in my more than 3 decades of being allowed to vote, I have only sent money to ONE candidate. Ever. Want to know who it was? Jerry Brown...

Bruce's Parole Has Been Reversed Again

Central California Women's Facility

Patty learned that tourists don't usually stop to photograph prisons in central California on her way to the 45th Anniversary remembrances in Los Angeles. In case you have not already figured it out, Patty doesn't really live in Ballarat: rather, she lives in Northern California about six hours from Chatsworth. On previous trips she has been curious about the women's prison at Chowchilla: aka the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) where Susan Atkins passed away about five years ago.  This time she decided to drop in, check out the gift shop, maybe have a cup of coffee with the warden. You know, normal tourist stuff.

CCWF is across from the the men's facility (aka Valley State Prison or VSP) on Avenue 24, just east of downtown Chowchilla. Initially, Patty confused the two. The guard at VSP explained that it was part of the women's prison until about two years ago. She was also informed that without permission from the warden, she was trespassing in the parolee pickup lot and would have to leave. It is legal however, to photograph the prisons from the county road he added, though anyone doing so would likely attract a lot of attention. Boy, he wasn't kidding! After taking her photographs, Patty noticed a state vehicle tail her all the way back to the freeway presumably to ensure that she didn't pick anybody up from the surrounding orchards and vineyards. Boy, is she going to give them a bad review on Yelp!

Anywhoo, here are some pics she took:

As "Sexy Sadie" from the White Album played in her car, Patty thought about Susan's passing there, how James Whitehouse worked so hard to get a compassionate release for her in her last days. Besides the obvious fact that she took a life, that she had no compassion for a woman and her eight month old fetus forty five years ago, Patty finds James' actions odd because at CCWF, Susan received state of the art care for her terminal condition including what were probably really fucking good drugs. Isn't that compassionate enough? Maybe, some would argue, TOO compassionate. Patty remains ambivalent.

What do you think?

Live From LA: 45th Anniversary of Helter Skelter

Greetings readers. By the time you read this, Patty will be on her way from home (Ballarat! LPAO) to Los Angeles to report on the 45th anniversary activities at Spahn, Cielo and El Coyote. The illustrious Stoner Van Houten and Michael Channels will be her hosts; she'd like to bring you along with her if only vicariously through intermittent blog posts now through Sunday. She will also be seeing Mr. Jon Aes-Nihil again, and is told that Bill Nelson will be there too... she shits you not!

Anyway, stay tuned. Wish you were here.

HOUSE OF MANSON - First Teaser Trailer

"My Life After Manson" Patricia Krenwinkel

The video at the bottom of the article is one we haven't seen and
Kren speaks quite a bit in this.  Thanks Max for the heads up!

August 4, 2014.
Op-Docs
By OLIVIA KLAUS

I vividly remember entering the California Institution for Women for the first time in 2001. As the prison guard slammed the gate behind me, I wondered if I had made the right decision to become a volunteer for an inmate support group. But my nerves were eased by a woman who introduced herself as “Krenny.” Welcoming me into the group, she seemed quiet and insecure — yet also exuded an inner strength. I had no idea how she got here and didn’t ask.

It was only several years later, while documenting the support group for a documentary film, “Sin by Silence,” that I learned Krenny’s full name: Patricia Krenwinkel. I was astounded. She was one of the infamous Charles Manson followers, convicted of seven murders. She eventually approached me to go on camera with her story.

In this Op-Doc video, Ms. Krenwinkel provides her first on-camera interview since 1994, reflecting on her life before and after Manson. This week is the 45th anniversary of her crimes.

In 1969, at age 21, Ms. Krenwinkel was a member of Mr. Manson’s cult in Los Angeles. His group, which he called the “Family,” included more than a dozen men and women who adhered to a bizarre mixture of hippie culture and apocalyptic paranoia. Seeking to inspire a race war, Manson ordered Ms. Krenwinkel and other members of his group to commit a series of murders. Over the course of two nights, they savagely murdered seven people, inflicting more than 130 stab wounds. One of them, the actress Sharon Tate, was eight and a half months pregnant. At their trial, the women shamelessly admitted their crimes and flaunted their allegiance to a leader they loved, but who clearly controlled their minds.

Over the years, I had gotten to know this woman — and our many conversations about life, love and politics had revealed slivers of a dark past. But not until her on-camera interview, featured in this Op-Doc, did I fully comprehend her journey of self-discovery. In prison, she has struggled mightily to reconcile two parts of her life: the 21-year-old girl who committed crimes to win the approval of the man she loved; and the 66-year-old woman who lives each day haunted by the unending suffering she has caused.

Ms. Krenwinkel is now the longest serving woman in the California prison system. She says she takes full responsibility for her actions — finally, she says, she is a woman she can accept. But is society ready to accept her back? She is next eligible for parole in 2018.

Read original story HERE

Sharon Tate's Sister Debra Wrote a Book About Her, But Doesn't Want to Talk About It

By Samantha Bonar
Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 4:16 AM
Categories: Books, Celebrity, Fashion, History

Running Press

The exquisite Sharon Tate makes today's starlets look like the lukewarm leftovers of a half-hearted meal. Yet no matter how much we want to focus on the perfection of her beauty, the warmth of her personality or the effortlessness of her style, her horrible end, at just 26 years old and eight and a half months pregnant — 45 years ago this week — looms like a deadly, dark tsunami about to re-crash into our consciousness. It never goes away.

It never goes away for her younger sister Debra Tate, either, but in her gorgeous new photography book, Sharon Tate: Recollection (Running Press), she manages to hold that monster wave at bay for just a little while. Leafing through the pages of what is meant to be "a celebration of Sharon's life and career," you become so engrossed in Sharon Tate's brief life and stark physical perfection that, for an hour or so, you forget about that little brute named Charles Manson.

And yet, oddly, Debra Tate doesn't want to talk about Sharon Tate. She had originally agreed to an interview with the Weekly, but bailed at the last minute for unknown reasons.

Back when the interview was still a possibility, her publicist sent us "suggested interview questions," and instructed us not to ask about another book about Sharon Tate, Restless Souls (It Books, 2012) by Alisa Statman and Brie Tate, or to ask more than one question about Manson or Mad Men (which included some subtle Sharon Tate references this season). (While Recollection is more of a tribute to Tate's film and fashion career, Restless Souls describes what the publisher calls "the gruesome slayings," the hunt for the killers, the drama of their trials and the long-lasting effects on the Tate family.)

In questions submitted to Tate's publicist we did ask, however, about Sharon's widower Roman Polanski and his rape conviction, and about why Debra Tate cares what nominal starlets such as Kelly Osbourne think of her sister today (Osbourne is quoted in the book). We asked how she felt about Sharon Tate being reduced to some sort of t-shirt icon for the Millennial generation, and if she felt that cheapened her memory. We asked if her book was an attempt to counteract that. And, since we couldn't ask about the Statman book, we asked Debra what she thought of the biography by Greg King, Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders (Barricade Books, 2000). We wanted to ask how the murders had affected her family, but Debra's publicist asked us to delete that question. In the end, Debra did not answer the questions.

But as the publishing of her book shows, Sharon Tate is "in" again, an odd position for the victim of one of the grisliest murders of the 20th century. Models walk down the catwalks in looks inspired by her most famous film, Valley of the Dolls. Celebrities like Madonna, Drew Barrymore, Blake Lively, Jessica Pare, Lohan and Adele reference Sharon's style – forever frozen in the heyday of the ‘60s, yet anchored by a timeless beauty that could leapfrog backward or forward into any decade. (She was a Coppertone girl and the inspiration for Malibu Barbie.) She had "It": People called her the next Marilyn Monroe or Liz Taylor. Whether that was wishful thinking we will, of course, never know.

Debra Tate refers to Sharon's brutal murder in Los Angeles in August 1969 by followers of Manson only once in the book, calling it "an event that changed the country in ways that still resonate," and adding, "I always felt it was very unfair for her life to be remembered primarily for its final moments." Indeed, Sharon Tate has been the subject of nearly 400 books, most focusing on the sordid details of her murder.

Of the most recent of those, Restless Souls, subtitled The Sharon Tate Family's Account of Stardom, the Manson Murders, and a Crusade for Justice, Debra Tate wrote in 2012  "I reject this book. I regard it as an insult to the memory of my parents and my two beloved sisters, filled, as it is, with un-attributed conversations, imagined thoughts, and demonstrably false incidents. It represents merely the latest in a long string of efforts by Ms. Statman to insinuate herself into my family's life and history, present herself as an expert on the subject, realize her long dream to write about my family's tragedy, and diminish my continued role as guardian of our family's legacy. Soon I will make the full story of my family and our tragedy public in a definitive way."

Statman, who was in a lesbian relationship with Debra's late sister Patti, appears to have tromped on hallowed territory. Debra Tate, who at one time worked as a Hollywood makeup artist, seems to have forged an identity for herself through her glamourous, tragic  sister, creating and maintaining the fan site sharontate.net. Even her Twitter handle, @trustedsister, references herself only through connection to Sharon; in her profile photo she looks like some sort of bizarre high priestess, forever tending the flame of her immortal goddess sister.

Debra Tate's own book opens with a brief but touching forward by Polanski, who calls Sharon "the love of my life" and directs the reader to his favorite photo of her (on page 263). Following are original and retrospective quotes and recollection essays by such notables as David Niven (who starred with Sharon in Eye of the Devil and called her "a great discovery."), Jane Fonda, Mia Farrow, Orson Welles, Warren Beatty, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Kirk Douglas and George Harrison.

"Sharon had a fragile, incandescent quality that brought oxygen into the room," Yul Brynner said. "She was such an innocent, and unspoiled by her success," said George Harrison.

We also hear from Sharon herself, who tells us: "I'd like to be an American Catherine Deneuve. She plays beautiful, sensitive, deep parts with a little bit of intelligence behind them," and "I'm very sensitive to ugly situations. I'm quick to read people, and I pick up if someone's reacting to me as just a sexy blonde. At times like that, I freeze."

But mostly, there are photographs, from Sharon's beauty pageant-filled childhood in Texas, her discovery in Hollywood, her years at MGM and her brief, troubled marriage to Polanski. An entire chapter is devoted to the cult classic Valley of the Dolls, with never-before seen or published images.

The few interviews we found that Debra Tate has done for Sharon Tate: Recollection are puff pieces, such as one for InStyle magazine that consists of questions like, "What were Sharon's favorite things to wear?" (antique camisoles, big hoop earrings) and "What were Sharon's favorite beauty items?" (Vaseline). This is Debra Tate's book and this time, she is controlling the way her sister is portrayed — even if that means not talking about her at all rather than answering difficult questions.

In the short story "Venus Is Blue" by Mary Hood, Hood writes: "Imagine a photograph album, with a bullet fired pointblank through it, every page with its scar. Murder attacks the future; suicide aims at the past." Despite the ravishing beauty shown on every page of Sharon Tate: Recollection, in the bigger picture, you realize that, 45 years after Sharon's murder, this family is still very damaged. There is a phantom bullet hole piercing every photograph.

Original Article HERE

Penthouse Interviews Bugliosi 1976

The June 1976 issue of Penthouse magazine has an interview with the Bug.  The interview itself was done as Bugliosi was running for District Attorney of Los Angeles County but came out after he lost.  So, the interview is heavy on him politicking for himself.  There is about a page and a half on Manson though, and he has made some interesting comments about what he felt Manson believed and didn't believe.

Penthouse:  Why do you think Manson urged his followers to be come murderers?

Bugliosi:  There were three main reasons.  One was to ignite the war between the blacks and whites that he called Helter Skelter, a war in which Manson saw himself as the ultimate beneficiary.  He said the blacks would win, but wouldn't be able to handle power and would look to leadership to those whites who survived.  So Charlie tried to frame black people for his murders.  The Manson Family believed in Helter Skelter --- hook, line and sinker.  It was the Family's credo.  But Charlie is a very evil, sophisticated con man, and I cannot conceive of his believing some of the things he preached about, such as a bottomless pit, the Family growing to 144,000 people and himself becoming the leader of the world.  Oh, he was a megalomaniac and would have loved to become the leader of the world, but I find it difficult to think he believed those murders could actually start a worldwide race war between blacks and whites.  My guess is that he used Helter Skelter as a vehicle to work his followers into such a lather that they were willing to kill for him.  Whether he believed it, I have to say no.  And I have to guess because Manson never admitted his involvement in these murders.

I feel very strongly about the two other motivations he had.  One was a kind of revenge.  He'd once been turned away at the plush residence where Sharon Tate lived.  Before she moved in, the house had been occupied by Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son.  Charlie had gone there to get Melcher, a record producer, to record him, and Terry had refused.  Manson was a frustrated singer-guitarist and on the night of the Tate murders he was striking back at that.  The residence symbolized society's rejection of him.  The third motive was his preoccupation with death.  Charlie was always lecturing the Family about death and how beautiful it was.  In fact, most of the songs he wrote contained constant references to death.  And where did he lead the Family after the murders?  Death Valley.  Paul Watkins, who left Manson before the murders, said it best: Death was Charlie's trip.

Questions & Answers with filmmaker Robert Hendrickson

Welcome to a Question & Answer session with filmmaker Robert Hendrickson. Please post any questions you may have for him in the comments section. He will respond as time allows.

For those of you who are not familiar with him, Robert Hendrickson is the co-director of the Oscar nominated documentary MANSON about the Manson Family which he directed together with partner Laurence Merrick. He also made the film,  INSIDE THE MANSON GANG and published the book DEATH TO PIGS.