Al Wiman Speaks

Reporter Al Wiman who found the Tate murder clothes speaks to a classroom at length about how he and his crew found the clothing and what they did when they realized what they found.  Interesting stuff!  The sound quality is very poor but listenable.  Thanks Chats.

Reporter Finds Clothing

We have always been told in newspapers, books, TV programs, movies etc. that the creepy crawlers donned all black clothing to do their deeds.  Fact is, black jeans were not all that prevalent back in those days.  This clip clearly shows that the killers were wearing blue jeans and not new dark blue ones either.  The jeans in this are faded and well worn.

Thanks again to Chatsworth Charlie!

One of Charlie's Escapades.... er Escapes!

A little trip down memory lane with Charlie!

The Kokomo Tribune October 20, 1949

 

 

I thought I was done with this post and then I found another escape, this time the escape included stealing a car, maybe two.

 

From the Terre Haute Star February 15, 1951

 

Reader Ouija Broad's review of "No Journey's End: My Tragic Romance with ex-Manson girl, Leslie Van Houten" by Peter Chiaramonte

Thanks to loyal reader Ouija Broad for offering up this review for your reading enjoyment!

This book is like rummaging around in the $1.00 bin. There's a lot of junk, but keep looking and you will find some valuables.

The good points:

* This is the most complete portrait of LVH that I have read, at least a well-rounded portrait of who she was at the time her involvement with Mr. Chiaramonte. Through her correspondence, a picture emerges of a woman who is warm, earthy, kind, and devoted to her friends and family.

* Mr. Chiaramonte makes some astute points about the how and why LVH is still incarcerated, specifically citing the politics and fiscal concerns that may keep her in jail for life.

* In “Restless Souls”, Stephen Kay is a tireless fighter of justice. In this book, he is a wormy, often confused opponent who fights dirty.

* Two letters from Charlie Manson to LVH are clear insights into the manipulative mind of CM. His letters reflect a barely literate man who is a master of manipulation and mental mind games. The most interesting part of the letters is the lack of goofy ramblings associated with “Crazy Charlie.” Here, he means business and gets right down to it.

The other side:

* This book tells us more than we ever wanted to know about Peter Chiaramonte. It should have been titled, "The Autobiography Of A Man You Have Never Heard Of, plus some stuff about Leslie Van Houten." I admit I skipped whole pages of details about Mr. Chiaramonte's life and friends.

* Mr. Chiaramonte meets LVH's family - mother Jane, father Paul, siblings Paul, Jr., David and Betsy. I wanted to hear more about them and how they feel, but Mr. Chiaramonte's speaks of them only as props to his own story.

* There is some incorrect information in the book. For example, Mr. Chiaramonte cites that he "read somewhere" that Tex Watson dropped out of high school. Not true. There is also unsubstantiated claims that he just throws out with no reference, such as citing LVH as being so smart that she is considered to be in the top 5 percent of Americans. Really? How did he come up with that?

* The writing: Mr. Chiaramonte melodramatic prose can be cloying. At best, it sounds like a school boy in love. At worst, it sounds like a Taylor Swift song.

Was the book worth the money? I think so, for the gems it does reveal about LVH. Again, though, you will have to wade through a lot of junk to get to the gems in the book.

Recent Beausoleil Interview

Adam Kovac with the website Vice has conducted a recent interview with Bobby.  This interview does not address the murder that he is in prison for but is a discussion of his music and the different things he has been learning and doing while there. 

It's amazing to me the amount of freedom Bobby was given to devote himself to his music.

We Spoke to Charles Manson’s Guitarist About His Life Making Art and Music While Serving Time for Murder
        

April 6, 2015

By Adam Kovac

We need to get this out of the way right off the bat: Bobby Beausoleil was an associate of Charles Manson and he murdered Gary Hinman, a crime for which he was sentenced to death.

He's still alive and well, serving his commuted sentence in Oregon State Penitentiary.

I spoke with Bobby twice by phone recently, and this interview is not about Manson or the murder. It's about his life before and after. Because if you put all judgment about what he did aside, Bobby Beausoleil has led a fascinating, creative life.


Read the rest of the interview

Thanks to Chatsworth Charlie for the heads up!

Kathleen

Here's a little ditty sent in by "Pedro" by a band named Groanbox:

I was born without a name, No daddy took the blame, My mama was just sixteen
For a pitcher of beer
She sold me to a waitress working
Down on East McMillan Street
Well a few days later
My uncle came and saved me
But by then mom was up the river
So grandma  took me to church

Kathleen, what did you do to me
Kathleen
Why'd you have to be so
Why'd you have to be so
Mean? Kathleen!

I went to juvenile hall in 1944, Ten years later, I walked out the door
Got a girl named Rose
Stole some guns
Drove down to the sunshine state
Broke into a store
Put the dimes in a straw
Hat that my uncle gave me
And I rolled out to Cali-forni-aye

Kathleen, what did you do to me
Kathleen
Why'd you have to be so
Why'd you have to be so
Mean? Kathleen!

The only thing she taught me was that
everything she said was a lie
I guess I learned never to believe anyone about anything

I turned 21 in L.A. county jail I wasn't out but a hot second
I learned some guitar
I was gonna be a star
got some help from alvin creepy karpis
but I was inside for so long
going outside would be wrong
I asked them not to let me out
mama don't let me out!

Kathleen, what did you do to me
Kathleen
Why'd you have to be so
Why'd you have to be so
Mean? Kathleen!

Linda Kasabian all smiles!

Shall we play the "make up the photo caption" game? I will go first:

"Yana the Witch" thinks of happy little trees as she takes an afternoon stroll with lover Bob Ross. 

Austin Ann's movie review: Linda and Abilene (filmed at Spahn)

Please allow me to present my latest (or only) movie review on this great blog of ours. I give you "Linda and Abilene" from 1969. This particular soft-core "hair fest" was filmed at the late, great Spahn Ranch when certain, particular weirdos were in residence. Some of the features of this celluloid shit pie include:

• dirty feet
• numerous shots of Spahn Ranch, including back ranch house
• dry humping with jeans on
• nude creek fondling
• scratches & bruises on actresses
• horn-infested, love-making dry humping music
• dubbed moaning in "balling" scenes
• hair, and more HAIR
• a truck and horse trailer in the background, even though the movie is supposed to take place in 1869)
• nipples 
• bar in saloon that has been written about in numerous books, including Paul Watkins book, where he described an incident that happened between Charlie Manson, Pat Krenwinkel, and some instruction on "bearded clam digging." 
• a character named "Charlie" who plays a bartender (not CM)
• a dirt trail that has TIRE marks, instead of hoof/wagon marks (supposed to be 1869)
• pimply man buttocks
• a laughing rapist with the weirdest, most insane comb-over-type squirrel hairdo
• incest
• oh, and lest I forget.....Bill Vance (the guy that Ella Bailey fled with) in a non-speaking, creep part

In closing, this movie is so hideous, it makes "The Ramrodder" look like an Oscar winner. Other than seeing the way Spahn Ranch looked back then, and discovering that Bill Vance actually had blue eyes, this thing almost put me to sleep. Like I always say, though, "to each their own!" Netflix is currently streaming, if you dare to watch!

 Pat Krenwinkel's beaver bar in the Longhorn Saloon

Back ranch house where orgies and baby birthing were aplenty

Bill Vance chewing on match & daydreaming about which house to pilfer next

Flap-comb-over-squirrel-roadkill, balding "thing" atop of head

Emmett Harder

When Charlie and the others were arrested for the Tate LaBianca murders Emmett Harder was one of the few people who went on record at length to say that he had a hard time believing that Charlie was involved.  By the time Harder wrote These Canyons Are Full Of Ghosts, with three chapters devoted to the Family, he had backed away from the views expressed in this article.

Here are Harder's first impressions upon learning of the charges against Charles Manson and his Family.

San Bernardino County Sun Sunday December 7, 1969

Friend Finds It Hard To Accept 'Killer' Tag

Different View Of Manson, 'Family'

by David L. Otis
Sun Telegraph Staff Writer

Charles Miller Manson, 35, called "God" and "Jesus" by his followers, incarcerated, accused......

Is he a bearded leader of a hippie "black magic cult" which savagely killed Sharon Tate and six others?  Or is Charles Manson the patriarch of a lost tribe of young people looking for their own society away from it all?

Emmett Harder, 37, s geologist and prospector since he was 9, knows Charles Manson.  He hired Manson and his "family" to work around his Death Valley mine near Barker Ranch, home of the "family" for several months.  He invited Charlie to dinner at his Devore home.

"I find it hard to accept the fact that Manson had anything to do with those brutal slayings," Harder said yesterday.  "I found Charlie to be an intelligent, hard-working person dedicated to taking care of the young people camping with him.  I never once heard Manson called anything but Charlie.  No one called him Jesus or God.  And he was clean shaven with medium length hair, too."

Harder said he remembered only first names (with the exception of Manson) of those in the group.  But he said he recognized the faces of the four already in custody for the Tate murders.

"There were a couple of Chuck's (Charles Watson) and a T.J. and a girl who appeared to be a bit retarded or at least abnormally naïve (Susan Atkins)."

Harder admits it has been a year since he last saw the man now accused of using "hypnotic power" to order the ritualistic slayings of seven persons in Los Angeles last summer.

But his description of Manson and his followers is in direct and striking contrast to reports circulated by news media about the hippie band.

Harder said he first met Manson in June 1968 at his tungsten mine seven miles from the Barker Ranch.  He said Manson and five or six young men walked into the camp to ask for jobs. 

"They were very interested in prospecting for profit.  They asked me if they could help.  I gave them a burro and a week.  When I visited the Barker Ranch at that time, I found they had collected over 1,000 pounds of ore for me."

Harder said he developed a respect for the young band "because I know what physical effort is and those young people were not afraid of physical effort."

Harder said Manson asked him to speak to the group on prospecting.  He said he took the young men on several field trips to acquaint them with rocks and formations.

The prospector voiced concerns over newspaper stories and pictures which gave the impression the group lived in squalor.  "The Barker Ranch was never neater than when Charlie was there.  He was a father-figure, organizing, directing, assigning duties.  I think a lot of the mess shown in the photographs was a result of the raid- or- perhaps it was made by another group.  The ranch was always open to anyone who wanted to use it."

Harder described the "family" as young people who appeared lost and hurt, as if society had slapped them in the face and turned them out alone.

"They didn't feel that they were lost.  They said they were trying to hide from society, trying to run away from its problems...."

Harder told of one of the many times he visited them.  He said they were sitting around a fire, drinking coffee and remembered being impressed that they were familiar with passages from the bible.

"We were talking about how lucky we all were.... sitting in the desert darkness alone but together.  Out there we felt closer to God and country, Charlie said "That shows you how true the bible is."

Manson and his followers ran into a unique prejudice at Barker's Ranch which apparently followed them from their beginning in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco.  "It was the word 'hippie'," Harder explained.  "The prospectors most assumed hippies were bad people.  The local people were a bit afraid of Charlie and his group.  Charlie said he didn't like the stigma and moved out of the Haight-Ashbury because of it."

The last time Harder saw Manson a chilly night in November 1968 after the Harder's had spent a peaceful dinner with the suspected killer.

Manson and three of his followers had ridden to Harder's house in Devore for dinner before catching a ride into Los Angeles.  "He talked about his music a lot.  He said he has written some for the Beach Boys, a popular rock group, and an album was due for release."

Said Mrs. Ruth Harder: "I remember he played the guitar and sang.  The girl who was with them walked in the garden with me, discussing rocks and flowers.  She was pretty and clean.  They reminded me of the kids who used to visit the house when my daughter was going to school."

Commenting on the picture of Manson circulated by the press last week, Mrs. Harder said Manson looked "frightened, puzzled by it all.  He had a trapped look...."

Gerald Harder,15, held up a mounted gold record he said he received through Manson.  The album was awarded the Beach Boys by Capitol Records indicating a million-seller.  The record was "All Summer Long."

"I got it from a man who once loaned Charlie a four-wheeled drive vehicle."  Gerald said.  "Charlie gave the gold record as sort of a payment for the help he received."

Harder said he and his son have thought about going up to Independence where Manson is being held to talk to him.  "I'd like to find out what it's all about," Harder explained.  But we don't want to go up there with all the newsman.  We'd like to see him alone.  Maybe when he is moved to more permanent confinement, we'll see him and he can tell us what all this is about." 

The article goes on to describe the victims and speculates about the suspects and the charges.

A press photo of the gold record that Gerald Harder speaks of, which accompanied this article, was a post of its own HERE a while back.

Henry Rollins on those Charles Manson tapes

Below is an abridged version of an abridged version of an interview with Henry Rollins, on playing a vampire, the indignities of auditions, his relationship to radio and what happened with all that Charles Manson music business. Aside from the promo clip below from "He Never Died", I only re-posted the section dealing with Manson music:

---

 

There's a film called "Manson Family Vacation" [which played at SXSW] and it touches on Charles Manson's music career and about the draw to the myth and the man. You had been involved with some of his musical output in the 1980s…

Well let's frame it correctly. His attorney sent SST Records – I'm not an owner, I just work there, SST and Touch & Go and every other indie label -- a copy of a C90 and a C60 of Manson playing at Vacaville [Prison].

All the labels passed. SST didn't. Greg Ginn and Chuck Dukowski said yes to the project. There was no one there to edit it, everyone's busy. And I said "I'll do it." I put on the tapes and listened. It's good! Like there's an album here of acoustic folky bluesy scat improv vocal music.

I write Charles Manson a very Boy Scoutish letter. "I read Helter Skelter in ninth grade so I'm aware of your career." I said "I'm your editor and I've been working on edits. I'm going to fade in and fade out. I have a 35 minute record. I think it's good." Like, I'm your editor. Not a producer because the tracks were produced in a prison cell.

And he wrote me back immediately. "I've seen you on MTV, man. You and I look alike. We're brothers of a different time." I'm like okay, he's trying to get in my head.

And I had this correspondence with him that lasted from ‘84 to 1987. And like I have letters, photographs, maps, drawings, things he'd make me out of yarn. Crazy stuff. But the record got as far as the six test pressings. Word of the record came out, the L.A. Times got a hold of it. We started getting the most incredible death threats. Like, "Here's your address and I will cut your head off if you put this record out." And "I know you practice here. You live here and you walk this way to practice." I'm like wow, this is real.

I wanted to put the record out. I said screw these guys – let's do it. Greg and Chuck cancelled it.

Manson took it all out on me, like "I knew you'd rip me off!" He called me a bunch of names. I tried to explain the cult politicism of SST Records and our stated station in L.A. I tried and he's like "No, you ripped me off. The Beach Boys ripped me off. All you guys…" – All kinds of language.

Yeah, he just flipped out on me. I'm like, "Charlie, it's not me. I'm on the label but I'm not the label." You can't explain something like that to a guy like that. I did the best I could and finally, on the last letter he cooled out a little so I think he did have a moment to… I said it's not me. It's Frank and Chuck and they're afraid they're going to get cut up. I said fuck it, let's just put it out.

The last letter I ever got from him he said okay, we're cool. And then I never heard from him again. And so it's not my property. It's not even SST's. They dropped it.

So it belongs to Charlie I guess. A good record. It's been bootlegged. It's out. I called it "Completion" from his poem he sent me. And if you type in "Manson Completion" [in a search], that's because that's the edited tape. It made the rounds and I've seen it online. In fact, I've seen a CD of it. And so you can find it. Of the six test presses, I have two. So that's probably the rarest thing from it. But it'll never be released by SST, I doubt it. But it's out there, it's around.

Other labels have put out his music.

Yes, quite a bit. He sent me about 40 hours of stuff that I'm sitting on. The album, though, is from only the two tapes. But his lawyer is like "Well Charlie wanted you to have this" and it's these books of cassettes. I'm like "Thanks." I've played some of them. Some of the sound quality just sounds like a bunch of people in a prison just slamming doors. But I have many hours of Manson that he gave me.

Would you like to put that into the world?

Well it's not mine. And I'm very – I'm proprietary of other people's stuff, in that it does not belong to me. It is not mine to put out. How dare I. And people give me stuff all the time. I've got rare music like you've got hair on your head. The kind of stuff like, that I shouldn't have, like this never happened. All kinds of music that's never gone anywhere because I promised I wouldn't play it.

I know what's mine and what's not mine and I don't betray. Like, you could give me a million dollars and leave. Come back in 20 years, I go "You left this." I'm not going to rip you off. I'm just not that guy. It's been done to me. I don't want to do it to someone else.

I have a big music archive, a lot of things that I have one of a kind, cover artwork, correspondence. I buy estates, you know, like if a guy dies, I'm like, "Are you going to sell that?"

You need a house for that, right?

Well it takes the capacity of a three story building, all the stuff.

So anyway I'm very honest with all that stuff and so the Manson stuff, that's up to him and his people. I haven't been in touch with the guy for 30 years or so, so I don't know what his life is like.

Original article found HERE

Thanks, Chatsworth Charlie!