A few, good photos......(Rated R)

I really haven't been able to think of anything creative or spunky to write on this blog for a good while, so I'll just spew out whatever pops into my "lopsided-thought-chamber-brain repair-center." Oh, if you are wondering what that means, that was Manson's description of someone's brain. Perhaps I will be reinspired again when I join the Mansonblog team on their 2018 tour! Yes, you read this correctly. Austin Ann will be leaving her beloved Austin to fly into the bowels of L.A. to meet/greet Matt & friends (and perhaps a single dude) for the first time......Austin Ann is now Divorced Ann! :-)  In closing, how about some photos to enjoy. I hadn't seen these, hence the reason for posting them. Enjoy, people:

The latest of Capistrano "Cappy" Gillies looking like she was caught off guard:

Secondly, Miss "Krenny" wearing the most hideous looking sandals I've ever seen:

This, in my opinion is the best photo I have ever seen of "Mother Mary":
(Is that considered sacrilegious?)

Here is one of Charlie I had never seen before.Was he reminiscing about all the hard work he used to perform at Spahn Ranch? Wait a minute, he never did any work, did he? Sorry, my mistake:

An absolutely lovely photo of Miss Sandy Good. Did this chick ever take a bad shot? I don't think so!

See what I mean. Even in the "Now" she looks hot!

I used to think this photo was taken when Susan "Sadie" Atkins was taken out of Sybil Brand for the day, so she could assist with the investigation. I even did a posting about it, where I was thrashed by the readers who disagreed with me. What's up with the cat? Where the hell was she?

What Tony Soprano hates: "Manson Lamps!"

Bob Beausoleil modeling Yoko Ono's "bag piece."

And now....for the good stuff. Ooh La La! George Spahn wasn't too blind after all, was he? WOW!

Ah, obedient nymphs.....obedient nymphs who would cut your "chorizo" off if challenged or crossed...obedient nymphs just the same.....

One more for the road:

Manson and his ever changing prison coiffure:

Even as a child, Susan Atkins had some scary-looking eyes in my opinion:

Arrested for the Willett murders, and not looking too happy:

Just another day at the office for Manson in prison: (dude in middle looks like serial killer Rodney Alcala, right?)

See what I mean:

I cannot recall ever having seen this picture of Clem sporting some serious "Moe" bangs:

Most girls would kill to have eyebrows that arched that high:

What in THE HELL was Kitty Lutesinger thinking? By that time, hadn't she fled from those people, and sung to the cops? Why did she go back? Continuing on, what, one wonders were they so amused at in this photo. I would've thrown rotten eggs at them from a passing car.....just sayin.....

Supposedly, this photo was taken by Charlie with a stolen Polaroid:

I never realized how pretty Ella Jo Bailey really was. What a smile:

Johnny Cash:

Okay, okay.....this will be the last one for the road. Hey! Built in underwear.......meaning.....the tan lines......right?

FIN

The Beatles, The Bible, The Bugliosi & The BS

THE BEATLES, THE BIBLE, THE BUGLIOSI & THE BS   

Put on by the children for a lark...

When the Beatles had finished basking in the counter-cultural glow of the (In)famous 1967 Summer of Love with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the quickly becoming tiresome acid alliteration-Thank you Mike Love-of the Magical Mystery Tour, the brilliant lads from Liverpool got dark and serious with The Beatles AKA The White Album, released Nov. 22, 1968.

Charles Manson and his Family duly took note, and although Beatle George Harrison would later note that The White Album music "had absolutely nothing to do with...Californian shagnasties," and ""It was upsetting to be associated with anything as sleazy as Charles Manson," as Harrison said in the Beatles Anthology. Yet many of the songs contained on The Beatles would become LA assistant district attorney Vincet T. Bugliosi's prosecutorial template for the most bizarre and unlikely legally presented motive for mass murder in as Vince liked to opine, the annals of record crime.

And yet this from John Lennon on Beatles music making murder: "Helter Skelter is just a noise" And of Manson, "He's barmy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uLcBHJwiUA

And  Paul McCartney was certainly gobsmacked by the Manson seizure of Helter Skelter, yet there is this: http://beaconfilms2011.blogspot.ca/2015/04/phoney-manson-links.html

Plus an even crazier Macca/Manson one: http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2012/05/was_paul_mccartney_of_the_beatles_responsible_for.html

Even the loud one (Ringo Starr) weighed in on the CM/HS wedding: "It stopped everyone in their tracks because all this violence came out in the midst of all this love and peace and psychedelia."

And here is a wonderfully compiled and written if myth perpetuating treatise on the whole weird circus:
https://www.beatlesbible.com/features/charles-manson/

But, does the wedding of the Beatles, the Bible and the Bugliosi really amount to more than a whimsical wanking that was just a sign 'o' the times which will eventually be relegated to the dustbin of pop cultural and attendant legal history?

Let us begin by, as asked before on this Blog, do facts and those rendering them-even moi- really matter?

Some may opine that Vince Bugliosi's credibility on just about anything was severely whacked when in 2007 he produced a 1632 page tome on  the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Reclaiming History, in which Bugliosi deduced, unequivocally, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole perpetrator of Kennedy's murder.
(Here is an interesting look at that in a Vince obit: http://jfkfacts.org/vincent-bugliosi-jfk-conspiracy-skeptic-dies-at-80/#more-19451)

Reclaiming History could even be described in some way as fiction as here is the chance that Oswald was the lone perpetrator of JFK's death: ZERO!

And as one popular book on the JFK outrage's title announces, we will "not in our lifetime" know the truth. If ever.

But of course writing books became Vince's after Helter Skelter occupation and as well, you can't believe everything you read, it would be fair to ask if coming up with ridiculous and/or unbelievable scenarios and motives for a murder case were not the Buglioi MO. First HS, then "reclaiming history."

Bugliosi points out in Helter Skelter that a successful murder prosecution need not include a motive and in the case of the Manson murders, nothing could be more right on. Besides key physical evidence, eye-witness testimony from former and then current Family members, Vince T had an embarrassment of riches evidence wise but he also had what he very cleverly deduced was a great gimmick.

Despite the fact that Vince was not the kind of guy who rushed out to Tower to grab the latest Fabs' LP, he was culturally astute enough to dig the incredible allure of mixing the biggest rock band in the history of the world's music with drugs and beautiful people and sex and murder and well, the 60s.

He shook it all up in a Beatle blender and out spewed a sensational, sexy serial murder narrative that the mass media was and is orgasmic with, now approaching 50 years on.

Hangers on to the Family provided Vince with amazing tales of Helter and Skelter and Bugliosi helped those fantasist repeaters to weave a somewhat coherent if not accurate narrative for court-and most importantly-media proceedings. If you doubt this, listen to the hours of interview tapes of those concerned on YouTube.

Sure, the defendants ran their mouths in court about the black magic of Helter Skelter and yet they were just part of the circus of performing seals directed by Charlie and also a possible defense of the mens rea of the accused who were perhaps not as out-of-it nuts batshit crazy as was assumed.

And for those still in the joint for the crimes, it is still (eventually) legally helpful to claim a diminished capacity was to blame for their actions. (Although a listen or read of some of their parole hearings would seem to indicate that the parole board members are hip to this tactic as evidenced by government claims that the convicted Family members are still a "danger" to the community.)

Seriously, think about how the Manson saga would have played out without the inclusion of a Beatles angle to Charlie's koo-koo for coco-puffs philosophy and prophecies entwined with the Bible.

If it were just Charlie interpreting the Bible to his own devices sans Beatles, a big Elmer Gantry yawn would have emanated out of Southern California. Just another "born again" nut reeking havoc was how it would have been seen, and more importantly, covered.

The Beatles were the key to Bugliosi's post law career lottery win, but the lore of Helter Skelter was just nonsensical collateral to the conviction of Manson and 6 of his followers. He and the others were always going to be going down fast.

Bobby Beausoleil in Santa Barbara

Robert Kenneth “Bobby” Beausoleil  was born in Santa Barbara, California on November 6, 1947. The oldest of five children, Bobby might well be the reason for the Beausoleil family to exist; he was born less than seven months after his parents wed in late April of that year.

Record of the marriage of Charles Beausoleil and Arlene Mattox on April 29, 1947. Six and a half months after the nuptials, Robert Kenneth Beausoleil was born. (From the California, County Birth, Marriage, and Death Records, 1830-1980. California Department of Public Health)

During Beausoleil’s first year of life, in 1948, his family lived in a bungalow at 1426 Garden Street. The Santa Barbara city directory for that year listed father Charles as a salesman for the local Petan Dairy Farms. (Here “salesman” means that he drove a milk truck.)         

                                                  1426 Garden Street today                                                    

The next year the family moved a block east to a double-occupancy house at 1429 Laguna Street. The Beausoleils resided there for two years before moving again, this time to another double-occupancy house at 419 1/2 North Soledad Street. Charles was still supporting the family as a salesman for Petan Dairy. (Built in 1934, the house on Soledad had two bedrooms and two bathrooms divided amongst the people living there. Although a lower middle-class residence when the Beausoleils lived there — and even so today — the current Zillow value estimate for the property is $1,119.096, typical of real estate values in Santa Barbara.             

                                                                1429 Laguna Street

                            The former Beausoleil residence at 419 1/2 North Soledad Street                                                                                                                

Still on the move (and with Charles still winning the bread as a milk delivery person for Petan Dairy) the family moved up and spent 1953 and 1954 living in a single-family residence at 1028 Castillo Street. (The home there was torn down and replaced with a small subdivision for seniors in 1987. )

Then, in 1955 and on into the 1980s the Beausoleils lived at 1382 Santa Rita Circle. By now Charles had worked his way up to being a route supervisor for another dairy company, Arden Farms. And he supplemented his income from that job by working part-time as a clerk in a nearby liquor store.

Bobby began attending the Santa Barbara High School. He would have been a member of the class of ’65 but he didn’t make it that far. His picture appears in the 1963 school yearbook as a sophomore, but although he is listed as a student during the next two years he did not graduate and there are no photos of him in the ’64 and ’65 books.

  Bobby Beausoleil as a sophomore in the 1963 

Santa Barbara High School Olive & Gold yearbook

                                                   The Santa Barbara High School today

In a 1998 interview for Seconds Magazine Beausoleil recalled his time growing up in the city that calls itself “the American Riviera.”

“I was born in Santa Barbara, California in 1947, to a couple who were and still are—at least the one of them who is still living—Catholic. I was the first born son, the first of five children. I have two brothers and two sisters. Not a well-to-do family, but we always got by. My dad worked two jobs sometimes to make that happen with such a large family. For most of the years when I was growing up he worked for Arden Farms Dairy—he was milkman, basically, and he became a manager for the company later on. It was a working class family. On the GI Bill my dad bought a tract home in 1955, and that's where I spent most of my years growing up. We had lived in a couple of other houses before that.”

The 1969 Santa Barbara City Directory for Bobby Beausoleil's parents. It shows Bobby's father Charles as a route foreman for the Arden Farms Dairy Company.

Above and below, current views of the home that the Beausoleil family resided in in 1969. 

The house is just a few blocks from Santa Barbara’s Shoreline Park and the Pacific ocean. 

(The second story was added after their residency. )

The Mesa Liquor Store where Charles Beausoleil supplemented the 

family income by working part-time as a clerk in 1959

Beausoleil was always into music. He recalled,

“I’ve always had a fascination for music. The earliest Christmas present that I remember getting was a drum—one of those little toy drums with paper heads and a pair of drumsticks. I was four or five, but I remember that gift, whereas I don't really remember any of the others. And I remember that I beat it to death, there was nothing left of the skins on either side—which was kind of a shame because then it wouldn't work as a drum anymore! After that as I was growing up I remember building these strange instruments, out of wooden crates, sort of jug band type instruments….  and I would play them and just banged the hell out of them. So maybe had I been born one universe over from this one I would have been a drummer. But as it happened I found a guitar in the attic of my grandmother's house when I was about eleven years old….

“My mother could play a couple of songs on the piano, I guess she'd had a few lessons. But other than that there was no real music tradition in my family. My uncle at one point must have played guitar a little bit, since he played me a song that one time. On my father's side, both my grandparents were deaf. Other than singing in the shower, which he did with considerable passion, my father didn't bring any musical ability to my early years, or at least not any musical influence. Most of it was just my listening to the radio…. 

“We had one table radio, but eventually my mom got a hi-fi stereo, one of those console things on which she would play Harry Belafonte and Johnny Mathis records. When she got the stereo I was given the family radio, but up until that point I had a crystal radio that I had built and it had a little earphone, and underneath the blankets I would listen to KISS radio all night. Every third or fourth song they played was a rock song, you had to listen through all these other songs…. 

“Santa Barbara wasn't really a place that was on the cutting edge…. At the time I heard one person characterize it as "a town for the newlywed or nearly dead." When I was first growing up there it was a pretty small town, only a couple of stop lights where the highway went through. Very quaint . . . the wealthy people were up in the hills, the less wealthy were on the flats, down at sea-level. There was Haley Street area, which was the black ghetto, and there were the barrio areas and then the upper crust in the Montecito and Hope Ranch areas, and various strata in between. It was a pretty nice town, and the beach was always great. I loved the ocean, and the mountains weren't too far away. 

“I never really got into [surfing]. I did a lot of body-surfing and swimming. I think probably my life might have gone differently if I had been able to afford a surfboard, but they were kind of spendy back in those days and I never got into it. I wound up in more of a greaser mode—the hair falling down the center of the forehead and the ducktails…. [I was] twelve or thirteen.”

A summer spent with his grandmother in El Monte, California was characteristic of Beausoleil's penchants for music, rebelliousness, and associating with people he found interesting.

“I was visiting my grandmother during the summer in El Monte, in the Los Angeles County area, and made friends with some, I guess, Rockabilly-oriented people. This was a Mexican barrio and a white ghetto, El Monte, with a lot of people from Arkansas and other places who had migrated to California looking for the economic "Grail," and found themselves in this low-rent district, pretty much a shanty town type of environment. I wound up hanging out at this gas station which a friend of mine helped his parents operate. It was a little run-down 76 station. He was about my age, thirteen or fourteen. His parents would spend most of the day in the bar, and he would for the most part run the gas station and we helped him, me and a couple of other guys. We all played guitar, so we spent much of our time sitting on old car seats behind the gas station playing "What I Say" or some stuff that one of the guys brought from Arkansas like "Under the Double Eagle" or "Wildwood Flower," all those kinds of things. I got into where I was picking notes instead of just strumming and I expanded my repertoire in a sense, or my techniques anyway. I had a blast doing that. Then I refused to return to Santa Barbara when it was time to go back to school—I wanted to stay there with my grandmother and hang out with my friends. That lasted for several months past the time I was supposed to have gone back to school . . . and then I got busted. It was just after Christmas and my friends and I went out in one of our homemade jalopies. 

“We were building these cars and we usually took them down to this dry riverbed to race them—none of us were old enough to drive. One night we went out and got crazy and just kind of terrorized the neighborhood. One of the things we did was vandalize a lawn of Christmas decorations. We took all the cardboard reindeer and A hammered them up on the side of a truck van that was out behind the gas station, and turned it into a circus van with reindeer flying across the sides. About two hours later the Sheriff's Dept. pulled into the gas station and there the evidence was, in plain view, and we all got busted. I was sent to L.A. Juvenile Hall and then back to Santa Barbara. To make a long story short, I wound up in a kind of a reform school, a fire camp called Los Prietos, up in the mountains above Santa Barbara. My parents basically said that they couldn't control me any longer.”

Beausoleil later recalled that his out-of-control behavior included "walking my dog without a leash, stolen Christmas tree ornaments, bomb scares, [and] hitchhiking on the freeway.”

Although his rebellious behavior caused some friction with his parents, Beausoleil never rejected them:

“I got along with them okay. I had loving parents, and I had a good family—still do, my dad's dead now but my mom has hung in there with me through all of these years. It wasn't so much a problem with them as with me. I was just a freedom-bound person from when I was very young. I was very independent and the circumstances enhanced that proclivity—I moved out into the garage when I was nine, which was something I wanted to do, rather than share a bedroom with two other brothers, both considerably younger than me. So I built a little room out in the garage, and that gave me a situation where I could pretty much come and go as I pleased. I used to go down to the beach late at night…. I wasn't doing anything criminal, but in the middle of the night I liked to take my dog and go down to the cliff overlooking the ocean, which was just a couple of blocks from where we lived. I'd spend hours down there. Sometimes I would just walk the neighborhood streets at night, and that kind of oriented me to being very independent.” 

Despite his independence in Santa Barbara, Beausoleil was still bored and dissatisfied, and his restlessness got him into enough trouble that he was eventually sent to “reform school,” specifically the Los Prietos Boys Camp located about ten miles north of the city in the Los Padres National Forest.

According to its website, “The Los Prietos Boys Camp program is located on 17 acres in the Los Padres National Forest.  The facility provides a local commitment option for delinquent males between the ages of 13 and 18.  Los Prietos offers a 120 or a 180 day program.  Wards earn their way out of the program based on their participation and behavior.

“The goal of Los Prietos is to return wards to the community as responsible and productive members of society.  Discipline, respect and responsibility are the motto of the facility.  Both programs embrace a zero-gang tolerance philosophy and strive to provide pro-social training, opportunities and life experiences that help to broaden a boy's world view, as well as his attitude toward all community.  The program provides work and vocational training, counseling, drug and alcohol programming, religious and spiritual expression, and promotes volunteer and community work service.”

Above and below, the entry sign at Los Prietos Boys Camp (Is that a black panther 

at the top of the sign?) and a typical barrack.

“My grandmother had cancer, and so when I was visiting her I didn't want to leave her alone—she'd been pretty much discarded by the family—and at least that was part of my rationalization, that I wanted to stay there with her . . .and to be with my friends and learn more about playing guitar, and take the old jalopies down to the riverbed, all those kinds of things. I was having more fun in that little shantytown called El Monte than I was in Santa Barbara, where I really didn't fit because I couldn't afford a surfboard. My parents had four other kids to deal with, and I'd made my own bed so to speak, so my parents let me lay in it and they signed the papers to let me spend some time in Los Prietos Boys School. It actually did a number of things for me. One, I got physically strong—I grew up a lot there. It was a good transition from boyhood to manhood, and it was pretty grueling at times…. 

“[The main issues there were] work, and dealing with a bunch of hard-headed kids. They definitely put a guy through his paces. They had a kind of boot camp training, and they really put you through it. One of the things that you did was to go up on the shale hill and break up the shale and then load it onto a flatbed truck, which would go over a tiny bridge and dump it on the other side of the creek. You asked what you were doing this for, and they would tell you, "We're moving this hill over there, to the other side of the creek." This was something you did, and you spent a lot of hours doing it in the heat. It was not that they were trying to kill us. They were trying to make men out of us. And it did serve that purpose for me…. 

“There was a part of me that resented it—I didn't like being there and I wanted to go home—but at the same time I was getting tougher, and that was good. And I'll tell you the truth though, I didn't really notice it until I got out. I didn't realize how different I had become from other people. It was something that had taken place over a period of ten months or so. There were some changes that took place. I hated having my hair cut short like we had there, and I promptly started growing my hair as soon as I got out. This was pre-Beatles, pre-hippy, it wasn't a fashionable decision at that point….

“I did have an opportunity to play a little guitar when I was there, but it wasn't something that was normally allowed. The way that worked out was that I got into the glee club—there was this guy who was one of the camp counselors, and he wanted to start a glee club. I joined the glee club and after trying to sing a cappella with these guys for awhile, I convinced him that some musical accompaniment would be needed. He had an old guitar in the cabin where he lived and he brought it out, so I got the opportunity to play a few chords along with the glee club songs. The action was so high on this guitar that it was excruciating to play, especially when I'd already lost my calluses. But at least once a week I could grip the neck of a guitar and do a little bit with it….

[Later], I lost my guitar in El Monte—it stayed down there after I got busted, and there was no way to retrieve it. So I didn't have a guitar when I got out. But when I'd been in Los Prietos during the summer months there were fires, and this was a fire camp. We didn't actually go out on the fire lines, but we would follow the path of the fire to put out the smoldering stumps, or during the fire we would sometimes load the liquid fire retardant that the fire planes dropped. We would fill the same planes with grass seed after the fire, for re-seeding. They paid us by the hour and I made quite a bit of money—I had almost $300 by the time I got out. So when I got out I had almost enough money to buy a guitar and pay cash for it. I got a little help from my mom…. 

“The [guitar] I wanted was [costly], although by today's standards it was extremely inexpensive considering what it was: a Les Paul signature SG Gibson, cream white, 3 gold pickups—just a gorgeous guitar, with a nice hard shell case. I paid $269 for it, plus the case, and today that guitar would be worth probably ten grand! So I had this really cool electric guitar and I started going back to Bonnie Langley's [Music Store on State Street] just to have somebody to play with, and because I didn't have my own amplifier yet. I got to play a little bit there, but she wasn't allowing that as openly as she had been before. Also I had evolved and the people I had grown up with had not, I don't know how to describe it any differently than that. I had gone through all this stuff and I didn't fit in…. 

“[And] I would not have stayed [in Santa Barbara] as long as I did were it not that I was afraid of getting busted again. So I tried to mind my P's and Q's and hang in there as long as I could, but I just kept getting more and more distant from myself and the kids in town. By the time I was not even sixteen I was pretty much living with a girl in an apartment, she was about four or five years older than I was…. 

“She was the sister of a friend of mine. We just hit it off. Like I said, I was beyond my years, at least in my attitudes and thinking and how I carried myself. Part of the reason why I left Santa Barbara was that she became too dependent on me, too obsessed with me. So eventually I left and went to stay with my cousin for a little while in Sunland, down on the outskirts of L.A. County. I was headed down a shady path I guess, although not in a criminal sense. My favorite cousin who I had gone to stay with turned out to be kind of a dip. He really didn't take care of his family very well. It's a little embarrassing, but at the same time it's part of the story here—I wound up sleeping with his wife. He left, and I ended up living with her. I got a job at the Travel-Eze Trailer Company, building trailers, supporting his wife and kid, and sleeping in his bed with his wife. And again, she was quite a few years older than I was. I was only sixteen….

“She was working too, we both were. I had no experience doing that, but I grew up in a family where my dad worked two jobs. So as far as understanding a work ethic and supporting a family, I had no problem with that. I just did what came naturally. I've always had the ability to work, to do real work. I kept my job easily enough. Actually I had not quite turned sixteen yet. I had a learner's driving permit, which you're allowed to get at fifteen and I'd doctored it so that I appeared to be sixteen—that had allowed me to get a job at the trailer company, and it also allowed me to drive. I bought a car, a '50 Ford with an Olds engine in it, and a hydromatic transmission. I loved that car! So I was beginning to do adult things. Then my grandmother died, the whole family was notified. Of course I had been very close to my grandmother. I went to the funeral, and it turned into a very ugly situation. My cousin went to my family and told them I was sleeping with his wife. It got really weird. My father was trying to lay down the law all of a sudden and take me home, to make me tow the line. And he'd got one of my uncles backing him up….

“I basically told them all to get fucked, and I took off. I went to Hollywood. “

Thus, Beausoleil was already long gone from the area by the late summer of 1967 when Charles Manson, Mary Brunner, and Lyn Fromme took up temporary residence in a house at 705 Bath Street  in the city.

705 Bath Street. Charles Manson, Mary Brunner, and Lyn Fromme lived here briefly in 1967.

There are some interesting notes of commonality between Bobby Beausoleil and Charles Manson, the significance of which can only be imagined. For one thing, Bobby’s father was named Charles. The maiden names of Manson’s and Beausoleil’s mothers were strikingly similar, Maddox for Manson and Mattox for Beausoleil. Both men had been institutionalized (albeit Manson much more so than Beausoleil). They had a shared residency/experiences in Santa Barbara. And, of course, they both had a keen interest in music.

Driving north out of Los Angeles on Highway 101 on August 5, 1969 after the murder of Gary Hinman would have taken Beausoleil through Santa Barbara and just over a mile away from where his parents then resided. Did he have any thought of seeing them as he passed by? Did he know anybody else in town he could have stayed with? Or was all of that too far in the past? We will never know. We just know that Beausoleil in fact drove straight on up 101 until either he or the car (the deceased Gary Hinman's Fiat) conked out at the top of the long, steep grade going up to the Cuesta Pass three miles north of San Luis Obispo. There he pulled over and went to sleep in the front seat. The next morning California Highway Patrol officer Forrest Humphrey stopped to check the car, and the rest is true-crime history.

Everything's Illegal

Long time Mansonblog reader (and my friend) brownrice and his band, The Pagan Love Cult have put out a new album called The Last Of The Long Lost Hippies. If you look carefully at the cover you can see Manson making a cameo. Really interesting stuff. Give it a listen and please support them if you can.

https://paganlovecult.bandcamp.com/album/the-last-of-the-long-lost-hippies

In his words:

"Well I finally got it together to finish the album complete with the Charlie track (though it's arguably Bruce Davis who apparently did a very good Charlie impression).  Anyways, I'm punting it out of bandcamp ('cause they let you stream the whole track for people to listen to) but it's also on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, CDbaby and all the other usual suspects with CDs to follow in the New Year. 

"It's the 3rd track, Everything's Illegal."

Love, peace & Optimistic Cynicism™,
Brownrice

Who was that kid?

I've always been puzzled & deeply curious as to WHY a child would've been allowed to roam & wander around the area where a horrific, brutal slaughter of multiple people took place, with one laying in a car only a few feet away. Yes, he was outside the gate, with the hordes of cops, reporters, morgue staff, priests & curious onlookers, but WHY. Who was he? Why was he there? Where were his parents/parent? Was he a neighbor? Was he related to one of the reporters? He was just walking around, like nothing while complete & utter pandemonium was all around him, reporters shouting, cops scratching their heads in confusion, helicopters flying overhead, news conferences being filmed, etc. You see him in still photos, and in news clips. He was walking right by one of the hearses while behind the freaking CORONER, and a priest (Peter Sellers-look-alike) who was probably going to give blessings over the bodies. I would've been scared out of my mind! Any clues to who the kid was?

You can see him starting at 6:20 on this video:

Best wishes to everyone from all of us here at the blog!  We couldn't do it without you.

VERN PLUMLEE: Unanswered Questions

Plumlee, 20 in 1969, was a Family associate/sometime member who first shows up at the Ranch about July of '69, when he was hired by Ruby Pearl as a ranch hand. He was AWOL (Absent Without Leave) from the Marines and someone probably told him he could hide out at the ranch.  He describes his first meeting with Charlie:

Long Beach Independent, 10-28-70
"When I first met Charlie, he walked up and said 'Let me run your life down' and he did. It just kinda blew my mind. He said I had been in jail since I was 14; knew I was at McClaren (Juvenile) Hall; knew I was AWOL. I don't know how he knew." 

Was Charlie just plain psychic? Or did Charlie get a peek at Vern's employment application (assuming he filled one out), perhaps via Squeaky, who was always at the side of George Spahn, the owner of the Ranch? But would Vern have told Ruby Pearl that he was a deserter from the Marines or that he had been in juvenile hall? Is this statement by Charlie in fact evidence that someone else (like maybe his handler) was briefing him about Vern's background?

Vern apparently fit right in with the Family: 

http://www.mansonblog.com/search/label/Vern%20Plumlee

Ed Sanders: "Vern Plumlee is famous in Mansonian circles in that, armed with a sawed-off shotgun, he creepy crawled the homes of Jack Jones, the star, and Marvin Miller in July of 1969."

In fact he was close enough to volunteer for the night of terror:

Long Beach Independent, 10-28-70
(Plumlee) said Tuesday he watched as accused mass murderer Charles Manson and seven members of his hippie "family" set out to kill (the second night). In fact, (Plumlee) admits "I offered to go along to help, but Charlie said 'no.' "He said he'd keep it in mind, though, for the future."

Did Vern know what had happened the night before at the Tate residence? If so, then he might have been legally culpable as an accessory after the fact. At the very least it shows he was as fully under the Manson spell as anybody else in the Family.

In Sept/Oct of '69, Plumlee split "because fear enveloped the Ranch." But like so many others after the Family broke up, Plumlee soon got into serious trouble even without Charlie's help.

A year later, on September 26, 1970, Vern and a friend--Robert Eugene Russell, in his early 20s--were caught ransacking the home of some people they had just been drinking with in a bar. A fight ensued and two of the residents were stabbed, one seriously.

Long Beach Independent, 10-22-70
Roberto A. Rivarola, 19... was stabbed in the stomach, chest and left arm by Russell, said police. (Plumlee stabbed the other victim, Jeffrey Hanham, 48)... As the three (victims) were ordered into a bedroom, Plumlee reportedly said "I've killed three times before; one more doesn't matter." Rivarola told police that as he lay on the floor pleading for help, Plumlee leaned over, kissed him on the forehead and said "that's life."

It didn't take long for the law to catch up to Vern and his cohort:

Long Beach Independent, 10-12-70
Two former Manson "family" members sought on attempted murder charges in Long Beach have been arrested by FBI agents in Washington state...  Meanwhile, Long Beach police disclosed they raided a motel room here last week where the pair had been staying and confiscated a number of items, including tape recordings titled, "The Manson Story," a typewritten manuscript called "Where's Charlie?" and a book on "Satanism and Witchcraft."
Vernon Ray Dean Plumlee and Robert Eugene Russell, both Marine deserters, were arrested in a hippie commune outside Spanaway(WA) and are being held in Tacoma City jail under the Dyer Act for investigation of taking a stolen car across state lines, police said...
 ... (Long Beach PD)Officers R.C. Watsen and M.K. Post, responding to the tip, found the books and tape recordings together with a 9mm automatic and 43 rounds of ammunition, envelopes addressed to Charles Watson, a suspect in the Tate-LaBianca murders, a leather sheath and a knife-sharpening stone, several detective books and an Afro style wig.

At this point one might ask "who the hell is Robert Eugene Russell?"  The media claimed he was an associate of the Family, yet he appears on no list of Family members compiled by the police (Lt Deemer's list) or media.

Long Beach Independent, 10-12-70
 .... Russell was described as "an associate member" of the family who visited the ranch periodically.  He had been subpoenaed July 22 (1970) while in the Marine brig at 29 Palms to appear as a prosecution witness at the Manson trial.

Here is the only known pic of Russell, taken at the time of his trial, apparently.  Russell seems to have a strong resemblance to another Family associate called "Allen Lee Delisle," 21, (especially around the eyes) taken from the collection of Family mugshots. Are they the same person?

Allen Delisle left, Robert Russell right

Unfortunately no more is known of this "Allen Delisle" person, or how he was linked to the Family.

From the stuff found in their motel room it appears Plumlee and Russell were still very much tied in to Charlie and Family. And then the question becomes: did the crime have something to do with the Family, or was it done under the influence of the "Helter Skelter" philosophy?

Plumlee and Russell pleaded guilty; Vern was sentenced to prison and ended up doing seven years; after this he went straight and no more was heard from him.

-----------

post script - the Hidden Hills Murder

Shortly after their arrests, detectives felt the need to link Plumlee and Russell to another unsolved murder:

Long Beach Independent, 10-12-70
Officers said last week... the pair also matched the description of two men who killed one person and wounded two others July 21 in Hidden Hills near the Spahn Ranch where Manson family members lived.

This refers to the murder of Norman Weitzman, 39, at the home of his parents in the exclusive Hidden Hills subdivision in the far west part of LA County, just over the hills from Malibu, near Agoura. On July 21, 1970 their home was invaded by three men, apparently intent on robbery. 

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/18/local/me-murder-party18

Norman Weitzman was shot to death July 21, 1970, at his parents' home in the wealthy, gate-guarded enclave of Hidden Hills at the west end of the San Fernando Valley. Three hooded men had broken in looking for cash collected from the company's network of gum ball and peanut dispensing (vending) machines. (The company--Oak Manufacturing Co. -- also manufactured vending machines.)... Norman Weitzman died trying to protect his family. His parents were severely injured by the intruders. His father, Sam, 60, was shot in the neck, rolled up in a carpet and left for dead. Lillian, his 59-year-old mother, was badly pistol-whipped.

But robbery might not have been the prime motive:

LA Times 7-22-70 (the day after the murder)
"Detectives were uncertain about the motive, saying Sam Weitzman's home... had been only lightly ransacked and that several expensive items were left untouched."

LA Times 7-23-70
"...the usual items such as stereos, cameras, and other valuables had not been taken by the killers."

Van Nuys News 11-30-71
"... Money and jewelry were stolen, but there was speculation the invasion was an "underworld" operation."

[Why would police think that a home invasion robbery was an 'underworld' thing?  They wouldn't--unless the victims had links to the 'underworld.'  It should be noted that the vending machine business has a long association with mobsters.]

15 months later, in October or November of 1971, two suspects -- Enrique B. Gil, 20s, and Edward Kessler, 35--were arrested. They did not have any known connection to Charlie or Family.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/18/local/me-murder-party18

Two trials resulted in hung juries. A third ended with the acquittal of the first suspect to be tried.  After that, charges against the second suspect were not pursued. The third suspect subsequently died while in federal prison for another crime without facing charges in Weitzman's death.

Paul J. Fitzgerald, who defended Patricia Krenwinkel in the TLB trial, was Kessler's attorney.  Marvin Part, who represented Leslie Van Houten for a time after her arrest, also represented one of the suspects. (Though I don't know if these attorneys represented the defendants in all three trials.)

Marvin Part

Paul Fitzgerald

There is no hard evidence connecting the Manson Clan to the Hidden Hills murder/home invasion, and I don't know why the police initially thought they were linked.  But I am reminded of what Tex wrote regarding his drug connection:

http://www.aboundinglove.org/main/images/bookPDFs/Will_You_Die_For_Mesmall.pdf

Tex Watson, Will You Die For Me?
--pg 51of 120  "I'd  arranged  to buy a kilo of grass from the dealer who'd been supplying the Family — he fronted the dope with a vending-machine company and people said he was with the Mafia."

I'm surprised no fans of the "drug burn" theory of TLB have ever tried to tie the Weitzman murder to the case.

Special thanks to DebS for her help compiling this thread!

The End of an Era

"Living is what Scares me.... Dying is easy"
- Charles Manson


" Its always our own self that we find at the end of a journey. The sooner we find that self, the better"
- Ella Maillart


Ya know... 

I came into this world in the "Summer Of Love" almost literally. I was born in the Spring of 1967. Not three months from when Charlie Manson walked into the Haight Ashbury District for the very first time. I was too young to be a part of what, I always have believed to be, the most exciting years our nation has ever experienced. At least as far as individual freedoms and hope. I have had to settle for spending my life reading about it to settle my curiosity. It seemed that magically almost overnight, society went from black and white to color. Like that scene in Wizard of Oz when Dorothy first opens the door in Munchkin City. Things just became a whole lot more wide open than people were used to thinking were possible. As I got older, I became more and more curious as to what the counter-culture movement was all about? From what I could find in books, records and radio, all roads seemed to lead to California. From the Beach Boys as a tot, and then the Doors records we used to play in basement I grew up in as a boy, to the Greatful Dead shows I used to trade bootlegs of in High School- I have been infatuated with all things Musical, Hippy, and California for most of my life. This fascination has led me to study many movements and cliques of the late 60's period, where it seems all 3 of these subjects were intertwined, and at their peak. Scientology, The Process Church of Final Judgement, The Hog Farm, The Panthers, The Diggers, the Merry Pranksters, The BEL ( TY Patty) - I have delved into all of them. Same with the rock and roll scene. From the earliest clubs on Sunset Strip, and the musician networking in Laurel Canyon, to the music coming out of the Bay area and the creation of Psychedelic Rock and the Jam-band sound. I read every book and listened to every tale I could find. But the one story that stayed with me the most, and has haunted my dreams, after all these years is the story of Helter Skelter and Charles Manson. It is not really a Hippy story in my opinion to be honest, but that it is how I came across it, so it will always be catalogued in my memory with that period of time...

I have read in many places that two events ended the "Spirit of the 60's". One was the Murder of Meredith Hunter in Livermore California, at the Altamont Raceway, during a free Rolling Stones Concert. The other was the Manson murders of Sharon Tate and her friends, followed by the slayings of Leo and Rosemary Labianca the following night. I would argue that although there was plenty of ugliness, drugs, Hippies and bikers involved in both stories to merit a comparison, only one has truly withstood the test of time, as judged by public interest, to really merit consideration as the turning point in a cultural shift. I am quite sure that while 90% of America no longer remembers the events of the Northern California raceway where one tragedy took place late in 1969, almost everyone who has heard the name Manson raised an eye when the Mastermind of another tragedy in the same year passed away last month in a Bakersfield Hospital.

Today, I take a final look at the life of Charles Manson.....

His Youth: 

I wouldn't wish the childhood of Charles Manson on anyone. At the age most of us are wondering what the difference is between a number two pencil and any other pencil, Charlie was struggling to keep food in his mouth, clothes on his back, and a roof over his head. Boy's schools, and reform programs tossing you back and forth, while you are handed from relative to relative, is not a really an enabling or nurturing environment for success. Charlie was dealt a bad hand for sure. He was stealing and breaking minor laws to get by at a very early age, and in many ways he really had no choice. Charles Manson had a tragic youth. Although there was some love, and a few family members who were showing him some type of example, he was pretty much left to himself by the two people who matter the most in all of our upbringings - Mom and Dad. Living on the run, and moving from one crime to another just to get by was a sure recipe for trouble. Trouble is exactly what young Charlie kept finding. Constantly and consistently, until he was finally through his childhood and teenage years, Charlie would spend a good deal of time in confinement. There was not much promise or hope in the earliest years of Manson. It wasn't until he was a grown man that he would get a real taste of freedom and possibility. But when he got it, Ohhhh what a taste he got....

His Big Break and Opportunity:

In march of 1967, Charlie was released from prison and given permission to go to San Fransisco just in time for what was probably the greatest multi-month psychedelic party in the history of our Country. Charlie was able to find housing and a girlfriend, or two, and to play his music with others who were living free and enjoying the vibes of the times. Imagine the man who had just spent so many years shuffling along in the black and white world of prisons and reform schools walking into all of that visual stimulation. Ahhh, The sounds and the colors of The Haight in summer of 1967. Much like the aforementioned Dorothy, this young man from the poor, rural part of nowhere America, must have felt like he was in some new place very far from anything resembling what he used to call home. And it must have been truly amazing. What an incredible time of peace and love. Charlie had an opportunity to understand the human side of people, and all the good that they are capable of. Sharing and kindness were all around him. Charlie had a chance to make anything he wanted of himself, and the possibilities were limitless. He caught a break coming out to this environment. It was the first of a few good things that would happen to him. He was starting to meet people who would support him, and give him friendship and love. It gave him a chance to start fresh and make something positive with his life if he so chose. What he chose instead was to start to gather a group of people and go in another direction....

His Family:

From Mary and Squeakster who were his first, to Sandy, Patricia, and Nancy who were maybe his most loyal. From Ruth and Diane who were too young to know any better, to Gypsy and Leslie who knew exactly what they were getting into. Charlie had an effect for sure on the Girls. For not the love and dedication of the core group of girls, I say this Family never sticks together and none of the rest of it ever goes down. The girls were the glue and bond that kept the whole thing together. With the men I believe it was different. I believe there were a couple who bought the rap such as Brooks, and maybe Bruce and Tex to an extent. However, I think the guys just went along with whatever the message of the day was, in order to get high and laid. In any case, and for whatever reason you want to pick, Charlie was able to put together a core group of 20 people or so who more or less stayed together on the promise of a daily diet of things all people that age were interested in back in the late 60's. Intoxication and the opposite sex. But again, this gave Charlie both the chance to have an easy life and to enjoy the places and times in which he was very fortunate to be living. Even more, during this period he was able to meet some of the real movers and shakers of the moment in his loved profession- music. From Neil Young to Dennis Wilson, Charlie got a rare opportunity to get on the inside. Maybe he just wasn't good enough, or maybe he just didn't take it seriously enough? Who am I to judge today. In any case, when it didn't happen, instead of looking for another way to make himself happy, he decided to take a turn towards a much darker place. And once he went in that direction, the momentum started picking up at an alarming speed.  To some in his circle, this was a sign it was time to leave. Others believed it to be "cool". Those back then learned it was otherwise so, but there are those who believe that Charlies darkness was "cool" to this day. It wasn't just acid and the 60's that caused normal people to buy into Charlies ideas. Charlie has an extended family which somehow morphed from the kids and young adults of the Spahn and Barker ranches, to a small assorted group of cliques of people who still correspond, speak with, and visit with him to this day. In all his adult life, his ability to draw some in never seemed to diminish. It has always been a challenge for me to understand why some could read, and hear, what those who were in the original Family had to say about what life was like with Charles Manson, that would make them wish to become a part of it, or champion what he said and did? Because what started out as a fun group of people taking acid and making love in the sun, at some point became a hardened group of criminals, who stole, assaulted, and murdered people under the leadership, and in most cases direction of, Charles Manson...


 
His Crimes:

The crimes of Charles Manson are many. From his earliest days he was stealing and breaking minor laws. As he got older the crimes got more serious. Even long before the TLB crimes he was raping, pimping, stealing, forging, and doing all types of  criminal behavior as one would expect from a person who spent more than half of their formative years in confinement of some type. There were dozens of people all over the country who were hurt, robbed, or cheated by Charles Manson before he ever played one note on his guitar. But this blog is mostly about one specific set of crimes, so let me address it one last time clearly and finally. Then the rest of you can battle over it for as long as you wish....

TLB:  I do not know for sure what the real motive for the TLB crimes is. And Neither do you.

I suspect strongly that there is some basic element of all of the the motives we fight over here. I think its possible that some of the girls believed they were trying to get Bobby out of Jail. I think Charlie may have had some personal reason for choosing the locations that we may never know. I think Charlie had personal ways to push each individuals buttons to get what he wanted from each specific individual. I also think, he knew there were limits to how far he could push certain people in his Family. And you know what else I think?

I think that Helter Skelter was probably the button he pushed for at least a couple of them.

Bugs lied and embellished, and used every trick in his book to get his guy and make his story. That is true. But, it is also true that there is more physical, testimonial, and circumstantial evidence to support the Helter Skelter motive than there is any other motive put forth by anyone else. Scream as you may, we have been over this so many times. There was just too much evidence of Helter Skelter to simply ignore it. I think Bugs could have worked out an angle over drug burn, or copy-cat, or music business envy and just as easily involved Charlie and sold books. But he chose Helter Skelter as the starting point to build his case, and novel, on. I think there was a simple reason for that. There was more to back up and justify a Helter Skleter motive than anything else. Does not mean it was the only motive, or the real ultimate motive, But it is fair to say it was around and probably played some part for, at least, some of them. And, I have read and listened to a couple of the people involved say that Helter Skelter was the reason they did it, so I think that the actual murderers reasoning for doing what they did is good enough for me.

I think all of this. I do not know. If you want to insult my mother, beat me up, or call me names- then have one last time at it. The one thing I do feel strongly about is that whatever the real reason for the crimes, Charlie was aware of it, and involved with the crimes in as far as deciding the locations and choosing the participants. I am going to end my time studying this case certain that this is the truth. Charlie was as responsible for TLB as any of the actual killers in that aspect. For ten years now I have been reading books, and watching movies and documentaries. I have visited the locales. I have read or listened to almost every parole hearing any one of them has had. If I am sure of any one thing after all of this time, it is that Manson knew exactly what was going on with both the Tate and Labianca murders, and he and he alone called the shots. Many people give many reasons for why Charlie never tried to put on a normal defense, nor took his parole chances seriously. I think its because in his heart he knows that he couldn't defend himself in this case. Charles Manson accepted what he did, even if none of his supporters ever did or will. Manson was many bad things, but not a hypocrite. He went out of his way in the courtroom to show who was in charge and called the shots, how could he ever admit later on that someone else was the boss? Charlie made his famous speech in court and he didn't try to explain that he wasn't involved, he used his moment in the spotlight to try and make people understand his way of thinking and how it justified what happened. It is a real tragedy to me is that Manson has never shown any remorse or sense of responsibility for any of the people he hurt in any of those years. None of the victims of the crimes he was involved in, nor any of the young lives he ruined when he led young kids into harms way, over and over again. He offered no answers or explanations. He just left us with questions. the greatest among them, of course, being- Why?

Senseless Tragedy. To me that will be the real legacy of Charles Manson. But, there are others...

 Legacies:

I wrote a post about this time last year about what I thought the legacies of Manson would be. It was called "Blurred Lines", and although I am not going to rehash the entire post again here, I did reread it myself. Today, I will just summarize....

Manson will leave behind real family. Children and Grandchildren. I hope they can live life free of the shadow the name represents. They lost family and I am sorry for them all for that.

Manson leaves behind an extended family of friends and supporters. People are mourning his loss and celebrating the life he lived in his memory. They will carry on his causes, defend his name, and make sure his side is heard. I do not get you, but again, am sorry for your loss.

Manson will be the subject of much media and TV. We will continue to get movies, specials, documentaries, and books well into the future. This story blends all the essential ingredients. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, celebrity, the wild west, and of course throw it all into a Hollywood locale- add the perfect Evil Bad Guy and you have the crime story gift that just keeps on giving. There is a great line the movie Gladiator when Proximus tells Commodus to " Win the Crowd. You must give them something they have never seen before, and you will win the crowd." Well, Manson gave us all something we had never seen before alright. And it appears to have won over at least some segment of the population who show no signs that their interest in this subject is slowing down.

Manson leaves behind his music. Covered from many established artists, and available all over the internet, Charlies music will stick around for the curious to seek out, and his loyal base to reminisce to. There are a few versions of a couple of Charlies songs that actually stick with me, although to be honest- I like the music Brooks and Paul did in the Hendrickson documentary better than anything Charlie ever did.

Charlie leaves behind his name. Manson will be a word that represents evil long after my time has come I suspect. It has become ingrained in our societal conscious as a representation of murder and darkness. Frankly, I think Tex is a lot more deserving of that distinction, But, Tex was smart enough to get himself tried separately and keep his mouth shut, and Charlie had a fatal desire to turn his trial into a performance which he personally controlled in front of the jury, press and world. So Manson himself has as much to do with that as anyone. Charlie is mostly responsible, through his own actions, for creating his own myth.

 Finally, Charlie leaves behind all of us. The curious. From the TLB Scholars, to the casual lurkers. Charlie leaves behind questions. What was it really like? Why did they really do it? Who really knew what and when? We could go on and on, and most of you certainly will. Like any fascinating tragedy, we are stuck in perpetual limbo trying to understand the understandable. From giggling children smoking pot and having orgies, to blood stained robots, stabbing innocent people to death, and joking about it. How does that happen? To those people, and in that time and place? It just doesn't make sense. Maybe it's not supposed to. If we really knew the truth, what would we do next? Would that be the end? Does it ever end? Only we can decide the end of our own journey's. And I can only speak for myself in regards to this journey. Mine ends with Charlies and Charlies journey is over. This is where I get off.  In the last couple of years we have lost Manson, Hendrickson, and Bugliosi. with each passing of the major players, the chances of learning more real valuable truth grows greater and greater. I sometimes wonder if this isn't going to end up being Charlies last laugh at all of us. That a community of smart people would spend so much time trying to make sense out of a guy who once said that "No sense makes sense".

I have to imagine that Charlie stopped caring about this as much as we do, a very long time ago. I know that for me the death of Charles Manson is very much the end of an era. For the last ten years, I have been watching and waiting for something relevant to shake up the history of the case. Waiting for Charlie, or someone to say something that would finally shed some light on all of the unknowns. Waiting for someone to finally let us all know who was right and who was wrong. Charlie, most importantly of all, could have ended all of our fighting over motive at any time he wished. Just one coherent conversation or letter. But there is no chance for that now. Charles Manson has passed away. Charlie has had his final say on this subject.

And now I have had mine.....

- Your Favorite Saint