One Degree of Sharon Tate

Watch your feet, because I'm about to drop some names ... BIG names: Jenilee (I'm no Suzanne Sommers) Harrison, Tracey (Growing Pains/Oprah) Gold, Todd (What choo talkin' bout, Willis) Bridges and Henry (The Fonz) Winkler. All of these and many more celebs were at the Hollywood Show at the Marriott in lovely Burbank, CA last weekend. The reason I went was to meet and greet with Barbara (Valley of the Dolls/Sharon Tate's Bridesmaid) Parkins.  

These events feature your favorite celebrity with a slew of their 8x10's and memorabilia for sale.  Autographs $20.00, pictures with the stars, another $20.00 or more depending on if the celebrity's star is shining. Barbara Parkins had numerous photo stills from "Valley" to sign, and the iconic image of her on the bed with co-stars Sharon and Patty Duke were the most popular. I caught my breath as I realized I was one degree of separation from Sharon Tate...which is all anyone can ever be because of the events of August 8th, 1969.

As a teenager, I read Patty Duke's autobiography, "Call Me Anna"... with a Judy Garland as Dorothy bookmark, if you must know... and I saw Sharon Tate's photo for the first time. "Wow!  She's so beautiful, I wonder what ever became of her?" I figured it out a few movie reference books and "Geraldo" episodes later. I became more obsessed with Sharon and the film AND book of "Valley Of the Dolls" while most friends in my social circle were buzzing about some singer named Madonna. The layers and coincidence that connect the book to the movies to the murders is phenomenal.  How else does one get star billing unless it's with scandal and tragedy?  

While I have followed all of the books, movies and blogs on the murders, my opinion is that Sharon Tate's beauty and her unfulfilled potential was the fuel for the media fire that has been burning for forty three years. For the same reasons Marilyn Monroe's death is still selling books, Sharon's murder was like a perfect storm for the attention of the media.

Barbara Parkins was such a nice lady, who just happens to be a retired movie star. As we chitchatted and made the small talk that celebs make when meeting strangers, I wanted  to mention that just hours before meeting her, my partner and I had driven up Cielo Drive (after an amazing meal at Villa Blanca in Beverly Hills ... told you to look out for the name dropping.)

In the black of night, we drove up Benedict Canyon (pitch black) and turned onto Cielo (pitch blacker). I was in a nervous state, not wanting to be pulled over at 12:30 am, less than a week before the anniversary of the murders. My partner, Chris, the voice of reason, said it was a public street and we had every right to be on the road. We weren't the only ones out and about on a morbid curiosity tour ... we passed three cars coming the opposite way, and I imagined the guilty looks on the passengers in the other cars.  

We stopped the car to walk the rest of the way to 10066 Cielo, and I couldn't get out of the car. I was frozen with fear, my heart beating in my ears, and the complete darkness closing in on us. "Really, they can't put more street lamps up here?" Chris got irritated with me and finally after two or three minutes, we turned around and headed back down Cielo to Benedict Canyon and back to the hotel. It was a visceral experience that was impossible to put into words.

Needless to say, I didn't mention this to Barbara, but the next person to talk to her immediately asked about Sharon. Barbara got very quiet and with a practiced voice said, "She was so beautiful." One of the odd connections was that across the aisle of the ballroom from Barbara was Nancy (I'm no longer using Pearl Cream) Kwan, and directly behind her was Taryn (I'm too pretty to be Susan Atkins) Manning. The only person I spoke with about Sharon was Jeanne (I Just Wrote a Book!) Cooper. I asked her about the Cielo Drive residence, and she told me about how Sharon and Roman bought it before she could.  I didn't have the heart to tell her the home was a rental, but it made me realize everybody wants to be a part of something, even if it's an historical tragic event. Plus, Ms. Cooper is 83 years old and if that's how she remembers it, fine by me. At least she didn't tell me she was invited to a party there on 8/8/69.

I've now met both Barbara Parkins and Patty Duke. Both seem to have the same mantra when it comes to Sharon Tate; "She was so beautiful" "She was so sweet." But one degree of separation will not get me Sharon's signature of my vintage "Valley of the Dolls" album. It's a shame, because we'll never know if she would have been one of the stars to head out to the Hollywood Show in Burbank to sign a few autographs and meet the fans. Chris and I spent about half an hour talking to Jenilee Harrison about the secrets of Costco pricing, another twenty talking to Charlene Tilton about why she hates Belinda Carlisle ... and it made me wonder what I would have said to Sharon Tate.

Tonight I'll be toasting Sharon's beauty and what might have been ... Cheers!

Johnny Angel

Programmed Horrors: Charlie Manson, Orange Sunshine LSD and more MKULTRA

Is this the true face of our government? Many of our nation's bravest children are saying, yes! One of the first missions of Mind Control conspirators was to kill the messenger who would tell you the truth and build resistance. And kill they have! The Kennedys, King, Lennon and more programmed horrors than can be listed in any blog.

It is well known that followers of Charles Manson committed the Tate-LaBianca murders during the late 1960's. These murders had a profound impact on the peace movement through the long-standing psychological warfare goal of discrediting the enemy through covert associative terrorism. If one examines the case closely, it becomes obvious that Manson used mind-control techniques such as hypnotism, LSD, and other types of mental programming to turn middle-class suburbanites into selfless killers, but one has to wonder just exactly how Manson was able to accomplish this?

You were meant to believe that Manson developed all of these horrific skills on his own, though we now know he was in the hands of our own CIA. The CIA actively advanced this very same "programming" and it literally comes from Nazi German programs. LSD was developed by the Swiss who were working these programming methods and was mass-produced by major U.S. pharmaceutical companies for the CIA.

Consider that Manson was part of the hippie movement at the time of the CIA's project, MKULTRA, which implemented the use of drugs in order to conduct mind control experiments.

It appears that part of Manson's own supply of LSD may have come directly from the CIA. A new type of LSD known as "Orange Sunshine" was being used by the Manson Family immediately prior to the Tate-LaBianca murders according to Family member Charles "Tex" Watson, who wrote in his prison memoir that it was the use of Orange Sunshine LSD that finally convinced him that Manson's violent, apocalyptic vision was real.

Read the whole article here:

http://robertscourt.blogspot.com/2008/06/donate-today.html

Stacey's First Time

The first time I heard the story of Charlie Manson I was 15. My cousin gave me the book Helter Skelter. I read the whole thing over a weekend, and I was hooked. I felt this strange connection to Susan Atkins. Maybe it's because the last high school she went to was a rival of my high school. Maybe it's because she seemed like an ordinary girl who just got caught up in a bad thing, or maybe it was because I wondered if I knew anyone who could ever be that evil. I have spent a few years reading everything, watching everything and going everywhere I can connected to Charlie.
I think part of me wants to understand him, and part of me is a little afraid to. Part of why I got my degree in sociology was because of Charlie. I wanted to study why people did the things they did. How could a man who was smaller than many of the women around him come to be in such control of them? As I've gotten more into the case I've decided I really don't know anything.

Every time I think I figure something out I find at least two more unanswered questions.
I've been to Spahn, Cielo, Waverly Dr, and to Sharon's grave and still I wonder why.
Why didn't Linda run and get help? How did the Bug get people to believe Helter Skelter and why after all these years are we still talking about this? I think the answer is Charlie. He is whatever people want him to be. He is a misunderstood musician, he is evil incarnate, he is just a guy who happened to be friends with murderers. He is all of these and still we hang on his every word.
I wouldn't say I like him or admire him, but I definitely feel like I want to learn from him. I still hope someday he tells us all that Helter Skelter was BS and what the real motive was before he forgets.

Susan Atkins (1976) Charles Manson Family Helter Skelter Crimes and LSD

Acid week continues...

Video from The Backporch Tapes

Rare footage of 1950s housewife in LSD experiment

Hey Liz,

Found this video and could just imagine Charlie being the guide, talking his shit. There's also another dude about 8 mins. in that equates the LSD experience to what death might be like that sounds eerily similar to Gypsie's rap which we all know was Charlie's rap.

Actually I thought this seemingly normal lady had a young Squeaky persona going on while she was explaining or trying to explain her experience.

If you've ever seen the video of Susan Atkins explaining how she thought that when a trip was over you came back to the reality where you started but that she believed that wasn't true and after doing so much acid she was left 'spaced'.

I'm not saying I agree with her at all and it in no way justifies any of their actions. They knew right from wrong, but when I watched this video I thought it would give those of us trying to understand the madness another perspective if we just for a minute imagine Charlie sitting with this person (or insert whatever family member that comes to mind) running his rap of love and death and fear for whatever ulterior motive he had. It worked on a few.

As always, thanks for all you do.

Lman

poop

 

A short story from Jesse2112
MR.Turd's Family Story
My name is Mr. Turd, and I lived for a long time in Susan Atkins colon until, one day we got into a fight and she left me hanging on a stairwell in a apartment building.  But boy did I see and hear a lot while I was with her.  The girls were nothing but mushrooms to the Manson family men, fed shit and kept in the dark, and it is why I thrived and stayed so long.  But now I have been left behind in a stinky pile and I am ready to spill the beans.

I overheard Stabby Tex talk about how he was going to rob and kill some friends of his in a big house on a hill.  He said he was going to steal their drugs, take their money then murder everyone in his way.  He did such a great job at it, that his friend Charlie took Stabby Tex along with him the next night to fulfill a mob hit on a gambler who didn’t pay what he owed.

Now Stabby Tex didn’t realize it at the time, but when he arrived at the house of the gambler whom did he see?  Only his biggest competitor in the drug business.  A lady who used a dress shop as a front for her drug dealing.  Stabby Tex always wondered how the police didn't figured out that, you can’t have millions of dollars in the bank just from selling dresses from a small out of the way shop. Stabby Tex  assumed the police would have busted her long before now, and eliminate his competition.  Well since they never put 2 and 2 together it was time for him to take matters into his own hands, his Stabby hands.

So with a vengeance he stabbed, hacked and carved ‘WAR” on the gambler’s stomach to make sure everyone would get his message that he was the top drug dealer in town and no one better challenge him again.  Afterwards Stabby Tex looked high and low for more competitors to stab,

but they all went into hiding in the desert thinking that a race war had started.  So before long Stabby Tex got bored with no one else around that needed stabbing and decided to go back to Texas and tip some cows over until time had past and his competing dealers came out of hiding and he could return to his fun time of stabbing.

Unfortunately for him my cousin Virgina Graham, yes I know we look more like identical twins but we are only cousins, had befriended my old roommate Susan and they were busy telling the police about the murders committed by Stabby Tex.  Shortly afterward he was arrested and put in jail where he became the worlds most devote Christian (but only while cameras were watching or it was close to a parole hearing) and has been in prison ever since.

I thought this whole episode was over, but low and behold, my father, who looks a lot like me, was assigned as the prosecuting Attorney.  I told him everything I knew about the crimes, and afterwards as he stroked my face lovingly, he said, “Son, I cannot go into that courtroom with the truth or any version of the truth, that motive will not sell books.”  So we sat up late nights coming up with our own motive and called it ‘Helter Skelter.”  Now I am one of the richest turds in the country with a great fiction book that everyone purchases.  My dad was so right, “Damn the truth.  People do not want the truth.   They want my stories and Latin dance music."

Anniversary - Robert Hendrickson

eviliz:
Here is my comment for the anniversary !

1) Sometimes you folks are hot and sometimes you are cold, but TG you are always  BOLD !

2) My only suggestion would be: that everyone (commenters) identify themselves a bit further with a degree tag.  IE: "Robert 89 degrees" The number of degrees represents how far OFF you believe the prosecution's Helter Skelter theory was/is from the absolute truth.

180 degrees being completely OFF center. As articles and comments affect your way of thinking, you can change your number of degrees.  Matt can then track which posts cause the most thoughts to change, one way or the other, and everyone can realize a better understanding of just who they are interacting with.

3) IF Charles Manson "killed" the sixties, who "killed" the Vietnam War?

My Best,
Robert Hendrickson

Acid Dreams, Part II

There's a lot more to the story of the Brotherhood of Eternl Love. When I left you last, were were reviewing chapter 9 of "Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD, The CIA, The Sixties, and Beyond.  Some of the characters we were dicussing: Billy Hitchcock, heir to the Mellon Fortune and owner of the Millbrook estate, pictured at right with Tim Leary, as well as chemists Nick Sand and Tim Scully NOW, pictured below. As promised, here is more on the BEL:

"In addition to his dealings with Resorts International, Hitchcock maintained a private account at Castle Bank and Trust, a funny money repository in The Bahamas that catered to mobsters, entertainers, drug dealers, and Republican Party fatcats. A certain Richard M. Nixon was among three hundred prominent Americans who used Castle to deposit their cash. The bank's clientele included...Tony Curtis...Credence Clearwater Revival...Hugh Hefner...and billionaire eccentric Howard Hughes.

Castle Bank was no ordinary financial institution. Originally set up by the CIA as a funding conduit for a wide range of covert operations in the Carribean, this sophisticated "money wash" was part of a vast worldwide financial network managed by American intelligence.

The first sign of trouble came when American authorities began to display an unhealthy interest in the financial affairs of Sam Clapp. Hitchcock quickly shifted his assets - which included the Brotherhood's drug profits - into a series of new accounts in Switzerland.

But the greatest setback occured in early August when Farmer John Griggs took an overdose of PCP (sic). In the aftermath of Grigg's death there was a shakeup in the Brotherhood hierarchy. A different breed took over, and their approach to dealing was more cutthroat and competitive than before...Michael Boyd Randall and Nick Sand...controlled a network that included over thirty regional distributors. They unloaded orange sunshine in parcels of eighty to two hundred fifty thousand, and the supply was quickly dwindling. Sand wanted to commence another manufacturing run, but he was stymied by a lack of raw materials. Hitchcock's source in Europe had dried up, leaving the Brothers in the lurch.

It was at this point that a mysterious figure named Ronald Hadley Stark appeared on the scene. The Brothers were hesitant initially, but after some verbal sparring Stark proved his sincerity by showing them a kilo of pure LSD. The brothers dug his rap. Stark presented himself to the Brotherhood as the premier fixer, the man who could get anything done. Before long he assumed Hitchcock's role as banker and money manager for the Brothers' dirty cash. But Stark got much more involved than Hitchcock, overseeing the production end of the LSD operation in addition to the finances. He had a lot going in his favor, principally a reliable source of raw materials from Czechoslovakia and an excellent manufacturing facility in Paris...the acid was dyed orange so as to continue the sunshine legacy, and the Brothers tabbed and distributed it.

Some of the Brothers began to have qualms about the Way Stark operated. Scully, for one, decided to retire from the acid business not long after Stark entered the picture in the summer of 1969...Stark ended up with nearly all the Brotherhood money and property in his name after the Feds broke up the Brotherhood network in the early 1970's.

So again, I'm asking:
1) Where did Manson get his acid?
2) Who was Phil Kaufman smuggling marijuana for?
3) What was Richard Nixon's real motivation for making such a strong statement to the press about Manson's guilt?
4) Who were Gary's visitors from Santa Barbara (where the BEL had operations) right before his death? No offense to Gary. He was a good man, a Buddhist, and perhaps interested in heightening his religious experience like so many others of his time.
5) What was really in those trunks? No offense to Sharon, because we know how Roman was able to manipulate his very young wife into doing just about anything he wanted. Could it be that Roman was the target? Even though he wasn't at home, could the murders have been a warning to him to not mess with the Brotherhood?

And, is it really a coincidence that the shakeup in the BEL happened at the exact same time as the murders? Given the historical context of what was going on at that time, I really doubt it. BTW, I'm not "pro Manson," because Manson is obviously NOT a nice guy. But, I AM pro history: we absolutely have to look at the big picture. And another thing, I'm not being original here by any means, because this connection has been suggested to me by some very thoughtful and intelligent people. I'm just trying to bring attention to it. What do you think?

Anniversary thoughts- Leary7 said it best.

Anniversary Thoughts from Leary7.

"Do you love Charlie Manson?"

My 14-year old niece was looking over my shoulder as I was reading one of the TLB blogs.
How in hell does one come to love Charlie Manson? A couple of dozen did so in an almost fanatical way oh so many years ago. And that love was punctuated by a lot of blood.

Today, there remain a dozen or so still proclaiming their devotion to the aged evil gnome.
Personally, I can't speak to the love aspect, but I can offer a thought or two to the question of why someone is fascinated by the hairy half-assed sociopath.

First, Charlie proves that a person can be both repulsive and captivating at the same time.
That dichotomy alone makes him interesting. He is evil, and he has charm. It is a beguiling combination. He can be almost incoherantly crazy one minute and astoundingly lucid and provocative the next. You never know which one is the act. And you seriously wonder if he does.

Maybe that is the secret to his charm - the old vauldville line of 'always leaving em wanting more'. You can listen to him for hours on Youtube, always waiting for him to round the bend and bring it home. He never does.

But Charlie himself is not the TLB story, and somewhat to his credit he is the first to proclaim that truth. The Col has the best Manson quote on his site on the right under the heading 'Charlie Said It Best'. It begins, "I was a half-assed nothing...". As they say, truer words were never spoken.

So why does TLB remain such a passionate interest for many of us. I have never felt the need to apologize when friends challenge me for being a 'Manson blogger'. Look, I say, curiousity is the foundation of intelligence. I have no interest WHATSOEVER in people who are not curious, and I really don't care what one is curious about - baseball or the cosmos or cattle breeding...whatever. As long as someone has passion and curiousity I will talk with them.

But why be curious about murders that happened nearly a half century ago? Well, let's state the obvious - that damn book Helter Skelter is the best selling true crime book of all time, so we TLB bloggers are not alone in our interest. And the second obvious thing is that the TLB story has, as the say in Hollywood, everything one could ask for. It has sex and murder and drugs and hippies and bikers and the Mafia and celebrities and Black Panthers and rock and roll and social revolution and orgies and cowboys and dune buggies and death row conversions and would-be presidential assassins and eco-terrorists and just about everything under the sun.

Again, it is a cliche, but you really couldn't make this stuff up. I mean on these blogs we actually have discussions about the possible reality of Charlie boinking Doris Day! The story has layer upon layer of intrigue, from Leno's gambling debts to the missing porn tapes to the effects of belladonna to the music scene in Topanga Canyon and so on. At it's most basic level, it is a story that encapsulates the 1960's.

But what the TLB story really has, what makes it unique and probably timeless, is the characters. Many dismiss the Family as a bunch of idiot losers. I've done it myself. But from a purely literary perspective, there are countless provocative people in this tale from the Evil One to his loyal sidekick Squeaky to the dispicable crazed Tex to Cupid and Gypsy and Ouish and Cappy and on to the boys, Donkey Dan and Shorty and Clem. There are the Cielo Drive killers, the depraved Sadie who sneered "no mercy, bitch", crapped in the hallway and blew her baby, and the painfully plain Pat who somehow channelled Jack the Ripper, and the homecoming queen Lulu who discovered the orgasmic pleasure of plunging a knife into a dead lady, and Yana the Witch who somehow skated her way back to New Hampshire despite being there for not one but two nights of murder.

Who were these maniacs, we are still asking ourselves forty years later.

And then there is the motive. Ah, the motive. I picture the Col pissing on the Bug's grave, screaming 'you sold the world bullshit'.

Manson will be dead soon. One of my favorite daydreams is to picture him demanding a big funeral at an old gothic church. I'd have to attend just to see who would show. Who would be the pallbearers? Who would do the eulogy? Who would cry?

Will Charlie be bigger in death than in life? I would say so. Some murderers fade with time. Nobody I know talks about Bundy or Dahmer or Gacy. They were just depraved monsters. I love Charlie's quote on Bundy, "he was just a poopbutt, Bundy's was his momma's boy"  Charlie was insulted at being lumped in with 'poopbutts'.

Charlie will most likely be more like Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper, notorious characters who retain a devoted following a century later.

What will the TLB bloggers be discussing in 2069? .They'll be talking about evil, about charisma, about devotion, about savagery. about drug use and drug burns, about orgies and revolution. And whether Doris took it from behind.

We all get our kicks differently, I told my niece. Thank the heavens.

Remember ........

We must remember not just at the anniversaries but throughout the whole year, when you are looking at Manson blogs, "ogling" at photos of the crime scene, analyzing books & different opinions on what, who, when, where, etc., that these were real people that were viciously snuffed out before they had a chance to live their lives to the fullest & grow old, including a baby boy.

Why did this happen? Nobody will ever know. Personally, I would like to take a moment to think about the pain this group of people caused. Yes I know not all of them were responsible, but - a lot of them knew what had happened and didn't do a damn thing about it. At this point in time after so many years, the blame game is pointless. It doesn't matter if you think "Charlie" is just an innocent "environmentalist" in this whole thing, or if you think Bobby Beausoleil should be released simply because he has those baby blues.

Think about it people. Not only the victims' incredible, frightening, PAINFUL death, but the aftermath the families had to endure at the hands of the press, and then watching as the perpetrators laughed in court while their loved ones deaths were being replayed in detail.

In closing, I would like everyone to just stop for a moment throughout your day, no matter if you are a Mansonette, a shaved-headed earth mama, a victim's advocate or an occasional Eviliz cruiser, and give the Manson Family victims a little bit of a bow. They deserved so much more.

From Austin Ann 74