Charlie's Right Hand Man's Daughter

Great recent article found by Miss Tone.

My father: Charles Manson's right-hand man
To his daughter, Paul Watkins was simply her dad. Could it really be true he was also the notorious 60s cult leader's right-hand man?

Claire Watkins-  "I rip the CD on to my iPod and wheel to my father, who has appeared in the Ps between Paul Simon and the Pixies. Maybe he would have liked that, being a musician. Maybe that's where he would have been anyway, if he'd kept singing and playing music, if he hadn't had his vocal cords singed before he was slated to testify against Charlie, when the Volkswagen van he was sleeping in caught fire, was perhaps lit by Steven "Clem" Grogan, one of three Manson Family men who claimed to have undone Shorty Shea with a pipe wrench, a machete, a bayonet."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/10/manson-family-member-my-dad?newsfeed=true

The final anniversary tribute

No one walks in LA

It is a cliche'
 (and a song)
 that no one walks in L.A.,
             at least not very far.
If one has no car
             one can hitch a ride with strangers
             or new found friends.
A ride that is an adventure in itself
             a gateway to a new life,
             even new worlds
or even a bummer:
              an encounter with angels of death.

Submitted by-Jim

Thank you to everyone who contributed.

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?