Anybody know what's going on with Debra Tate's Book?

Is there anyone in the know who knows what's going on with Debra Tate's book? I pre-ordered it, but now the publication date has been pushed back and the description of the book has changed. I thought it was going to contain "hundreds of rare and unpublished photos". I was actually excited. Now I'm not so sure it's going to be the same book I pre-ordered.

cielodrive.com

 This is the book description I ordered - the yellow highlights are the major changes:

Considered by many to be the most beautiful woman of her generation, Sharon Tate remains a fascinating pop icon and a poster child for the 1960s. What most struck those who knew Sharon was her gentle nature and the sheer perfection of her face, but she was far more than just a beauty. The few films she made during her brief career, including Valley of the Dolls, Eye of the Devil, and The Fearless Vampire Killers, have taken on a cult status. Over forty years since her last film, Sharons spirit and charisma lives strong in the memories of those who knew her best, and her style continues to inspire the worlds of fashion, beauty, art, and film.

Sharon Tate: Recollection is a one-of-a-kind celebration of Sharons life and career, her influence as a fashion icon throughout the world, and in effect presents a sociological portrait of the 1960s - its youth culture, the sexual revolution, Hollywood's changing studio system, and the rise of independent cinema. In this dazzling photo book, Sharon Tates story emerges through quotes and short essays -recollections- by her sister, Debra Tate, as well as by those who knew and who have been influenced by her. An all-star cast contributing memories and thoughts on Sharon includes Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Robert Evans, Mia Farrow, Raquel Welch, Hugh Hefner, Michelle Phillips, Patty Duke, Barbara Parkins, Jane Fonda, Drew Barrymore, and Kelly Osbourne. The book is filled with hundreds of rare and unpublished photos of Sharon Tate taken by the likes of Milton Greene, David Bailey, Terry ONeill, Richard Avedon, Bert Stern, Norman Parkinson, Philippe Halsman, John Engstead, and more.

What emerges from these pages is a stunning tribute to an unforgettable life.

This is the description of the book I'll supposedly get:

Considered by many to be the most beautiful woman of her generation, Sharon Tate remains a fascinating pop icon and a poster child for the 1960s. What struck most about Sharon was her gentle nature and the sheer perfection of her face, but she was far more than just a beauty. The few films she made during her brief career, including Valley of the Dolls, Eye of the Devil, and The Fearless Vampire Killers, have secured her position as a Hollywood legend. Over forty years since her last film, Sharon’s spirit and charisma lives strong in the memories of those who knew her best, and her style continues to inspire the worlds of fashion, beauty, art, and film.

Sharon Tate: Recollection is a one-of-a-kind celebration of Sharon’s life and career, her influence as a fashion icon throughout the world, and in effect presents a sociological portrait of the 1960s—its youth culture, the sexual revolution, the rise of independent cinema, and Hollywood's changing studio system. In this impressive photo book, Sharon Tate’s story emerges through quotes and short essays—recollections—by her sister, Debra Tate, as well as by those who knew and have been influenced by her.

What emerges from these pages is a stunning tribute to an unforgettable life.

Highlights include:

A foreword note by Sharon's husband Roman Polanski.
An introduction and remembrances by Sharon's sister Debra Tate.
Previously unseen childhood photos from the Tate family album.

Original quotes and recollection essays written specially for this book by Jane Fonda, Kelly Osbourne, Bert Stern, Michelle Phillips, Patty Duke, Lee Grant, Elke Sommer, Joan Collins, Viva, Tony Scotti and Trina Turk.

Retrospective quotes by Truman Capote, Diana Vreeland, Richard Avedon, Dominick Dunne, Warren Beatty, Mia Farrow, Orson Welles, Barbara Parkins, George Harrison, David Niven, Deborah Kerr, Yul Brynner and Kirk Douglas.

Rare and classic photographs by David Bailey, Milton Greene, Philippe Halsman, Shahrokh Hatami, Terry O'Neill, Peter Basch, John Engstead, Peter Brüchmann, Neal Barr and Jean Jacques Bugat.

Never-before-seen or published images of Sharon in the classic film Valley of the Dolls, digitally reproduced from their original negatives and transparencies specially for this book by the 20th Century Fox archive.

Also, two of these has-been actors are people who hurt Sharon - one in life, Michelle Phillips by boinking her husband, and one after death by publishing false rumors about her (Elke Sommer who along with her husband Joe Hyams trashed Sharon's character in the media with all kinds of crazy stories).

At this point I feel a little ripped off. I was told a photo book with 100's of rare and unpublished photos with an all-star cast of recollections. Now I feel like I'm getting a bunch of re-ashed, easily found on the internet photos and quotes from Beatty, Farrow, Parkins, and Dominick Dunne etc, new recollections only from has-been actors looking to cash in, and, wait, what? Kelly Osbourne commenting on what fashion is? Is this a joke?

Scramblehead: The Brains of the Outfit?

Have you ever wondered why Steve Grogan aka Scramblehead aka Clem Tufts aka Grant Mollan aka "One Lucky Muther-F*cker" was ever given the chance to experience freedom again after being handed a death sentence from a jury of his peers? Well, it seems you aren't alone. I've often wanted to know how this guy, who supposedly was a dull-normal convinced a dour, solemn, slit-mouthed parole board to release him unto society after knowing his part in an extremely horrid murder. What makes Clem so much different, than, say, Bobby Beausoleil? What were the factors in his parole hearings that actually persuaded these people to release him? Here are a few things I thought helped this lucky bastard:

1. He had the FORTUNATE luck to not have Deputy DA Patrick Sequeira there to interrogate & harass him for answers, to bring up the Tate/LaBianca cases, to ask him irrelevant questions that had nothing to do with the murder of Donald "Shorty" Shea, to completely get his facts wrong, and mention "hanging witchy things from trees during creepy-crawly missions." (Has anyone else noticed this about Sequeira? He always mentions the Family hanging shit from trees, but always explains it wrong.)

2. He didn't have to deal with the California Victims' Bill of Rights of 2008,(Proposition 9, Marcy's Law) which wasn't in place at that time.

3. He did not have Debra Tate there as a supposed "victims advocate" to read letters of opposition of his release. Also, Barbara Hoyt wasn't there in her official title as "Manson Family Expert" to tell the board of her remarkable skill at judging whether a particular defendant has changed, or is being truthful.

4.) He didn't have the overwhelming media coverage like the other defendants have nowadays with 24-hour news feeds, etc.

5.) He didn't write a book, or give any kind of interviews, which the parole board would of used against him. At least I am not aware of any he did. I could be wrong.

6.) He didn't really become a born-again, fundamentalist, ultra-Christian, and use religion to try swaying the board.

7.) He made himself look remorseful when he told the authorities where Mr. Shea was buried. (very self-serving, if you ask me.)

8.) He made sure to call the victim by his real name, which was "Jerome" which, in my opinion made him seem more on intimate terms with the victim, instead of just calling him by his nickname of "Shorty." The board probably thought he was showing more respect for the victim by doing so.

9.) He showed the board photos of his wife, and child, which made him seem more wholesome, and family-oriented, not Manson Family-oriented.

10) He demonstrated to the board his realistic parole plans, which included numerous job skills he could use on the outside, like being a certified aircraft welder, etc.

In closing, did ol' Scramblehead deserve to get out of the joint? Na, probably not. Did he minimize during his last parole hearing? Hell yes! Don't they all? Does he still wonder how on earth he wasn't charged in the LaBianca murders, since Sadie was in the same position as him, but was charged? Hell F*CK YES! Could he still be hiding the fact that his ex-friends/lovers murdered more people back then? Well, we all probably know the answer to that. Clem, Scramblehead, or whatever the hell you want to be called nowadays, if you are reading this, I would just like to say, sir that you are one lucky murdering mutherf*cker! If you, and your creep friends would of pulled the same stunt here, in Texas, all of you sorry sacks would be dust in the wind right about now! Thank you, and have a good day.

Linda Kasabian

(2013)

(1970)

Laraine Newman and Jane Curtain as Red and Blue

From the SNL archives:

Aired on 10.25.1975 (Segment 7 of 20) "Dangerous But Inept"
Laraine Newman as Squeaky Fromme

Aired on 07.24.1976 (Segment 5 of 15) Commercial "Human Hair Potholders"
Jane Curtin as Sandra Good
Laraine Newman as Squeaky Fromme






Youtube doesn't allow SNL skits, do they? So, Patty is not really sure how to find the footage. Got link?

 

Book Report: Road Mangler Deluxe, by Phil Kaufman

I finally got around to reading this one. My favorite books are the ones that make me laugh out loud all the way through. This was one of those books. Kaufman has certainly led an interesting and colorful life. I won't report on the entire book, just the Manson-related stuff.

Interestingly, the first person related to the Manson saga that Kaufman knew was Harold True. Kaufman dealt pot for two stints of his young life and got popped both times. He wisely decided to change careers, but not before having to pay the piper. While on bail for his first pot bust he borrowed a birth certificate from Harold True who was a UCLA student. He used it to travel Europe to avoid prison, but got nailed again selling weed across the pond!

He eventually is extradited back to the US and after several stops, winds up at Terminal Island prison where he makes Manson's acquaintance. In one early memory of CM he says Manson was playing his guitar & singing (a talent at which Kaufman thought Manson was quite good). A prison guard went up to him (Manson) and said, “Manson, you’ll never get out of here.” Charlie replied, “Get out of where, man?” and just kept playing his guitar.

Sounds like him, right?

Harold True visited Kaufman at Terminal Island and brought him “Space Cakes”. He says he got so zonked that he was afraid of being noticed by the guards and get "loss of good time" and delay his release. He requested that True not visit him again. LOL.

Kaufman gave Manson some contacts he had in the LA music business, including the Beach Boys. Upon his own release he headed out to look for Charlie. Of  Manson he says:

Charlie was manipulative, but not violent, so it was hard for me to believe that he had been behind any vicious crimes. It was all love and peace and flowers. But Charlie really, really hated blacks. He was pissed because the blacks had overrun Haight-Ashbury. The Fillmore district became a terrible place to go. The blacks came and started manipulating the girls and selling them bad drugs. Charlie would say, “Let’s bring the white girls back and make more white-baby babies.” I thought it was a great idea. “Hey, count me in!”

Once when he and I drove up to San Francisco, I realized he was trying to indoctrinate me into his way of thinking. He’d tell me something and then say, "You know that, don’t you?” or, “What do you think about that?” He would try to make me think I thought of whatever he just said, which was the way he manipulated the girls. I knew then that I had to get away from him. I said, “You got a good road game here, Charlie. Don’t blow it.” He said, “I haven’t got a road game.” Finally he said to me, “You’re too smart. You don’t want to be around here.” Those were his words, “You’re too smart.” In other words, I wasn’t necessarily brilliant, but I was thinking. I was thinking. Not good for Charlie. I thought, “He’s fucking looney.”

Charlie was the kind of guy that would just drop a hint and everybody would think that they had made it up. He'd say, "I know what we'll do. Let's do this."  And they'd think that they had thought of it, but Charlie had already planted the seed. So all the girls thought that they were "in tune" with Charlie and that they knew what they were doing. I could see through that shit. One thing Charlie couldn't tolerate was outsiders - I guess it was loss of control. One time in Topanga, a good friend of mine came by, and Charlie turned real strange. That's when I got together with him and said, "Charlie, I'm out of here, man." Although LSD was an important part of our life, the only bad trip I had was when I was trying to get away from Charlie. No matter where I went, he could find me until I eventually made the final break.

He says of Harold True at this time that he "really liked Manson's setup because there was always a girl available for him. (Harold could't get laid in a whorehouse with a fistful of twenties)."

Not that he blamed Harold:

I joined the little band of merry humpers, mainly for the sex. It was just that. "Oh, it's sex time." It was really good, really fun.

... When I looked at the papers later and read the names of the perpetrators and their accomplices, I realized that I'd I'd had sex with every one of those murderesses.

I, for one am glad he used the female agreement of that word...

Kaufman to this day believes that the TLB was Manson's revenge on the music business that had rejected him. He says:

Manson had the LaBiancas killed when he was looking for Harold and me. I had previously fallen out with Charlie over his music, and he was after me. That fateful night Charlie & co. took some LSD, then came looking for us. They went to my house first, then they went to Waverly Drive where Charlie and his tribe had crashed some parties earlier. But the house was vacant; Harold [True], Al and Ernie had moved out a short while before. They then went next door and killed the LaBianca couple. It wasn’t just coincidence.

I don’t think he ever did physically murder anyone. He planted the seeds, and other people did it. Charlie was too jail-smart to kill anybody… He did direct the thought traffic, though.

Of the Manson Family:

Somebody made the observation that the reason Charlie was so good at what he did was that the “family” had a common insanity. They all had the “same crazy”, and he was able to manipulate that and direct it. As long as “family” members adhered to the common craziness, they could stay.

As soon as Charlie & the girls were sentenced, it all fragmented. He wasn’t there to direct the mental traffic. Nobody knew what Charlie wanted until he told them. It was all “Helter Skelter” with people running around saying, “I know what Charlie wants”, but nobody did. People were running in different directions knowing what Charlie wanted.

Kaufman produced the LIE album, released in 1971. He says 3000 albums were pressed but the project failed miserably. He couldn't get any distributors interested and small record shops were afraid to carry them. On top of that, the Family stole about half of them before he figured it out.

Of the theft of the LIE albums:

 I had been in Arizona doing a film. When I came back, Al told me, "Some people are crawling over the wall, and every night at midnight, they crawl to your house and then they leave." I thought it had to be some Manson people. So, the first night I was back, I waited up and, sure enough, at midnight, they came over the fence. I had a shotgun and so did Einstein Eddy. I told my old lady to fetch Eddy. I saw the Manson people coming across the lawn and I was thinking, "What am I going to say?" I thought of a classic yet profound line I had learned from my earlier movie-extra days: I yelled, "Stick 'em up!" And that worked, just like it did in the movies. Their hands went up. I said, "What the fuck are you doing?" They said that Charlie had sent them to get the music back. Just then, Einstein Eddy came running around the driveway, ball-ass naked, with the other shotgun. They saw this weird guy running down the alley with his balls swinging and said, "Are you going to fuck us or shoot us?" I said, "Let me have those knives." They said they needed the knives. "We always carry our knives."

It's very intimidating to have a gun pointed at you, but it's even more intimidating to be touched with a gun. One guy had his hands up in the air, and I was touching him on the face with the shotgun. That cold steel, that's a frightening thing. Then I said, "Now you get the hell out of here and don't you ever come back." They turned around to walk away and I said, "Get out the way you came - crawl out!" They started crawling across the yard, and Eddy fired a shot at them just to make them dance. You've never seen people wriggle along so fast.

They still kept coming back. The next time they tried, the girls came in the back and surrounded my house. The said, "Phil, Phil, give us the music, give us the music." I said, "It's the Manson people with knives and guns." The cops arrested them and then let them go. Sometime later, I had a party at my house. This Manson guy came by with a gun. He had escaped from county jail (Como???) by climbing down a wall. There was a long article in the paper about the escape. He came to my house with some of the girls to get the money from the album. I got home just as they left, and a friend quickly told me what had been happening. I had a .357 Magnum and fired it after them down Chandler Boulevard. I had just about had enough of it all by that time.

This book isn't going to win a Pulitzer, but I enjoyed it immensely. Recommended!

Road Mangler Deluxe is available at amazon.com

Parade Magazine January 11,1970

Parade Magazine is a newspaper insert that's been around forever.  This article is mostly about Susan Atkins and contains a few things I did not know about Susan.  It predates much of what has been written about her.

Hi Beth!

Is that sexy, or WHAT?

Bobby Beausoleil = Herbert the Pervert? - Click to Read

Sassy Bottoms, or Sassy Deputy District Attorney? - Click to Read

Sassy Bottoms - Click to Read

Available...Bobby Beausoleil's 1985 Parole Hearing Report with mention of Sassy Bottoms - Click to Read

Questionable Questions from B&B Enterprises Questionnaire! - Click to Read

Kenneth Anger talks about Bobby in recent interview

Dear Sir or Madam,

It has come to our attention that your blog has displayed and published our copyright protected photo of Bobby Beausoleil (which appears on his copyrighted website as well as his Facebook page) today without permission.  This is a request for a cease and desist.  If you fail to discontinue the illegal use of our copyrighted materials, we may, without further notice to you, take legal action to prevent such infringement.

Thank you,

Beth Hall
Webmaster

E-mail: Beth.Hall@BobbyBeauSoleil.com
Website: www.BobbyBeauSoleil.com

-------------------------------

Dear Beth,

See below that we have complied with your request. I think you would agree that the new photo is entirely more appropriate.

Matt
mansonblog.com

-------------------------------

Thanks Matt for taking the picture down.  I will have Bobby’s lawyer contact you on this further.

I am not cool with you posting this email I sent to you and Austin Ann on your blog.  Please take it down immediately.  It was not my intention to become your latest news.

Thanks,
Beth

-------------------------------

No

I found a rare Kenneth Anger interview on YouTube which was recorded on somebody's cell phone. This is a recent interview from last year, and in it, Anger talks about how Beausoleil is in prison for a murder he committed over a "drug deal gone bad." Hmmmm.....Interesting....Anyway, I could barely hear it, so you might need to turn up the volume when listening. Let us know what you think!

Strange Guy from the Sing-A-Long Scene in the "MANSON" Movie

The smallest DETAIL can relate to the most significant CLUE.

When everyone else watches this scene (in MANSON at 3 minutes 50 seconds - also opening credits is a great clear face shot of the "red headed" man) in the woods behind the Spahn Ranch - as the Family sings "One is One is One" - I think of LSD and MIND Control.

By now most can identify by name everyone in the group, EXCEPT for one. Yes, he's barely visible and mostly insignificant and known only as the red headed man. And he would have remained insignificant, except that recently Matt has me asked me who he is, and recently the story broke about how LSD has been used successfully to modify the brains of criminals.

FIRST you must understand that LSD was developed for the purpose of ridding mental patients of traumatic events and or troubling pasts. In 1967 I was discharged from the Army to attend college.  My second semester I took a psychology class where I met a woman who was an early LSD experimental patient.  She explained the entire process where a would-be doctor give her a dose of LSD and then talked her through a trip where he would direct her to disguard certain past experiences and or people from her brain.  The result? A step-by-step purging of her brain's "hard drive."

Fast forward to another day in 1970 at Spahn's Ranch when I was filming the 'Sing-a-Long" for the MANSON movie.  The "red-headed man," I assumed, was just another soul who wondered in for a day to experience the far-out life style of the Manson Family.  I never saw him again at Spahn and never questioned the matter.

But months later, I attended a birthday party for someone very special in the Hollywood's metaphysical community. I could hardly believe my eyes, nor he his, but there he was - the "red headed man."  We had a great conversation and YES - he explained to me exactly how the Manson Family performed the LSD operation on him - which was exactly the same way as the early LSD patient explained it to me a couple of years earlier.  And now, some 40 years later, the government has apparently learned via LSD how to cure criminals of their EVIL ways.

Oh! ye troubled souls, Dr. Frankenstein is taking appointments from 9 to 5!

RH's films, "MANSON", "Inside the MANSON Gang", and his book "Death to Pigs" 

are available to mansonblog.com readers HERE.

Charles Manson Wins Lifetime Achievement Award

(Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)  

LOS ANGELES – Next year’s recipient for the Cecil B. Demille Award just leaked, and it’s none other than famous musician and murderer—Charles Manson! In an official press release, the Hollywood Foreign Press issued this statement:

“We apologize for spoiling the surprise, but I think we all knew that it was about time such a prolific entertainer got the recognition he deserves.”

Not everyone was happy with the announcement, including the family members of the people Manson conspired to kill, and pretty much ever other decent human being on the planet.

“Sure, Manson’s done some questionable things, but we need to look at the recipient’s entire life when we bestow this honor,” said HFPA president Theo Kingma, “I think we can forgive a few measly sins when the person has given the public so much joy with their entertainment—I mean, have you heard ‘I’m Scratching Peace Symbols on Your Tombstone’ or ‘Garbage Dumb’?”

The leak  occured soon after actor, director, and alleged child molester, Woody Allen, received the same award at the 2014 Golden Globes. Both his ex-wife Mia Farrow, and his son, future MSNBC host Ronan Farrow, tweeted their discontent about Allen receiving the prestigious award:

(See the article for the Tweets)

Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn when she was 19, was accused of molesting his adopted 7-year-old daughter “Dylan” in 1992. He denies all allegations.

“It’s just so great that the HFPA can look past some of my past blemishes,” said Manson while blushing. “To be in the ranks of someone like Woody Allen, I’m just such a huge fan of him and everything that he stands for.”

Original Story HERE

Missing Link Wrap Up

Click here to read parts 1,2,3 and 4 of this series.

Wasn't that last discussion about Grant's Pass interesting? BEL, DeCarlo, Ruby Pearl and maybe even George Spahn livin' all up in there? Another pink dot for Patty's gynormous western road map.

Anywhoo, back to Charles Manson. Charles knew about running shine, he knew about pimping women, and he knew a hell of a lot about human psychology. He was good at selling drugs before he even began. He hoped to become a big player: to be appreciated for the genius that he felt himself to be. In the beginning, this appeared to be a real possibility in both the drug and music worlds, as Charlie made more and more connections. Psychedelics from San Francisco and Boston were trendy, sexy, a great social equalizer from, say, 1965 to 1968. Charlie got to run with the big dogs during this time. He was the candyman, and the more wasted you got, the better his music sounded.

By 1969, folks like Michael Caine started complaining that the hippies were "dirty," as pointed out by JohnnySeattle on Katie's Blog About Nothing. What the elite used to consider participating in the social revolution was once again viewed as "slumming." The Family was going out of fashion, and found themselves being snubbed more and more often as carefree hippiedom gave way to the next big thing. They likely had fewer and fewer opportunities to make big deals, as evidenced by the independent deals gone wrong with Gary and with Lotsapoppa. People did not want to go to a smelly ranch or to a biker bar to get high any more, they wanted to do it in their upper class neighborhoods with their upper class friends. They wanted to go to night clubs, beauty parlors and health food stores to score, instead. This cultural shift cut out the lower class, mid-level managers (bikers and hippies) who had maybe a good three- or four-year run.

Tex Watson claims to have ingested a substantial amount of cooked belladonna root the day before the murders, as well as LSD and some sort of speed. Tex was high as a kite that night as per his testimony of September, 1971 available at Charliemanson.com: "Then he said something about writing on the walls, and we were walking over to the car that the girls were in and I said -- the first words that I had spoken -- and I said, "Now, what did you say?" or something to that effect. I wasn't real clear on what was to be wrote on the walls or clear about the whole thing, really." 

Patty always wonders if Charlie actually told Tex to write on the walls that night, or if Charlie was metaphorically saying that the writing was on the wall? Tex, who purportedly ate the drugs because he wanted to and not because Charlie told him to, must have felt to his very core that it was all "coming down fast." Charlie must have felt this way too, but for a different reason: his scene was coming apart at the seams. It would have been an ideal time for him to make a move to the desert, where the living is anonymous and dirt cheap. In the desert, many of the things you need can easily be taken from someone else. 

The leader of the old BEL regime, a very well intentioned man named John Griggs, died on August 3 from bad synthetic psilocybin that was supposedly making the rounds. Bloggers Cybot and Sherm maniac suggest the poison that killed Griggs and/or made Bobby's biker clients sick may have been a belladonna derivative, or even PCP (aka the PeaCe Pill, aka synthetic mescaline). Patty has also suggested that perhaps the bad trip was PMA. It is probable that drugs were marketed on the street as synthetic mescaline, psilocybin, or THC when in fact they were not. This is what the Hell's Angels had done up north: they sold "acid" that was really STP, and synthetic THC which was actually PCP. The old switcheroo is what street dealers of Molly still do today: they will tell you that Molly is a purer form of MDMA when actually, it's the same old shit.

There was a huge shakedown going on that summer: who would control the manufacture and distribution of the growing psychedelics trade in California and beyond? Whoever won that season of Survivor, Patty supposes. Most sources claim that Johnny Gale and Ronald Stark were the big financial winners in the end. The counterculture was of the general opinion that the "piggies" were trying to profit in one way or another from the drugs that had helped to define the grassroots hippie movement. The piggies were greedily taking it all away: the counterculture's adopted way of life and one of their major means of financial support, aka the distribution of marijuana and LSD. This seemed, to the hippies or slippies or whatever the heck you want to call them, highly immoral because the rich were only getting richer while the poor got poorer. The piggies did not need a bigger piece of the pie, but they were taking it anyway.

Many leftist organizations actually praised the Family's actions: most notably at the December, 1969 meeting of the Weathermen's Students for a Democratic Society in Flint, Michigan. Bernardine Dohrn is quoted as having said "First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!" Yes, some of the details in her description are off. Nevertheless, the stunning result of her words for the rest of the meeting involved attendees flashing each other a finger "fork" as a symbol of solidarity and resolve. Believe it or not, today Bernardine Dohrn is a Professor of Law at Northwestern University. Truth is stranger than fiction, after all.

If Patty was to elucidate her theory in 300 words or less, she thinks that Gary Hinman and John Griggs got caught in the middle of a huge turf war, and perished. Presumably this was due to their trusting and kind dispositions, chemical talents (or, lack thereof), business connections and affinity with the fairly peaceful, pre-1969 scene. Voytek, according to Roman himself, had stayed at Cielo "a bit too long:" the implication being that Voytek was into something dangerous. Indeed, even though Voytek went to film school and came from a wealthy family, he was at the time of his murder quite broke, which must have been psychologically difficult for him. He attempted to get a writing career going to no avail. He was well connected, and he needed money, FAST. He and Gibby had ingested an MDA-like compound within days or hours of their death according to their autopsies, which is telling. Roman immediately suspected John Phillips and apparently ransacked his car looking for the proof. Is it possible that Roman was not completely oblivious to the situation that led up to the murder of his wife and child? Could he have stopped what happened? This has actually been suggested to Patty by a somewhat reliable source.

The staff at Jay's fancy hair salons apparently heard about his death well before the public did, went to his home, and "cleaned" it. Jay's salons and Rosemary's dress shops would have made great dealerships in the new regime, but it was not meant to be. Leno likely funded Rosemary's shady business with shady money he made with his shady banking and gambling friends. Like Steve Parent's death, the deaths of Sharon and Gibby were incidental to the main goal of the evening. But because they were rich and beautiful, a (flawed) argument could be made that they were piggies, too. If it is true that Katie Krenwinkel and Bill Garretson were friendly, then he was not killed, presumably because he was not a piggie. Rather, he was "us," not "them."

Why were we so comfortable with swallowing the Helter Skelter thing, hook line and sinker? Patty has a hypothesis that is instructed by her 25 year old, dual major in political science and religious studies. Both disciplines have to do with understanding how the beliefs, behaviors and resources of a given population are managed by its leaders. In the East and at the Vatican, people know intuitively that religion and politics are the same damned thing.  They do not try to divorce the two, like we do here in the US. So, if what happened with the Mansons was not about "rational" politics or business dealings, then it had to have been about "irrational" religion. Our culture decided to demonize them rather than examine them more closely. This was a cult, we decided, and as such, the Manson Family's actions have been easily discountable as irrelevant and irrational for the last 40-plus years. Many careers were born of this premise, including that of The Bug.

Anywhoo, This is Patty's last post on this subject for now because obviously she has a lot more work to do: documents to find, people to interview, timelines to make. Won't you join her? She needs some damned help, please.

Ruby Pearl Redux

My last post on Ruby prompted orwhut to ask who the wrestler was that Ruby Pearl married.  That question got me going again to try to figure out Ruby's background.  I went through dozens of newspaper articles until I found one with her last name.  It's in an article about her little dog Tinker Toy, written when he died in 1961.

Ruby's last name was Molinaro!  With that information I searched for and found her marriage to the wrestler, Michael Angelo Molinaro,  although I was not able to find out anything about Molinaro's wrestling career.   The two were married October 22, 1950 in Los Angeles.  Michael Molinaro was born August 31, 1913 in Pennsylvania and died November 6, 1978 in Grants Pass Oregon.  I'm guessing, given his age, that his wrestling career was in the '30's and '40's.

The California marriage records as well as being in the groom's name are in a woman's maiden name and also in her previous married name if she had been married before.  So I was able to learn her first husband's name, too.  It was Vern Sylvester.  They were in the 1940 US Census listed as living in Minneapolis Minnesota.  Ruby's occupation was listed as a waitress.  Her husband had no occupation listed.

The marriage records I found for Ruby were in her given first name of Pearl.  She was born Pearl Stella Oliver in Sandstone, Pine County, Minnesota on May 18th 1912.  Her parents were Dalton G and Stella S (Hillard) Oliver.  She had two sisters and four brothers.  On the 1920 US Census the Oliver children are listed in order of their ages.  Cecelia, 15; Delbert, 12; Ray 10; Pearl, 7; Irene, 5; Glenn, 2 years 3 months.  By the 1930 US Census there was another brother, Everett, 6; and Cecelia and Ray were not on that census.

Both of Ruby's parents died in Los Angeles, her father Dalton, at 103 years old on September 27, 1963 and her mother Stella, at 93 years old on December 19, 1978.  Ruby herself was rather long lived too, passing away at 98 years old in Grants Pass Oregon on May 29, 2010.

Ruby's obituary from the Aitkin Independent Age, Aitken Minnesota, June 6, 2010.

Ruby Pearl

This is from a Gay Talese article written for the March 1970 issue of Esquire magazine.

The article talks about George Spahn and the ranch saying......

"Spahn bought it. [the ranch]  Spahn and his wife parted company about this time, but there soon appeared at Spahn's side a new leading lady of the ranch, a onetime dog trainer and circus performer named Ruby Pearl.

She was a perky redhead of about thirty with lively blue eyes, a petite figure, and lots of nerve.  She had been born on a farm in Sandstone Minnesota, and had a desire to get into show business somehow, an ambition that was a confusing as it was shocking to her mother, a Christian preacher's daughter, and her father, a conscientious routine-oriented railroad man.  After graduating from high school, where she had acted in school plays and won first prize in the girls' hundred-yard dash and broad-jumping competition in a county-wide track meet, she traveled to Minneapolis on her father's railroad pass, presumably to attend secretarial school and embark on a respectable career in that city.  But one day scanning the classified ads in The Minneapolis Tribune, she saw a job opportunity that appealed to her.  She applied and got the job, that of being a cocktail waitress at Lindy's, a local club patronized by, among other distinguished figures, Al Capone.

When Capone and his men were in town they were invariably accompanied by very attractive girls in ermine or mink, and were always given the large table at Lindy's in the back room where drinks were served all night.  Ruby Pearl liked serving the big table, not only because of the generous tips she received but because of the sense of excitement she felt in the Capone party's presence.  But she had neither the desire nor the time to become further involved, devoting all her free hours and earnings to the dancing school she attended every day, learning ballet and adagio, tap dancing, the rumba and the tango.  After Lindy's was raided by the police and closed down, Ruby Pearl supported herself as a bus girl in a cafeteria, pouring coffee and clearing dishes.  Soon she caught the eye of the assistant manager, an engineering student at the University of Minnesota.  He became her first lover and husband, and after his graduation he was hired by Lockheed in Burbank, California, and the newly married couple set up housekeeping in a motor court on the fringe of Hollywood.

On certain evenings, together with other young engineers from Lockheed and their wives, Ruby and her husband would go to The Brown Derby and Ciro's and various night spots where there was live entertainment and dancing.  Ruby invariably became restless and tense on these occasions, seated around the table with the others, sipping her drink, and wishing she was not with the dull wives of engineers but rather that she was in the spotlight on the stage, and kicking up her heels.

Her marriage did not produce children, nor did she want any.  She wanted to resume with her dancing, and she did, attending classes conducted by a sleek French-Indian adagio dancer who later gave Ruby a part in his touring trio that featured himself and his jealous girlfriend.  Ruby also danced in a chorus at a Hollywood club for a while, as her marriage deteriorated and finally ended in divorce.

About this time, approaching an age when she could no longer maintain a dancer's pace, she was introduced, by a man she had met, to a new career of training dogs to dance, sit, jump through hoops, and ride atop ponies. She had a facility for animal training, and within a few years had perfected an act with three dogs and a pony that was booked at several community fairs in Southern California, in addition to a number of schools, circuses, and local television shows.  At one community fair, in Thousand Oaks, she met a man, a wrestler, who would become her next husband.  He was a burly, strong, and tender man, who had done quite well financially, and he also owned a restaurant on the side, a subject of interest to Ruby because of her days as a waitress.  Not long afterward, Ruby met another man with whom she had much in common, a proprietor of a pony riding ring for children and a movie ranch--- George Spahn.

This just in.....an ad from the Van Nuys News December 19, 1954.

Clem Without a Hat!

Thanks to Dooger for this pic!

Home Movie Clips of Clyda Dulaney

The narrator is Johnny's childhood friend, Ginger.
Thank you, Ginger and Johnny!

The Missing Link, Part Penultimate

Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series can be found here, here and here.

Blogger Cybot asked, "did drug trade start by hippies and then go to the organized crime, or were drugs traded by o. c./mafia from the beginning? - and when did the trade start?" Patty was thinking about his questions the other night while watching the Ken Burns documentary on prohibition. Was that when organized crime started in the US? Of course not.

From the very minute folks got off the Mayflower, they started forming alliances just like they do on Survivor. Even before that, the natives likely did the same. Those who are the most organized, have the most resources, make the best alliances, always win. Those who overstep the boundaries created by the dominant group are marginalized and punished. When one season is over, another rises to take its place. This is the way the world has worked since the very beginning.

We are interested in a very short capsule of time when studying the murders, which might be described as the proverbial "perfect storm." We know that up north, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love (BEL) had deals with the Panthers, with the Gypsy Jokers and also with the Angels (see here). To the south, the mob had been in Hollywood for quite some time, but were not really involved in the trade of psychedelics. If anything, they were supplying cocaine, but not on the scale that they later would. In the summer of 69, there was a market for psychedelics, and there were many competing parties who wished to be the fulfillment arm of the BEL drug empire.

The BEL began as a group of high school students in Anaheim. You will remember that John Griggs, founder of the BEL, hadn't tried LSD until he and his friends dropped acid near Palm Springs. Griggs relieved a "famous producer" of his cache of Sandoz LSD during a Hollywood Hills dinner party in 1966. That experience was the birth of his organization, which he preferred to call a church rather than an organized crime syndicate.

By all reports, Griggs was well intentioned about using LSD to the betterment of humanity. The BEL lobbied to become an official, tax-free religious organization: when it was accomplished, he named California Governor Ronald Reagan as an honorary member!

Anyway, Patty digresses. The point of all off this is that the identity of the producer who had a kick ass, laboratory grade connection and who did not prosecute Griggs may be relevant. Who and what the famous producer actually produced is unknown. Patty has compiled a short list of guesses, as follows:

Bob Evans was very close friends with Roman and Sharon and had produced Rosemary's Baby.  He hosted a large, lavish funeral reception for Sharon. Bob was an infamous partier who, with his brother Charles, was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1980.

Clive Davis was general manager of Columbia Records by 1965. He is responsible for signing Janis Joplin after the Monterrey Pop Festival of 1967, and for bringing the Grateful Dead to the Arista Label in the 70's. Bob Weir would occasionally change the lyrics of Jack Straw in concert from "we used to play for silver, now we play for life," to "we used to play for silver, now we play for Clive."

Terry Melcher and Bruce Johnston formed the vocal duet Bruce & Terry in the early '60s. Later, Johnston joined The Beach Boys and Melcher went to work with the Byrds for Columbia Records. There, he produced  "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Turn! Turn! Turn!" Melcher also performed on Pet Sounds as a background vocalist and was a producer of the Monterrey Pop Festival in 1967.

Chuck Barris, of all people, is a weirdly compelling shortlister. Wait a sec, hear Patty out before you start L'ing YAO. Chuck Barris married Lyn Levy, whose father founded CBS, in 1957. He first became uber-successful during 1965 with his creation of The Dating Game on ABC. He also produced the Canadian-based Bobby Vinton variety show and infamously claims to have worked for the CIA.
Brian Wilson would be the most expeditious and direct choice for the "famous producer" in question. The Beach Boys were signed to Capitol Records in 1962. They released their groundbreaking single "Good Vibrations" and album Pet Sounds in 1966. According to many sources, brother Dennis was a hub around which many relevant relationships centered. The Neil Young connection is said to have been through Dennis. Bryan Lukashevsky knew Dennis, too. Strangely, Lukashevsky (who now lives in Honolulu) told Brian Davis in March, 2012 that one day soon, the time will be right for the real story to come out. He did not elaborate on why that is. 

Is it safe to say now that everybody absolutely did know everybody else on the scene in 1969? How to the LaBiancas fit in to all of this?

According to police investigation reports, Leno was part-owner of nine thoroughbred horses. He liked to make large bets at the track, frequented Las Vegas as late as March, 1969 and had misappropriated about $200,000 from his Gateway Markets since 1964. When he met and married Rosemary, she was a waitress at the Los Feliz Inn. At the time of her death, she had two dress shops: one having just been opened on Figueroa Street in LA. This is not a nice area. In fact, it is within yards of noisy Interstate 5 which runs from Mexico, where Rosemary was born, all the way to Canada.

Leno was a board member at the Hollywood National Bank. It is long gone, but it used to sit a block south of Hollywood and Vine at Argyle. Today, this is next to the Pantages Theater and within view of the Capitol Records Building (see left). According to an article at TOTLB, Hollywood National opened to much applomb in 1964 with appearances by celebrities and government officials. Wouldn't you just love to know which ones? Patty sure would. She would also love to see Hollywood National's books, or at least a copy of the local and federal investigations into them. By 1967, Leno's colleagues were being investigated and convicted for laundering "hoodlum money." By 1971, the bank was bought out by United States National Bank of Portland; by 1973, it became a part of Wells Fargo.

The BEL's ability to produce Orange Sunshine was financed by Billy Hitchcock, a richie rich from the East Coast who rented Millbrook in 1963 so that Tim Leary, et. al. could perform their "research" there in peace. He was a member of the Carnegie Mellon family on his mother's side: "old money" they call it, with ties to huge companies like Gulf Oil, Alcoa, New York Shipbuilding, Westinghouse, Newsweek, U.S. Steel and General Motors.

He had large deposits at The Castle Bank & Trust, an infamous Bahamanian bank founded in the 1960s by a former member of the US Office of Strategic Services and a tax lawyer friend. In 1967, the bank's clients were celebrities, organized crime figures and wealthy business owners like Hitchcock, Credence Clearwater Revival, Tony Curtis, Hugh Hefner, the Pritzker family (Hyatt Hotels), and Las Vegas gangster Moe Dalitz.The Mary Carter Paint Company, one of the the bank's shell companies, later became Resorts International which built a luxury hotel in the Bahamas called Paradise Island. President Richard Nixon stayed there on many occasions. Castle Bank contributed quite a bit of money to his re-election campaign, as discovered by the Ervin Committee in 1972.

In 1968, Hitchcock purchased land just north of one of his homes in Sausalito, then put Nick Sand and Tim Scully on retainer. Shortly thereafter, Hitchcock and Owsley hired a New York law firm called Rabinowitz, Boudin and Standard to look into the possibility of legally producing LSD and hash in the Bahamas. Soon thereafter, the IRS' "Operation Tradewinds" revealed that Castle Bank was involved in tax evasion. It was also covertly funneling funds for CIA military operations including the anti-Castro maneuvers at Andros Island.

By this time many investors including Billy Hitchcock had moved their funds elsewhere. The IRS planned to initiate a new investigation called Project Haven into the affairs of individual Castle Bank clients like Billy's college chum, Sam Clapp. However, according to the Wall Street Journal, the investigation was dropped because of "pressure from the CIA." Castle Bank collapsed in 1977 leaving poor John Fogerty and many others in the lurch. You can draw your own conclusions about that. In any case, Patty would love to find a connection between Hollywood National and The Castle Bank or any of its shell companies, and she is still looking into it.

Phew...that was a lot. Are you still with Patty? Let's sit on that for a while. She promises the next post will be the last in this series.  Happy New Year, and PEACE.