It's amazing to me the amount of freedom Bobby was given to devote himself to his music.
We Spoke to Charles Manson’s Guitarist About His Life Making Art and Music While Serving Time for Murder
By Adam Kovac
We need to get this out of the way right off the bat: Bobby Beausoleil was an associate of Charles Manson and he murdered Gary Hinman, a crime for which he was sentenced to death.
He's still alive and well, serving his commuted sentence in Oregon State Penitentiary.
I spoke with Bobby twice by phone recently, and this interview is not about Manson or the murder. It's about his life before and after. Because if you put all judgment about what he did aside, Bobby Beausoleil has led a fascinating, creative life.
Read the rest of the interview
Thanks to Chatsworth Charlie for the heads up!
27 comments:
Gee. I wonder if his "vacation" is being spent in the SHU for his prison infraction? Does anyone know if he makes money off these projects? Shouldn't that money go to Hinman's family?
I don't think Bobby was ever sued for wrongful death.
"Because if you put all judgment about what he did aside, Bobby Beausoleil has led a fascinating, creative life."
A fascinating creative life - exactly what he denied Gary Hinman. Gary Hinman was a human being - you don't 'put all judgment aside' about his murder just to celebrate the third-rate pseudo-creativity of the rat who killed him - unless you think his life is worth less because he wasn't as hot or as far-out as Bobby.
"You have so much going on, with the music and artwork and animation. How rigorously scheduled is your life? How do you find time to do all this stuff?"
Yeah, where does he find the time??
What, no mention of "Sassy Bottoms?"
Jimmy Page was envious of Bobby Beausoleil? Did I just read that correctly? Uh, okay.
A quote from BB regarding the soundtrack Lucifer Rising...
"It was autobiographical, my own story being in my own life, I took a fall (laughing) a serious fall, as Lucifer did in his."
I think it was Gary Hinman who took the bigger fall.. and he never got up. Laughing about his life and comparing his downfall to Lucifer is a interesting- not to mention disturbing comparison IMO anyway. I think the guy is right where he belongs and I hope he stays there. The more he talks the more I believe that. I would like to know more about Sassy Bottoms myself- too bad that question wasn't asked. BB to me has always been overrated- he was a fairly decent looking guy and what I would call a very mediocre artist- in terms of both his music and artwork but in my eyes he's still a murderer and he still creeps me out. I will agree with one thing- if his name wasn't tied to Manson he probably would have been out long ago- although he seems to change stories and not really have a lot of remorse for his victim so who knows. Interesting article though-thanks for posting. ( The Jimmy Page thing gave me a good laugh as well)
Thank you Michael.
I think Bobby's accomplishments behind bars are amazing.
I think that he has been allowed to accomplish them is amazing too- because I agree with every word Michale said as well.
Tex having a family, and running a chapel- Bobby making records and playing live shows- Susan Atkins taking pics with Arnold in the Gym...
I once read about a prison in Arizona somewhere run by some real hard-ass. He makes them work all day- sleep outside in tents in the heat- stuff like that. It sounds like they run Day Camps at some of these prisons in California and Oregon. It was once explained to me by a person in the corrections system that the punishment of confinement is the confinement. It is not their job to punish further. The confinement itself is the punishment he told me. I also understand letting a prisoner have some activities to teach them skills which them to be productive upon potential release. I get all of that...
But it just sounds tasteless to me bragging about how well someone is doing under his circumstances. He isn't coming back from a drug or alcohol dependency, nor is he rehabbing from a bad accident or injury.
The guy got locked up for torturing and killing someone who trusted him and who had helped him.
So he had nothing but time on his hands for 30 years and he got good at something...
I give him a stale cookie maybe if nobody else wants it for being a capable, productive guy when he had no choice over the years, but nothing more.
Yes the confinement is the punishment. The thing is (as told to me by a long time friend with experience in such matters) is that what they REALLY lose are two things that we take for granted: freedom and privacy. Think about it, they can only bathe once a week. They can't even have privacy in the toilet. Somebody is always watching. What a hell of a way to have to live.
That's exactly right, Matt! People do take those things for granted. I can't imagine being supervised & told what to do by staff 24/7, nor could I ever imagine only being able to bathe once a week. Hey, I wonder if Pat & Leslie only get to bathe once a week? I would think their dormitory-style living would allow them a bit more freedom than, say, where Manson lives, or Bobby.
BB certainly represents a "different" kind of prisoner. Back in 1966 when I was in the Army, I was diving home on leave and stopped in Yuma, Arizona. I also loved the history of the "Old West." I went out the back door of a small museum and their it was - the infamous YUMA prison. But it didn't even look like a prison - it was simply little caves dug into the side of a small hill - with steel bars covering the small openings. TOn the late 1800s the prisoners actually had to crawl, on their bellies, just to enter their dirt cells. Today folks are buried in bigger holes than the YUMA "confinement" areas.
Fortunately, we've come a long way baby - NOW the cops just shoot YOU in the BACK - eliminating the need for lawyers, judges, prison guards, etc. AND there is actually a word for such PROGRESS. It's called "community collapse."
Robert - in terms of such shootings, has anything changed other than the degree of publicity and outrage? I don't ask that rhetorically, but literally - ie, I don't know.
Matt and Ann - very true, very true indeed.
I wouldn't call being able to pose with the terminator and 20-30 other people an amazing accomplishment.
Also. If you, in order to do the posing in question, give up your ability to plan for the future and organize your present i'd say you're either insane or insanely mentally handicapped.
All of these people are broken. To paraphrase John Douglas. We're birthday cakes. These people have got a layer of cement where there should be pudding, jelly or whatever. You can't really remove the cement. When they're in prison, the really bad effect of having a layer of cement is often just in remission since they're out of element. They're still as broken post-sentence as they were pre-sentence. The guy is probably just the guy he is. But now he's got a dim spotlight on him.
In a global world of laws and obligations, we're pretty much bound to uphold a certain standard of humanity. Part of that is the right to believe you're awesome. That's probably all he's got. That, i guess, and a flawed ability to fake humanity.
Personally, though, I think Krenwinkel and Watson are getting away with murder.
Ann, dorm setups are like summer camp compared to the rest of the prison. In the dorms they can walk around with a little more freedom and they have showers.
However, the toilets don't have stall doors and security cameras detail their every move there. That would drive me insane.
Well said, Michael.
God Michael, I wish it were NOT so.
To spend a life-time living in the "Greatest" FREE nation ever to be on Earth - only to discover that it was ONLY an illusion - is depressing. That the ONLY real advancement from the ROMAN Empire to Nazi Germany to NOW is the invention of the "cell-phone" camera is somewhat encouraging, BUT beware of TAKING those dangerous videos.
I had some Legal involvement in the Rodney King video and to say the videoographer got screwed is an understatement. The guy who just took the latest "Nazibation" video will be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. So Matt, you can add FEAR to the lack of privacy and "mental" confinement.
My older 84 BMW 733i has a low beam burnt-out headlamp and I found myself, at night, driving the back streets to avoid being pulled over by the cops.
BTW: A news helicopter in CA just filmed ten sheriff's deputies beating the shit out of a guy who was suspected of "stealing" a horse.
Don't tell the cops it's "cheaper" to hang a Black man from a tree (bullets cost $$$) and you can use the rope over and over again.
Charlie BAD - Mr. Policeman GOOD !
Robert, to give one example from the many, many hundreds available; in 1934 the Munich journalist Fritz Gerlicht was about to publish yet another article attacking Adolf Hitler. The Gestapo raided his newspaper offices, beat him and his colleagues, and dragged him off to Dachau, where he was murdered on the 'Night of the Long Knives' the following year. To notify his wife of his death they sent her a parcel containing his steel-rimmed spectacles, spattered with his blood.
The fact that you are free to criticize your country and your government, to the extent of comparing it to the Third Reich, should tell you that any such comparison is wide of the mark. To put it concisely: if you were right, you would be dead by now.
Is America far from what it was meant to be? I agree. Is it getting further and further from that ideal? I think so. Are there far too many cops too willing to use lethal force for little or no reason? Undoubtedly. It's a very serious stain on your country's image right now, and I can't imagine what I would be feeling if I were involved in any kind of interaction with a cop in your country. I know the media narrative concerns itself only with African-American victims of police shootings, but I've read enough about it to know that it happens far too often to unarmed Americans right across the racial spectrum.
But again, as much as I enjoy reading what you write, and as much as I would be honored and pleased to make your acquaintance one day, I can't go along with the idea that whenever the vicious acts of Manson Family members are discussed, it offers any kind of rebuttal to say "Yeah, but what about that guy Nixon, or Vietnam, or racist cops!?"
They viciously murdered Hinman, Parent, Sebring, Frykowski, Folger, Tate, Leno, Rosemary, and Shorty. We can debate the motives or the chain of command or the details, but nobody seriously disputes that a bunch of people under the wing of Charles Manson murdered those nine humans.
And if our response is to shrug and say that it's all the system's fault, that cops are racists, that politicians are corrupt, that America is imperfect, that US troops committed atrocities in Vietnam, well then we must logically suspend judgment on all individual human acts, and we end up with a jungle, with a permanent bloodbath, with survival of the fiercest.
Individual moral wrongs are not excused by collective moral wrongs. It is simply not enough to dismiss moral judgment on murderers because war exists or because politicians lie.
And if I'm getting you entirely wrong, believe me I'm more than willing to be corrected and to apologize for having been wrong.
Hear, hear!
"And if our response is to shrug and say that it's all the system's fault, that cops are racists, that politicians are corrupt, that America is imperfect, that US troops committed atrocities in Vietnam, well then we must logically suspend judgment on all individual human acts, and we end up with a jungle"
Michael Hloušek-Nagle ,
Well said.
How I wish I could hear you interview CM on this thought... maybe you could unlock HIM from the 2nd WW and get some SENSE out of him before he dies.
Indeed.
Michael: I just spent a half hour replying to your elequent comment, BUT I miss-sent my response and lost it. SORRY - time to move on.
C'mon guys...prison is meant to prevent crime. You have to show people that going to prison sucks.
Therefore, i think confinement and lack of privacy are part of the game.
You don't go to prison on vacation, you go there to learn you don't want to come back there once you're released. At least that's what i think it's supposed to be.
Oh Robert! I've done that myself more times than I can remember. And usually been grateful for the mistake in hindsight.
xreles - Thank you, but I'm sure Manson would have me tied up in knots within minutes, (I mean verbally, not like he did with the LaBiancas), he'd eat me alive. He's a clever chap and I'm a cripplingly shy second-rate keyboard warrior. From England! Honestly, you'd be better off getting Hugh Grant to tackle Manson.
Michael: It's simply a matter of "perception."
Law Enforcement SEE's the shoot-down of the Black man running away as "a tragic MISTAKE." Actually - a real Nazi would SEE the "killer cop" as incompetent - cause it took HIM 8 shot to bring the man down.
I saw the "whole" episode as an exercise in Nazibation, BUT now I realize many (including Bugliosi) would SEE the incident as an attempt to ignite HELTER SKELTER.
BUT do YOU think the Prosecution of the Killer Cop will even mention that there is a more sinister "conspiracy" involved here ?
Of course NOT - a very public trial of that sort, could put an end to the whole practice of "pigs" using BLACKs to demonstrate their CONTROL over us ALL.
Cute little "bobby"
did this (chest wounds)
http://mansonsbackporch.com/uploads/3/3/0/4/3304832/7279305.jpg?187
with this
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/d8/5e/90/d85e90bd3afd9911be4f91aea95f1832.jpg
Conjure a couple of mental pictures, smells & sounds
and then tell me (or Gary Hinman) what a "creative" individual bobby is, or all about his "fascinating life." How sad that he has "no privacy."
He'll die in there, and he should.
The murder of Gary Hinman was so cruel.Hinman seemed like such a nice man.It is hard to understand how he could have been murdered like all of the victims of the Manson family.I also wonder how it would have went if Susan and Mary were not with there.I wonder will any of the x members of the family come out with anything else As they live their lives Mary Nancy Catherine Sandra Lynette all know more.Bobby does his time but those that have walked free for crimes are just as guilty I bet.As for Susan she was just a killer.
The murder of Gary Hinman was so cruel.Hinman seemed like such a nice man.It is hard to understand how he could have been murdered like all of the victims of the Manson family.I also wonder how it would have went if Susan and Mary were not with there.I wonder will any of the x members of the family come out with anything else As they live their lives Mary Nancy Catherine Sandra Lynette all know more.Bobby does his time but those that have walked free for crimes are just as guilty I bet.As for Susan she was just a killer.
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