The "Stuff that jumped off the pages at Matt" tour continues. To remind readers, this isn't necessarily a chronicle of the book. It's Lynette's facts and ideas - that either filled in gaps for me, or made me sit back and smile. You are free to add or detract as you please.
The Family is now numbered at four: Charlie, Mary, Lynette and Patty. In Sacramento they meet a poor family named the Van Deutches. It is through their stay with them that they wind up with the school bus. Their interactions are mutually beneficial. This is the first time I heard the story of how they acquired the bus.
With their hospitality, the Van Deutches gave us a rebuilt school bus, and a view inside a loving, hard-working family. I hope we gave them more than troubles.Through a couple named Peter DeLeo and "April", the girls take a foray into prostitution, but decide shortly thereafter that it's not for them.
The interaction at the Lyon St. House in San Francisco nets them motor mouth Susan and Ella Jo Bailey. During these days the girls realized that:
We had mimicked them (the thoughts of adults) and fit in to our advantage, but we also languished in their unconscious limitations of themselves. Superficially, we called it "negative programming," or "brainwashing," and it was roundly agreed that our brains could benefit from another washing.They were on the receiving end of a couple of citations because the bus was still yellow and legally still a school bus, hence the famous black paint job featuring the "Holiwood Productions 9". A short time later they discovered an available house known as The Spiral Staircase, Dianne Lake, Nancy Pitman, Didi Lansbury and Bobby Beausoleil. It was then that the art of dumpster diving was taught to them by an older man named Zeb. Lynette reminds us that "you could have fed the world with just America's garbage."
Bobby introduced them all to Gary Hinman and also a counterfeiter named Donny who furnished them with very passable fake id's made yout to their new nicknames like Ella Jo Sinder, Brenda McCann and Sadie Mae Glutz. Dianne as a precaution of her age was "married to one of the Texans".
Throughout this portion of the book, a 50-ish formerly wealthy woman named Melba comes and goes from the story. She needed broke "hippies" to clean her stables so she could keep up the appearance of still being wealthy. The kids cleaned for her for free. Manson gifted her a new Mustang and a wad of cash to help her. The story of this friendship was endearing to me.
The abandoned house on Summit Trail nets them Bruce Davis and Paul Watkins. Sandra Good arrives in April and Lynette's intro to us is a 17 page letter. On that first night was the first time she had sex with Charlie. This was the same night that Pooh Bear was born. From Sandy's letter:
..."Relax," he whispered. "I'll do it. Just lie still and let me move you." My body responded while my mind was amazed. He kept moving in a gentle dance. He made love to me for a long, long time and when he sat up, he was still hard.
... He didn't move or cry. Brenda took him and held him upside down, patting him on the back. Mary put her mouth to his, drawing fluids from his mouth and nose. Finally to everyone's great relief, he let out his first breath and a tiny cry.
... I was in a state of mild shock. Charlie's lovemaking and the baby's birth began for me a mind-blowing week that included my first acid trip.Fromme goes on to describe the "naked hippies" incident. Snake wasn't the only one to down acid rather than let it go to waste (confiscated by the police).
Charlie took whatever he was holding, it ultimately becoming responsible for an iconic mugshot of him taken at the Ventura County sheriff's substation and later published in Life Magazine.
 |
| (Photo not taken from the book) |
...We talked back and forth, sang a little, and after the evening's exchange, Dennis outright invited us to stay. We told him about the black bus, and the many more of us, and he said to "bring them." Whoever claimed later that we had moved into Dennis' house uninvited was either untruthful or uninformed.
...Dennis spent a lot of time with Charlie, and I will never know all the things they talked about but there was good blood between them. Charlie obviously got a kick out of Dennis, and Dennis referred to him as a "wizard." After roaming the yard barefoot one morning, Dennis stepped into the room through one of its tall windows, sat down at the piano, and, for the first time since we had arrived, played some of his own music. His music was beautiful when he put his heart into it, and that's what was attractive about him, not just his body and face, but the opening that showed heart.
Charlie made up a song for Dennis, and we wrote down the words. Part of it was from a man to a woman, and part from a man to his brothers. Dennis would later talk The Beach Boys into recording the song, but someone would talk him into changing the rhythm and words, and failing to even mention Charlie.
...It would later be widely reported that we "took" Dennis for thousands of dollars, but we took only what he gave.The last page of this section was about Dennis and was especially poignant to me. I'll reproduce the entire page. Hopefully no one gets mad :)
Dennis and Charlie walked the grounds, comrades of many moods. Charlie asked Dennis if he wanted us to leave, and Dennis insisted not, but each time he declared he was going to take a vacation to travel with us, he only got wound up tighter, and, in turning, looped himself into even more commitments.
"Okay, I'll see you at 5:00," I heard him tell some-one on the phone.
I said, "Dennis, you already said you were going somewhere else at 5:00." He just shrugged and made a funny face. Wasn't he just in a big movie? He traveled the world, played before thousands who paid him for it, had girls in every state eager to lie with him or just get a scrap of paper he had touched. He meant well; what did it matter what he said? But it did, and he was perpetually agitated.
There was good reason for Dennis' dilemma. Popularity and wealth were not entirely satisfying ends to him. Surety and peace eluded him. And while most of us girls were ordinary, Charlie showed more faith in himself than even the most successful people Dennis knew. Dennis was beyond fame and money, but even in his youth he was already spent. He couldn't roam for more than a day. He was owned and operated. Peoples' investments rode upon him. He had signed the contracts long before, and he didn't have the will or the confidence to make the change. He had gained access to half the world through his company. It was a lot to give up for a soul he was unsure of.
Twice Dennis told us he would be home for dinner and the rest of us waited, and he didn't come, so the next day we left the estate and went back to the valley where the land was flat and wide, to the foothills above the smog line, to The Ranch.
164 comments:
Jumping right to the Dennis Wilson thing, that's quite a different story Fromme tells from what I believe I've read before about Wilson's concerns and wanting to get them out of his house, etc.
Since I haven't red the book, living vicariously thru Matt and other's reports thereof, I get the sense that Fromme is being honest when she really doesn't have to lie which can leave some with interesting informative 'zingers'. But when she moves into potentially controversial territory I suspect the reliability of her recounts become less convincing (for me).
My sense of it is that Beach Boys publicists put that spin out. If they were to admit that their prodigal son was an accepted friend of the Manson Family it would have had the potential to hurt the band in the pocket book.
Robert C
Read this post of David's about Dennis Wilson's association with Manson and the Family. There were a couple of published articles that show Dennis was still hanging out with the Family into the summer of 1969. The Record Mirror article from July 5 1969 has quoted Dennis in a particular Charlie-like manner at a time before Charles Manson was a household name.
http://www.mansonblog.com/2017/01/when-did-dennis-wilson-finally-sever.html
Some thoughts about her stories of Susan I have are 1. I liked the story of her impressions of Susan as loud and embarrassing and bragging about a lesbian affair in prison, only to be followed by Susan secretly holding Lyn's hand on the bus..."it wasn't a sneaking or lustful hand only a hand that wanted to be accepted."
2. The night she "challenged" Charlie repeating everything he said a moment behind him as if trying to be him, and how he laughed about it and went along with it which entertained people and made Susan feel accepted by him and stop challenging him. It's a good illustration of many Lyn has in the book of Charlie's knack of being tuned into people and knowing how to be with them.
Later Sandy describes Susan/Sadie as having "electric movements" when she first met her, making me think about speed and wondering how far back her speed use went.
Then there's surprising attitudes from Charlie, who seems to usually comment on how parents had screwed their kids up, but in one moment Lyn has him saying "as much as I liked to consider him an ally against my own parents, he said he saw no reason for any of us to hold our parents in contempt." They had done a good job raising them and if they blamed them they'd have to blame their parents' parents and so on through the generations. And shortly after that there's a letter from Charlie praising all the things his grandmother did for the family.
Sometimes in the book Lyn seems dismissive of famous people they had connections to which to me comes across when she writes about Angela Lansbury, quoting Charlie saying that Didi, her daughter, who was hanging out with the group, was ten times the actress her mother would ever be. And Lyn says Lansbury "would languish awaiting another worthy role before accepting the part of a mystery writer in a watery American TV series beamed into millions of homes weekly."
Later, when Lyn writes of meeting Dennis Wilson she describes his band as "a well-known West Coast music group." And, as Matt said, she claims that whoever claimed they moved in uninvited were either lying or misinformed. It's the kind of statement she makes several/many times in the book to dismiss well-known claims, such as her brief dismissal of the claim they were obsessed with the White Album.
Once in while Lyn writes sentences that I don't know how to enterpret, such as describing their stay at Dennis' house with "We were there, yet not there. It was nice." More dismissive attitude toward the Beach Boys:"It seemed that Dennis and his brothers did not understand the physics of the 'vibrations' they were singing about, but their music was catchy, and their harmonies were good."
Lyn goes on to mock or criticize others around Dennis, such as his different girlfriends. One brought a ton of fancy clothes and stuffed a closet with them. Lyn and some of the girls took it upon themselves to take them out and distribute them to people on the streets. The woman who owned the clothes "would call it stealing, but we never wanted her clothes. We just wanted to make sure that she wouldn't come back to stay unless she was willing to be naked in a sense." Got it.
For me Dennis own words to that British magazine about Charlie and the girls tell me what Lynette says about their stay is accurate, Dennis wanted and welcomed them there, just my opinion here but i think Bugliosi spun the story that Dennis was tired of getting used and wanted them out to show Charlie and the girls as users and to have another reason for Manson to be rejected and seeking revenge
I don't discount that RWH, but was it just Bugliosi spinning a story out of whole cloth or did he have any good reason to think that?
Matt said: " My sense of it is that Beach Boys publicists put that spin out. If they were to admit that their prodigal son was an accepted friend of the Manson Family it would have had the potential to hurt the band in the pocket book. "
It's a plausible theory but I'm not entirely convinced. I respect David's research and sleuthing but I don't always believe because David says, just catalogue as maybe.
DebS said: " Read this post of David's about Dennis Wilson's association with Manson and the Family."
Thanks Deb -- I did read it before plus the link. I do believe Wilson welcomed and hung with the MF. I just, for the time being, still suspect the rapid depletion of his funds and possessions by the MF change his attitude toward them and by then he was in a difficult position. That is, I currently suspect there's a little bit of David's assessment and also that of Wilson that could amount to the truth of the matter but I'm still not convinced of Fromme's comments about it at all.
Plus not to confuse the fact that Fromme was referring to whether they arrived uninvited not whether he eventually wanted them to leave
Lol the Beach Boys well a "well known west coast music group" like Babe Ruth was just some baseball player
Were not well
I think whether Dennis wanted the family out of his home, or whether he invited them there and wished for them to stay, I believe that Fromme can only view the situation from her own perspective. She enjoyed her time there and believes that Dennis did to. That doesn't make it true.
Another situation that she comments on, multiple times, is her "relationship" to old George. Again and again she states that she wasn't ordered to spend time with George. That need to mention it more than a couple times makes a statement appear suspect.
Later in the book, she talks about how close Manson and Bobby were. Maybe there IS something to the murder motive for freeing Bobby.
StillGroiving said-
“Later in the book, she talks about how close Manson and Bobby were. Maybe there IS something to the murder motive for freeing Bobby”
OR, she’s a still faithful and loyal follower of the now dead Charlie (and others still in prison) and is still trying to clear them or cast doubt on the prosecutions theory- While I enjoy listening to books while driving and traveling, I don’t put a ton of credibility into what someone involved at her level has to say.... especially so many years later.
Selective memory to serve a purpose.
Regarding the ordering (or lack of orders) to service an 80 year old man- not sure which is more disturbing. Being ordered to service an 80 year old man and following the orders or, not being ordered and doing it just because.
AstroCreep,
Unless I missed it, she hasn't yet mentioned any sexual activity between herself and George.
Yeah I’m up to almost pg 400 and no mention of sex with George but a lot of wholesome anecdotes
I love the book and the George stuff is terrific but I feel Lyn has a Walt Disney treatment of this whole saga At one point in the book she says someone maybe her mom used to say the oft-said “if you can’t say anything good about someone...” I wonder if she just has a limit to the details she’s comfortable dealing with. She’s you know “a nice girl” it’s like Shirley Temple is relating this tale
Humph. That appears to have been George's Golden Rule. And Sandy appears to live by it, with the exception of Paul and and Linda.
Yeah snitches will be taken care of ( in my book in 48 yrs)
It’s not to say that she isn’t truthful with a majority of what’s written, it’s just that in my experience the people who are credible (authors) give you the bad too- with books like this, if the author is sanitizing then what is credible and what isn’t is left for the reader to figure out.
Lol i doubt she'll be admitting to that one
And Brenda was meant to be 'Glenda' !
The Family is now numbered at four: Charlie, Mary, Lynette and Patty
It makes for one of those eye opening juxtapositions when one contrasts what Pat recently {29 Dec 2016} said about how she came to be part of this ménage à quatre. In the parole hearing before the one that led to the battering investigation, she claimed that when she met Charlie at Billy Green's place, they then went to her sister's pad for 3 days then she chucked it all in to go travelling with Charlie, thinking she and he were an item. She says she hadn't met, in fact, didn't even know about Mary and Lyn. Some of her observations from 2016 are:
PRESIDING COMMISSIONER CHAPPELL: So what part of the trip, during the trip did you finally realize, hey, this guy isn't - basically, the plan isn't going along like he said ?
INMATE KRENWINKEL: Well, things started changing immediately, because which I didn't know is that he had another gal, Lyn Fromme that was waiting for him at a place in LA. And then, he had someone up north, Mary Brunner...
PCC: Okay.
PK: And so, he decided, you know, well, you know, to bring them along. And so, and we started first. We were around LA for a while before we went anywhere. He had friends there and we would stay at their place. And it all seemed, you know, very innocent at first. I mean, it just was, it was just we started and eventually it became the two other women and myself.
PCC: Right.
PK: And we started traveling.
PCC: So that's when...so...
PK: And that's when we went up to see the...up towards Washington. We started moving up the coast from Los Angeles up towards Washington.
PCC: Okay. So on the way up you stop in LA and you pick up the women ~ or one woman. And in another area you pick up another woman. And you go to Washington. So at that point, do you realize, wow, maybe he's not the one. Maybe I'm not, because now he has these two other women with us.
PK: Yeah.
PCC: I mean, that sounds...let me, let me, let me see if I can get this out. I mean, that sounds like that's a huge red flag; right?
PK: Correct.
PCC: Because your initial intent was this guy is going to be he and I forever. We're going to have our relationship, you know, be married and live happily ever after, but very shortly after you get on the road, he picks up these two women. What are your thoughts? Are your thoughts, okay, well..
PK: Yeah, maybe this..
PCC: Plans change and I'm...
PK: Yeah. Maybe this is not a good idea. And yet, it seemed like, especially those...like when I first met Lyn, she was just a really, really nice person, very similar to myself. And she, too, was just wanting to, you know, just to enjoy just traveling and just going somewhere and trying something different. Because so...
PCC: So what did he tell you about these women?
PK: Well, he just said that he had found Lyn. And then, Lyn just spoke for herself. And you know, and she just said that, you know, she had, I think, like finished high school and thought she'd be, wanted to do this instead of go to college, you know, at this point. And travel with ~ so, you know, why not? And there was, I mean, every single thing as we began became a red flag. But somehow I just kept thinking that maybe it would turn around, because it wasn't, it wasn't, it didn't show itself immediate. But it showed ~ things started showing itself little by little, because he was very definitely, he had his ideas and we could not, basically, superimpose our ideas on what he or where he was going to go. In other words, I couldn't say, gee, you know, let's go visit my friend.
PCC: All right.
PK: It was all moving towards his direction. And so what actually began to happen was that, you know, I befriended Lyn and Mary. And we became very close.
2/2
PRESIDING COMMISSIONER CHAPPELL: Yeah, but this is what I'm having a hard time with.
PK: Okay.
PCC: Initially, you say your mindset was, you know, this guy tells me he loves me.
PK: Right.
PCC: I think he's the one. I think he's the one I can settle down with. You get on the road and almost immediately he picks up these other two women. And I understand, you know, the sixties, free love, and all that other stuff was going on back then. But you were focused on this is, this is my man.
PK: Right.
PCC: This is going to be my man forever. And then, and maybe I didn't hear it. Maybe I didn't ask the question right, but he picks up these two women and now you say, well, there's other women in the picture. And then ~ it doesn't appear that it was a big concern to you. You say, well, I just befriended Lyn.
PK: Yeah. But it..
PCC: And I'm wondering why that wasn't a big concern.
PK: Well, it was and it wasn't, because, at times, you know, when Manson would take me aside, he would tell me, you know, you're the only one. I love you the most. He would, he would go on about, you know, how he, you know, how, you know, I was so important.
PCC: Okay. So did you ever say, well, get rid of these two women, if I'm the only one?
PK: No. I don't...no, because he...I didn't think he would listen to me.
PCC: Okay. Okay. Okay.
PK: I mean, he seemed to have a way of just making it all seem like it was all going to fit together and it was all fine. But you're still well-loved and you're still, you know, and that...and I just kept thinking some way or another that...because he would say it, you know, so somehow I was still believing some of the things that, you know, believed what he was saying.
Not to say that Pat had it right, given her memory, but putting together the two accounts fills out the picture more. I like it sometimes when you get these discrepancies between two people describing the same event. It happens way more times than exact line by line identicality. And if identicality isn't a word, it is now.
RudyWebersHose said...
just my opinion here but i think Bugliosi spun the story that Dennis was tired of getting used and wanted them out to show Charlie and the girls as users and to have another reason for Manson to be rejected and seeking revenge
Mr. Humphrat said...
I don't discount that RWH, but was it just Bugliosi spinning a story out of whole cloth or did he have any good reason to think that?
Whatever came from "Helter Skelter" regarding the Family's stay at Dennis Wilson's came from Dennis Wilson. Now, the book mentions that the Family were uninvited guests, but not during the course of their stay there, just at the point at which they first turned up. And the way Squeaky describes their entrance, with the guy not even in, how could they be described as anything other ? When someone says 'drop by anytime' they usually don't mean 'if I'm not in, come in anyway and make yourself at home !' And in HS it's abundantly clear that not only did Dennis like having them there, they stayed at his behest. And it was him that estimated that their stay cost him $100,000. And even when we're told that his manager had to turf everyone out {even Dennis had to leave}, we're informed that Dennis still saw Charlie from time to time and they were in contact right up until the end of August or early September '69. And interestingly, Squeaky mirrors HS on as soon as they left Dennis' they headed back to Spahn's Ranch.
I can't, off the top of my head, recall anywhere that Bugliosi cites Dennis Wilson as a cause for vengeance against the establishment {one could make that argument easily, but I don't remember Bugliosi doing so} but others have cited the changing and non crediting of that song as such.
Matt said...
Through a couple named Peter DeLeo and "April", the girls take a foray into prostitution, but decide shortly thereafter that it's not for them
Something interesting happened back in October 2016 at Tex's last hearing. There was this little exchange amongst all the heavy weather:
DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY LEBOWITZ: Could the Panel ask the inmate if the person he's calling Rosina is the same person that's also named Luella?
PRESIDING COMMISSIONER PECK: Is Rosina Louella?
INMATE WATSON: Yes.
Later on, Tex is asked about who took the $2700 from Crowe {he replies TJ} and he's asked if he thought Charlie was Jesus {to which he replies no and goes on to say "we never did actually think you know that Manson was actually Jesus Christ" which flies in the face of statements from at least 7 people and Squeaky herself who said Charlie was God}. When Lebowitz is giving her summary of why Tex should not get parole, she says " He flat-out lied to this Panel about several things but I'll point out a few in particular. Number one, he's referred this Panel several times to his book that he wrote and the book appears on his website. There are several instances of lying but I'll point out one in particular....When I asked the inmate who took the money, who took the $2700 in the drug deal he said it was T.J. Now remember, he's referred you to his book several times and I'm talking about the first book. On page 60 he's talking about the theft of the $2700 and he's talking about his girlfriend Rosina/Luella. And he's talking about getting the money and it says....'When Crowe threatened violence to her if I tried to cheat them I gave him one of my Texas grins and drawled that they should know I'd be coming back when they had my girl. I don't remember whether I really thought that they would hurt her or not. There was no reason to believe that he meant what he said but it didn't much matter to me what they did to Luella as long as I got the money for Charlie. They gave me the cash and I went straight into the front of the apartment and straight out the back and T.J. and I were off to the ranch.' Crowe gave him the money. T.J. didn't commit that theft."
2/2
It is now becoming increasingly clear that the DDA was well clued up on what Tex had been saying in his book. She also mentions the more recent one and even notes its Q&A format. She was able to trap him like a mink because she at least seems to realize the value of knowing what he's said in the past and some of the panel members also asked questions from things pertaining to his book ~ and he gave opposite answers to what was written in the book !
Which brings me to Lyn's recollection of herself, Pat & Mary having a go at being prostitutes. In that 2016 hearing, there's a really long discussion about being pimped out and it's worth reading because in it, although Pat says she never thought of herself as a prostitute, the deputy commissioner is having none of it. Pat says things like "at the end of the day, when I, when I look back at all of it, I mean, we were, we were used no different than any prostitute he ever used before. We were given men for sex....at that point, for me, obviously, for myself, I felt trapped and didn't know how to get out of it. Because I did, at one time, you know, work for him in a whorehouse...I, certainly, wouldn't have said, yeah, oh, I want to volunteer for that, you know...but he did talk about women working for him, at times. And I remember him talking about, at one point he would say now he was using coat hangers on them, because that was one of his times where he wanted to make sure to let you know there could be repercussions..." Pat gives it a certain spin which leads to:
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER LAM: Okay. So you knew what was going on at that point. That you are being pimped out.
PK: Yes, in a way. I mean, I didn't see it as that. I didn't see it. As always, we were bringing money at that time, because of need, because we, because and it, because it all became different in my head in how I looked at what we were doing.
LAM: Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. You're having sex with strangers for money. What do you mean you didn't see it that way? You were being pimped out as a prostitute.
PK: Right.
LAM: So what do you mean you didn't see it that way?
PK: I saw it as being what was needed at that point, because we were trying to survive.
It really is a fascinating exchange but now I wonder if certain people are going through Lyn's book and if so, how they'll react to someone who obviously has deep attachment to Pat saying that actually, although they didn't enjoy the experience, they were not coerced into it and certainly not by Charlie. That they were the curious ones that wanted to try it out.
Oooh.
Over the last 16 years at least {and longer actually} LE has utilized all manner of stuff found in books and interviews to weigh heavily against some of those that were in the Family, seeking to be paroled. It's never the reason for a refusal of course, but it seems to me as though these things have been used as a legit tool to show up some flaw, be it past or present {and ∴ the future}.
thanks Grim. I usually pass my books along once I'm done, so I appreciate the people with a bigger commitment to all this information.
Jumping forward in the book, Lyn mentions the children on the ranch and it got me wondering again, where did all these kids come from. They weren't all from Manson "family" unions, so they must have been brought in by other ranch residents who we don't generally hear about(?) I know this has probably been discussed before, I can't remember though.
And I don't remember anything about Karate Dave before this book, although it rings a bell.
Rosina is the prostitute that Charlie has mentioned a couple of times when referencing Tex "beating some prostitute out of her money", i believe from what ive read she was working for Eugene Massaro and a friend of his George Piscetelle, Massaro obviously being Texs drug connection ftom his admission in his book
It says alot about Texs arrogance when he realizes that these parole boards are going to reference his books but says things that directly contradict it in hearings
When Family members talk about Charlie as Jesus or as God, I've always interpreted this in the Ralph Waldo Emerson transendentalist sense. In fact, I see a lot of Emerson's theology in things Charlie says. Individualism, self realization, God dwelling in nature, the "Oversoul." I would almost think he had to come in contact with Emerson's Essays at some point but I've never seen any reference to this.
Grim- thanks for that info! It solidifies my point that these nitwits will pretty much say anything they think will help them out of their current situation.
It’s also why none of it can be 100% believed. That and it’s such an old memory at this point that it’s hard to really recall (with accuracy) in any great detail. Is the story being told to help someone incarcerated or to right a wrong or just to earn a few dollars?
There are as many motivations as to why any family member would write a book as there are for why the murders were committed.
RWH George Piscitelle was killed May 8 1968 in a shootout in Van Nuys. Massaro, Piscitelle and a third person had gone to the apartment of two men to rough them up over an April 8 1968 rip-off/doublecross of $11,000 which was intended to be used to buy marijuana. Piscitelle ended up getting shot and killed and Massaro was seriously wounded. Massaro and company were hired guns, hired by Martin Hochman.
If you email me I can send you a few articles about this. Ultimately Massaro was indicted by a grand jury on murder charges and was set to go on trial. While out on bail he apparently committed arson and was arrested July 10, 1969 for those charges.
Some of my observations:
Fromme tries to paint the family as overly generous, overly loving, overly helpful fun bunch of people who gladly share everything they have. But the women, it appears, did not like to share Charlie, and they were all vying for his attention and pouted or ran away when they didn't get enough of it.
She constantly bemoans the state of the earth because of man's impact, and five sentences later talks about the wonderful times they had scorching the earth with dune buggies, jeeps and motorcycles.
She talks about how they saw people as reflections of the souls (not her words), then mentions how certain people wore too much makeup or fancy clothes or gained weight too easily.
The part of the book where she mentions Charlie dragging a dog into a building to terrorize it for getting after the chickens REALLY, REALLY bothered me. This man loved all creatures, but do something he doesn't like at the wrong time, and all that love flies right out the window and is replaced by evil.
Fromme talked as if she wanted to protect the ranch and old George, but the first chance they get to make some money off of it, they tear out the jail house wall and paint the walls inside the saloon to try to turn it into a lounge.
Charlie was supposedly so in tune with the world, so why did he need LSD to open his mind?
One overwhelming feeling I have towards the Family and Charlie as I read through the book is one of disdain for all the hypocrisy I am reading about.
Mr. Humphrat said...
"And I don't remember anything about Karate Dave before this book..."
What does she have to say about Karate Dave?
StillGrooving said: " She constantly bemoans the state of the earth because of man's impact, and five sentences later talks about the wonderful times they had scorching the earth with dune buggies, jeeps and motorcycles. "
Add to that throwing their junk all over the place, defecating/urinating nearly wherever they please, stripping down stolen vehicles undoubtedly dumping old oil and fuel in the soil, etc. And then when they decided to reinvent themselves to gain sympathy they came out with ATWA which caused me to blow cola thru the nose. And they began acting like they invented the environmental movement. At the time it was so transparent people were laughing at them, not with them. And there were several MF members that bought into this CM scheme and sadly some like Fromme still do.
In his Penny Daniels interview Charlie goes into his theory on God and spiritualism, out of all his interviews its probably the most ive heard him describe it
DebS ive read the entire 6 year FBI report on Massaro, even though Piscetelle died from the wounds he recieved in that shootout his wife continued to run his salons, later on both Massaro AND Texs attorneys Davud DeLoach and Perry Walshin got into the same business, just one more connection between Watson and Massaro
The family hypocrisy basically knows no boundary. Charlie’s hatred for blacks always stood out to me as possibly the greatest example of that. Step on a snake and he’ll skin you alive but cool to hate an entire race of people, no prob.
Serious question as I’m listening to Jeff Guinn’s book and the topic arose- what happened to Linda’s $5,000? I just did a quick google search and says $5,000 in 1969 has the same buying power as $34,721 in 2018. Add that to the $2,700 Tex swiped and that’s another $18,749. What the hell did they spend all the money on?
Often times throughout this whole saga i think we forget the majority of these people were 18-22 years old, look at kids that age today or better yet look at yourself at that age, not to excuse any of the crimes but when you look at some of the ideas they believed and talked about its easier to understand
Begins with a D ends with an S and in the middle is UGS
That’s 53K worth of cheap ass dope- and LSD selling for roughly a dollar a hit- I don’t think it would have been possible to spend that in 18 months. Food- eat out of a dumpster? When you’ve got 53k in July of 1969?
RudyWebersHose said...
Begins with a D ends with an S and in the middle is UGS
Oh, that's cute! XOXO
Obviously they were using more than just pot and LSD also throw in the dune buggies and other stuff
You gotta ask Bruce. He was the Comptroller. Didn't they also pay George's back taxes (which if they did, I would think that would put them in pretty solid with George regardless of anything Shorty might be saying about them) and Charlie also gave that broad with the horses a new car and a bunch of money. It's too bad they didn't blow it all on a bunch of expensive sound and film equipment and start recording and filming themselves.
Those dune buggies were hunks of crap- given a new VW Beetle listed for $1699 in 1969, those dune buggies couldn’t have cost that much. Plus, they stole a large portion of those and used stolen pieces and parts. Like any good detective, following the money likely gets you more answers- roughly in July of 1969, they had $7700 in cash. That’s a LOT of cash for back then. Plus they used stolen credit cards to buy gasoline and other commodities.
I’ll buy the story that they could have used half on dune buggies- still leaves a ton of money left over.
Drugs- as you point out- didn’t cost as much back then. Why would Tex be eating Belladonna root if they had access to so many other drugs? Granted, that was in April. My guess is Charlie was using the money elsewhere but I’ve never heard a good explanation as to how it was spent.
If he they had invested that $7,700 in Philip Morris instead of dune buggies in 1968 the Family would be worth over $51 million today.
I bet they're all kicking themselves over that.
....there was also the 10K inheritance (or 15K, depending on whose account you believe) that Joan "Juanita" Wildebush allowed herself to be parted with by Charlie, in the fall of 1968. Supposedly some of that money went to pay George Spahn's property taxes.
Mr. Humphrat said...
I don't remember anything about Karate Dave before this book
It's an interesting exercise remembering at what point each character entered one's consciousness or became significant even though one had been reading about them for years. For example, for some reason, Pat never registered on my radar with any relevance for a very long time even though in "Helter Skelter" she's one of the main players. There's something invisible about her in that book. On the other hand, Susan was lodged in my mind from the moment I read her quote in the opening strains of the 2nd Chapter and has never left there. I'd heard of Squeaky long before anyone associated with the story, indeed 3 years before I read HS, when she pointed a gun at President Ford. I remember it making the news in England. I was faintly amused that someone would go by that name and I was only 12 so the whys and wherefores of someone pointing a gun at the President didn't really register with me until I was on holiday in Nigeria the following year when the Head of State had just been assassinated.
As for Karate Dave, I'd never heard of him until a couple of years ago when I read Babs Hoyt's TLB testimony when it was up on Cats77's site in which she said she had a thing for him and went across the USA looking for him when he left Spahn. He's still something of a shadowy figure although Watkins speaks of him in his book {or maybe it's in the interviews he did with Robert H and Laurence Merrick} and Leslie was trying to use him as a Charlie avoidence tactic as early as November '69:
VAN HOUTEN: But as I recall, I think Dave had left
SGT McGANN: What?
VH: If I recall, I’m pretty sure Dave left a long time ago.
McG: Yeah.
VH: Well...But, of anybody, I’d suspect him. That guy - whooooo - That’s one person you wouldn’t mess with for a second.
I usually pass my books along once I'm done
You'd think I would've learned my lesson, what with what used to happen in the days when I'd lend out my records and the covers would come back defaced ~ if they came back at all ~ but even up until a few years ago, I'd lend out my books. The copy of "Without Conscience" {the original title of the Emmons book} that I discovered in a crummy liitle shop back in '88 and was only the second thing in the Manson ouvre that I'd come across, I lent to my friend just after I'd read it and she lent it to her friend and I never saw that copy again. After a couple more episodes of that nature I just unconsciously stopped giving them out. But you know, it was libraries that made me really keep books. It was kind of restrictive having to give the books back on a certain date or travel to have to renew them and I found it was easier to keep a book if I bought it {also I have long bought books 2nd hand if I can so they are pretty cheap}. You never know when you might want a bit of info. A lot of the TLB related stuff is in books but almost as much of it can be found online. It's kind of like the Beatles or world war 2 ~ there's a humongous amount of easily available stuff to be had. So much so that quite often during the reading of Lyn's book, I found myself slotting what she was recollecting alongside scenarios I was already aware of.
Youre forgetting Tex and Susies admitted amphetamine abuse
Dugss?
RudyWebersHose said...
Massaro obviously being Texs drug connection ftom his admission in his book
"Obviously" ?
It says alot about Texs arrogance when he realizes that these parole boards are going to reference his books but says things that directly contradict it in hearings
I'm not sure that it is arrogance. In fact, arrogance is probably the best thing it could be. I think some of it is memory heading down the pans, a fate that possibly awaits us all. And some of it is not taking full responsibility for "past services rendered" because he's well aware that every little scrap that LE can use against him from the past to try to colour present minds, they will.
The thing is, he references his books in the hearing, seemingly with the thought that no one is actually going to pick him up on anything awkward ~I doubt he expects them to have his books. But the point was that they were pretty prepared for him this time around so that when he said 'X', they said 'but your book says 'Y' !
Peter said...
When Family members talk about Charlie as Jesus or as God, I've always interpreted this in the Ralph Waldo Emerson transendentalist sense
There was always that sense in there too. In fact, there was pretty much every way in which 'God' was used in the 2nd half of the 60s and beyond. But much of that was also drawn from the way in which Christians understood the word and more importantly, the concept. Many children of that period that had nominal church going backgrounds had a bit of an airy fairy view of Jesus but importantly, even if they did not regard him as God in human form, recognized him as a unique individual and therefore, with acid expanding the mind and taking people beyond and into the spheres where otherness is eventually normal, seeing Charlie as Jesus isn't hard to explain. He looked the part, was the kind of 'Jesus' age, was pretty smart and had the requisite disadvantages in life, had been marginalized by the Man, lived without a job yet always seemed to provide for those that moved with him, while seemingly giving away some good stuuff, was practical and metaphysical and after his own Christ realization moments on acid, continually dropped hints as to being Christ {he even admitted this before the world's press at his trial}. And when some of the Family spoke of him dying "2000 years ago" and saving the world but saying that it did no good then and having, like Leslie, their own crucifiction moments, well, it seemed quite rational that he could be Christ. That some believed he was Jesus while at the same time accepting that everyone was Jesus kind of indicates to me that there were all kinds of mash ups of philosophy roaming the place. They weren't the only ones that had thoughts in that broad range of developing spiritual and religious understanding.
StillGrooving said...
Charlie was supposedly so in tune with the world, so why did he need LSD to open his mind?
I think it was the LSD that actually helped him to tune in to the world in a more conscious way. He often spoke of things that he used to do naturally or realizations he'd had in jail or just when he came out but he didn't realize at the time just what he knew. Acid was a catalyst in becoming more deliberate. Plus it took him to worlds unknown.
RudyWebersHose said...
Youre forgetting Tex and Susies admitted amphetamine abuse
Who is ?
Hose man, let us know who you're replying to. Even initials will do.
Often times throughout this whole saga i think we forget the majority of these people were 18-22 years old, look at kids that age today or better yet look at yourself at that age, not to excuse any of the crimes but when you look at some of the ideas they believed and talked about its easier to understand
Cogently put and convincingly argued. So, do you take on board everything you say there regarding Tex going to Cielo with HS in mind and Leslie, Pat, Susan and Clem the following night with the same ?
Peter said...
Didn't .....Charlie also gave that broad with the horses a new car
It was given to him anyway. A mate of mine once gave me his Mini. I'm pretty tall and my legs are long and it was uncomfortable for obvious reasons so a few days later I gave it to a friend that had no car but 2 kids {at the time}. They had that Mini for years ! But I never considered it an act of generousity because it had been given to me. It was no loss because it wasn't really a gain.
But Charlie's paying George's back taxes was an act of generosity, even if the money was culled from $10,000 that Juanita willingly turned over {she stated many years later that it was willingly done}. What it demonstrates is that he had George and his problems in mind and when he got the chance, did something about it.
That Manson had a nasty, manipulative side and was something of a con {in both senses of the word !} doesn't take away the reality that he did actually like some people and did like, at times, to show generosity by example.
No one is entirely negative.
Panamint Patty said...
Dugss?
I too await the answer to this one of life's mysteries.
StillGrooving said...
She talks about how they saw people as reflections of the souls (not her words), then mentions how certain people wore too much makeup or fancy clothes or gained weight too easily
It's not an attitude exclusive to her and her ilk though. I find the same kind of attitude cropping up in people like George Harrison and John Lennon {coming through in songs like 'Piggies' and 'Sexy Sadie'} and actually, a number of people aligned on both sides of the Atlantic with the counterculture in the late 60s but especially early 70s. And the Rasta culture of the 70s and 80s was full of that kind of thing. A lot of judgemental observations while seeming blind to one's own shortcomings.
On a number of occasions throughout the book, Lyn says "the way I heard it" or words to that effect and it reminded me of the way Bobby speaks with authority on events and their motivations that occured after he was arrested. In other words, there's actually a heck of a lot that she may have been in the midst of but actually doesn't really know the ins and outs of. That will show itself in spectacular fashion past page 252. I remember ColScott once remarking that he'd forgotten more about TLB than Snake would ever remember and that always struck me as being a statement that could so easily be taken the wrong way, but had more truth attached to it than many would give credit for.
Squeaky said...
Charlie took whatever he was holding, it ultimately becoming responsible for an iconic mugshot of him taken at the Ventura County sheriff's substation and later published in Life Magazine
Well, it's a good thing that this wasn't known at the time or in the 50 years since.
It's still a great photo and whether on acid or not, Manson had a penetrating stare that just makes him compelling to look at. Dianne Lake is of the opinion that that particular pic came about more from tiredness and irritation that his sleep was interrupted. If he had downed acid, I'm curious as to how soon they were actually booked and mugshotted and if the effects had started to kick in for a seasoned tripper like Charlie. It must have been some trip !
As far as HS Pat and Leslie yes at least in part, Tex, Susan and Linda no fkn way, Clem no, i think he was in it both for fun and to prove himself to everyone as being more than the retard with the 9 inch cock
A couple of observations that stood out to me;
It would appear from the poem that Squeaky wrote in '71 {pg 238} that it was through Susan Atkins that the Family came to stay at Spahn. Her visions of Sadie are pretty much the same as everyone elses over the last 50 years. But the question remains, who typecast Susan Atkins ? Was it everyone that has commented on her.....or was it Susan herself ?
And although Lyn said that after an argument with Charlie she'd secretly wished she wasn't pregnant, she also speaks of finding consolation for losing the baby which indicates that she had wanted the child. If Charlie's the only person that she carried a child with, it may go a long way towards explaining how she has long seen him and why.
And then she quotes from a letter Pat wrote in 1970 that for some reason seems like it is subconsiously referring to Charlie rather than her parents:
"Did your parents seem to dislike you yet want you to depend on them forever ? Did they hold you down, pull your energy and leave you to your tears ? (And when you left) did they make you feel guilty ? Do they think you belong to them, mind, body and soul ?....My father wanted all my attention.....I was the object in a wicked game of vengeance with my mother..... ¬> That's pretty much the way Pat has characterized her time with Charlie for the last 40 years. It reminds me of Pat, having run to Alabama and trying to figure out a way out of the mess she was in, being inundated with psycology designed to bring her back to LA and a joint trial that was meant to exonerate Charlie and which ultimately netted her the death penalty. And Squeaky went on to ask if, back in the day, "Was he [Charlie] plotting, even then, to send an army of young people against 'the establishment ?'
RudyWebersHose said...
Begins with a D ends with an S and in the middle is UGS
That's a lot of drugs.....but for a lot of people !
Dugss
grim said...
But Charlie's paying George's back taxes was an act of generosity, even if the money was culled from $10,000 that Juanita willingly turned over {she stated many years later that it was willingly done}. What it demonstrates is that he had George and his problems in mind and when he got the chance, did something about it.
That Manson had a nasty, manipulative side and was something of a con {in both senses of the word !} doesn't take away the reality that he did actually like some people and did like, at times, to show generosity by example.
With respect, sir, this is where I struggle.
Consider this: if Charlie used other people’s money to pay Mr. Spahn’s taxes so that Charlie and company could remain on Spahn’s property as freeloaders, does it really meet the dictionary’s definition of generosity? Not in my Webster’s. Generosity must mean giving of yourself and expecting nothing in return.
In the context of LF’s book - this section of pages or otherwise - I just don’t get the feeling that Charlie’s definition of like was the same as any of us might use the term. I think that’s why we’ve used words like subtle or complex to describe the situation in our reviews so far. I completely agree he was not some one-dimensional thief. But nowhere to this day do I see any evidence of any behavior that wasn’t calculated to provide something for Charlie, preferably paid for by others. I give the book great credit for being fairly honest about this aspect of Charlie’s personality.
Nobody does anything in this world for free out of the kindness of their hearts, especially when it involves money
RudyWebersHose said...
Nobody does anything in this world for free out of the kindness of their hearts, especially when it involves money
A few alternative responses to that...
1) Speak for yourself :-)
2) Wow! What an awfully sad world you must inhabit... :-(
3) Now right there (in a symbolic nutshell) is the whole problem with people whose only experience is the contemporary world trying to comprehend this story. Believe it or not, back in the late '60s (in the counter-culture scene that these events took place in), money wasn't the be-all and end-all of everything. LOTS of people did stuff for free out of the kindness of their hearts (gasp gulp)... and (even more shocking) in some obscure corners of the modern world, quite a few people still do.
Similarly, trying to gauge the girls emotional responses to Charlie's "I don't own you, you don't own me" schtick in the context of a straight suburban love'n'marriage/horse'n'carriage world view (as the parole board were attempting to do with poor fucked up Katie in Grim's earlier comment) is pretty futile. Once again, LOTS of people were trying out the unattached open-ended relationship schtick back then. It was kinda almost the fashion at the time. The group marriage thing (although admittedly far less common) was also something you'd run into here and there whilst commune-hopping. Without understanding this, I think there's very little chance of making any sense of this tale. Any wonder that Katie & Leslie & Sadie all spent years trying to tailor their responses to suit the expectations of parole boards whose life experiences lay somewhere to the right of Leave It To Beaver.
Ward, don't be too hard on the Beaver.
No mention of Lyn & friends threatening prosecution witnesses during the trials, or any explanation of why "Zero" was killed in that book? I also suppose she doesn't mention setting in motion Shorty Shea's demise by eavesdropping on conversations, then reporting what all was said back to Manson. Nope? All was sunshine & rainbows, and Manson was like Robin Hood, taking money from one and helping another....what a load of absolute crap!
Anne, YES! THANK YOU! I don’t understand why some people appear to have sympathy for these scumbags. It’s too bad that they can all have the horrific images of the innocent being butchered like animals burned into their brains- to live with until they all fry.
Early in the book, when Lyn inserts a lengthy piece of writing from another person, she usually indicates when that person wrote it. But later in the book she usually leaves this detail out making it hard for me to determine whether that person wrote those words 45 years ago or recently. Makes a big difference in knowing whether those writers are still of a like mind.
Also Her book contains so much writing by others especially Sandy that it makes me think this book is somewhat of a group effort meaning these others won’t feel a need to have their own books
I wonder if she had to get permission from all the others to include their writings
Austinann74 said
No mention of Lyn & friends threatening prosecution witnesses during the trials, or any explanation of why "Zero" was killed in that book?
The book ended before either of these events occurred.
Mr. Humphrat said
Early in the book, when Lyn inserts a lengthy piece of writing from another person, she usually indicates when that person wrote it. But later in the book she usually leaves this detail out making it hard for me to determine whether that person wrote those words 45 years ago or recently. Makes a big difference in knowing whether those writers are still of a like mind.
I was wondering the same thing. While reading, I took it as those not dated were written recently for the book.
I have to agree with you here, i havent read this book but from the few descriptions ive read here Lynette tries putting a sunshine and rainbows spin on everything that went on when they were nothing more than a bunch of small time criminals at best and (at least some) murderers at worst
Were you a member of a commune in the late 60s?
Hey brownrice- I’m very much a kid of the 1970’s. I remember going to the mall near where I grew up and seeing hippies taking baths in the mall fountains, rode my bike all over, lived outside the house most of my childhood. I remember neighbors and a sense of community, people going out of their way to help one another. Money wasn’t involved at all.
I also understand where Pat was coming from during the whole sex for money exchange. She was down to help secure funds for the greater good of the family- and that was likely the easiest way.
These people are never getting out of jail. No politician ever wants that on their opponents tv commercial when it comes time for elections. In that regard, the parole board is just looking for anything. These women can’t relate to the world in 2018 nor do I think they would ever hurt a fly given the chance at freedom. It’s just never going to be in the cards.
This just in.......
Burt Reynolds passed this morning in Jupiter Florida. Tarantino had cast Reynolds to play George Spahn in his upcoming movie "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood" this last spring.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/burt-reynolds-dead-deliverance-boogie-nights-star-was-82-831093
Nooooo. Not The Bandit.
Carlos said...
this is where I struggle
I don't know if you find this often but I do; in many books I read, programmes I watch, conversations I have and even sometimes lyrics I listen to in a song, there's an element of struggle. Very little of the world is black and white and it is almost a reflex action for me to think in terms of nuances and paradoxes. Sometimes, within the same action or set of actions within an event, there's both good and negative that can be found. I know it's easier to see things as one thing or another and in some things, I will, but life just has too many nuances for me. World war 2 and the period leading to it is such a great example of this. One can find examples where the nasty boys done good and the good guys did things that history has continually criticized the nasty boys for doing.
So struggle is by no means a poor thing. It's part of the necessary path to seeing in total.
Carlos said...
if Charlie used other people’s money to pay Mr. Spahn’s taxes so that Charlie and company could remain on Spahn’s property as freeloaders, does it really meet the dictionary’s definition of generosity?
A good example. Is this B&W or nuance ? Before Juanita gave Charlie $10,000, he had kind of organized his group to help out around Spahn's Ranch {something he both admits and denies at various times depending on if the conversation is about his being the leader or his recognizing that someone had to get things done}. So you had Brooks shovelling manure, Tex helping out fixing the odd truck, some of the youngsters helping to brush down the horses etc. Some of the ladies and girls helped out with George, Ella helped out Ruby in the rental office etc. So there was already a quid pro quo of sorts going on. Barter, almost. George didn't have to provide food and having the Family around didn't cost him money. If anything he could be said to have gained by it, at least for a while.
When Juanita gave Charlie the $$s it was no longer hers, end of story. Unlike other monies they came across {Crowe, Melton} this wasn't nicked money. Charlie was under no compunction to hand over any of that money and from almost every account there has ever been from insiders, outsiders and sidewatchers, the Family always landed on their feet when it came to living somewhere {except at Harold True's ! ��} so realistically, it wasn't exactly a disaster if they weren't at Spahn. They were always in and out of there anyway {Barker, Wilson's, Gresham....}.
But CM did give a few thousand $$$s. He didn't have to. It was the Family's by that point. He did have George in mind and the irony was that George thought he was stupid to have given him the money. I don't really see that Charlie gained by it because their situation never changed as a result of it, other than Squeaky got into an argument with George about CM being daft to give him the money, the result of which was that the Family left Spahn. It actually worked against them.
In the context of LF’s book - this section of pages or otherwise - I just don’t get the feeling that Charlie’s definition of like was the same as any of us might use the term
Possibly, I've not really thought about it as yet, regarding this book. But I've based that opinion on things that I've heard or read from him over the years.
But nowhere to this day do I see any evidence of any behavior that wasn’t calculated to provide something for Charlie, preferably paid for by others
Well, there's an element of that but again, not all the way down the line. It's nuanced. For example, travelling the roads of America with Mary, Lyn & Pat, they needed a few $$s for petrol, food etc and so he might play some guitar in a place or look in on an old ex~con or whatever. Yes, there was a calculating edge but that's how people survived on the road without being a burden. Now, I'm not so naive as to suppose that it was all unicorns and rainbows, but I recognize that nuances of the situation loom large. Even something like the garbage runs demonstrate a scenario that say that Charlie was trying to provide without being a drain. If one only wants the monosyllabic view of Manson then that's what one will go with but sometimes, one has to take the struggling road and see both, equally true and yet contradictory sides of the paradox.
I give the book great credit for being fairly honest about this aspect of Charlie’s personality
I don't think she does this. An interesting question might be; if you had never heard of Charlie or anything TLB, what impression would you be left with after having read the Squeaky's book ?
"Gimme a Diablo sandwich and a Dr Pepper and make it fast, im in a goddamned hurry"
"YOU WANT SOMETHIN??!!"
"Hush puppies daddy!"
"WE AINT GOT NO TIME FOR THAT CRAP!!!! Sumbich!"
The way Lyn wrote about George (very corny and endearing and I appreciate that unless I’m mistaken this is the most has been written about him) I kept picturing Lionel Barrymore as George Spahn
RIP Burt Reynolds-Deliverance is a great
movie
Without nuance and paradox there is no Grim
Astrocreep said:
These people are never getting out of jail. No politician ever wants that on their opponents tv commercial when it comes time for elections. In that regard, the parole board is just looking for anything. These women can’t relate to the world in 2018 nor do I think they would ever hurt a fly given the chance at freedom. It’s just never going to be in the cards.
Very true.
That is what you call "a political prisoner" and we aren't supposed to have those here.
Everyday I walk through Times Square on my way to work and I often wonder what Leslie or Patricia would think of this world compared to the one they left behind in 1969. I suppose if I was them, i would just find some quiet, timeless place where I could enjoy the sunshine on my face and the sand between my toes.
RudyWebersHose said...
Nobody does anything in this world for free out of the kindness of their hearts, especially when it involves money
I could give you at least 200 examples off the top of my head that show that to be utter bollocks.
There's been and still are a lot of people on this planet Hose, and you don't intimately know 30 of them !
AstroCreep said...
I don’t understand why some people appear to have sympathy for these scumbags
Having sympathy for those that have broken the ultimate violation is by no means the same as aligning oneself with or minimizing what they did. It just means looking at things in total. There are various parts of the lives of a number of criminals of varying shades in which I do have sympathy. Having spent most of my adult life working with kids, there's no way I can hear of some of the things that happened to Susan, Charlie, Pat, Leslie, Dianne, Bruce, Ouisch and others and not have sympathy. Does that mean those that murdered get a pass because of this ? Heck, no it does not. Does it mean I think Charlie or Tex should have been paroled after 30 years ? No. I can have sympathy for someone while still believing that lifetime incarceration is not only just, but best for all concerned.
These women can’t relate to the world in 2018 nor do I think they would ever hurt a fly given the chance at freedom
That's an interesting one. There are lots of people of either a certain generation or certain religious or cultural backgrounds who find it hard to relate to mainstream 2018 if they do at all. But they find their niche. Are they really any different from any other con that has come back into whichever society after a long stretch away ?
Mr. Humphrat said...
I wonder if she had to get permission from all the others to include their writings
I wondered that too, especially as there is quite a bit from people that have, for at least the last 40 years, denounced those times.
Are they really any different from any other con that has come back into whichever society after a long stretch away ?
"They" being the women in jail
I would agree with but for one thing- they received death sentences that were commuted. Should have never been eligible for parole with the exception of LVH- so as a result, the families are never really at peace given a parole board could decide to set them free- reminds me of so many other decisions made in California.
When i first read about the whole TLB saga i couldnt have imagined having sympathy with any of the killers but for some reason not long ago i was reading back through the Atkins/Caruso interview which i do at times to re read and see if i get anything new i may have missed and near the beginning she talks about being on the roof of a building in SF and being on acid and reaching up to the sky and wishing God would stop the world and take her off of it, for some reason it touched me and i havent looked at Susan the same way since then but thats honestly the only time i can ever say i felt sympathy for Tex, Pat, Leslie, Linda, Bruce or Clem
Hey Grim- regarding the comment about the women not being able to relate to 2018- the parole board seems to be asking questions that (as brownrice pointed out) are clearly not in the context of 1969. Their interaction with society stopped long ago and that makes her answers seem wrong as compared to today’s moral codes.
In terms of sympathy, I can feel sympathetic to Pat for growing up teased because of her body hair issue (I’m simplifying here). At the point in which she “prays to God to make this stop” - SHE HAD THE POWER TO MAKE IT STOP. She could have made 1000 different choices at that moment- and no amount of body hair teasing makes her actions ok.
I had a great childhood. And after 6 years playing music, I decided to join the army. I served 20 years in special operations and deployed 9 times during that 20 years. I can’t go back and ask people to be sympathetic because I VOLUNTEERED to deploy 9 times. I chose that path as did all of the people sitting in jail.
Peter- Wrightsville Beach NC-
Im sure Pat, Leslie, Tex and Bruce are somewhat aware of changes in the world from talking to and dealing with incoming inmates and using the internet and other technologies but ill say this, they would have a hell of a lot harder time being released into a 2018 world than a 1988 or even a 1998 world
Peter speaking of the walking through Times Square thing makes me think of my mom who passed away in 1994 at age 45, she grew up in NYC, Staten Island actually and i often wonder if she somehow came back hiw id describe things like 9/11, Trumps election, social media, smartphones, etc
grim said...
An interesting question might be; if you had never heard of Charlie or anything TLB, what impression would you be left with after having read the Squeaky's book ?
Exactly what I said in the previous thread:
If I had to summarize everything the book says about Charlie into one soundbite it would be this: Charlie used people anyway he could and had no regrets or remorse about it whatsoever.
I wouldn’t think ultimate evil. I wouldn’t think cult leader dominating mindless, zombie hippies. I wouldn’t think any of the over-the-top soundbites we see in the mass media. I would see classic signs and symptoms of a sociopathic personality, and as someone who has studied that a bit, I’d also know how unwise it is to instantly equate such personality traits with extreme violence; it usually just means a person who uses other people serially and remorselessly. The book alone lets me go down a recognized checklist and see reflection upon reflection by LF and others of Manson’s basic nature, which is a user of other people. This is why I give the book great credit when it comes to its treatment of Manson.
Peter said...
I often wonder what Leslie or Patricia would think of this world compared to the one they left behind in 1969. I suppose if I was them, i would just find some quiet, timeless place where I could enjoy the sunshine on my face and the sand between my toes.
I suspect many of us here wonder the same as well.
I’ve known several people who have done many years in a California prison, though no lifers. Without exception they all thought that the world outside is immeasurably preferable to being locked up. Based on interviews and parole hearing transcripts and even Nikki Merideth’s recent book, I’d agree with you that as long as the world today still had places where a person could sit and see flowers instead of concrete and feel evening breezes instead of institutional HVAC, or simply walk a few miles unrestricted, LVH and PK and probably BD would prefer the outside world.
Not disagreeing with you but from what ive seen about Frontera or Chowchilla or what they call the womens prison it looks like a fairly open type place with plenty of outdoors time, gardens, space to walk around, compared to the mens hellholes like Ssn Quention or Folsom it doesn't look that bad
Grim wrote: “Hoseman, let us know who you're replying to. Even initials will do.”
He just won’t do that. He has been asked to do that before. I pretty much skip his posts rather than guess what he’s writing about.
For what it's worth, I caught this hilarious review over at Amazon:
"After reading this, I realized that Spahn Ranch was really a Boy Scout camp where everything was peaches and roses. They traveled up and down the coast helping little old ladies across streets and taking in stray dogs and fixing up houses, grocery shopping for the elderly. Those Manson people were absolute angels and stellar humanitarians. There’s no mention of murders and pointing guns at presidents, drug deals and acid trips, (that never happened) just living a good clean life for the rest of us to follow as an example."
starviego said...
There’s no mention of murders and pointing guns at presidents, drug deals and acid trips...
Can’t say I’m surprised.
The book is obviously not a TLB murder book, but it is inaccurate to say there is NO mention of the murders. The book’s timeline ends years before LF pointed a gun at the president. And the book is quite open throughout about drug use.
Not excusing any violent actions but to some degree, they are political prisoners at this point. The only way that they would be released is if it was the governor of California's last year in office and no interest in a political career in the future.If this crime had not had the publicity and the ongoing fascination that it has, I believe LVH, BD and BB would have been out long ago. As for Pat, she went back the second night and played a major rule in the murders again. For that reason, I think she should consider her sentence going from death to life as her parole. And Tex just needs to wait to rot in hell.
Matthew Record said...
The only way that they would be released is if it was the governor of California's last year in office and no interest in a political career in the future
That sort of describes Jerry Brown, but it obviously didn’t influence his decision regarding LVH. To me, it’s not their political future that scares governors, it’s their political legacy.
... I think she should consider her sentence going from death to life as her parole.
The original conviction resulting in a death sentence was set aside. The second trial resulted in a hung jury. Her third trial resulted in a conviction and life sentence with possibility of parole.
Matthew Record said:
If this crime had not had the publicity and the ongoing fascination that it has, I believe LVH, BD and BB would have been out long ago.
Question: Who was it exactly that wanted to make these crimes so huge that it would “shock the world”? Who was it that fed the publicity machine?
A: The family
Perhaps they should have taken that into consideration prior to smearing phrases and words onto the walls- and prior to killing a woman who was famous and 8.5 months pregnant.
Perhaps too, they should have considered the ramifications of sitting on the street corner with shaved heads and X’s carved on their foreheads for the duration of the trial.
I will agree that Bugs’s book helped along the publicity, but really the incarcerated have no one to blame but themselves.
Carlos said
The original conviction resulting in a death sentence was set aside. The second trial resulted in a hung jury. Her third trial resulted in a conviction and life sentence with possibility of parole.
When I said tht I think she should consider her sentence going from death to life as her parole, I was talking about Pat. Your comment back sounds like you are talking about Leslie.
Astrocreep, I agree with you. My point was that if it had not been such a sensational crime no matter who is responsible for that, some would be out by now. And if they are not paroled because a politician does not want that connected to his legacy or his political aspirations, cant that in a way make them political prisoners? Just thinking outside of the box here. I am sure that if Leslie could go back in time to the trial, she would not be singing down the corridors.
Matthew Record, you are quite correct; I had LVH on the brain while thinking about her parole situation and Jerry Brown.
Pat’s a tough case, but I completely agree with you that her willful participation on the second night given what she saw and did on the tirst night makes parole for her extremely unlikely, among other factors.
When Pat came back from the Tate house, Manson asked her how it went and she said "Charlie, they were so young" She said this with remorse. But then she suited up and did it again the next night with the same vengeance. That is a hard part to get past for parole. After Tex, she did the most damage. It is sad to me that someone could cause so much violent wreckage because they lacked love and acceptance in their lives. I know that she regrets and lives with her terrible choices every day. But even though she was a twisted drugged out kid, that was still her choice and she took all choices away from Abigail, Leno and Rosemary. In the book, LF paints her as the most kind and gentle person. How did she get so wrong so fast??
Dugss
Matthew said: "How did she get so wrong so fast??"
Maybe she didn't.
Starviego just recently posted this on another post:
"Sandra Goode(sometime in the early '90s?): "Even child-murderers get to point the finger at Charlie, accuse us of killing unborn children. Peck, peck, peck, peck, peck down the order. Sharon Tate's baby dying? A baby that would grow up to be a fat fucking hamburger-eating, earth destroying soul-searching piece of shit? What we did was necessary to start a revolution against pollution. We made a statement and we wrote it in blood in the Tate house and in the LaBianca house... "
[From "Sympathy for the Devil, the Greening of Charles Manson," the title of a chapter in a book called No Success Like Failure, by Ivan Solotaroff, c.1994 pg159]"
Ignore the environmental angle, there.
Maybe the whole 'Charlie made me do it' 'my childhood sucked' 'I lacked love' 'you don't understand how acid works on the brain' theme is something they have, shall we say, 'adopted' for parole hearings. Maybe it is crap. And maybe the answer to the question is because she wanted to kill people that she hated because they were 'pigs'.
In 1969 they would not have been alone.
Bernardine Dohrn is reported to have said this (or something similar in other versions) about the killings: "Dig it! First they killed those pigs. Then they ate dinner in the same room with them. Then they even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!"
Of course in fairness she has since suggested her words were taken out of context (as if that makes them better) or more recently an 'ironic joke' or that is was intended to be humorous.
My impression is that all the environmentalism has been added after-the-fact. I don't know if it came about as an excuse for what they were doing, or whether it was just a natural outlet for their fascist impulses, but I do not believe that environmentalism as deceloped as it is presented in this book figured into the Family's philosophy at the time. It's just the fanaticism that replaced the fanaticism of Helter Skelter.
David said...
What we did was necessary to start a revolution against pollution.
Sandy never could seem to decide if the murders were to start the revolution against pollution, or to get a brother out of jail, or to end the war in Vietnam. I’ve also seen her blame Sharon and the Hollywood victims because of the nature of Hollywood at the time.
Getting a concise, coherent reason out of Sandy is impossible, and I’ve concluded her only goal in such interviews is to simply throw something out that isn’t the HS motive. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the HS motive, but when Sandy rambles about motive, she has the ironic effect of giving it credence in the eyes of some. Furthermore, she has never once in my experience done anything to explain why the motives she presents should in any way be seen as defensible or even likely to have worked. When challenged to do so in an interview format, she just turns her unhinged dial to eleven and beyond. Her writings in LF’s book are a refreshing break from her interview performances, but because of the book’s narrow timeframe they don’t help understand motive.
And maybe the answer to the question is because she wanted to kill people that she hated because they were 'pigs'.
That forces us to answer two additional questions: what made these people pigs, and why are pigs so worthy of hate that a small group of American kids feels empowered to kill them? Personally, I don’t see simple answers to these questions. But I do see a few crucial aspects:
1) First and foremost, a liar and manipulator named Charlie. I don’t view Charlie as the evil, cult leader monster the media enjoys portraying. I think that portrayal gives him credit for more skill and ability than he actually has. Charlie was a catalyst. His complete disregard for societal norms of behavior and his lack of impulse control and remorse meant that he could make things happen in ways most people could not. LF’s book offers plenty of examples, and her book is not alone in this regard.
2) A handful of weak, confused kids way out of their element and searching for something.
3) Rightful dissatisfaction with certain issues of the late ‘60s such as the Vietnam war and the environment.
Long story short, I think it’s oversimplified to say Charlie MADE them do it. But I do think that Charlie ENABLED them to do it; I think much of it was deliberate on his part. I even think it’s doubtful that any of them were innate mass murderers; that does not relieve them of responsibility, because being enabled does not mean being forced. Consider this: had Tex not injured his knee and had instead been drafted and gone to Vietnam, as a big, strong Texan who followed orders, he’d likely have killed far more people than he did on one August weekend; and when he got back to his small Texas town, he’d have been given a parade. American society would have tought him to hate commies and enabled him to kill them just for being commies. Same dude, different ways of being enabled to kill.
I was surprised how little space Lyn used to write of the violence in the summer of 69
There were interesting details but it went by in a flash
Several times in the book she includes moments of Charlie’s violence but never gives any indication it affected her feelings for him
The end of the book has no summary of her thoughts just ends quickly and almost like a line from a novel
She never gives any indication with maybe one exception that she had any feelings for any of the victims-can’t tell if there’s a detachment in her or if she’s just trying to present snap shot memories without embellishment
Mr. Humphrat said...
I was surprised how little space Lyn used to write of the violence in the summer of 69
I’ve concluded this is very deliberate on LF’s part and probably very wise as well. Once she goes there at anything beyond the most superficial, tangential manner, she’s pretty much writing a TLB murder book, and that would force her to make certain decisions. Does she acknowledge, even defend, the HS motive and standard narrative? Does she attempt to refute it based on some insider knowledge never before revealed? Does she admit any involvement before or after the fact? Does she avoid motive and simply drag our her persona from RH’s film effectively claiming the murders were justified regardless of motive?
It seems to me that she loses no matter how she decides. By not writing a TLB murder book she has freed herself to write a Family book, and for that I am grateful.
Saint,
You went away but I will respond to you anyway.
What you said is precisely why, while I quickly bought the book, I haven't read it. The notion that all of this was some idyllic love-fest is bullshit. As a reader you shouldn't trust any part fo her account.
Every author has an agenda. It might be money, or enlightenment/education or entertainment. Every author. And from these comments you should all identify her agenda: to change the official narrative about Manson and the family. To create the impression he was railroaded and wrongfully convicted.
But we know Manson beat women, had sex with underage girls, was a con, a sociopath and at least cannot explain the death of Shorty Shea in terms of his innocence.
Have you noticed his surviving 'followers' never address their 'feelings' about the murders unless they tell you exactly what they feel- Sandra Good. Ask why?
Don't ask what was the motive or when did you know what you knew, ask why Ms. Fromme chose to cut off the story when she did.
Perhaps she could appear here. She could tell us how she feels. Those she made love to, those she broke bread with, tripped with, and those who were her brothers and sisters murdered nine completely innocent people (ten in a few days). I'd like to know how she feels about their deaths at the hands of her brothers and sisters, her friends and lovers.
I think she would tell you 'because they had to die' and 'I feel nothing' or she would have addressed the issue in her book and that is why she avoided 'the murders'. And her true feelings about them.
Several have inquired about 'Part II". Folks, Part II was written by George Stimson several years ago. Manson is innocent. Kasabian is the ring leader, Watson is the killer and it was all to get a brother out of jail (as if that is anything approximating a justification for nine +1 murders).
So, thank you Saint, I'm not going to read this book. Anyone want my copy, e-mail me above: shipping charges only.
Oh, and Saint, I will buy you a beer next year but not fucking Coors Light.
David said...
maybe the answer to the question is because she wanted to kill people that she hated because they were 'pigs'
Of course, it's impossible to ever know this because I wasn't there and it's sometimes the equivalent of rolling a snowball up hill in the desert to try and get into people's minds and gauge what they may have been thinking at any one point, but I suspect that the Family's hardened views and personas developed after the murders and more so after the Barker arrests.
Robert H's impressions during his filming of them are quite instructive; for example, he felt Bruce was the one person that was really dangerous. Whereas, at the same time LVH thought he was all talk.
Although there was a certain militancy to their life after a while, that summer's events unleashed a really dangerous element that seemed to catch a number of people in its thrall. Even in books like "The garbage People" and "Helter Skelter" that try to describe life before the murders, I never get the feeling that there was this huge throng of people that was just itching to kill people. Afterwards though, was a different story and that's partly why suicides in London and deaths from ear infections and stabbings to the floor in Kentucky and fires in VW camper vans and deaths in a flash flood were seen as having the Family's fingerprints all over them.
But I've long wondered about Charlie Manson in this vein. I think that there are many criminals who, once they've gotten into a cycle of criminal living, especially if they've gone down the route of violent crime, think about what it would be like to kill or give the actual word that gets someone killed. I mean, some people don't need to be criminals to wonder about it ! I suspect that the notion of killing 'pigs' to start HS was a convenient killing of two birds with one stone; almost as if two entities fused together seemlessly in his mind. Many people that have flown on various substances will have some idea of what I mean.
Grim- your comment makes me think of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple and several other cults. My feeling is that the term “Family” sanitizes what they actually were, a cult. Charlie WAS the cult leader. “The Family” technically is the name of their cult. Although I’ve not read it, LF is basically describing the formation of the cult, before shit went sideways.
Similarly, I’m 100% confident The People’s Temple didn’t form, nor do I believe Jim Jones intended, to build a cult in order to cause mass suicide. I’m sure there are members who feel like the formation of this cult had the best of intentions.
I have always thought that Manson was just a con artist and pimp. He was not this god of evil that was created by the media and the prosecution. He knew what belief worked for what person and used them all. Whether it was to get a brother out of jail, HS or to kill the pig establishment. Whatever worked for each member. I believe the real motive for him was to get back at those he felt fucked him over.
I also watched parts of the 73 documentary again and the way LF presented herself then and the way she presents herself in this book are two different people.
AstroCreep said...
Although I’ve not read it, LF is basically describing the formation of the cult, before shit went sideways.
You’re not wrong.
People may argue over the precise definition of cult, but that doesn’t change the essence of the book, because the book’s main theme is that there was a “before” period. A reader like myself will approach it in two ways. First, understanding the “before” time simply for what it was. In this regard, the book is a valuable contribution to the literature. Second, understanding the crucial people and events of the “before” time that caused things to not just go sideways but to go sideways irrecoverably; to hit a genuine tipping point and create the change in people like we see in LF’s performance in RH’s film. In this regard, the book is less overtly clear and specific. But what most impresses me is what I’ve described above and in previous threads. Charlie stands out as the crucial person, and he does so because the book does not shy away from his true nature: narcissistic manipulator rather than movie-of-the-week evil cult leader. I have no way of knowing if that’s deliberate on LF’s part or if it’s the unavoidable consequence of simply being honest about the “before” time.
It's not worth fighting over or insulting anyone over any more. Nobody really changes their mind...
To each their own lol
See you guys next summer in LA 🍻
Carlos I didn’t get the sense LG was painting CM as a narcissistic manipulator Actually I don’t what she was trying to say other than just relating events as she and her friends saw them I didn’t think she ever felt anything bad about Charlie When she presented him doing something I usually assumed she agreed with him to some degree She and most of the other girls seemed and some still are head over heals in love with him
Outsiders she often judged harshly or just saw them as cardboard, plastic, shifty, whatever else
LF not LG
Mr. Humphrat said...
I didn’t get the sense LF was painting CM as a narcissistic manipulator Actually I don’t what she was trying to say other than just relating events as she and her friends saw them...
I agree the book clearly gives us reflection upon reflection just as the title suggests, spelling notwithstanding. I imagine LF had countless things to choose from for the period up to the Barker Ranch raids. I still find it interesting that whether she intended to paint Charlie in a certain light or not, when I read the reflections she chose, I reach the same conclusion about his core personality. Perhaps it is just the unavoidable consequence of being honest about Charlie and the Family.
David and Starviego referenced this book:
"Sympathy for the Devil, the Greening of Charles Manson," the title of a chapter in a book called No Success Like Failure, by Ivan Solotaroff
Thank you both. I’m not familiar with this book, and I just ordered a copy.
Yeah I was intrigued by that quote in that
book too I wasn’t sure if she’s actually on tape saying that as it’s so outrageous but not too different from things I’ve seen her say on You Tube (Its a quote from Sandra Good)
Carlos the last sentence of the book to me is as close as I can come to a final statement LF wants to make on Manson and it paints him as sacrificing himself ( he could have run) And the same thing with her reflexion on his time with Stephanie Schramm he could have driven off into the sunset
She is open about him in a way but always has her own spin on it or just tells about it without saying anything judgemental I can see what you’re saying though I can see how people could take it as she’s showing his imperfections and acknowledging his responsibility for the bad things that happened but I think of it as she believes in him all the way and the only thing that bothered her and others of the girls is they couldn’t have him to themselves or more of him for themselves
Carlos said...
"Sympathy for the Devil, the Greening of Charles Manson," the title of a chapter in a book called No Success Like Failure, by Ivan Solotaroff
Thank you both. I’m not familiar with this book, and I just ordered a copy.
Read it for free here:
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL1078800M/No_success_like_failure
David said " Saint,
You went away but I will respond to you anyway.
What you said is precisely why, while I quickly bought the book, I haven't read it. The notion that all of this was some idyllic love-fest is bullshit. As a reader you shouldn't trust any part fo her account. Etc ... "
David, I agree with everything you wrote in that post.
I don't think there's 9 completely innocent people in the entire world. Not that anyone deserves that type of death anyway. I have always found it interesting that both Manson and BB made reference to Polanski being into kiddie porn years before we knew anything about him being a pedophile
Watkins talked about him a fair amount in his book.He was arrested with Karate Dave on the way to Barker with a stolen truck full of Manson's younger girls. Apparently he escaped from the court house returned to Spahn for a day or two and disappeared. He also was a Vietnam vet with a fake arm I believe.Thats about all I've seen on him. Haven't read Lynn book yet
Brian G said...
Watkins talked about him a fair amount in his book.
Sanders mentions him also.
Karate Dave was a cop. If the mods run the thread I wrote about it, I could show you.
RudyWebersHose said...
When i first read about the whole TLB saga i couldnt have imagined having sympathy with any of the killers but for some reason not long ago i was reading back through the Atkins/Caruso interview and near the beginning she talks about being on the roof of a building in SF and being on acid and reaching up to the sky and wishing God would stop the world and take her off of it, for some reason it touched me and i havent looked at Susan the same way since then but thats honestly the only time i can ever say i felt sympathy for Tex, Pat, Leslie, Linda, Bruce or Clem
It happens.
Pat, Leslie, Tex and Bruce are somewhat aware of changes in the world from talking to and dealing with incoming inmates and using the internet and other technologies but ill say this, they would have a hell of a lot harder time being released into a 2018 world than a 1988 or even a 1998 world
Possibly, but people are adaptable when we have to be. Initially it would be a shock but it's something of a myth that prisoners are incapable of change, even when they're older.
AstroCreep said...
no amount of body hair teasing makes her actions ok
There's nothing in the known universe that makes her actions OK but there are things in her life that go towards explaining how she got to that point. I was thinking earlier how our families and the various communities we're part of are supposed to engender some sense of well being and give its members some sense of worth, partly because this has a knock on effect that if someone feels valued, it becomes part of their thinking to value others. But if that doesn't happen, then it's not a huge surprise if that person with no self worth doesn't regard others in a healthy light ~ even if they're not aware that they're not looking at others healthily. And we have a way of justifying our negative views of those we judge harshly. Squeaky's book {not "The Squeaky" ~ I meant to say "the book" back a few posts ago !} is packed with that.
Explaining how someone could have got to a particular state of mind isn't saying that that somehow justifies what the person went on to do.
You know, there are cases we've had over here where a mother has killed her baby and in some of those cases the mums said that she felt unsupported and the continual crying of the baby pushed them over the edge. I know what it is to have a baby constantly crying so I really can easily see how someone could be pushed over the edge and kill that child. That doesn't mean I think they should be let off though.
The paradox with Pat is that both Charlie and she chose her path although she had the final say.
Carlos said...
I wouldn’t think ultimate evil. I wouldn’t think cult leader dominating mindless, zombie hippies. I wouldn’t think any of the over-the-top soundbites we see in the mass media
I honestly don't know what I'd think. I'd probably wonder what she had against Ruby Pearl ! I think I might think Charlie was a cute kind of guy who knew how to get about and survive.
I’ve known several people who have done many years in a California prison, though no lifers. Without exception they all thought that the world outside is immeasurably preferable to being locked up
While not California, I've known lots of people that have done jail time {in England people would refer to it as 'being on holiday at her Majesty's pleasure' !} and while some of those people have seen it as an occupational hazard or a worthwhile risk that they won't cry over if sent back, I don't know a single person over a 35 year period that would rather not be on the outside, despite the sometime bravado.
Karate Dave Lipsett got AIDS and couldnt afford his meds so i thing he died
At least thats what I heard
AstroCreep said...
Question: Who was it exactly that wanted to make these crimes so huge that it would “shock the world”? Who was it that fed the publicity machine?
I agree wholeheartedly. I have not the slightest sympathy when it comes to the publicity that was generated by Family members that were still loyal to Charlie. But I would say that when Susan made the statement about doing a crime that would shock the world, she didn't mean it in the sense that she wanted everyone to know who had done it ! She did not expect Virginia and Ronnie to go to the cops with what she told them, which was why she was so upset with Ronnie and said at first she wanted to cut her throat.
The publicity machine had been in full swing for 5 years before "Helter Skelter" came out though and much of that came from Charles and co. And it didn't stop then either. I wonder what would have happened if there had been no more interviews, alternative theories fed by Family members and such like, if they'd all just disappeared quietly and got on with their jail time and lives. If anything, Squeaky played the largest role in guaranteeing the fate of the others {minus Clem} by pointing that gun at President Ford. That really was a foolhardy move on her part ~ especially when she says she did it so that she could get her imprisoned friends {plural} back in the courtroom when all of them {bar one !} have admitted their guilt.
St Circumstance said...
Nobody really changes their mind
Actually, I don't think that's true. In discussing things, it's possible to chart various evolutions in a number of contributors.
Matthew Record said...
In the book, LF paints her as the most kind and gentle person. How did she get so wrong so fast??
She was dangerously in love. She wasn't the first and she won't be the last. When you go down on your knees and baa like a sheep for a guy because he tells you to, he tends to conclude there's really not much you won't do at his behest.
Peter said...
My impression is that all the environmentalism has been added after-the-fact
I rthink you're essentially correct there. I think it was there in small doses prior to the murders, not as a mainstay of what they were about, but in the same way a number of countercultural groups added in the way the Man was screwing up everything and polluting the air. It was one of many conversations. The way Sandy 'took it to the bridge' in the early to mid 70s bears no relation to where the Family was at with it all before. They liked and lived in nature whether it was Spahn's or out in the desert or having a more vegetable based diet. But there was nothing heavy about that. Nothing that anyone was ready to kill for.
Mr. Humphrat said...
I didn’t get the sense LF was painting CM as a narcissistic manipulator
She wasn't. But I can see where Carlos is coming from. The thing is, we all have a view of Charlie and the others and the various schticks, behaviours and motivations so when LF describes a particular event, even though she's coming from her own particular viewpoint, a Charlie exonerating one, it's not difficult to see how what she's saying lines up alongside what we already have heard from other sources. There are many examples in the book and more of that will come out as the book goes on, but essentially she's trying to rewrite history.
Carlos said...
Getting a concise, coherent reason out of Sandy is impossible, and I’ve concluded her only goal in such interviews is to simply throw something out that isn’t the HS motive
Hell indeed hath no fury like being forever tagged with HS. Even if the replacement is babbling nonsense.
The Pagan Love Cult inc. wrote (re Karate Dave)......
Sanders mentions him also
That's where I first heard of Karate Dave; when I bought and read Ed Sanders "The Family" back in 1971. I still have my original copy with the green cover buried in a box in the garage. I need to dig it out again. I thought some of Ed's stuff was far-fetched, but the book is a great read just the same. If I recall, he uses some gallows humor in a paragraph about Karate Dave; something like "Dave taught the Family martial arts, some of which Tex Watson utilized when he was kicking bodies in the Tate house."
That Ed......
There was an article in a 1975 local California (Orange County I believe) magazine called Coast, by a woman named Marsha Bradt. I actually found this magazine in the early 1980's in a Ventura, CA used bookstore, and bought it for 50 cents, but it got lost in the shuffle over the years. This blog had a post referencing the article back in 2014. Just scroll down on the right under "Labels" and navigate to the "M's" and click on Marsha Bradt (it's the only one label for her). A fascinating look into the mindsets of Sandy and Squeaky leading up to the Gerald Ford assassination attempt.
@ Question for George if you see this;
That quote above that's ascribed to Sandy from '90 or '91 in that book, do you know if she actually said that ? The reason I ask is that other things ascribed to her {"it was the first of the retaliation murders", being married to Joel Pugh} she has intimated as not being true even though such things appeared as fact. If she did indeed say that stuff, do you know if she regrets it, given that it was more or less 3 decades ago or whether she still holds to it ?
Dave Lipsett disappeared because he got married Sept. 20 1969 to a girl from Simi Valley, she had no connection to the Family. Dave was an Army veteran so would have had VA benefits to pay for any health issues. He died Dec.5 2003.
DebS said...
"Dave Lipsett.. got married Sept. 20 1969 to a girl from Simi Valley, she had no connection to the Family. ... He died Dec.5 2003."
May I asked the source of your information?
I read the Marsha Bradt article Gorodish and it was an excellent read.
Starviego
I sent you an email with sources.
This memoir romanticizing the beginnings of the Family is warped. Do you know how much the women who were part of this probably regret getting on that bus? Women other than her, Sandra Good & Cappy maybe (when alive). Eveyone seems to forget the big picture here. If the Manson Family would've not been, several people would not have lost their lives. Has Lyn forgotten what Sandra Good was recorded as saying in Robert Hendrickson's documentary?
"Whatever is necessary to do, you do it. When somebody needs to be killed, there's no wrong. You do it, then you move on. And you pick up a child and you move him to the desert. You pick up as many children as you can, and you kill whoever gets in your way. This is us."
If that doesn't sound like Helter Skelter, I don't know what does. This book is making people fantasize about how awesome it must of been to be one with the group back then. No mention of stealing from innocent people, breaking into cars, mooching off others or anything like that. Sick!
AustinAnn most of that tough talk from the girls in that docu was Charlie telling them to ham it up for the cameras, my bet is inside they were both scared and lost over what to do, where to go, etc with the group being broken up
You should read the edition that came out around the millennium as well as reread the original as the millennial edition is almost an addition to the original.
Austin Ann you’re right Lyn says they never accepted stolen credits cards, they paid for the vehicles they had and Charlie never asked for money from anyone. Manna from heaven.
AustinAnn74 said...
This memoir romanticizing the beginnings of the Family is warped
Well, yes and no.
It would have been an unexpected surprise if Squeaky did a Pat/Leslie/Gypsy and came across as remorseful or regretful. I'd be choking on my kitkat if she in any way had willingly gone along with a line she's spent much of her life denying, unless she was announcing a volte face of megalithic proportions. Although David is of the opinion that "as a reader you shouldn't trust any part of her account," that's not a line I can follow because that's just not real life. Even someone biased to the max is able to relate some things that are true ~ from their perspective. There's lots of things Squeaky says that I don't believe, there are things she says that I most certainly do believe but don't go along with her reading of the situation {eg, the Van Duetches' kid smoking dope and how that all panned out, ie, she thought Charlie was wise there, I do not} and there are other things that I believe and have no reason to not believe or cast in a different light {eg, her jealousy of Dianne, the time Charlie had a go at her when she was negative about parents}.
So it's a mish mash of things in there and to the extent that she speaks very fondly of a scenario that had questionable points from fairly early on, one could say it's warped but so much of what we've discovered in this case is warped and no one at the end of 1968 could have predicted what went on in '69. I've read interviews with Catherine Share, Stephanie Schram and Juanita Wildebush {if indeed the latter 2 were genuine} conducted way after the events of those times, none of whom could be described as Family or Charlie apologists, both of whom fled with their lives just about intact and their reading of those earlier times {and Schram was right in there during the murders and Barker} is pretty much akin to Squeaky's as was Paul Watkins' and Charles Watson's and Dianne Lake's, all of whom were as far from where Squeaky stayed as it is possible to be.
Mr. Humphrat said...
I read the Marsha Bradt article Gorodish and it was an excellent read
It really was. I was quite surprised that she thought that one of the outcomes of "Helter Skelter" going the pre-internet equivalent of viral was to turn the dynamic duo onto a darker, more militant path. It struck me because it had only recently occurred to me that most of the Family got outwardly militant and threatening after the murders.
I also read the chapter in the book that Starviego linked to {props, man !} and that has some rather interesting stuff from Cappy and Greg Jakobson that's worth a read.
Grim said: “It struck me because it had only recently occurred to me that most of the Family got outwardly militant and threatening after the murders”
This is something I’ve been harping on for a while. The family as much proves the group motive is HS as much as Bugs proved it in court. And by following hook, line, and sinker Charlie’s jailhouse antics out there on the corner for all the world to see, they solidified Charlie as the leader.
Did anyone see them out on the street dressed up like Linda because she’s really the leader? Um, no...
They acted crazy, hung out on corners and cut Xs in their heads because they did see Charlie as some type of leader but that doesn't mean the motive for the murders was HS or any blind devotion to Manson
RWH- the film, the hour long diatribe by Charlie in court, the threats to the judge, the threats to Bugs, the acid laden hamburger, the Ford assasination attempt, and the list goes on.
The plain and simple fact that they mirrored Charlie and Charlie’s trip WAS HS. They didn’t all go out and buy Linda Kasabian dresses and act like Linda did they?
One of many things that baffles me is I don't remember ever reading any account of what happened to Rosina at the conclusion of CM and TJ's encounter with Lottsapoppa. I think LF puts the encounter in Crowe's apt. while a prior blog post put the encounter in Rosina's apt. I don't remember anyone ever writing that Rosina left with CM and TJ.
Also, any opinions why Fromme states that Charlie shot Crowe, but gives no hint in his involvement in any of the other crimes that summer? What's different about that affair that she's willing to include it in the book? Because Crowe didn't die?
That still doesnt prove the motive for the murders was HS
RWH wrote :
They acted crazy, hung out on corners and cut Xs in their heads because they did see Charlie as some type of leader but that doesn't mean the motive for the murders was HS or any blind devotion to Manson
Are you kidding or what ? Everything and anything the Family did was all about blind devotion to Manson. How many of them were hanging outside the courtroom during the trial of Tex Watson (the real architect of these murders, according to you). Um, none ?
That still doesnt (sic) prove the motive for the murders was HS
To you maybe.....luckily 12 jurors in 1971 thought otherwise. I'm with AstroCreep....HS was the main motive. End of story.
Mr. Humphrat said...
One of many things that baffles me is I don't remember ever reading any account of what happened to Rosina at the conclusion of CM and TJ's encounter with Lottsapoppa
Me neither. In AC Fisher Aldag's account that she claims Charlie gave her verbatim, Rosina stayed back with one of Crowe's friends. It was a bogus story though because she prefaced it by saying there were 7 of Crowe's men and that it wasn't even Rosina but some white lady that had been kidnapped off the streets and raped.
I've no idea how Rosina's end concluded seeing as though the ambulance came to her apartment, but she sure as pineapple is sweet didn't leave with Charlie & TJ. Poppa just said that everybody left and that he was alone when the ambulance eventually got to him.
Rosina's interview is yet another transcript I would love to read. She and Steve Zabriske are probably the last two remaining mystery figures of TLB.
I think LF puts the encounter in Crowe's apt. while a prior blog post put the encounter in Rosina's apt
It definitely happened in Rosina's apartment. That's what Crowe testified and it comes up a few times during his time on the stand. He even tells us it was on the 2nd floor. Squeaky's placing of the events in Crowe's flat and her saying there was a report of a dead Panther at UCLA the next day, when no such report happened, are among those matters she eludes to that tell me that she was pretty clueless about some of the things that were happening, has followed inaccurate party lines that have done the rounds down the years or was blatantly lying her blaggers off. What's really surprising is that her account of TJ totally contradicts Charlie's. In her account, he's quite the hero, roughing up some guy. In Charlie's he did sweet FA and peed himself.
any opinions why Fromme states that Charlie shot Crowe, but gives no hint in his involvement in any of the other crimes that summer? What's different about that affair that she's willing to include it in the book? Because Crowe didn't die?
No, because it tends to be a story that shows Charlie in a heroic, selfless, chivalrous light. When it comes via Emmons book, George Stimson, TJ, Shreck, AC Fisher Aldag or Squeaky, it's a tale of the underdog courageously riding into the hornets nest and actually handing the gun to Crowe and putting his life on the line for Tex, Rosina and the people at the ranch and equally importantly, runs counter to the way Bugliosi always presented it. It's almost a rule of thumb for those that support Charlie, that if Bugliosi presented something one way regarding Charlie, it has to be seen a different way. Sometimes, I'd say that was actually correct, but not on this one ! The way Lotsapoppa tells the story on the stand, it wasn't self defence, Charlie pulled the gun on him while they were talking, with no provocation, & the statement "Of course, I came ready" and shot 4 times with no outcome {actually telling Crowe those ones weren't loaded}, at which point Crowe said he went for Charlie then Charlie said "this one is loaded" and that's the shot that felled the Poppa.
Charlie did tell Bugliosi that when he'd shot Crowe, he'd meant to kill him.
Although Charlie intimated that he was cut up about killing Crowe {before, of course, he discovered otherwise}, he showed a similar disregard for humanity to Tex in relation to Rosina, by stealing the suede shirt of Crowe's mate, Steve. Crowe said he'd earlier been admiring the shirt when he saw it. It's little things like that that tell me that Charlie can't get away with a self defence jag on this one.
Lol "a chivalrous light"? Charlie called the woman a prostitute when talking about Tex and the rip off
Thanks Grim
RudyWebersHose said...
Lol "a chivalrous light"? Charlie called the woman a prostitute when talking about Tex and the rip off
And when did Charlie ever think badly of prostitutes ? He never moralized where they were concerned. He didn't think they were dirty and evil and a stain on a clean society.
Furthermore, I wasn't commenting on what Charlie said. I was answering Mr Humphrat's question about why Squeaky includes Charlie in the Crowe incident as opposed to in any of the other murders. Charlie is presented in Squeaky's version of the incident in as relayed in her book as a dashing and chivalrous hero that rescues the day. That it ends in a shooting is presented as Crowe's fault. You should just read the book.
They acted crazy, hung out on corners and cut Xs in their heads because they did see Charlie as some type of leader but that doesn't mean the motive for the murders was HS or any blind devotion to Manson
Well, in that sentence you've part contradicted yourself. They saw Charlie as some type of leader, did all those things only for him but that can't in any way mean their devotion to him stretched to murder for the other women who were even more devoted to him and cut Xs in their heads and parroted his every move and were actually trying to get to the gas chamber so he wouldn't have to.
OK.
Actually, you're quite right. It doesn't prove that the reason they killed those people was for motives that only Manson had. But proof is, in reality, an extremely difficult concept. That's why so many cases get sorted and solved through circumstantial evidence. And if there's one thing that I've learned through going through the entire trial, it's that almost any item of evidence in isolation is fightable. But when put together with lots of other bits and pieces can become sometimes unassailable. The fingerprints of Tex and Pat are a classic case in point. Their existence at Cielo really could mean anything, something or nothing. But when put together with lots of other bits, including an eyewitness testimony, they take on gargantuan proportions.
So when one takes the Family as a whole, looks at their various phases from '67 to '69, takes into account the fact that before they called themselves a family, they were known as 'Charlie's girls', looks at how from day one it was his lead that was followed and not theirs, looks at the violence, the guys that stayed being the ones that never talked back, looks at who said what about the murders, who had what to gain, what people in the Family did once Charlie had been arrested and a zillion other things, then there are indications that the prosecution got it right. Not perfect, but all things considered, right. When you consider that at least 4 people heard Charlie say he had to show blackie how to kick off HS, one of these as they drove away from the LaBiancas, when you consider that Atkins told one of her jailmates that with the Cielo murder done, that this was the beginning of HS, when you consider Pat wrote HS at the scene of a murder that Susan was not at and that 5-6 mnths previously Manson had told the entire Family how these murders would happen and the scenes at Cielo and Waverly {and at Topanga, with Gary} were almost identical, then all these things put together might indicate that HS was one of the motives for the murders. But only one. In the trial, Bugliosi mentioned 5.
Maybe its because she knows outside of slashing Garys face Charlie didnt have anything to do with any other murders, she POSSIBLY knew he MAY HAVE been in the car behind Bruce, Clem, Tex and Shorty but didnt say because she didnt know for sure if he was
Theres a big difference between sitting on street corners, shaving their heads and carving Xs in their heads and killing people
Grim why would Tex and Pats fingerprints mean anything, something or nothing if they didnt kill? Why would their prints be there otherwise? Sounds like youre saying without the other statements that they had some type of business there, I'm sure it wasnt to talk baby clothes with Sharon, new concepts in men's hair designs with Sebring or the latest racial strife in Watts with Folger
RudyWebersHose said...
why would Tex and Pats fingerprints mean anything, something or nothing if they didnt kill? Why would their prints be there otherwise? Sounds like youre saying without the other statements that they had some type of business there
No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that they could have said that. There would be absolutely no proof that Tex or Pat didn't have business there and in fact, Fitzgerald actually argued that Pat could well have been an invited friend.
The point is that regardless of what we know in retrospect, the fact that their prints were there does not in and of itself mean they killed someone. There were lots of peoples prints there that they couldn't identify and any one of those could have been the killer. Interestingly, neither Watson or Krenwinkel had ever been in the system for anything violent. Watson's was the first print found and it came when the police were already aware that the suspects had been narrowed down to the Family. Had there been no talk from anyone and no build up that pointed at the Family like during September and August, I wonder if Watson would have been a viable suspect for murder when his only offence in the system was public intoxication.
If you can, get hold of a copy of Simon Davis' book, "In a summer swelter." He outlines the evidence against Charlie in a way I'd not seen so concisely done and it's quite interesting.
Hey, maybe I shouldn't be flagging his book on a thread about Squeaky's book, especially after George gave it such a dressing down !
Theres a big difference between sitting on street corners, shaving their heads and carving Xs in their heads and killing people
Of course there is. But when you've got people like Cappy saying that the only reason she didn't kill is because she wasn't needed on the 2nd night and you see her on the corner of the street with an X carved on her head, you can't help but make certain connections. Also, earlier it was said that all that tough talk from Squeaky, Brenda and Sandy in Robert's film and book and from that period was just bravado that they had been put up to by Charlie. Not by anyone else. Not Clem, not Bobby, not Bruce, not Gypsy.......His influence and direction ran so deep that those three were ensconced in a life of crime for most of their better days. You may indeed be right that it had little to nothing to do with Charlie but the odds of that are odds that I hope you're a rich man and don't mind losing a packet.
Maybe its because she knows outside of slashing Garys face Charlie didnt have anything to do with any other murders, she POSSIBLY knew he MAY HAVE been in the car behind Bruce, Clem, Tex and Shorty but didnt say because she didnt know for sure if he was
There seems to be quite a bit she doesn't seem to know.
By the way, have you read the book yet ? It's a good smooth read and I recommend it.
I wonder which of the killers would have carved X’s in their foreheads and sat on the corner if they hadn’t been one of the killers and which of them would have eventually grown disillusioned with Charlie. And which of the faithful non-killers would have killed and if they had killed would they have become disillusioned with Charlie
Mr. Humphrat said...
I wonder which of the killers would have carved X’s in their foreheads and sat on the corner if they hadn’t been one of the killers
Interesting set of musings Mr H.
I think Susan would have. I think Pat would have and I think Leslie would have. Clem too. I don't think Tex, Bobby nor Bruce would have.
which of them would have eventually grown disillusioned with Charlie
With him permanently in jail or if he got out ?
If he stayed inside, I think they all would have. The reality is that the kind of life they led was unsustainable. Great for a season or two, but as they got older, further life would have asserted itself. The 'changes' they all had to go through would inevitably lead in a variety of directions. Squeaky and Sandy actually serve as a useful advert for what happenned when a] women led the Family, b] the joint living and decision making {that Charlie spent the last 48 telling us was in place and not him as leader} actually has a chance to operate and c] when Charlie didn't lead the Family.
The overwhelming arc of Charlie's time however, was not so much that he was a criminal but that he found it hard to cut it in life. He wasn't only in and out of jail because he got a bad start in life {and no one should dismiss the impact of that poor start}. There would have reached a point where disillusionment would have been the only logical and viable outcome for his troupe. Eventually, many of them would have come to the realization that the Emperor simply had no clothes. In a real way, his being in jail for life gave Sandy and Squeaky something to grasp. We'll never know of course, but I think had he remained out, there would have come a day of reckoning of their relationship, not because it's Charles Manson, but because there's that risk even in good relationships with positive people that are going somewhere. Sometimes, familiarity truly does breed contempt.
which of the faithful non-killers would have killed
If one believes Bruce, Larry and Bill Vance already did so but never got charged. I think Mary, Chuck Lovett and Gypsy would have, if their actions in the Hawthorne shoot out are anything to go by. You could probably lump in Dennis Rice even though he's very much after the fact. Danny reckons Ouisch was up for it and Cappy intoned that she wouldn't have been against a little rizzle~razzle on the 2nd night. Juanita Wildebush {if indeed it is her} in an interview in the mid 80s said she was so under Charlie's spell and confirmed HS and said if he'd told her to jump, she'd have asked 'how high ?' so cautiously, she can be included. I could see Brenda killing back in the day. Her, Sandy & Squeaky talked tough in those days but I've long felt that Sandy was all talk.
if they had killed would they have become disillusioned with Charlie
Out of those 10, most of them would have become disillusioned if they ended up in jail for murder as very young people. Even Bobby with his bravado and support of Charlie ended up feeling that he was used and disillusionment set in.
I think Squeaky said she couldn’t have killed someone. I’m surprised Danny said that about Ouish I didn’t know that Also hadn’t heard that from Juanita
I could imagine another group of killers being maybe Mary Brenda and Cappy or even Sandy plus Bruce and Clem I’d theyd been chosen on TLB
And I forgot Gypsy
So both Squeaky and Sandy did big prison time,for crimes related to their faith in Charlie, while the lifers are prison for murders related to faith in Charlie, but the murderers disavowed Charlie and not Squeaky and Sandy. Is it the murder that made the difference?
I think Susan and Leslie eventually came to realize that death is real and lasting and there was nothing merciful about killing someone. So there was a major swing that they took, even though, ironically neither saw themselves as having actually killed anyone. David has posited a very interesting idea that Susan may well have been responsible for one of the fatal stab wounds on Wojiciech Frykowski's back. She told different stories about this to different people but she did say that she stabbed him in the back to Virginia Graham. Now, whether this was part of her 'bigging herself up' is hard to say. In the same set of conversations she told Graham she'd stabbed both Sharon Tate and Gary Hinman and the evidence does not back up either assertion. Although I think, like Sandy, Susan talked a good game, when it came down to it, she couldn't do the nasty. However, if she did fatally wound Frykowski, I don't think she was aware of it and the important thing is that neither her nor Leslie could say for certain that they'd murdered someone. In their minds, not legally. So looked at one way, it's not hard to see why they'd be royally pissed with Charlie, when they saw HS wasn't coming down and they were looking at spending the rest of their lives in jail.
It took Pat a lot longer because quite simply she appeared to be hopelessly and dangerously in love with Charlie. As she said, she had so much time in jail to think. Like Clem and Susan once the cloud lifted from her mind and she had an everyday routine to follow and her Dad supported her despite her abandoning him back in '67 and the authorities guided her back on track, I think she saw her plight pretty much the way the various parole boards have done recently and that would make most women pretty miffed.
Tex had disowned Charlie {and responsibility} long before the others were even brought to trial. I doubt he harboured any illusions that he was going to escape justice. But his best chance of being seen as mentally incapable at the time of the murders was to have nothing to do with any of the Family and look clean and cute. I don't think he and Pat ever seriously imagined that death was simply an illusion.
Bruce seems to be one of those guys that could easily have taken 5 years just bumming around, then gotten back into the swing of things. In a way, I would have thought he'd have disowned Charlie first.
Clem got smart, saw he'd been an idiot and a sucker and went as far the opposite way as it is possible to go and that worked in his favour. I also think that when Sandy and Squeaky were trying to interfere in his marriage, that brought into sharp focus just how he needed to get away from that whole enclave of Charlie Manson. After Charlie was arrested in the desert, the real danger came from the flowers he'd helped cultivate as they took a life of their own. I wouldn't be surprised if he too was pissed at some of the things that happened that people figured he was behind, like the attempts to silence Paul Watkins and Babs Hoyt. I once saw a statement from Jughead in an 'Archie' comic that made me laugh but has stuck with me. In the story, Archie thinks that their art teacher Dr Venagis {that name just kills me !} is a vampire that wants to suck on the neck of his two girlfriends. Anyway, after a hilarious set of scenes in which he lets his imagination run away, Jughead says "You know what's actually worse than vampires ? People that believe in them."
You seem pretty sure that someone set the fire in Watkins van. Why? I thought even he wasn't sure.
What's the source of Watson being done with Charlie before the others' trial?
What's the source on Squeaky and Sandy trying to interfere in Clem's marriage? I never knew that?
Some of Sharons back wounds were from a smaller 3/4 inch knife like a buck knife, someone stabbed her back with one of the buck knives, my guess is that its either Susan or Tex going back and stabbing everyone to make sure they were dead
Mr. Humphrat said...
You seem pretty sure that someone set the fire in Watkins van. Why? I thought even he wasn't sure
He wasn't although he wrote in his book, "did the Family try to kill me ? Were my actions and impulses, as Juan suggested, suicidal ? Or was it an accident ? Clem later boasted that it was he who tried to kill me. In light of other murders and murder attempts, it would appear a very good possibility. But I don’t believe it." Someone, even if it was Paul by accident, set fire to the van and because he was now a prosecution witness, there would forever be speculation as to whether or not it was the Family. But whether it was or not, by that stage, anything untoward that happened to anyone connected with the case would be laid at Charlie's door, even if he had nothing to do with it.
What's the source of Watson being done with Charlie before the others' trial?
An interesting aspect of Watson's first book is that he never actually formally says he was done with Charlie or even highlights a point where he was done. The reader kind of absorbs this by the osmosis of the fact that the book is about how he came to accept Jesus. But from that time when he started walking from Trona to Barker when he says he took some acid and suddenly felt Charlie would kill him, thus began the process of moving away from Charlie. From October of '69 right through to his own trial in '71 was one long struggle for him between the Charlie way and identity and moving on ~ and unlike many of the others that ended up in jail he didn't go the Family way or do or speak Family type things. He had other things to contend with in Texas before the trial of the others and he gives no hint of trying to get back in their fold. He said people like Squeaky and Gypsy kept writing to him and when he came to the jail in LA, Bruce kept shouting things to him from Charlie but he had {following his lawyer's advice} cut off all contact with the Family.
What's the source on Squeaky and Sandy trying to interfere in Clem's marriage? I never knew that?
This is from Clem's 1981 parole hearing and comes courtesy of my BFF, ColScott. It's funny. In places.
thanks Grim
I just would speculate that Sandy and Squeaky stayed true despite their prison time because their faith in Charlie wasn't marred by taking someone else's life. As Charlie said when you kill someone it's like killing yourself.
I have hesitated to read this: I have always felt, I thought, far too much sympathy to the murdererous women, & to read a bio by anotherof The Faithful... ok, Kindle.
AstroCreep said...
I will agree that Bugs’s book helped along the publicity
Perhaps it wasn't a big seller and universally stuck in peoples' minds then because Ed Sandsers "The Family: The Story Of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion" does a much more thorough job of the stuff people accuse "Helter skelter" of doing. If anything, Sanders' book efficiently paves the road Bugliosi's walked on.
David said...
Maybe the whole 'Charlie made me do it' 'my childhood sucked' 'I lacked love' 'you don't understand how acid works on the brain' theme is something they have, shall we say, 'adopted' for parole hearings. Maybe it is crap
Perhaps it is, but it's not unfeasible to say that all of that stuff has been adopted for the parole hearings. I think to a large extent that's true. However, it's because of the parole boards that it carries a relevance to the outside world. They are the ones that have dug in and mined the killers for every last detail of their lives and I don't think that's a bad thing. By scrutinizing the perps on how some of their past may have contributed to where they ended up, it gives anyone in that society that is interested, an opportunity to assess themselves, how they deal with youths, the importance of their feelings and thoughts etc, among other things. It's never any guarantee that things of such a horrendous nature won't happen but as an old psychopathic head teacher of mine when I was a teen used to say {about the only sensible thing I recall him saying, actually}, "to be forewarned is to be forearmed."
starviego said...
Karate Dave was a cop. If the mods run the thread I wrote about it, I could show you
They did. You didn't !
AustinAnn74 said...
This book is making people fantasize about how awesome it must of been to be one with the group back then. No mention of stealing from innocent people, breaking into cars, mooching off others or anything like that
Maybe the stealing and the mooching would be the stronger fantasy for some people !
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