Manson, Bugliosi et al

[David Andrews]

Ron, thanks for finding the Mae Brussell transcript.  Her Manson and John Lennon radio shows are provocative and creepy.

A helter-skelter is actually a British playground item, sometimes enlarged into a multi-story fairground attraction.  To play, you have to climb a ladder to the top, then slide down a chute to the bottom - giving rise to another British phrase, "Chutes and ladders."  In a less complicated time, this would get little kiddies all hot to climb up and slide down again, over and over.

"Helter-skelter" by itself means a joyful kind of chaos, such as when playful children all tumble down together, any which way, or when they scatter their toys about.  (You know -- like the Manson kids.)

McCartney, stuck for a better metaphor, used the concept to describe a dissatisfying romance:

When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the slide

Then I stop and I turn and I go for a ride,

Then I get to the bottom and I see you again!  Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah!

McCartney is quoted as saying that he wanted the guitars on the song to beat the guitars that Lennon overdubbed on one of his White Album songs, I forget which song.  Macca certainly won, creating a doom-laden, crushing cacophony of bad-trip guitars that's just asking to be co-opted into a nightmare.

By the way - In the Bugliosi book there's picture of a door from a Spahn Ranch building on which a Beatle lyric is painted: "1-2-3-4-5-6-7, all good children go to heaven."  The Family sure got their copy of Abbey Road quickly, since its release date was September 25, 1969, and the Spahn Ranch door was probably seized as evidence in early December, after Susan Atkins' jailhouse warbling got warrants issued for Tex Watson and the girls.

Edited May 26, 2019 by David Andrews

[David Andrews]

"Revolution Blues," Neil Young's 1974 take on The Family.  Neil had met Manson on the LA music scene.  David Crosby, who plays on the song, got spooked and advised Neil not to put this on an album, even five years after Cielo Drive.

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2019 by David Andrews

[Cliff Varnell]

12 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

He get's out of prison a few months before, is given a school bus, a guitar and a credit card, grows a beard, buy's dune buggies, communication equipment  and weapons.  Feed's his followers.

Like she says, who paid the bills?

Pimping and stealing?

[James DiEugenio]

The relationship between Manson, the Beach Boys and Melcher is really kind of interesting.

Personally, from what I was able to decipher, this is an aspect that Bugliosi concealed and also disguised.

When I met with Tom O'Neill he agreed with that. Not only did Manson know Melcher, he knew the landlord at Cielo Drive also, well enough to know his sexual orientation.  Which, in those days, was not something people were upfront about.

I also think that Vince was deceptive about how he wrote the book.  He said he wrote it because no one else would.  But from what I was able to discover, Curt Gentry, his co-author, was getting materials from Vince, during the trial. Which would indicate the decision had been made at that time to produce and publish a book, since Gentry was an experienced and none too cheap author.

Edited May 27, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Douglas Caddy]

View the trailer:

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1759744/

[Ron Bulman]

9 hours ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Pimping and stealing?

Where did a lifetime ex con get that much acid with no money?  MKULTRA.

[Ron Bulman]

9 hours ago, David Andrews said:

"Revolution Blues," Neil Young's 1974 take on The Family.  Neil had met Manson on the LA music scene.  David Crosby, who plays on the song, got spooked and advised Neil not to put this on an album, even five years after Cielo Drive.

 

 

 

Thanks David.  I'm a huge Neil Young fan, the guitar alone is worth a listen but the lyrics are creepy.  "I see bloody mountains, 10 million dune buggies coming down the mountains, I hear Laurel canyon is full of stars, but I hate them worse than leopards, I'll kill them in their cars".  In addition to the references to weapons.  I've got his autobiography detailing his times in Laurel canyon.

I'm a strong believer that relevant videos drive hits to the site.  You have to hunt for it anymore, it doesn't just pop up but I think this one helps illustrate the time and place.  Everyone should see it at least once.  In full screen.

 

[David Andrews]

I've got the Revolution Blues, I see bloody fountains

And ten million dune buggies comin' down the mountains

I hear that Laurel Canyon is full of famous stars,

But I hate 'em worse than lepers, and I'll kill them in their cars.

 

Sometimes on the money is where one needs to be.

I think it's stuff like Stills on TV in a cowboy hat singing For What it's Worth that really churned Charlie's gut.  But I'm no sympathizer.  The whole Manson business makes me ill.  Yet it happened, and we've got to deal with it.  So, naturally a Neil song about CM would be creepy, and catch the essence of living in Laurel Canyon on a record contract, with Charlie and his malcontents stalking the hills above.

 

Edited May 27, 2019 by David Andrews

[Ron Bulman]

31 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Thanks David.  I'm a huge Neil Young fan, the guitar alone is worth a listen but the lyrics are creepy.  "I see bloody mountains, 10 million dune buggies coming down the mountains, I hear Laurel canyon is full of stars, but I hate them worse than leopards, I'll kill them in their cars".  In addition to the references to weapons.  I've got his autobiography detailing his times in Laurel canyon.

I'm a strong believer that relevant videos drive hits to the site.  You have to hunt for it anymore, it doesn't just pop up but I think this one helps illustrate the time and place.  Everyone should see it at least once.  In full screen.

 

Cool how they tricked the show after the intro going from FWIW (the original first modern day acronym?) to Mr. Soul.  It's apparent the current hit got them on the show.  Then Stephen Stills sings "there's a man with a gun over there" and tilts his hat/head to Young setting on the speaker in fringed leather who gets up and they Rock as Stills duck walk's in cowboy hat and boots out of the way for Young to take the lead but keeps rocking in the background.

[James DiEugenio]

In the work I did on this case, in addition to the above, Bugliosi also censored the drug angle.

There were two previous crimes, one a shooting, one a murder, that preceded the Tate/Labianca killings.  They were the shooting of Bernard Crowe and the murder of Gary Hinman.

These were both drug related and were done over drug burns, the first was caused by Tex Watson who screwed over Crowe.  The Hinman one was over the fact that the Manson gang thought Hinman had screwed them over.  What Bugliosi does with those two cases, is about as bad as what he does with JFK.  Because if you do not fully understand them, then I think it deprives the reader of key information he needs to understand why the Manson followers left those blood etchings on the walls at both consequent murders and also a more plausible reason for the crimes.  And Dave is right, the Beatles song was about an amusement park ride.

Later on, Bugliosi managed to disguise those cases in his version of the crimes as presented to the jury and the public, and a TV audience. In fact, Bugliosi filed the HInman case separately and had another attorney try it. Some of the people who were part of the clan, but who were now free, went along with this. They even said that Manson was a Beatles fan when, from what I can see, he was not. 

The clan's idea was to link the Tate /LaBianca killings to the Hinman case.  Because in the latter, they had tried to disguise Beausoleil's role by writing things like "Political PIGGY" in blood up on the wall to make it look like a Panther hit. And the thing is, the two county sheriff office investigators who examined the HInman case understood this relationship. They were really the ones who cracked the case.

What I thought was the other key to Tate/LaBianca was a guy named Joel Rostau. Rostau was a mob associated cocaine dealer who supplied people like Jay Sebring with coke.  On the eve of the Tate/LaBianca trial his body was found beaten to death in the trunk of a car at LA airport.  Rostau supplied Sebring with drugs that he would then distribute to his clients like Steve McQueen. Rostau's girlfriend worked for Sebring.  According to her, Rostau was supposed to make a delivery to Polanski's home that night  ( The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today pp. 16-23)

Needless to say, you will not find Rostau's name in the index to Helter Skelter.

But there is more, and to me its crucial.  The day after the murders at Cielo Drive, Steve MeQueen sent his assistant to Jay Sebring's home. Her job was to clean out his home of any drugs so there could be no linkage to him or any of Jay's clients.  

This is why the police were at Cass Elliot's house within 24 hours of the murders at Cielo Drive. Then, four  days after Manson was arrested, the review of the police case stipulated that the most likely motive for the Tate murders was a drug burn or drug related crime. (ibid, pp. 17, 19)  

Again, try and find this in the Bugliosi/Gentry book.  And the TV movie was even worse.

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Joseph McBride]

IF YOU DON'T WANT KNOW THE ENDING OF "ONCE UPON A TIME . . . IN HOLLYWOOD," SKIP THIS,

but the film is out there in public, and I don't believe in companies coercing the media into

not reporting on films:

 

A friend of mine who saw the Tarantino movie at Cannes filled me in (without attribution)

on what happens in the last part.  (The plot synopsis on Wikipedia is wrong about the ending, BTW.)  In the actual film, Tex Watson and the Manson girls drive to the Tate house to do their killings. But they are confronted by the somewhat inebriated Rick (Leonardo

DiCaprio) for idling in front of his nearby house in their noisy old car. So the

revved-up intruders turn on Rick by invading his home instead.  One of the girls inexplicably

drives away in the meantime. Cliff (Brad Pitt) is at Rick's (Rick is a struggling TV actor, and Cliff is his

pal and stunt double), and when Tex Watson bursts

in with his gun, saying, "I'm the devil and I'm here to do the devil's work,"

Cliff scoffs at him and has his pit bull attack Tex with the expected results, including

gnawing at his balls. Cliff meanwhile bloodily pummels

Patricia Krenwinkel and Susan Atkins. Krenwinkel appears fatally

wounded. Atkins desperately winds up in Rick's swimming pool brandishing

Tex's gun and screaming maniacally. Rick brawls with her and then burns her to death with

a flame-thrower he handily keeps in his garage. In the process Cliff gets a non-fatal

wound from a knife in the hip. The police come upon the bloody scene. Cliff, still

cool despite it all, is hauled off to a hospital.

 

Eventually Jay Sebring wanders over from the Tate house to find out what happened. Rick says some crazy

hippies tried to deliver some bad xxxx [s-word censored here] but had some bad xxxx [s-word censored here] happen to them. Sharon Tate,

speaking from her house on the intercom, is reassured that Rick is all right and asks him to come sip some wine

with her and Jay and Abigail Folger and Wojciech Frykowski. Rick's fading career seems to be

getting a career boost from his new exploits and connections, and we get

the sense he might go on to become a star as Burt Reynolds did when he

raised himself out of routine TV Westerns (Reynolds was supposed

to play George Spahn in this Tarantino movie before he died and was replaced by Bruce Dern).

 

I have no idea how all this wish-fulfillment historical revisionism will

play out when we see the movie, which apparently has a post-modern ironic tone throughout. Of course, the ending is reminiscent of the

fantasy of the Allied hit squad killing Hitler in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, which

seemed glib and irresponsible to me, and the gang of

Allied avengers, including Jews, acting like fascists throughout the film was an uncomfortable

irony, to say the least. Our fantasies tell us a lot about our collective yearnings and 

atavistic desires for brutal revenge. But I always reserve judgment until I see a film,

so I await ONCE UPON A TIME . . . IN HOLLYWOOD with interest. Tarantino's

films, even when they are wrongheaded, are compellingly made (he's a terrific dialogue writer, among other things) and sometimes

genuinely gripping. But his flirtations with actual history are problematic. This report from Cannes proves that there is a trope out

there in three new movies for the 50th anniversary of trying to rewrite the

story of the Tate/LaBianca murders to make them seem less troubling to our

contemporary consciousness. Having seen the other two recently released movies (the very uneven CHARLIE

SAYS and the abominable THE HAUNTING OF SHARON TATE), I don't think that is a good trend, because

we're in a time of even deeper than usual denial of history in this land Gore Vidal liked

to call "The United States of Amnesia."

 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Joseph McBride

[James DiEugenio]

That's what he did with this story?

Talk about a disappointment.

Is Dicaprio supposed to be the kid who got killed visiting the young man in the cottage behind the main home?

Because that is a whole new interesting area that Tom told me he had some new information on but was saving it for his book.

I don't even think I will see it now.  I was  unable to sit through Inglorious Basterds or Django Unchained.

I truly regret the day that Hamsher and Murphy plucked Tarantino out of that Redondo Beach video store. A guy who can make  Kill Bill and Jackie Brown simply has nothing to say.

[Joseph McBride]

Leo's not Steven Parent, the teenager who was killed in his car while trying to flee. Leo plays a fictional character in the film, a neighbor. Oddly, in THE HAUNTING OF SHARON TATE, Steven Parent

is a character (and lives), but William Garretson, the nineteen-year-old caretaker who lived in the guest house and whom Parent was visiting, is said to be away that night, even

though he was actually at the scene when the murders occurred and was considered a suspect initially when the police arrived (maybe

that's why the filmmakers changed that aspect of the story, though Garretson died in 2018). Garretson

claimed he slept through the murders, which defies credibility. Another version has it that he hid out

in the woods behind the caretaker's house until it was all over. He sued the LAPD for false arrest but lost the suit.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Joseph McBride

[Cliff Varnell]

On 5/26/2019 at 7:26 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Where did a lifetime ex con get that much acid with no money?  MKULTRA.

I suggest you read MANSON IN HIS OWN WORDS before you jump to that conclusion, Ron.

Manson was a street hustler.  I find it far more likely he turned tricks -- the male prostitution variety -- rather than operating as a gov't asset. 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Cliff Varnell

[Joe Bauer]

29 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

I suggest you read MANSON IN HIS OWN WORDS before you jump to that conclusion, Ron.

Manson was a street hustler.  I find it far more likely he turned tricks -- the male prostitution variety -- rather than operating as a gov't asset. 

Just a quick search of at least one Dennis Wilson bio reveals Wilson handed money out like water at times to friends, acquaintances, etc. He reportedly gave Manson a good amount at least once. How much ? Reportedly thousands. 

When Manson and his girls stayed at Wilson's home it sounds as if sex with them was open and easy as it was at the Ranch. Asking for a little donation from visitors now and then sounds like Manson's style.