ITEM!- Has anyone noticed that not one of the many films that keep getting announced about the case never get made? Is it because they simply SUCK? Hmmm....
ITEM!- Col is hearing that the Sanders book about Sharon Tate is 100% free of any original research whatsoever. Reheated hash? Ugh!
ITEM!- The next big Parole Hearing is November 16, with Mr. Watson. Orca Tate will of course be there to get her TV Time (I mean you don't think Watson has a chance, do you?)The Col wonders what might happen if the person actually authorized by the Tate Family to represent them at these hearings (not Orca) decides to show up this time. Debra might just "start screaming and never stop."
ITEM!- The one real bummer for researchers in Rudi's death is that without obituaries we don't get a list of his many,many clients- which limits us in the the search for connections!
48 comments:
could it be that Sanders ( and hendrickson as well) are trying to cash in one last time off the only thing on either of there life's that ever brought them any real money???
I have read his book at least a dozen times over the years, and still cant tell if some of the stuff is his imagination and innuendos/rumors- or based in any type of truth...
I find it dissapointing that nobody can make the definitive movie about this case....
The subject matter, and the times could make for such a really great story.... obviously the Soundtrack could be great as well...
The best of all rumors I have ever heard was Oliver Stone..
I think he could do something really original and compelling with this material...
I think the subject must be taboo to those with the ability and resources to really do it right
who knows??
could it be that Sanders ( and hendrickson as well) are trying to cash in one last time off the only thing on either of there life's that ever brought them any real money???
You know, there is life outside Tate-LaBianca. I think it would be useful to bear in mind that Ed Sanders has had a long creative life (check out his bio), and that his brief flirtation with all things Manson has been a short, regrettable and ultimately insignificant part of it.
He's not done badly for himself, and has won awards in a number of artistic fields. He's often seen as a kind of link between the Beat and Hippie generations, and was certainly very much at the front of the countercultural revolution. Maybe you have to be my age (pushing 70) to relate to that.
But anyone who could publish a magazine called Fuck You (back in the early 60s), and attempted to exorcise the Pentagon can't be all that bad.
FrankM
[long time Fugs fan]
Frank- I politely think that ed Sanders tried very hard to make the Manson story much more fantastic than it already was...
the only person I have ever heard mention Sanders as the link between Beat and hippy generation is Sanders himself.. show me one other quote by anyone else saying that :)
I am just wondering aloud why a guy with so much talent and other abilities would put out something that is old news, and by the account on this blog - nothing new or revealing- at this stage of his life???
it might be another motivation besides money...
I dont know?
One thing that always struck me as odd...
He brags alot about being in the fugs...
I recently bought a old Prankster poster advertising one of the acid Tests....
along with the Dead and Cassidy, and a few others listed as " likely happeners"...
are the Fugs...
Wonder why he never mentions being a part of that scene in his book??? He brags about every other association with those times he had- and drops names quite frequently...
I have read on bobbys site that he shared some stages with the dead back in those days, and I have read Charlie was at Dead Shows as well...
Could Sanders have been partying at some of the same scenes of some of the M players before the M players even had a chance to come together completely??
I wonder why he never mentions being a part of that scene
He talks about the Haight a bit- but not his personal involvement- which he obviously had a bit of...
Hey you know more about it than I do obviously....
but it smells of a money grab to me
lots of people ( in my opinion) go to "Back the well" time after time in this case for various reasons...
I don't know for sure what they are- but if you ask me my opinion
( informed?? who knows)
Sanders/Hendrickson- $$$$
Bugs- credibility/visibility and a chance to keep it high so he can write books and make appearances- thus leading to $$
when I say credibility- I know true scholars give him none- but the general public seems to buy his BS- and thus he becomes a a go to guy on other crimes...
Deb Tate- a chance for the spotlight and attention periodically she doesn't get in day to day life
The Media- whenever there is a lapse in current affairs of this nature- a new documentary or special comes up ( quite a few even in the last two years) and they always get good ratings which again leads to $$$
Just to give a few examples
The Manson case has lasting power...
which is why so many who cant get what they got from this- whatever it was- seem to keep finding ways to bring it back into focus in so many ways...
and why I think it still could make for a great subject for an EXCELLENT
movie...
Maybe I should make it
I am going to get the girl who plays Alan's younger girlfriend Candy on 2 and a Half Men to play Sharon...
the resemblance is scary to me...
St. Circumstance said...
the only person I have ever heard mention Sanders as the link between Beat and hippy generation is Sanders himself.. show me one other quote by anyone else saying that :)
Um, well. try the Wikipedia entry for starters ... but I can't cite this right now, it's just something I've heard a few times and it fits. He was around with Ferlinghetti and that crowd, and he was around in the late 60s before the Manson shit hit the fan.
I think you'll find Sanders - although he came from Kansas - is really an East Coast sort of guy, and his contact with West Coast bands would have been through occasional gigs, etc. He's a bit of an intellectual - he majored in Greek - and I don't feel his interests and activities would really have gelled with Manson.
Why did he write about the Manson Family? Well, I don't have a clear answer to that, but he was certainly into the music and 'hipster' life of the time, the scene Manson wanted and was unable to penetrate. Sanders also had an interest in 60s occultism, and some of the Manson people seem to have been caught up in the Process, Scientology, etc. Maybe he had a genuine interest - but was scared off (?)
Sure he wanted to make money out of it, but hey, this was America. But I think he is often misunderstood because people think of his book as a factual account, as investigative journalism. I prefer to think of him as more of a Bruce Chatwin type writer, painting a canvas with a bit of fact, a bit of conjecture and a bit of bullshit. An art form, in fact.
One thing is sure - if he hadn't been scared off he would have told a different (and longer) tale. He lives in Woodstock now, where he has been Mayor (ironic, that, for a member of the Woodstock generation), but he's not talking still. Like Don McClean's Vincent, perhaps he never will.
FrankM
One other thing.
St. Circumstance said...
The Manson case has lasting power...
Not really. A few of us swap theories on a few forums, but the world has moved on. The 40th anniversary passed by almost unnoticed, even to those of us who were looking out for it.
What most people know is that there was a mass murderer called Charles Manson who killed lots of Hollywood people and there were some young girls who were heavily into sex and drugs and did whatever Charlie told them.
That's the legacy - mostly 'wrong', but that's the way it goes and the constant regurgitation of gossip and allegation on the Internet hasn't helped. But I'd say 99.99% of the world's population can get through the year without thinking once about the 'Manson case'.
FrankM
I think yes really...
Several movies have been made recently- as col points out-
Plenty of Specials still come out ( new) on Headline News, and MSNBC and networks like that...
Plenty of new books still get released...
that isn't because a few of us are paying attention...
they test the market for this stuff before they invest money on it...
Most of the world may not know intimate details, or care about the case...
but enough do
and plenty of money is still made from this subject...
of course- Frank
this is just what I believe- and again
I dont tell others they are wrong..
or that I am 100% right...
just that this is what I believe
also- I do not agree with you that Manson was not able to penetrate the hipster lifestyle...
I think he got himself knee deep in it, and he could have enjoyed it as long as he wanted- he seemed to be the catalyst ( if not the actual perpetrator in some cases) of when things went darker and away from the peace and love scene...
he lived in the haight- and was with several women and partying all over the bay area during the summer of love....
what else would he have had to do in your estimation to have been immersed in that lifestyle?
Dancing at Dead shows- hanging in the park... driving up and down the coast with a bus full of chics.. playing music...
sounds like a fair job of getting the best of it to me...
For my money the people who passed the torch from the beatniks to the hippies were clearly the pranksters and kesey in particular... who came from the same type of mold
they were the age group right in between, and they started the communal living, and the tie dye, and the acid and all the stuff hippies became famous for..
also like the early beatniks- they were mostly educated, and artistic....
They were much more relevant to the history and the times- and the future in many ways of the movement and what it became known for in modern pop culture...
Than anything Ed Sanders ever participated in..
I read everything I can get my hands on about this period of our history...
I promise you these people show up many more places than does Ed Sanders in discussions about these times, and that movement...
at least in the places I go to for my information...
( Wiki is not very high on that list)
although according to a poster hanging on my office wall...
they participated in at least one thing together...
The prolix St C says:
also- I do not agree with you that Manson was not able to penetrate the hipster lifestyle...
I think he got himself knee deep in it, and he could have enjoyed it as long as he wanted- he seemed to be the catalyst ( if not the actual perpetrator in some cases) of when things went darker and away from the peace and love scene...
Now, let's think this through. A random collection of seminal names of the cusp period between beat and hippie might include: Alan Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Carl Solomon, Che Guevara, Cream, Gary Snyder, Hal Chase, Herbert Huncke, Jack Kerouac, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lucien Carr, Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Neal Cassady, Neil Young, Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton, , The Beatles, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, William Burroughs, William Carlos Williams, etc. A wholly arbitrary list, but you get the idea – people who think. The Pranksters and the Weathermen too – why not.
I for one would not want to include Charles Manson in this august list, but of course you may if you choose. For me he was a grubby, parasitical, psychotic, small-time crook, to whom only the weak and deluded would afford any credence. The only thing he was knee deep in was his own pathetic attempts to dominate and abuse those unable to defend themselves, and his scattergun, dilettante approach to philosophy and religion were as pathetic as his inability to vocalise them coherently.
But you decide what works for you –this is just my pov.
FrankM
From what I've read about Beats Burroughs Kerouac, Ginsberg - the beats loathed Hippies. Also, Jack Kerouac was an American patriot. He was discharged, however because of health issues. In boot camp he was unable to take the discipline. One day Kerouac dropped his rifle and walked off the drill field. He was confined to a Navy hospital where he told the psychiatrists he was writing a novel entitled, The Sea Is My Brother. The aspiring author was given an honorable discharge, with an "indifferent character." Don't see Sanders mentioned as a true beat, anywhere.
Just an observation on my part. Be gentle.
L
Frank I misunderstood you
I thought you meant he couldn't get himself into the lifestyle...
I think he did...
If you meant he didnt make an impression or leave a mark on it...
I agree...
Louise- I also agree with everything you said...
I dont think anything you said is wrong in any way either...
I just feel that if there was anyone who served as a bridge from one to the other- it would have been the pranksters more so than Ed Sanders...
although since we started this- i have done some checking on Ed and his place in all of this- and it seems he is a bit more important than I gave him credit for...
But I think not too much
Louise said:
From what I've read about Beats Burroughs Kerouac, Ginsberg - the beats loathed Hippies
---------------------------------
That's certainly true in Kerouac's case.
Burroughs was no doubt very cynical about the loved-up baby boomers but he was only too happy to swing with any contemporary bohemian movement.
Ginsberg was totally a part of (and in many ways orchestrator, networker & publicist) of the hippy movemet.
Cassady (who wasn't a writer but was definitely a genuine "beat" and the muse for both Kerouac & Ginsberg) dug the hippies enough to graduate from driving Kesey's bus to living at the Grateful Dead house in the Haight Ashbury during the summer of love.
Burroughs was no doubt very cynical about the loved-up baby boomers but he was only too happy to swing with any contemporary bohemian movement.
Ginsberg was totally a part of (and in many ways orchestrator, networker & publicist) of the hippy movemet.
Cassady (who wasn't a writer but was definitely a genuine "beat" and the muse for both Kerouac & Ginsberg) dug the hippies enough to graduate from driving Kesey's bus to living at the Grateful Dead house in the Haight Ashbury during the summer of love.
___________________
Hi brownrice...
Im not nearly as informed as you are. This is what I've read over the years. I am more interested in the most famous beats anf yjrit real lives, than their writings, actually.
Burroughs had an alcohic son who died from liver failure in the hippie era, Burroughs seemed to have had the most tragic life.
Gindsberg loved everything.
Keouac's life is my favorite, though. They traveled all over the world. Including Grenich Village in New York. They were all fans of Neil Cassady. Cassady's verbal style is one of the sources of the spontaneous, jazz-inspired rapping that later became associated with "beatniks", as I understand it. They lived within themselve, and were hipsters not hippies (folks argue about this Hipster - Hippie stuff to this day). Not sure, but one of them was Neil Cassidy's lover. Not saying I know all about the true beats. I just
do not see Sanders in that group.
Charles Manson dug the beats more than "hippies" he said so, and grew up, and travelled much. and experimented in that same era. He even went to Mexico and lived with Yakie Indians
There were female beats who get very little credit;
From Wiki: Also I read about the femle beats in articles and books over yjr psdt few years.
Women of the Beat Generation
The female contemporaries of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs were intimately involved in the creation of Beat philosophy and literature, and yet remain markedly absent from the mainstream interpretation of the most important aspects and figures of the movement. Further, the Beat writings of Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs often portray female characters in flat, traditional gender roles most typical of an ideal 1950s American housewife. Rather than offering liberation from social norms, Beat culture actually often marginalized and further culturally repressed American women and, more specifically, many of the female writers of the time period. [17] Although women are less acknowledged in histories of the first Beat Generation, the omission may be due more to the period's sexism than the reality.[18] Joan Vollmer for instance did not write, although she appears as a minor figure in multiple authors' works.[19] She has become legendary as the wife of William S. Burroughs, documented in Kerouac's novels, and killed by Burroughs in a drunken game of William Tell.[20] Corso and Diane Di Prima, among others, insist that there were female Beats, but that it was more difficult for women to get away with a Bohemian existence in that era.
Typo!! yjr psdt? Cripes I meant "for years." Didn't have my reading glasses on. Sorry about that.
I didn't even think of Rudi's clients and their possible connection. I wonder if the guy who was his caregiver over the last few years knows of any additional clients that we haven't read about. He had access to his storage garage that may contain client/manager agreements. Who knows.
Hi Louise,
that's a really good point about the female beats. Both the inherent sexism of the time & scene and also the point made by Di Prima & Corso that it was much harder for women to live a bohemian existence in the 40s & 50s than for guys.
I saw an interview with Ginsberg a while back where he made a similar point. He observed that eccentricity in women at that point was often rewarded with institutionalisation or lobotomy rather than a book contract. He also noted that the women in the early beat scene were often way more influential than ever given credit. He quoted Joan Vollmer as an example.
Gender equity didn't really get a look in until the 70s in bohemia ... or anywhere else for that matter.
Unfortunately, quite a few of the developments made in the decades following that seem to have been washed away in the last 10 years...
man, can it get any better than a dialogue between brownrice and louise. I love a good beat debate.
Late last night, unable to sleep, I watched that Woodstock movie on VH1 for the umpteenth time. Everytime I see it I try and imagine Charlie and the girls there, how they would have fit in. It is interesting to ponder how Charlie would have fit into certain situations or with certain people.
I do believe Kerouac would have punched him out.
You know, we have to get clear that there is a big gap between the 'Beat generation' and the 'Hippies'.
Woodstock was two years post summer of love, and by then the Haight was full of pan handlers, the hippy dream had gone sour and Manson was bringing the 60s to a painful death.
The Beat people were way, way different, much more literary in focus. Sure they did dope, but they were not rebels in the same way. They were more cerebral; only a few hippies got into the religious, philosophical, transcendental trip. Kerouac lived with his mother!
And Manson was no Hippie either, by his own admission as well as by observation. And Woodstock was only notionally a hippy event. Love and peace? Yes, for some, for many perhaps, of the acolytes, but these things have to be financed, which means suits (clothing and legal). There were some trippy hippy performers at Woodstock (the ISB perhaps), but most flew in in choppers and lived in air-conditioned trailers while their followers played in the pastures.
How would Manson fit into all this? Badly, I think. He was used to associating with crooks and low lives, with the fragile and vulnerable to whom he could appear as a guru, with the drugged out and the spaced out, who didn't know who they were or where they were going. I don't think there's much evidence that anyone who was simultaneously straight, sober and half-way educated ever took Manson seriously about anything.
AS for Kerouac and Manson slugging it out? Who would even think of such a thing ... it's like 'Dad, if Spiderman fought Godzilla, who would win?' Arrested development, anyone?
FrankM
Sorry - for the younger members of the blog the ISB is (was) the Incredible String Band. They weren't included on the Woodstock album or movie cos the sound recorder really fucked up, as you will see and hear if you visit here.
They were a pain to watch as they used two hundred and five different stringed instruments which all kept going out of tune, but some of their studio work is very good. If you don't know them Wikipedia has some info
FrankM.
To assuage your incredulity ...
Wikipedia is a fun place to browse, if you accept the occasional inaccuracy. Knowledge by consensus rather than authority, says Jimmy Wales.
It's also a place where the ignorant can become better informed and educated. Might suit you, Louis.
If you would like to know more, look it up ... on Wikipedia.
FrankM
"AS for Kerouac and Manson slugging it out? Who would even think of such a thing ... it's like 'Dad, if Spiderman fought Godzilla, who would win?' Arrested development, anyone?"
___________________
FrankM I truely am laughing out loud Frank, Thanks I needed the grins today.
My brothr-in law went to Woodstock he was one of the Ivy League students. He graduated from Cornell. His father probably helped him because he went there, first gemeration or something?. Nepotism and all. Anyway, My BIL was disgusted by it, mainly because he was way in the back and slopping in the mud, and Ravi Shankar (sp) gave him a migraine. He left after one day.Now he is making bank big time as many who grew out of that era are doing.
L
L
Unlike your BiL, I loved Ravi Shankar and went to many of his concerts. Late night ragas with some decent weed was part of growing up for me.
Not so well known is that Norah Jones is his daughter - it must be true, cos I read it on Wikipedia. Now there's a singer I really like.
Are you the Louise that hangs around with Thelma?
FrankM
Most people do not know that the hippie movement turned ugly by 1967. believe it was George Harrison who went there in 67 and said it was basically homeless drug addicts, and thugs. Funny how the Hippie culture was all about "Peace" and California was so violent at the same time. Crips were formed there and how about Altamont. Stanley "Tookie" Williams cofounder the notorious "Crips" in the late 60's and early 70's. Was executed for killing a Mom and Pop Korean working family who owned a small market, because "he wanted to, and he liked it." Now look at CA? There are hundreds's of different "bangers" of different ethnicity. Including white neo-Nazi's. One Nazi gang calls themselves "Peckerwoods?" <=??? among others. California is upside down. Not like it used to be. My dad was transferred here when I was nine and it was beautiful. The surroundings are still beautiful but the backdrop is ugly. A middle class 3 bedroom, McShack costs 450,000 dollars or more. We are being priced out of here. Sad because I have such great memorires of my past in CA.
Frank asked "Are you the Louise that hangs around with Thelma?"
FrankM
---------------
Yes :)We are best friends. She lived in CA, too. She moved away before California started to become "upside down" She has all the great memoires.
Louise :)
Wiki is like footnotes- it is the easy way to get a very general idea about a subject- that may or may not have all facts correct...
Frank- I figured you for a much deeper guy than that
Thought you would be the type of guy to read the whole book lol
I mean you write like you know every goddamn thing :)
lol
Sanders started writing about the manson case for the underground press and took his first reporting gig to pay his way to the west coast. I believe he was pro-manson at first but only gradually coming to this current viewpoint by the time of the trials. He hung out for a while with CM's Circle while he was convinced of CM's innocence.
A lot of people started off 'pro-Manson'. Rolling Stone writer David Dalton describes it thus:
But the first time most hippies like myself set eyes on Manson's picture in the paper we were certain he'd been railroaded. He looked just like one of us. He had long hair and a beard and, although skinnier, resembled Jim Morrison or maybe Jerry Garcia. We knew that anybody who looked like that could never have done these horrible things they were saying he did. It was just the Pigs picking on some poor hippie guru.
You can read Dalton's (well-written) Gadfly article here.
FrankM
lol Frank...I was just makin fun back there. Wikipedia is ok, just not reliable and something I rarely use. If I want to learn about some subject, I go beyond that site.
Now...back to Helter Skelter :)
Thought you were, Louis! Sorry if I sounded aggressive.
Agreed, Wikipedia is good for a quick look up but not always authoritative. But it's not always clear which web sites are authoritative (dependable) - take this one, which calls itself the Official Tate-LaBianca Murders Blog, but is about as 'official' as my grandson's school blog.
On the whole moderated sites are probably better, especially when the wilder posters are kept under control. As far as Manson sites go, the best (IMHO of course) have been Brett's (which was closed to external posts and comments) and Cats' site, which she keeps under careful control.
For fun and fireworks this has been a good site, although it has seen some rough passages when recidivist socks like Savage and Wheat flare up out of control. The Col really doesn't seem to care too much - just posts from time to time and leaves others to get on with it.
For that matter I'm not even sure the Col today is the same person as he was a few years ago. If so, he seems to have mellowed considerably. I always thought there were at least two Cols (I base this opinion on forensic analysis of writing style), plus an indeterminate number of socks he uses on this and other blogs.
Who know? Who cares? I offer this opinion in the spirit of idle speculation.
FrankM
Louise, Says California is, "upside down".
That's a great way to put it. I grew up in So. Cal., Garden Grove.
I remember back in the mid-60's our apartments being surrounded by agricultural plots of corn, tomatoes, strawberries ect.
By the mid-80's there wasn't even a vacant lot in G.G..
The cost of living forced me to move out of state in 1986.
But I do remember the good ole days of California.
Frank Baby,
I have always been me, little ole Col Scott. One guy. Maybe I am less angry, but that's because there's less to be angry about.
As far as this being the Official Blog, please do not ever disrespect our authoritay. I like you so I'll ask nicely. I work hard to remain official, please treat that with the respect it deserves.
The Only Col
OK, Col - and thanks for replying.
You ask me not to disrespect our authoritay [sic], and I shall endeavour to do this (or not do this, depending how you read it).
I can't help noticing the word 'our', however, which does go against your protestations of singularity - perhaps a Freudian slip, or the 'royal' we so beloved of the British monarchy.
You say you like me and are asking me nicely. I like the 'nicely', and will treat your determination to remain official with - if not the respect it deserves, at least the respect you have shown me.
FrankM
Sigh
Will someone explain "our authoritay" to Frank?
Thanks.
I can't read that far
Colscott said:
Will someone explain "our authoritay"
------------------------------------
Far be it from me to try and second-guess or translate the omnipotent Colscott but seeing as he asked and all, I'll give it a try....
There's a wonderful episode of South Park in which Cartman becomes a cop. Basically he rides around on his tricycle wearing wraparound mirrored sunglasses and bashing the crap out of everyone before "running them in". The one-liner he keeps repeating is "Respect my authoritay!"... delivered in a voice halfway between Bull Connor and the warden in Cool Hand Luke. Hence the extreme Southern pronunciation of "authoritAY".
For all South Park lovers, "Respect my authoritay!" has become an ironic way of asserting one's authority whilst still acknowledging that most authority figures are arseholes. It's a classic really... right up there with "Drugs are bad, m'kay".
On a completely different note, Incredible String Band were definitely one of the most interesting bands to come out of the 60s. A tripper's favourite... just like Ravi Shankar.
Thank you brown rice.
The point is Frank, that I take none of this seriously and all of it seriously. I am fascinated by the case and have lived it for most of my life. If I have mellowed it is because I have lived to understand the evil of the BUG, the stupidity of Charlie and the truth, that this likely is unanswerable.
Thanks to you both for the kind - if unnecessary - explanation of the Southpark reference.
Actually I had used the [sic] to refer to the word 'our', thinking it would benefit from a couple of words of context. But thanks anyway - clarity is always good.
I particularly liked Col's I take none of this seriously and all of it seriously - I can relate to the viewpoint(s) myself. And I think I prefer the mellow version, although the old rants were nothing if not entertaining.
Glad someone else likes/liked the ISB. The link I gave was of appalling quality - it would be kinder to their memory to link to something like this .
Another mystery is what happened to Licorice (of the ISB), who is alleged to have wandered into the desert to escape the grasp of the Scientologists, never to reappear. But that investigation perhaps belongs elsewhere.
FrankM
FrankM said:
Another mystery is what happened to Licorice (of the ISB), who is alleged to have wandered into the desert to escape the grasp of the Scientologists, never to reappear. But that investigation perhaps belongs elsewhere.
---------------------------------------
Ah yes... dear Licorice... curse those damn Scientologists, curse 'em I say!!!
According to Rob Young in his book "Electric Eden- Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music"...
"Licorice, who remained in the group until 1972 spent the 1970s as a member of U-Boat, a group led by David Bowie's former drummer Woody Woodmansey (also a Scientologist), then in California as a member of the Silver Moon Band.
She married Brian Lambert... and spent some years living in the Hollywood Hills. From the early 80s onwards, when she supposedly divorced Lambert, information on her life turns to illegible blotches, water spilled on the watercolour. One rumour has it that she has been living homeless on the streets of LA, moved to one of California's desert cities in the late '80s, wrote a letter , postmarked Sacremento, to her sister in Edinburgh in 1990, then walked off into the Arizona desert, never to return. Long after her final communication, many are still waiting to see if she crosses back over the bridge, while fearing that she may have turned to clay."
He then adds a footnote:
"At the time of writing, it appeared that a Christina ********, previously Lambert, was residing at an address in ******* CA, between San Francisco & San Jose. On balance, it seems that Licorice is still alive, although tact and respect for her privacy means that door has been left shut."
I wonder how she'd feel about being discussed on a Manson blog... :-)
A well-recorded example of the Incredible String Band...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zH1a2mQx44&feature=related
Thanks for the clip - very nostalgic. I saw them play twice - great show, but lots of tuning.
I see this was recorded in 1968, about the time Manson was trying to convince the world he had a career as a musician. I never rated his musical skills highly, and to me he certainly doesn't compare to the ISB in talent or creativity.
But that's just my opinion.
FrankM
FrankM said:
Thanks for the clip - very nostalgic. I saw them play twice - great show, but lots of tuning. I see this was recorded in 1968, about the time Manson was trying to convince the world he had a career as a musician. I never rated his musical skills highly, and to me he certainly doesn't compare to the ISB in talent or creativity. But that's just my opinion. ----------------------------------------
Trying to tune half a dozen obscure non-western instruments whilst high as a kite in front of a roomfull of people is no mean feat. Luckily the rooms full of people were also high as a kite...
As far as comparing 'em to Charlie, I pretty much agree with you. Though (in my opinion) Charlie did have a good singing voice and a fair whack of charisma (both of which count for more in show biz than creativity, originality or talent). He was also pretty well-connected which counts for a lot.
His biggest problem was probably that he couldn't take direction from people with recording experience... and that his singing style was pretty much firmly rooted in the '50s... which was kinda uncool in the late '60s... and of course the murders.
Musically speaking, he probably shoulda left most of the Family in the green room. Though in my darker moments I do quite like the crazed chaos of the intro to "Ol' Ego Is A Too Much Thing" and "Garbage Dump"... both of which remind me of many a stoned, addled hippy campfire jam... totally amateur people having a hell of a time making noise. A really liberating and inspiring experience for the participants but not exactly top 40 material... or very much fun to listen to.
The Incredible String Band dabbled in those fields too but they were seriously skilled musicians with a much broader cultural palette to choose from.
I think it is not always clear when Charlie was singing, and when Clem was .. and Clem had a good voice, probably better than Charlie (IMHO).
Don't know too much about his charisma as a singer - for much of the time at Spahn/Barker he would have had a captive audience (and I use the word advisedly).
You're right about the audience at ISB conferences. The most stonedest audiences I've ever seen - dropping acid was pretty much mandatory. The only comparable audience I can remember was at PInk Floyd concerts.
And the band themselves, I guess - look at Licorice in the first clip I posted, totally out of it ..
FrankM
I don't care how good or bad the movies are as long as Lindsay Lohan DOES NOT play Sharon Tate.
George Vreeland Hill
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