People Sicken Me

Unsolicited in the previous comment section St. Circumstance went into a huge tirade about his opinion regarding Barbara Beausoleil's relationship with Bobby.

He thinks that she really had some nerve to fall in love with someone who was in jail for murder.

The self righteousness sickens me.

There is no evidence in the relationship that Barbara sought fame from her marriage. 

There is no evidence that Barbara sought money from the relationship. In fact I know first hand she did no such thing and struggled.

You want to lay into Bobby for being a killer fine.

You want to rip into Bobby for being a liar, go for it.

Barbara was not like Kristen Watson even, exploiting ministries and welfare offices.

She fell in love with who she fell in love with.

People can rip on Woody Allen but he says it best- " The heart wants what the heart wants."

Shame on anyone who has the temerity to criticize someone for falling in love.

Ode to Barbara B

Hello everyone,

This is proof positive that is it possible to have a heart heavy with sadness and one that is filled with joy inside of a single breath.  On October 19th my beloved Barbara Ellen, wife and partner of 31 years, very suddenly and unexpectedly passed from this world.

A shocking event, to say the least.  I’m still reeling.  One day she was happily planting bulbs in the her garden for flowers that will bloom in the spring, and the following morning her lifeless body was found lying on the floor next to her bed.

In a curious example of synchronicity not uncharacteristic in our relationship, I fell out of my bunk onto the floor of my cell, the only time ever in my life that this has happened, at what was very possibly the moment of her passing.  The cause of physical death was subsequently determined to be a cerebral hemorrhage.  It was quick, no prolonged suffering, just the sort of way Barbara would have preferred to go when her time came (may we all be so lucky).  No muss, no fuss, no lingering illness, no significant debts to be a burden to her family.  Just gone.  It’s as though she has been stolen from us, as a dear mutual friend aptly put it.

I miss her physical presence in my life, of course, every time something happens that I want to share with her, at least a dozen times a day, and I have to remind myself again that she is no longer here among us.  We had a 31-year conversation, probing heart and mind, exploring our humanness while aspiring to the higher levels of wisdom.  I will miss that conversation like I will miss her gaze, her touch, her uninhibited laughter, her embrace, her kiss, and even those human foibles and faults that sometimes annoyed and frustrated me.  There was never anything about her that could realistically stand in the way of my love for her.

Ours was a relationship founded on sacred ground, and therefore not subject to threat from something as wholly natural, commonplace, and ultimately trivial as death. We only borrow these bodies to play in this world for a time.  This is why our relationship held together all these years despite some foolish lapses of dignity and the hardship of my incarceration.  But Barbara was so sturdy, I always assumed I would be the one to go first.  I’ve been caught off guard, and now I grapple with unaccustomed depths of emotion, mourning the loss of her, while knowing full well that she is not the least bit lost to herself.

Some of you had the good fortune to know Barbara personally; others of you may have known her at some distance, or only about her.  In any case, I would like to offer the following words of rememberance, written by Barbara’s son John only days after passing:

“Barbara was, and always will be, a shining example of a how a person can live in peace, harmony and freedom.  She gave more than she took, she loved more than she feared, and she nurtured everything and everybody around her.  We will remember Barbara as a woman of strength, courage, compassion and wisdom-a true Mother Goddess incarnate, treading softly yet powerfully upon this Earth”.

So, yes, there are some waves of sadness lingering in the spaces where Barbara once lived, since her passing.  No one needs to worry that they may draw me into some morose stupor, however.  Barbara would have little patience for that sort of thing. Anyway, she would not have left when she did if she had not been sure that I would remain a strength to her children and grandchildren, and I won’t let her down in that regard.  She would not have any of us feel sorry for her, or for ourselves.  Any why should we? Barbara lived on her own terms and died exactly as she would have wanted to.  I salute her for that, and celebrate the wealth of gifts she brought to the world.

In peace,
Bobby

I'm a GANGSTER, Woman

Ya know....

One thing all this speculating drives home is that the Family was NOT ever a hippie commune.  Sure there were some hippie kids there, but there were some hippie kids at my damn high school too.

They weren't hippies.  They hated that moniker. They were "slippies" they said, as they slipped in and out of places.

But what they really were were GANGSTERS.

Hendrickson called his second film INSIDE THE MANSON GANG.  I love the film and hate the title.  But Homey knew these people and he has it right.

Charlie as Vito Corleone or Tony Soprano.  Try that on for size.  It fits.  He has his henchmen, from Clem on down to Nancy.  He has his Fredo, Sadie.  Paulie Walnuts, the bug fuck killer is Tex.  It's all there.

If you are working for the gang, making money, all is good.  If you cross them, pow!

The analogy works.  Lotsapoppa crosses the gang and Bang, LotsaLeadBelly.  Gary doesn't deliver and he's cut and killed.

Just watch the two brilliant Hendrickson films.  "Snitches will be taken care of."   " You've got to love it (rifle) and make love to it."

It's not mind control.  It's not a family. It's a gang.

I mean, what did Mary, Squeaky, Nancy, Gypsy and the other bitches end up doing?  They became gun molls for Biker Gangs and other gangs after the original gang ended.

We have to examine this not as flower kids gone wrong, a commune, or a  one time occurrence.  It's a fucking gang executing gang justice.

What If?

I always liked the Marvel Comic Book WHAT IF?

It played with ideas within the Marvel Universe, speculating What If so and so had lived and changed the world.  Shit like that.  It was fun.

Now I don't want to play "What If?" as in "What if Steven Parent had lived and become a prominent homosexual activist?" or "What if Sharon Tate became a Porn Star?"

No.  I want to play logical games of "What If?"

Today's Subject-

The conventional wisdom is that Shorty was killed for being a snitch.  Maybe.
The reality is most people don't kill someone for almost no reason.  Now you might say that the Family were not "most people" and you would be correct.  But still....

Under my new thinking-

Beausoleil killed because Hinman won't give up the money he was THOUGHT to have.
Frykowski was killed because the killers THOUGHT there was money or drugs in the house.
LaBiancas were killed because the killers THOUGHT there was money in the house.

Shorty's the last canonical slaying unless you believe the Hughes stuff and I do not.  Clem who was not active at LaBianca joins in.  Davis who drove to Hinman but was relatively inactive joins in.

What if he's killed because they THOUGHT he had something they wanted? Not because he knew something.  Not because he squealed.  Because he HAD something they wanted, or they thought he did.

What would that have been?

Today Is The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

[The Last Fifteen Months of Hellish Bullshit is DONE]

True Story---

-->

Crime Scene

The body of Mabel Monohan was half in and half out of a closet that the trail of blood led to. Her hands were tied behind her with a strip of bed sheet. A pillowcase was over her head, tied very tightly around the neck with another strip of bed sheet. When the pillowcase was removed, police saw that the frail widow had been beaten viciously about the face and head with a blunt instrument.

"Pistol-whipped, sure as hell," said one veteran detective, who had seen such handiwork before.

The entire house had been ransacked, top to bottom; even a furnace vent in the floor had been torn out. The trail of blood continued throughout the house, as if the victim had been manhandled from room to room, being beaten along the way with increasing fury when the intruder failed to find what he was looking for. Despite this activity, the crime lab would not find a single fingerprint or other physical evidence.

Surprisingly, in a bedroom closet where numerous purses and pieces of luggage had been opened and cast aside, detectives found a shabby old black purse, hanging from a hook that had not been touched. In it was $475 in cash and an estimated $10,000 in miscellaneous jewelry.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the victim's daughter, Iris, had once been married to a Las Vegas gambler named Luther Scherer, and that the Scherers had once occupied the house. When Iris and the gambler divorced, Iris got the house as part of her settlement. Iris later remarried, a wealthy importer named Robert Sowder, and gave the house to her widowed mother when the Sowders went to live in New York.

Investigators also learned that Mabel Monohan and her former son-in-law maintained a close, affectionate relationship that continued even after Iris and Luther divorced. Scherer still had a closet full of suits and personal effects in the house that he used when visiting the area. And once, when Scherer was seriously ill with cirrhosis of the liver, he came home to Mabel and she nursed him back to health, cooking and caring for him so he would not have to hire a stranger.

There were rumors among numerous people that the police interviewed that Luther Scherer even had a safe somewhere in the house, and was believed to leave large amounts of cash there with Mabel for safekeeping.

With that information, police believed they might have found the motive for Mabel Monohan's vicious murder.

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

The famous murder I talked about in the last blog post was the I WANT TO LIVE case of Barbara Graham.   She and her crime partners were executed for invading the house of someone they had never met and then violently killing them  because they mistakenly thought there was money hidden in the house.

I am sure this shit happens ALL THE TIME.  Criminals are not that smart and the fucking family in many ways were drugged out chimpanzees flinging their own poo.

So....Something happens where Tex and or Charlie, who as per BUG knew Melcher had moved, learn that the new residents (probably Frykowski and Folger since the other two were not there often) have lots of money or drugs in the house.  Doesn't matter that they don't- they think they do.  And any way, maybe they DID have them on August 1 or something and moved them out.  I mean with Folger, Voytek has all the money he needs to buy large quantities of drugs.

So they THINK there are money/drugs.  They want them.  The killers show up on speed.  Everybody loses their shit and people wind up dead.

Based on what Matt at evilliz reported about the LaBiancas and their connection to criminality, wash, rinse, repeat.

I am starting to conclude it is the only thing that makes ANY sense people....

      

My Point and I Do Have One

So I didn't just post about some other murder for the first time ever for shits and giggles. 

On the contrary, here is a famous murder case where the victim was beaten to death because the culprits believed there was money- CASH- in the house.

BELIEVED it- there wasn't any.

That's one instance.  Happens all the time.

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

At Cielo, if we eliminate Bugliosi's madness, we are left with a drug deal gone wrong.  Or a robbery. 

With Hinman if we ignore Bobby's later spin, we are left with a robbery.

Crowe a drug deal gone wrong and money.

Shorty- an afterthought, trying to not get caught.

Waverly has always been the problem when trying to make sense of it.

Did Rosemary have a sizable estate or not? Was Suzan after her money?  Leno had embezzled money.


Money Money Money.  Sorry folks, it's the most base motivation and also the most common.

Hell someone TOOK Leno's coin collection right?

The killers show up at the house at a prearranged time.  Someone has tipped them that it is a good time.  They tie up the victims and try to get answers.  They beat and slaughter them.

I don't know if Suzan knew Tex or she sent them or what.

I now believe somebody THOUGHT there was money to be gotten from the LaBiancas.  Embezzled money?  Drug proceeds?  Just lots of cash?  Doesn't matter.  They THOUGHT there was money.

I really can't see how there is any flaw in this line of thinking anymore.

Background

I haven't had much to say lately.


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Ever since Matt at eviliz posted the crime connections of the LaBianca piece and then the Skynyrd site picked it up I have been obsessing again about motive.

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This is an excerpt from a piece on the famous I WANT TO LIVE! murderess Barbara Graham.  Please read it and then join us up above in the next post.

Night of the Murder

The five conspirators met the next night at the Smoke House Restaurant in the San Fernando Valley and had dinner. Then, well after dark, they drove in two cars to the home of Mabel Monohan. Shorter and Emmett were in one car; Jack, John, and Mary followed in a second. Shorter and Emmett parked just around the corner on the side of the house, where they could see the porch. Jack parked across the street from the front door. The woman called Mary was let out and went up to the front door. The bell was rung, the porch light came on, and there was muted conversation through the door for two or three minutes. Finally the door was opened and Mary went inside. A couple of minutes later, John went up to the door and went in; he was followed at short intervals by Emmett, then Jack, so all of them would not be crowding in at one time. Baxter Shorter waited in the car for them to find the safe

After a few minutes, Jack came out to the car where Shorter waited. "Come on in," he said to Shorter. "We can't find nothing."

Shorter followed Jack into the house. Inside, Shorter saw Mabel Monohan on the floor of a hallway, lying half in and half out, badly bleeding about the head and face, blood all over the rug, moaning loudly through a gag over her mouth, with her hands tied behind her back. John was kneeling beside her, Mary bending down over her.

"Knock her out!" Mary said. She handed a nickel-plated revolver to Emmett, who began slugging the woman in the temple.

Shorter claimed at that point that he grabbed Emmett and threw him down on the floor, yelling, "What the hell are you doing' This isn't the way it was supposed to be! This is no good!" The woman appeared to Shorter to be choking from the gag. "Jesus Christ, this is no good!" he continued to protest. "This woman's in bad shape! Take that gag off her so she can breathe!"

John looked up to Jack for instructions. "Shall I do what he says'"

Jack shrugged. "What's the difference'"

John opened a pocketknife and cut the gag off Mabel Monohan's mouth.

Jack gestured around the ransacked house and said to Shorter, "I called you in here to show you there's no safe. The information you gave us was wrong."

"John was the one who came down here with Scherer and the shoebox full of money," Shorter defended.

"Sure," said John, "but he didn't bring it here."

They all stared at each other, realizing they had bungled the whole thing.

"Look," Shorter said, trying to regroup, "we've got to get some help for this woman. She's in bad shape." Shorter quickly searched the ransacked house until he found a utility bill with the street address on it. "I'm going to call and get some help for this woman," he announced. By now Mabel Monohan was lying very still and a pillowcase had been put over her head.

A few minutes later, Emmett, John, and Mary left the house and went to the car across the street. Jack said to Shorter, "I'll ride with you this time. Take me back to where we met tonight."

On the drive back, Shorter again said he was going to telephone for help for the woman in the house. "I don't give a damn what you do," Jack said. "That woman stopped breathing before we left."

"Jesus Christ, that's murder then!" Shorter exclaimed.

"So what'" said Jack.

When Shorter dropped Jack off, Jack said to him, "You're not much of a man, are you'"

"Not when it comes to a thing like this, I'm not," the professional burglar replied.

"Well, don't forget we know how to get in touch with you," Jack said. It was clearly a threat.

As soon as he let Jack off, Shorter found a service station with an outdoor phone booth. Dialing the operator, he told her it was an emergency call, that a woman needed an ambulance immediately, and he read the address, 1718 Parkside Drive, off the utility bill he had taken from the house. Then he hung up and fled.

There was a record of the call Baxter Shorter made. The operator attempted to dispatch an ambulance, but no such address could be found in Los Angeles. Shorter had been so nervous that he had neglected to tell her it was in Burbank.

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

AND-

Preliminary investigation revealed that the victim's daughter, Iris, had once been married to a Las Vegas gambler named Luther Scherer, and that the Scherers had once occupied the house. When Iris and the gambler divorced, Iris got the house as part of her settlement. Iris later remarried, a wealthy importer named Robert Sowder, and gave the house to her widowed mother when the Sowders went to live in New York.

Investigators also learned that Mabel Monohan and her former son-in-law maintained a close, affectionate relationship that continued even after Iris and Luther divorced. Scherer still had a closet full of suits and personal effects in the house that he used when visiting the area. And once, when Scherer was seriously ill with cirrhosis of the liver, he came home to Mabel and she nursed him back to health, cooking and caring for him so he would not have to hire a stranger.

There were rumors among numerous people that the police interviewed that Luther Scherer even had a safe somewhere in the house, and was believed to leave large amounts of cash there with Mabel for safekeeping.

With that information, police believed they might have found the motive for Mabel Monohan's vicious murder.

RIP KTS!

Wow. I knew it was sick but I never thought it would die.

When the Col started this Blog one of the driving forces was I was sick of the ignorance of the internet. The original board that I was glued to for years in the late 1990s by a Clark Ronson ended up in turmoil with imposters, lies, no conclusion and Ronson himself turning out to be an Neve Campbell obsessed lunatic. Then came the only real meeting place over at the GoRightly site- problem was he only wanted to sell poorly written books. Eventually though there was KTS in the Yahoo Groups- Killed The Sixties. Mostly a Kawfee Klatch with women clucking about nonsense, it did at one point become a good place to visit thanks to people like Denise and Heaven who ran it.

The problem was that for many years the ladies would ban the Col on site. They didn't like his knowledge or his table manners. I kept coming back and getting my ass banned. And then started the only Official Blog on the subject mostly to tell the KTS people to go fuck themselves. This of course led to us becoming fast friends.

Heaven gave up. The site lingered for years- it still had good docs and pics and a great montage on the front. And now I randomly checked it and it's gone. Like Bret's site too. Like Bug's diginity.

Yippee Kai Yay.....

Where Are We Now, Hey What?

¶ I mentioned on EvilLiz that I question whether or not Rosemary ever really left a $2 million dollar estate. I can find no record of this. Author Tom O'Neill mentioned that he had been unable to confirm any such thing. I wonder if that has changed or if his book is going to come out.

¶ Claire Watkins, Little Paul's daughter has written a book BATTLEBORN. It is really good. Limited insight into TLB but a strong writer.

¶ I hear Bugliosi remains gravely ill. We will pray for his recovery and repentance.

¶ I hear that Clem is in a new band.

¶ I hear Nelson's sons are now grown up and successful.

¶ In shocking news, neither Orca nor Robin have accepted my Lie Detector challenge.

Happy Labor Day whatever that is.

The Lie Detector Game

Earlier this year, noted homophobe and idiot Robin Olson dictated a posting to Orca Tate attacking the wonderful and poignant book RESTLESS SOULS. It remains on their website.

In it Debra offered to pay for a lie detector test and she wanted Alisa Statman to answer SEVENTEEN questions under the test. These were:

1. Before moving into the guesthouse at Cielo, did you express to others your intent to write about my sister Sharon’s murder?

2. Did you begin working on or researching a book about my sister Sharon’s murder before you met Patti?

3. Is it true that you used the photographs you stole from Lieutenant Earl Deemer’s collection to meet my sister Patti?

4. Did you ever meet my mom Doris Gwen Tate?

5. Would you swear that the statement in the book as to how it came about is absolutely accurate?

6. Is every word in the book attributed to Patti exactly what she herself said or wrote?

7. Did you use any of the materials written and prepared by Robin Olson for Patti’s book in this book?

8. Did you change, alter, or add anything to my dad’s unpublished manuscript prior to publication?

9. Did you change, alter, or add anything to my mom’s unpublished manuscript prior to publication?

10. Can you provide independent corroboration to verify the many verbatim conversations given in the book between people now deceased?

11. Can you provide independent corroboration to verify the account of my sister Sharon’s murder appearing in your book?

12. Did my dad order you to turn over to me all Tate family materials left in the Palos Verdes house?

13. Did you turn over to my dad or to me, as requested, all Tate family materials in the Palos Verdes house?

14. Did you deny to me that such Tate family materials remained in the Palos Verdes house?

15. Did you sign statements at Holy Cross Cemetery describing yourself as a Tate “stepsister?”

16. Did you tell authorities at Holy Cross Cemetery that you had obtained Roman Polanski’s permission to open Sharon’s grave?

17. Did you try to have legislation passed in California that would allow you, as a non-relative, to attend parole hearings for convicted members of the Manson family?

Orca/Olson also added for a final flourish-

"I would be happy to make arrangements for such a polygraph test at Ms. Statman’s convenience."

But of course why the hell would Alisa do that? For no give back? No tit for tat?

However, being the all amazing Col that I am, I have actually contacted the NUMBER ONE Polygraph guy in Los Angeles County. The guy that if you pass, the police even leave you alone and find another suspect. He's the TOP guy people.

And I'll pay for him.

But Alisa doesn't just answer Orca's questions. Orca answers MY questions.

Here's my SEVENTEEN random questions for Orca to answer-

1- What legal rights can you prove to your sister’s name or estate?

2- Where are your father's ashes and why have you denied his grandchildren the right to have a final resting place where not just you, but the entire family might be able to visit PJ?

3- Do you deny that your father requested that Alisa Statman represent him at the parole hearings following Patti's death? Do you deny that he sent a letter to the board of prison terms making this request and that it was to be placed in a file for all future hearings?

4- Why were you photographed frolicking naked at 16 with known drug dealers on the Cielo Drive House lawn long before the murders?

5- Why when your sister Patti was dying of breast cancer did you pretend to have scheduled an appointment with a cancer specialist in Duke University only to have her fly out there and find out that you never did any such thing?

6- What was the point when, after arranging #5 above so that you got your sister out of the house, you showed up screaming at your father's girlfriend that you wanted your “share” of the jewels and then proceeded to tear the house apart looking for said jewels while your father (at the same time) lay in the veterans' hospital recuperating from surgery?

7- As the last surviving direct member of the Tate Family, what exactly were you left in your father’s will?

8- Your daughter Arieanna has mutilated her body with excessive tattoos and piercings. One poster on the internet claims she has been a prostitute. What did you do to this girl to make her hate herself so much?

9- Why do you have such a close friendship with Robin Olson who is a pathological homophobe when your own sister was at least bisexual?

10- What was your relationship with your father for the last ten years of his life?

11- Why did you harass your father’s girlfriend (also called Doris) after his death?

12- You continue to claim that you were injured by a mail bomb. Can you offer proof of this bombing, a police report, FBI report, ATF report, or at least hospital records to prove it ever happened?

13- When was the last time you saw any of Patti’s kids face to face?

14- Have you told Stephen Kay anything truthful?

15 - Why do you think Samantha Geimer had it coming?

16- Were you really robbed of Sharon's possessions as you stated on the record last year Did you? file a police report? You said you knew who did it, was anyone ever arrested?

17- What is your legal claim to Sharon's Wedding Dress?

So there you go people. It's a fair deal. Debra or your rep can contact me via my magic email.

Who wants to bet if I get a reply?

Little Paul's Oldest Daughter

Claire Vaye Watkins on Growing up Manson and “Battleborn”

For writer Claire Vaye Watkins her life has been lived in the shadow of her father, Charles Manson’s right-hand man, but in her debut story collection she breaks free to capture the American West with beauty and power. She speaks to Claiborne Smith about her hunger for Nevada, her mother’s death, and her fiction.

by Claiborne Smith | August 4, 2012 4:45 AM EDT 

 

You can read the story here---

 

 

Some Jerkoff named Andrew Goldberg thinks he knows the law and I have things to do, so let's pretend he does. 

(L-R) Author Claire Vaye Watkins. Members of Charles Manson's "family", Mark Ross, tall with dark beard, Paul Watkins, front center, and Catherine "Gypsy" Share, holding Sandra Good's son Ivan, congregate in the Los Angeles Hall of Justice on Feb. 24, 1970. None of these is accused. (Twitter; AP Photo)

I have a little system of my own....

Is it time?

I wonder. In a world where Alisa Statman wrote a book to honor her deceased lover and the lover's family, only to be attacked by homophobes and internet radio DJs because "how dare she!", are we ready?

Is it time?

I wonder- in a world where the Helter Skelter Forum regularly steals research from much better blogs like TOTLB, are we ready?

Is it time?

I wonder- in a world where actual insane people like JimNY (now Kermit the Puking Frog) still believe that Leslie Van Houten knows who they are, are we ready?

I wonder.....

Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?
I know, yes I know
Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me

Took a walk down the street
Thru the heat whispered trees
I thought I could hear (hear, hear, hear)
Somebody call out my name as it started to rain

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I wonder if it is time for a TLB Wiki? I suppose the eternally dispensable Adam Gorightly first put the thought into my head when he ripped me off for his kindle book several years ago. And then my own experiences with Wikipedia made me think of it again.

It's a good idea. Recently several of the sites united to try to locate and expose actual true Exorcist level evil. Cooperation is possible.

There's a Marvel Comics Wiki, a Lost Wiki, a Twilight Wiki and even a Muppets wiki (the one JimNy frequents).

Why NOT a TLB Wiki?

The Benefits are that there would be a one stop resource for all researchers. We could have one neutral, factual place. NOT the Bug's novel. Not Wikipedia written by ignorant 15 year olds in Montreal. All sides of a story are there. Kasabian as star witness. Kasabian as drugged out whore and thief who never alerted anyone about what happened.

Like all Wikis there would be consensus. Where are they now sections. (Donde es Senor Donkeydick?) Listing of all theories (Hughes drowned or fled to Nova Scotia as a big and tall model?).

Now this only works if people play nice. I can't run it and frankly I don't want to. I need to share it - with Cats, with Liz, with Matt for sure, maybe even Lynyrd if he can put down the bong for more than a minute. Cielodrive.com yes please. In theory this should take care of itself. The problems will be the real people changing information (Clem says his band name is not Adam Gabriel but Yo Gabba Gabba) and the pure fucking assholes like JimNy. Or even Orca Tate who doesn't want people to know she mainlines her daddy's ashes.

Let's discuss this in the comments. The idea is a strong one and should be done. We all want the truth. The only true enemy of the truth is BUGliosi. Can we all try and do this?

The Charlie Dance

http://gawker.com/5932855/charles-manson-americas-greatest-living-reality-star?comment=51723272

Charles Manson: America’s Greatest Living Reality Star

Rich Juzwiak

Look at this guy. Like it or not, he's an American icon.
No American madman has a legend as nuanced as Manson's. That has everything to do with Vincent Bugliosi's definitive chronicle of the Manson Family, their murders and their trial. To read 1974's Helter Skelter is to obsess over Helter Skelter is to cultivate a lifelong interest in Manson and his once-petulant, now-repentant acolytes.
That book taught us that he was a bad guy, who despite (allegedly? probably?) suggesting to his cult that they perform murders so infamous and shocking that they prematurely ended the '60s 43 years ago today, didn't make a single stab or cut August 9, 1969 or the following night in what are generally referred to as the Tate-LaBianca murders.
I can only imagine how shocking those crimes were at the time, how they tore down other iconography in an acid nightmare that irrevocably damaged the image of the peace-loving hippie. I know that despising Manson wholesale is a reasonable reaction. Three years ago, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Tate-LaBianca murders, Los Angeles magazine ran an oral history that described Manson as "an enduring symbol of unfathomable evil." That is the truth.
But for someone to whom the '60s never existed in the first place, someone who entered a world that was already obsessed with serial killers and other mortal boogie men, someone who saw Charles Manson frequently on television during his childhood in the '80s and thought, "What the fuck?" even though he was too young to say "fuck" out loud without getting punished with cocktail sauce on his tongue, I know that it's possible to regard Manson differently. I came to know much later than I could have, even – I didn't read Helter Skelter until a few summers ago. It's a relic of its time, so I was horrified as much as I was supposed to be. I would read it late at night in my living room, certain that someone was going to break through my apartment's back window, which was right off of the fire escape. That only added to the effect.
As much as I admire the terrifying ingenuity in the Manson-birthed concept of creepy crawling (when the Manson Family would break into homes to rearrange furniture or watch people sleeping), it wasn't until post-Skelter research that I approached an appreciation of what Manson has to offer. Or a portion of it, at any rate. I blame modernity. Reality TV and general cultural narcissism have conditioned us to appreciate characters (especially villains) and, man, is that guy a character. Man, is he a villain. But not only that, he's a performance artist, a very contemporary celebrity whose true art is giving interviews. In this respect, among his very few peers are Madonna and Amy Sedaris, whose Jerri Blank character often resembles Manson in mannerism and affect.
Several clips of him doing absolutely crazy things with words and his face from the '80s (many of them included in the montage above) have racked up millions of hits on YouTube – if video had the viral capacity then that it does now, his profile, his cult, his legend would have undoubtedly been so much higher. We would barely need to question his appeal.
Our culture puts a premium on extreme human behavior, and to watch Manson go off and sputter his free associative efrannis booj pooch boo jujube is thrilling. Good nonsense is hard to find. He invokes images of "staunch" and "upstanding" parrots and pockets full of "everything you can eat." He calls Geraldo Rivera "Mr. G." He explains the swastika on his forehead (which alone makes him understandably impossible to look at for particularly sensitive people) as not a sign of affiliation with the Nazi party, but with his Nazi party: "It means I've been locked up in here since 1943, that I'm standing behind the judges in Nuremberg." A very loud facet of our culture loves things for being terrible – to watch Charles Manson in 2012 is to revel in the concept of so-bad-it's-good where the bad is actual evil.
In 1987, when Penny Daniels asked Manson about what draws people to him, he leaped from his seat, performed a display that was part mime show, part interpretive dance and boasted, "I'm brand new. Everything I do is always brand new." Indeed, this unpredictability is key to his appeal.
Manson lied and told contradictory stories. Much of his clan did the same throughout the years to the point where it's best for all of our heads to just take Helter Skelter as gospel – it's bound to be closer to the truth than any other involved party's narrative. (In that sense the Manson Family was like the first reality TV ensemble cast – a bunch of liars telling lies to create this fog of a story.) "There was no such thing as the Manson family. It was a musical group called Family Jams!" Manson claimed at one point during the '80s. "I've done nothing but play the guitar," he said at another to disavow any wrongdoing. He also said, "I was born 1,000."
Nonsense wasn't the only thing that came out of his mouth. The roller-coaster effect comes from him often starting paragraphs in a semi-reasonable manner so that you can at least see why his mind is going to where it is, only to meltdown mid-thesis. However, he was really onto something when he commented on his celebrity, which the series of interviews in the '80s maintained and enlivened. "You're creating a legend, you're creating a beast, you're creating whatever you are judging yourselves with into the word Mason," he said. While that media coverage was understandable given the cultural weight of his crimes and his captivating persona, it served to repeatedly feed this beast, to put on a platform someone ravenous for attention. Of all the crazy things Manson said, "I'm not an entertainer, I don't entertain," really might have been the craziest.
It's liberating to laugh at a monster, to understand that every man has a capacity to be more than and contradictory to the thing that defines him. The taboo of Manson, too, boosts his appeal – appreciating him is like the intoxicating spiral of laughing in church. Perhaps it would be better to ignore him entirely, to move on with our culture and do our best to pretend like his heinous crimes never happened. But they did, and while it may provide no comfort for those to whom it matters the most – the families directly affected by his murders who still attend his and the remaining incarcerated Manson girls' parole hearings – it is somewhat therapeutic for those of us on the outside to experience that different face of Manson. His ability to entertain is his small part of good that he's contributed to the world. It is his silver lining, the sole thing that keeps his entire existence from being in vain. The world would have been a better place without Manson, but since he had to exist, his roles as the nutjob to end all nutjobs can be read as something like compensation. It's not an even trade in the slightest, but a little bit of cultural rehabilitation is better than none at all.

The Anniversary

43 years ago today some people were killed by Tex Watson and his car mates. The next day some people were killed by Tex Watson and his car mates.

These people did not deserve to die.

Steve Parent
Voytek Frykowski
Abigail Folger
Jay Sebring
Sharon Tate
Leno LaBianca
Rosemary LaBianca

The people who killed these victims were prosecuted and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court rejected the Death Penalty soon after and now they are all slowly dying in prison themselves, having outlived all of their victims.

Why these particular people were killed remains obscure.

These are the facts of the case as Officer Friday used to say.

Our mission should we decide to accept it is to try to figure out why these victims were killed so horribly, to honor their memories and allow them to rest.

Thank you for your help.

Can't We All Just Get Along, Rodney?

I'm so bummed. I hate it when people lose their shit and fight, especially over nothing. I hate it when I get dragged into it as well. You know that expression, "the only people who win are the lawyers?" When we fight in TLB land the only person who wins is Orca Tate. Orca thrives on plankton, Krispy Kremes and discord. She doesn't want truth- she wants attention. That's why she always does the same programs with the same broadcasters who are her "friends". Orca's narcissism is unbounded. She thinks she is Sharon transcombaulated back to life. How did Robin become her friend so easily after Patti died? Picture a sphincter and a tongue with Elvis performing the wedding. That's friendship.

Over the last three days there has been huffing and puffing in TLB land. There's the guy Brian Davis of Star City Radio. He has lofty goals and a brusque manner. Fine, the Col isn't polite and dainty either. He got all bent out of shape that Alisa Statman didn't want to do his radio show. Fine. She doesn't have to. But she did agree to answer questions on a few sites. That's her right, and it isn't a radio program. Maybe she's shy. I don't know. I consider her a pal and she didn't answer shit on my site. I'm not hurt. That's no big deal to me. Brian got majorly butthurt and declared a jihad on her. Attacking her book, calling her a liar, making her cry. Not cool.

This led to evilliz people like the super cool and fun Matt to defend Alisa which led to me getting in Brian's face and Cat showing up somewhere and just all kinds of bullshit.

And somewhere Orca sits, Jabba like, rubbing her hands and going "Ha Ha Solo."

I mean seriously people, let's look at the truth  (as the Col calls it)--

1- Cats is eccentric and in poor health but the work she does is incredible. She may want me to take Kanarek out on a date, but I politely ignore it and she remains great people. She had an argument with Brian Davis and whatever, they fought and they moved on ( I hope)!

2- Evil Liz fell out with Cats. She prefers the People Magazine to the stodgy NY Times approach the Col goes for. That's fine. I read her blog because it is interesting.

3- Skynyrd does fine work, makes me think. Thelma and them can be fun. I don't go on the Helter Skelter blogs just because of their thievery, but I bet it is a fun read. I miss the Yahoo group that Denise Andrade had.

4- I spoke to Davis today for a half hour. His heart is in the right place even if his meds might need some increasing. He seems to need to work on his breathing.

5- I know Alisa and she is a beautiful human being. She didn't write the book for money. She is the line producer on MODERN FAMILY. Now dig it- I don't know what she got paid for the book but I can guess and she probably makes that on two episodes of the show. She didn't do the book for money. You know why she did it? Because she loved Patti, Gwen and PJ. SHE was the closest person to PJ when he died, not Orca who seasons her shrimp intake with his ashes twice a week. Alisa. Brie wanted a tribute to her mom, Granpa and Grannie. That's why the book exists. Oh sure it isn't 100% accurate- but it TRIES and comes damn close. Nothing stops Orca and Robin (The Dark Knights Stumble) from doing their own books except their limited educations and mental defects. It's just easier to attack the book that DID get made even if it means you attack your own flesh and blood.

If you followed all of the above you are as fucked in the head as I am and need champagne immediately!!!!

Anyway, seriously CAN WE ALL STOP? Brian, lay off people please including Alisa, she is a nice lady whose heart is in the right place. Did she start off a little obsessed? Probably, but no more than you or I. But the girl fell in love along the way and everything after that is genuine. Does EvilLiz out people who want to stay in? Probably, but I cannot boo hoo for fucking say Mary Brunner who shot at cop and has never repudiated her past. Is the Col a smug asshole- sure I am and I should try not to be.

This is all a sideshow. Love Restless Souls, or no, love Alisa or no, love me or no, we all share the same goal- finding out the truth. It suits Debra for us to fight. She wants not truth- she wants to be Sharon and eat. You have questions about Restless Souls, ask Alisa and if not, fuck it don't believe it. She wasn't there. I wasn't there. The people who were there lie or won't talk.

But it feels like BUG is heading to that great courtroom in the sky soon enough. Then we will unite and demand answers, unhindered by his bullshit or vague threat of lawsuits. We need to all come together on this subject. I've always hoped for 100 TLB blogs, good ones because someone is more likely to come up with an idea I've missed.

I don't need you to love one another people. But JimNY, Debra, Robin, Wheat, these are all sad pathetic human beings. No need to love, but let's get along?

OKAY?

Reflections

You know I was reading one of the recent articles, maybe one of the ones I posted ( not going to go back and look, doesn't matter) and they referred to Cielo Drive as a HOME INVASION. Now true this was 1969 and I am not sure when I first heard the term but it was more likely than not the 90s so this is retrofitting of course.

But what word do we normally hear after "Home Invasion"? ROBBERY, right? I never heard of a Home Invasion Race War Startup, have you?

It was a robbery or drug deal burn or both. There IS a meaning to it I know there is.

Here's an idea- Tex still has hope, it hasn't been crushed. Let's get Sequiera and tell him to make a deal. Prosecute him for Shorty Shea's murder. Clem and Bruce will gladly throw him under the bus and Orcette Hoyt can misremember shit for her testimony. The charges can stick. Then offer a trade- Bug is a goner soon, tell us what really was the reasoning behind all this. If so we give you a walk on Shorty.

Guy can't live without hope and this sure would crush it.

I'd say the same thing on Davis on Gaul but I don't think he'd do it.

Any takers?

Did ANYONE notice this shit?

Evilliz links to the once defunct CieloDrive.com which has awoken of late


Here

This is some of Bruce's testimony from his Parole Hearing 2010-

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WELCH: They write you a very supportive letter. Judith DeVos writes you a supportive letter. Robert Grumminger?

INMATE DAVIS: Gremminer.

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER WELCH: G-R-E-M-M-I-N-E-R, writes you a very supportive letter. G. T. McKee writes you a supportive letter. Larry Harkman writes you a supportive letter. Pastor Bill Duane writes you a supportive letter.

INMATE DAVIS: Yes.

-----

Zabasearch a very popular people site search says that there is no such name in the United States.

There is however a Robert Gremminger- here

On Thursday November 6, 1997, a San Jose jury composed of 7 white women, 2 white men, 2 Latinas, and 1 Asian American woman found former white San Jose Fire Captain Robert Gremminger guilty of 1) involuntary manslaughter and 2) carrying a weapon without a permit. Gremminger could face up to fourteen years in prison.

Former San Jose Fire Captain Robert Gremminger had been charged with second degree murder for the shooting and killing of Anthony Lamont Gilbert, an unarmed African American man at the Great Mall of Milpitas on October 24, 1996.

Many members of the African American community were outraged by the verdict. In a joint press release, the San Jose Branch of the NAACP, the San Jose Million Man March, and the Human Rights Defense Committee stated:

“We are outraged by the jury’s findings. We firmly believe that had there been even one African American juror, the results may have been different. Today’s verdict shows that it's still perfectly acceptable for an individual to act as “judge, jury, and executioner” in Santa Clara County. Gremminger acted as a vigilante in the shooting and killing of Anthony Lamont Gilbert who was an unarmed African American man at the Great Mall of Milpitas.”

I am not saying this is the same guy writing letters of support for Bruce Davis. I mean, why would he want letters from a racist killer...oh wait. But Ben Lomond is near where he wants to settle down. Hmmmmm...

Independence Day

July 4, 1969

Kasabian meets Gypsy and Tex.
Tex gives Kasabian a super orgasm which he calls ego death.
Linda tells Tex about Melton and his $5k.
She agrees to steal it and does on the 5th.

Charlie approves of Linda's legs.
Linda moves in with Tex.

(Of course we have only the self serving, Bug designed testimony for a true timeline. But even from day one Linda feels more like TEX'S Girl. Seems more likely that Tex wanted her there not Charlie. And you can scream you didn't know what was going to happen all you fucking like, a definite clue was Tex climbing up the phone pole. An incontrovertible clue is Tex shooting and slashing Parent. I mean at that point, self delusion or not I am running down Cielo Drive as fast as I can. Not Linda.)

Independence Day for Linda from her husband and Happy Day to all of us!

CRazy TimE !!!!

Now I am just thinking aloud here. Don't listen to anything I have to say. But wouldn't it be CRAZY if it turned out that there were people out there who hold themselves up as victims and say that they should be felt sorry for and then it turned out that they did illegal shit too?

I mean suppose the defining moment of your life was a hamburger you ate back in the early 1970s. Since that time you ate at the Hometown Buffet and became a fat pig of a person who showed up places claiming to have heard screams you could not possibly have heard....

Or suppose you were an obsessed homophobe with an burning need to be "besties" with a dead starlet's sister. Any Sister will do of course. Consumed with hate and a need for attention, would you ever use your mad computer skills to illegally hack sites?

Or worse yet, suppose you were the sister of a tragic murder victim, who spends her days living off the money from a supposed postal incident, turning up for any interview, showing off your dead sister's gowns while using one teaspoon a day of your father's ashes for your cappuccino, telling yourself you could have been a star too if only the drug dealers at Cielo had kept their promises to you when you were 16.

Wouldn't it be FUCKING CRAZY TIME if they did something that ended up with them arrested and in jail?

Oh snap- anyone notice that the anti-eviliz blog is shut down?
Do mad computer hackers not realize google has it all and responds to supoenas?

The above is just me relaxing and speculating. Ain't no thing.

Somewhere a Mailman and a Mistress Raise their Ears to the Wind

Charles Manson Prosecutor
Hospitalized
After Cancer Surgery

Exclusive TMZ

The man who put Charles Manson in prison is currently hospitalized in California, following complications from cancer surgery ... TMZ has learned.

Former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's wife tells TMZ, her husband underwent surgery back in April for stage 2 cancer.

According to his wife, the surgery appeared to be successful at first, but Vincent experienced complications shortly after, and was admitted to the ICU. Vincent's wife wouldn't specify the nature of the complications.

Vincent's wife adds, "He has been in very bad shape for some time. He regained consciousness this week, finally starting to be on the road to recovery. He's going to be in rehab for a long time."

Vincent left the ICU last week but is still hospitalized.

Thanks to Vincent's badassness back in the day -- Charles Manson was convicted of seven murders in 1971 and sentenced to death. Manson's death sentence was reduced to life in prison a year later when California abolished the death penalty.

77-year-old Manson's latest request for release was denied in April -- and since he's not up for parole again for another 15 years, chances are he'll die behind bars.