Charlie At 75…Is This The Face of The Contrite & The Ailing?

Photo THELMA AND LOUISE PART II

Hardly, huh?

Have you noticed a pattern with most career criminals/murderers?

‘Cause I have.

They seem to thrive, to blossom and grow, instead of shrink, weaken or diminish from the destructive energy they have wrought during and after their crimes.

I had mentioned in passing to my Mother, you know, the wife of the cop, that yesterday it was The Soul’s birthday, and as wives of cops do, she nodded in disgust and as usual conversations go with this upright Mother of mine, humoured me as she prayed for the conversation to end.

I said that I had no plans to talk about it on TLB2 and she said, “Good, because it’s blogs like yours which give this creep his fame!”

I stared at her, gulped, hovered over by the coffee maker for a minute as I poured another mug full, my mind now drawing a blank, in terms of a lofty retort.

The statement, in some fashion, was true enough. But not a complete one.

After losing my deer-in-the–headlights shock at what she said, I said, “No, Mom, not anymore than a blog spot on Hitler gives Neo-Nazis any more fame. Some topics just have to be discussed, for if only to remind others not to repeat history.”

But, before this familial mini-debate began, I had already decided to let this date slide by. I pretty much had made my mind up to not celebrate the birthday of a man who was convicted of stealing other peoples’ birthdays.

‘Nuf said.

I left my Mom to her baking and her black & white world while I headed back to my house, and my lap top, and my oh so grey existence.

I, of course, had to admit, that on some level, my Mom was right, and that, of course, miffed me in ways I cannot fully describe here, but I let the dust settle on that annoying fact, until I got a “Hi MsBurb” from THELMA AND LOUISE PART II.

“Hi, right back at ya!” I said, and thought, oh yeah, it’s been a while. I’ll trod on over to that informative site and see what’s up.

And so I did. And it was then that I saw it. The photo. That photo.

Of a man, the face of evil for many, the harmless hippie guru to some, the mystery of the Unknown yet to others, and to me, Soul at 75.

And what a photo is was too! This guy looked like Papa Hemingway meets John Houston! Neatly groomed with all that astute-looking white/grey hair, an artsy-fartsy scarf and those Hollywood shades. If I didn’t know better, this little dude looked like he had just come from a photo shoot off the coast of Majorca!

This could have been the photo of someone important and influential instead of someone so very infamous.

Was this the face of Evil? Not really, or at least, not what you’d expect.

Was this the face of a contrite, withering, aging old man, who now after decades of punishment is but a bleak blemish on the face of Life, suffering from the ravages of guilt and self-loathing? Hardly.

Debra Tate looks worse than Charlie today, and in some ways Charlie today looks better than he did in ‘69! The aging is evident, the anger more pronounced but a survivor’s spirit more powerful now than ever before.

While time has been anything but good to the Tate-LaBianca killers, all of whom are on average a decade younger than their leader, Bobby, Susan, Pat, Tex, Leslie, and Linda, have definitely been physically and mentally wrecked by their past misdeeds.

Charlie, on the other hand, seems to have thrived, to have grown, to have blossomed in his life-long career as a professional convict, no signs of guilt, no stresses, no strains, just a man in his later years confident now more than ever, that the world in which he has always lived has always been right, for him. At least.

Must be nice to be that confident, I said jealously to myself.

The victims of those nights of murders have received Justice in the decades long withering of the killers themselves, but if they were ever seeking Justice from the man who lead the killers to kill, that Justice, as evidenced by this photo today, will never come to pass.

This is where man’s ability to place judgment on another man, beyond the realm of law, must be left to a higher Being, that maybe in this Life, the confident criminal is left to thrive. Maybe in the next, who knows.

If there is such a thing as a parallel universe, the one in which Charlie lives must be a perfect example to our own. What is considered wrong in ours, must not be wrong in his, and if we hope to see the ravages of our punishment on a man who lives not in our world, our efforts will continually be in vain.

If any of you, including me, were holding our breath for that punishment to show, we better exhale because that day, if it’s not here now, will never be.

Happy Heavenly Birthdays This Year To:

Gary Allen Hinman

Steven Earl Parent
Thomas John Kummer “Jay Sebring”
Wojiciech”Voytek” Frykowski
Abigail Anne “Gibby” Folger
Sharon Marie (Tate) Polanski
Paul Richard Polanski
Pasqualino Antonio "Leno" LaBianca
Rosemary (nee' Ruth Katherine Elliott/Rosemary Harmon,Struthers) LaBianca
Donald Jerome “Shorty” Shea

Charles Denton “Tex” Watson…The Man Behind The Monster Part Four – The Interviews, Part A

Not many over the years but what there has been, well, they’ve been truly telling, I must say.

They all were read and absorbed and left for the most part a severe confusion, that Tex, I guess, was as zombie-like and brain-dead as Susan Atkins was to her death.

But, for just one second, in an interview Tex did on his experience with meeting Suzan LaBerge, for one teeny, weenie second, I saw Tex’s eyes flicker and falter when he commented that he has completely accepted responsibility for his “crime”…singular…sanitized description (view it for yourself!)

It was like seeing an epiphany really, that one of these brutal knife wielders had a moment of self-doubt, a moment of uncertainty, possibly a moment of fear - a truly human emotion - that maybe God has certain expectations of killers after they die, that forgiveness is earned and not just a birth-right.

Tex’s eyes flickered and filtered and I knew, right at that very moment , that what these born-again killers had been proselytizing for decades was even to them, at least to those who had enough soul to accurately assess their situation, not a wholly accepted ideology.

THANK GOD!

…was all I thought. Thank God that there is some humanity visible in at least one of these killers. That they aren’t just the sum total of mindless smiles and crocodile tears; that there possibly is still a soul lying within that polished exterior which shows me that their past, present and future has not and will not be anything but full of bliss and serenity.

In that one moment, at 2:56 into the video, I saw the excruciating pain and the agony that the victims had endured, if only for an instant, but what undoubtedly has been a lifetime’s worth of tortured sleeps and horrifying nightmares, when these killers have been alone, lights out, lying on their hard cots, staring up at the cement ceiling, I knowing now that at least Tex Watson has replayed those nights like a pathetic made-for-TV movie, a constant and unrelenting replay of each blow and each scream, knowing that beyond their now acceptance of God, the harsh reality that God has chosen them to relive those moments over and over until He sees fit to free them from those nights.

Yes, I saw all that in the teeny, weenie flicker of Tex’s eyes.

From Patricia Krenwinkel you get sentence hesitations, where when an emotion is about to over-take her, she prevents it from entering her consciousness by stopping mid sentence to regain her composure, to tell the facts without the feeling, each and every time.

From Leslie, you get embarrassment, as if she’d been caught at the High School prom with her panties down behind the bleachers, that what she had participated in forty years ago was only deserving of that kind of emotion.

From Susan, well, a straight transfer of her God-complex from one guru to another – Charlie as JC to JC Himself – that chick went to her death bed needing to latch onto a male leader figure, as if not succeeding in said, she would dissolve into the nothingness she knew she was.

From Bobby, well, according to ones who have interviewed him in the flesh, his bravado and machismo are protecting him from his past, his love of music sugar-coating his actions and his weakness to be accepted. Sad really, that someone who looked so handsome and had such talent, succumbed to such an immature failing.

Maybe that’s why I have had such a difficult time talking on Tex, as if there was something missing in all that I knew of the boy in the man’s body. It was the God complex that has been getting in the way….

The Man Behind The Monster Will Continue…

“Ballarat Or Bust”…Chapter Thirteen…

Things seemed to kind of fall into a routine.

All the provisions were bought and stored in caves all over the desert near Barker. The field phone lines were laid, the look-out bunkers were dug (great chore to give Sadie!) and everyone’s defences started to lower after a time, that no fuzz had come up to question The Family of late, on any of their nefarious activities, much less the
L.A .murders.

But not everyone was as blissful as Charlie had thought.

“Hey Charlie, are you plannin’ on sendin’ anyone to Ballarat for some perishables, as the girls are tellin’ me we’re getting low on dairy and such?” asked Bruce, as the two leaned on the chassis of another broken dune buggy engine.

“Well Hell Bruce, Paul and them guys just went down! And we’re low already? Shit! Too many people to feed now. Too many, Man, and they keep wanderin’ in too. I swear George is sending us every walk-in weirdo he finds on his boardwalk down in town, up here!” yelled Charlie, as he threw a wrench down on the dusty ground, the heavy metal making a thudding sound as it landed.

“Charlie, listen, I was gonna go into town anyhow, to meet up with those guys who have that stash to sell. Why don’t I just pick up the list the girls have made?” offers Bruce.

“Yeah, sure, I don’t give a s---. Just stop throwing all this crap on my lap. I got enough on my plate as it is. These damn dune buggies keep getting sand in the fuel lines and the engines die. Tex is trying to manufacture a better filter but I’ve got more buggies down than going, and if we gotta split fast, we’re f—ked!” barked Charlie.

“Yeah, okay, I’ll handle it. You need any supplies for the buggies while I’m gone? asked Bruce.

“Talk to Tex. He knows what we need.” was all Charlie said as he grabbed the wrench that was stilling laying in the sand and leaned over the engine once more.

“Okay, okay, thanks Charlie.” Bruce sheepishly offered and walked in the direction of the bunkhouse where some of the guys were getting high.

As the afternoon wore on and everyone went their separate ways after the evening meal, Bruce took his customary stroll with Sharon, up along the bluff over looking the Panamint Range and the valley below, well away from Charlie’s prying eyes, as he and Tex had taken off to test the rebuilt engines of two of the buggies.

Bruce and Sharon sat on the western end of that bluff almost until nightfall, the longest time they had ever spent alone together.

No one knows what was said or what they did but some of the Family noticed their absence around the camp fire that night.

As the pair finally strolled back to the house, they chose not to join the gang at that fire and went instead to their own beds, for an unusually early night.

Morning came, as it always did in the Panamint Range, dry, hot, with a brilliant laser blue sky, well over 100 degrees even before noon.

Today, the girls got together at Barker and took a complete inventory so they could give tell Bruce exactly what would be needed to feed the gang for the next month.

We hoped to not bother Charlie with another food-run to Ballarat as he was gettin’ hotter under the collar every time we asked to spend more money. We still had tens of thousands from Sharon’s “bequeath” but Charlie was a tight-fisted sonofabitch!

In the distance, Sandy and Brenda could see a figure approach their Myers ranch hideout from the Barker ranch side, a lone figure walking slowly, kind of bent over, in what looked like heavy thought as he walked. As the figure grew near, they saw it was Bruce. They hoped it was a good sign and not a bad one.

“How’re ya doin’ out here?” he asked as he strode the last few feet up the Myers main house drive where the girls had the two babies under the two large trees that gave shade to the front yard.

“We’re okay. How’re things up there?” Sandy’s question a bit hesitant, probably hoping that Charlie hadn’t got into one of his rages again.

“Fine, fine. Just came by to see if you gals had a list for me and Paul. Charlie has given the okay for one more Ballarat run, and this one had better be the last for the next month, as he’s just too uptight to okay stuff with him anymore. I don’t know what’s got him so hot under the collar right now; all I know it this is the last run that I’ll be willing to ask of him, at least until the final one before the winter season sets in.” said Bruce, lighting a cigarette as he spoke. He often smoked away from Charlie as Soul didn’t approve of the nicotine fix everybody was craving.

”Brenda, are you and Sandy having any problems with pests down here?” asked Bruce.

“Oh Bruce, we’re swamped with those desert rats! We put the babies down for a nap yesterday and when we looked in on them, one had crawled in their crib! Can you ask that old coot who runs the General Store down there for something we can use to get rid of these monsters?” pleaded Brenda.

“Yeah, sure. Charlie had already pestered me to get some stuff the last time Paul and I went down but the guy had to order it in. I’ll pick up whatever he’s ordered, okay. Anything else, you Mommies need?”

“Will Charlie okay suntan lotion for the babies, do ya think? Ivan is actually blistering on his forehead from the sun and little Scorpio the same.” added Sandy.

“Don’t worry about Soul, I’ll get you the lotion.” were the last words Bruce said as he was handed their “Wish List” scribbled on a crumpled piece of paper and lumbered back west towards Barker, one quarter mile in those cowboy boots of his was no easy task.

As Bruce made it back to Barker, I had got the list from tex of the dune buggy parts that were needed, loaded the Jeep with a couple guns, three water jugs and some tools and a couple of sleeping bags in case we broke down. After the girls gave us their final lists, we took off, cutting it mighty close to reach Ballarat before sundown.

As we drove away, Bruce took a glance in the rear view mirror to see that the Girls were waving bye. As the jeep jumped and putted and slowly crept away, headed for the Wash, Bruce could see that everyone had gone back into the main ranch house, in preparation for their daily sit-down meal of rice and veg.

But one woman, one woman remained, standing there at the edge of the Barker gate, waving back.

That one woman was Sharon.

The Saga Continues...

The Perfect Storm of Murder…40 Years and Counting…

  The early 70s were the worst.

Enough time had gone by to put to rest the damage from the initial storm surge, and now we were all waiting for the ripple-effects…that subsequent tsunami that never came…

Vince eludes to it in his book “Helter Skelter”.

Actor, George DiCenzo alludes to it in the television version.

Sociologists, psychologists, heck, even columnists were all warning us back then.

But the tsunami never did come.

The Perfect Storm of Murder rolled in, and rolled back out, leaving a wake of psychological destruction in its midst. But only calm remained, and the sorrow of course, but only the calm and the peace and the quiet remained…

Why?

Why, after fearing that like-minded Hippies all over North America would again repeat the wanton acts of The Manson Family, did that Perfect Storm of Murder never reoccur?

It’s been over forty years, and cults and their gurus have come and gone but no one group has ever laid to waste as many innocent lives as were laid bare for destruction on those pitiful nights in August…

Why?

Why no repeat? Why no copy-cats? Why no pandemic of Hippie attackers we all had so feared?

Why?

Quite possibly, all those years ago, after trying all The Family killers, Vince Bugliosi read them right the first time…

That, you can have a charismatic leader who loves the world in which he lives.

That you can have a follower who has a hatred for that same world.

But it is extremely rare to have a charismatic leader who hates the world and lives only to use his powers of persuasion to vent his spleen on society.

Adolf Hitler.

Osama bin Laden.

Charlie Manson.

Most leaders of cults end up doing damage only to their own following, taking the rage they have for society and venting it inward, suicide pacts usually being the end result.

There are many followers who have a hatred for the society in which they live but have no innate powers to convince others to join their cause and as a result, that hatred only festers inside, destroying only that one man from within.

Many charismatic would-be leaders see the good this world has to offer and use their powers of persuasion to gain followers in support of the betterment of society. Powerful though they may be, that power is used only for Good, not Evil, so nobody gets hurt in the process.

But on those rare occasions, whether from Nature, or Nurture, or from a unique combination of both, an individual will be born and will posses alluring qualities which he or she uses only to destroy, only to hurt, only to kill.

Vince said as much in his book, all those years ago, and of course he was right.

I doubt he lost sleep wondering when a new and like-minded group would emerge from the shadows and invade our world once again. He knew that that combination of power and rage was a wholly rarefied one, and that undoubtedly we might go decades before another such demagogue would appear to wreak havoc on us all.

But behind the reasoning, and the odds, the question still lingers, doesn’t it?

As Charlie grows ever older and the time comes when he eventually leaves this Earth for good, one wonders if another just as popular, just as powerful guru is being born to inherit the title of  The Most Dangerous Man Alive.

Will we recognize him in time?

Will we know how to take this battered child and remould him into a force for Good instead of Evil?

Will the weak-minded among us know not to follow such hatred and destruction?

And if they don’t know, will they at least know to drop those guns and knives before anyone gets hurt?

It’s been over forty years, usually the time period between really large storms in California.

Bereft of Manson Family ripple-effects as we have been, will the next big storm be as perfect and therefore as devastating as the last? Or worse?

If you live in Bel Air, consider taking your vacation in August from now on, and not on a boat!

The clock keeps ticking…and the waves keep rolling in….