Yup! By request. I'm not kidding. If you missed yesterday's post about stupid fonts (And why did you? Why aren't you waiting on tenterhooks for my every post?), then you also missed the request by fan Gothic Toggs for me to go ahead and post my thoughts on old Charlie.

Yeah, I know. You're shocked on multiple levels. Somebody wants my opinion on a topic? On a controversial topic? People want to discuss Charles Manson? There are people who missed my blog post yesterday? (Yes, I'm going to harp on that. Deal with it.)

Of course, I could have saved this for another day, but... seeing as today is August 8th (the anniversary of the Tate murders for those of you who do not know such trivia off the top of your heads), I decided I would do a double blog post.

You might want to get a drink and settle into the comfy chair. This will be a long one. Don't blame me. It was requested.



Look at that face. Ok - not too long. I don't want to be responsible for nightmares or anything. But really, in this pic anyway, does this look like the face of Evil? Creepy, yes. Dirty, yes. Would you want to cross the street to avoid him, probably. But not the personification of evil that he has become.

Just your average run of the mill weirdo. And yet, somehow this diminutive little wacko managed to brainwash a slew of teens and young adults into perpetrating all kinds of crimes for him, including murder.

How did he do that? That's what has always mystified me. A lot of these kids were runaways and kids with problems, but many of them were from good homes and had the benefit of good educations. You can only blame so much of it on drugs. Somewhere in there is your own brain and your own free will.

Of course, spending the majority of his life on the streets and in and out of prison, Mason learned to BS and con people at an early age. It was his bread and butter. If he couldn't con, he didn't eat outside of prison. But to convince dozens of women to live together, basically as slaves doing your bidding, and the men in the group not much better? That's more than a con. I think, aside from gift of the Blarney, Mason had a lot of things working in his favor, as odd as that sounds.

In the Summer of Love, he set himself up as a guru of sorts in Haight-Ashbury and there he gathered his first members of what would become his Family. Stories differ as to the exact details, but Manson and his followers, mostly female, traveled around California and Mexico, gathering new flock into the fold. Some say it was an old school bus, some say VW Van, but really, does it matter?

It was a time when young people in this country were divided in so many ways. Divided from their parents who couldn't understand their new way of looking at the world. Divided from authority figures who wouldn't see the rights of people the way they saw it. Divided from former friends who clung to traditional outlooks and divided from a world they couldn't seem to find their place in. So many of them went in search of something. Themselves, each other, meaning, purpose. Who knows? And for an unfortunate number, they seemed to believe Charlie and his Family was what they had been searching for.

And yes, drugs did help Charlie. Especially ones that were habit forming, and even more so the ones that were hallucinogens. Those made it much easier to impress upon them his vision of the world, the afterlife and their divine purpose.

Now, I'm going to assume (yeah, I know what they say about assuming) that most of you know about how Manson used the Bible, Native American beliefs and folklore, Nietzsche and even The Beatles to influence and convince his followers that he was a prophet sent to lead them to the land of milk and honey. And if you don't... *sigh* you have the internet - use it! Some of the members even believed he was Jesus Christ (I'm sorry, but even on a good day, if I thought Charles Manson was Jesus Christ, God would have a lot to answer for.) He was gifted at weaving tales that made this band of misfits and lost sheep feel they had a purpose, a Divine purpose. That they mattered. That they were worth something, just as they were, without having to fit into anyone's conventional ideas of what was normal or appropriate. It's hard to imagine something like that having much pull on someone today. But then again, it's hard to imagine our country mourning a president the way they did Kennedy. And no, that's not a shot at Obama or anything. I just mean it was such a different time, different people, outlooks, values. Despite the Vietnam War, we were much more naive and innocent as a people than we are now.

The sad part of it, other than the deaths of all those innocent people, is when you consider things objectively, you realize how very smart Manson had to be to orchestrate everything. To assemble such a large group, to keep control over them, even when he wasn't around. To get them to do things that would once have been so against their nature. And even have some of them stand by him when everything came to light. Frankly, like it or not, that is one very intelligent psycho. What might have become of him with a normal family life as a child? With love, affection, education, encouragement and opportunities? Would he still have ended up one of the most notorious criminals of our time?

Who knows? But certainly anger at feeling the world was stacked against him played a major role in his outlook on life. Charlie was owed. He was going to be someone. Someone important. Well, he succeeded, didn't he?


Poor Sharon Tate, Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Steven Parent, Gary Hinman, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca and all the other victims of Mason and his followers.

Such horrible, senseless waste.

Aren't you glad you asked?