"I'm from Juvenile Hall. I'm from the line of people nobody wants. I'm from the street. I'm from the alley. Mainly I'm from solitary confinement."*
(*From journalist Steve Alexander's interview with Charles Manson, conducted decades ago, entitled "Tuesday's Child." The courts reportedly suspended Manson's telephone privileges shortly after Alexander's interview.)
Yeah, so I was about to start typing this entry and had settled upon Charlie Manson's demise, but then a TV news bulletin popped up and a voice announced that another Charlie, broadcaster Charlie Rose, had just been given the boot by both CBS-TV and PBS-TV after (at least) eight women came forward and charged him with abuse, one or more even alleging how he paraded around them nude! Thank GOD Al Franken's first name isn't Charlie, I just don't have space for multiple perv Charlies today. The very thought of an image of Rose cavorting naked before a surprised audience of even one is enough to send me off into the woods screaming, but I decided to calm myself and proceed with Plan A.
When Manson's "family" conducted its murderous invasions in 1969, I remained pretty much unaware of the carnage, for I was tucked into a Texas Air Force hospital during the day and usually ended up too tired to pay attention to the day's events as portrayed in the newspapers.
Years later, curious about Manson's lesser reputation as a song writer -- ultimately a reputation of no consequence whatsoever, though he might have had a doomed appearance on American Idol today -- I discovered there were LPs and CDs released by Awareness Records (entitled, "LIE") featuring, essentially, Manson's greatest singing/guitar hits. Of course, as I discovered upon procuring a CD, they overwhelmingly suck.
We've mentioned these songs in previous years, adorned with titles such as: Look at Your Game Girl, People Say I'm No Good, I'll Never Say Never to Always -- and my personal favorite title, Garbage Dump. If Charlie, now dead at age 83, hadn't used his alleged Svengali attributes for pure evil, he'd have made a great John Waters film actor (which reminds me that an early Waters film displayed a wall carrying the message, "Free Tex Watson," an imprisoned Manson follower).
But how did an odd little sociopath, a devious nobody like Charles Manson, born of a prostitute, acquire the street smarts to exert such a defining, hypnotic hold over both women and men anxious to do his bidding? Why would anybody hitch their wagon to such a man?
Maybe for the same reasons that fawning crowds would pursue, say, a medical doctor who promises his flock that flashlight beams attract UFOs?
"Being crazy used to mean something," Manson once responded when ABC-TV's Diane Sawyer asked if he was crazy. Replying that he was indeed crazy, he added somewhat wistfully, as if lamenting a special personal attribute stolen away by society, "These days, everybody's crazy."
So now Charlie Manson, the enduring monster, is dead, his rep overshadowed by a mainstream media busily devoted instead to Hollywood and political sexual abuse allegations -- the kind of stuff the charming Manson Family would have chomped on for breakfast, spit out and forgotten about long before sunrise.
And speaking about people exerting a strange hold over us. . .just a few entries ago, I wrote with some encouragement about rock star Tom Delonge's new project in which he seemed to express a serious interest in finding out once and for all what UFOs are. Today, I'm not so encouraged. In an interview with Joe Rogan, reported via researcher Isaac Koi, UFO Chronicles (see link) and other sources, Delonge comes off sounding more like a member of the woo-woo, gee-whiz community, too easily led, than somebody scientifically rooted in facts. We would love to be wrong about the future of his project, but voices more in touch with current UFO research information than I appear increasingly cautious. This revelation has rattled me so much that I can't even remember what number Blink was.
Shoplifting in China: Well, at first I was really burning about three UCLA basketball players who embarrassed the USA by allegedly stealing things from merchants in China. But then the truth hit me harder than watching Al Franken grab a boob -- the Chinese have been "shoplifting" our technical information, military secrets and loads more of our "intellectual property" for decades, so we really don't care if future visitors find opportunities to rob these international thieves blind. Case closed.
From Russia with Less: Wow, what'up in Russia? Barely a day or two after I mentioned how my Russian readership consistently surpasses that of all other countries, Russia's stat totals plunged. Today, they're ALL gone, even a title listing for Russia. This is most peculiar. Where did you all go? Who are you? Are you all just Vladimir clicking on the site multiple times? Or were you here only for the link list? Were you all dispatched to Siberia, or is censorship going on from either my end or yours?
Anyway, could be that my Russian collusion has concluded. I'll miss them! Ah, the crickets of the night, what beautiful music they make. However, I remain intrigued about this turn of events.
