Showing posts with label the cake is a lie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the cake is a lie. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2020

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties

Notes section: pg. 455. 2019 edition, hardcover.

133 "And they said, probably not": Melcher was less kind in his mother's biography, writing: "The cops said that five or six of the Manson girls claimed that Manson had set me up with them and that I was the father of their babies. I finally got so fed up with the cops over these sex inquiries that I got out the pictures of the most recent ladies in my life, real beauties all of them, and I said, "Listen, when I've got beauties like these to get in bed with, why would I want to screw any of Manson's clap-ridden, unwashed dogs?" (A. E. Hotchner, Doris Day [New York: Bantam, 1976], 247. 

Sheesh. 

My notes for the song, section of a book, or book club meeting.

Chapter 2: "In California, Everyone Has a Tan". I just liked the subsection title

pg. 79: "I suggested that I didn't believe him (Charles Talcot. Drug dealer. Ties to military intelligence) about (Corrine) Calvet (actress). "You are going to come to a horrible truth," he  said. "Be nervous that you may have discovered the truth and you won't like it". Also Talcot same paragraph: "The community has looked at this as a settled thing until you started talking to us."

pg. 110: I had to look up what "Toscanini of Tedium" meant.

Chapter 7. pg. 229: "Even (William H. - LAPD officer and "helped with counterintelligence actions") Herrmann's ephemera captivated me. Cindy (Herrmann's daughter) had held on to a photo of dozens of men on an airplane, captioned, "'Bad guys leaving a bad spot having been bad."

pg. 255 "My lawyer is coming soon...and he's bringing me a dish of vanilla ice cream. Vanilla ice cream really blows my mind" - Susan Atkins (convicted murderer).

  • In April 2002, she (Atkins) told a Los Angeles Times reporter of her work to discourage teenagers from idolizing Manson and her hope of someday leaving prison to live in Laguna Beach, California. - Moxley, R. Scott (13 June 2008). "Charles Manson Gal Could Get Laguna Beach Wish". OC Weekly.
Chapter 9: pg. 283: "One other strange fact that bears mentioning, even though I've never known what to make of it. Six months after the Ukiah trial, one of the judges, Robert Winslow, lost his reelection bid to the bench - in no small part, according to one insider, because of his leniency with the Manson girls.  Winslow resurfaced in Los Angeles. Remarkably, he'd become the attorney for Doris Day and her son, Terry Melcher. It was Winslow who prepped Melcher for his appearances at the Tate-LaBianca trial, and Winslow who accompanied him in the courtyard as he testified, incorrectly, about the number of times he'd met Manson. Ironically, Winslow was helping Melcher speak out against the same group he'd helped the year before. Neither he nor Melcher ever made a public comment about the sheer unlikeliness of it all.

Chapter 13. pg 425: "In 2012, I became one of the dozen authors Penguin sued for failing to deliver manuscripts." 
Epilogue pg 429: "In my twenty years of reporting on this case, people have asked me all the time: What do you think really happened? I hate that question more than anything" I assume that is a Tom O'Neill quote or it could have come from mind of Dan Piepenbring.

back to the Notes section... for something I planned on skipping I did highlight a lot of the passages.

Notes:
pg. 443 - Chapter 1, 18 Steven Parent. "At the top of the driveway they found Steven Parent: I uncovered ample evidence suggesting that Parent's relationship with William Garretson was significantly different than the one depicted at trial and in Helter Skelter, including the purpose of his visit to the guesthouse on August 8, 1969".

pg. 445 - Chapter 2, 53 William Garretson. "sound tests that supported Garretson: The police, nonetheless , were hardly convinced, as noted in the LAPD First Homicide Investigation Progress Report, DR 69-059-593 (p 29): "It is highly unlikely that Garretson was not aware of the screams, gunshots and other turmoil that would result from a multiple homicide such as it took place in his near proximity," Stephen Kay told me he believed Garretson had fled the guesthouse during the murders and hid in the hills above the house. In interviews with me and other reporters before his death in 2017, Garretson claimed that he'd recovered memories of the night of the murders after seeing a reenactment on television in the 1990s. He believed he'd been picked up by associates of the killers who were casing the house earlier that evening. He added that Barry Tarlow, the attorney who represented him at the time of his arrest, had said he'd been sent "by a friend," refusing to identify who that "friend" was. (Tarlow's office confirmed that he had been sent by a "friend," but insisted he wasn't paid and never learned the friend's identity.)

pg. 446 - Chapter 3, 57. "Denny's parking lot". I placed a sticky note next to Denny's parking lot. Will there be a Denny's in the future? Things go down in the parking lot.

pg. 446 - 65. I intend to look up the article "Exec Comes Full Circle After Descent into Despair" by Peter Bart (February 8, 1993). Variety. https://variety.com/1993/voices/columns/exec-comes-full-circle-after-descent-into-despair-1117859405/

pg. 451 - still Chapter 3, 100. "she pursued a romance with Jay Sebring: Carole Wilson, LAPD interview, #66, by Gilmore, August 15, 1969, which includes: "Miss Wilson states she slept with Sebring at his home off and on for the past two years." No judging, sex positive here. The 60's man.

pg. 455 - Chapter 4 "The holes in Helter Skelter", 133. See first note.

pg. 455, 136. "... The second arrest, according to Melcher's first police interview (LAPD Interview, #231, by Patchett, Nov. 31 [sic], 1969), occurred on his and Jakobson's third visit to the Spahn Ranch. LAPD detective Frank Patchett wrote, "It was on that visit that the three were stopped by LA Country sheriffs and Jakobson was arrested for a ticket. Melcher bailed him out." It seemed curious to me that there was actually a sheriff's officer at the Spahn Ranch who arrested Jakobson during his and Melcher's "final" visit to Manson in May 1969.

pg. 456. Chapter 4, 145. "he had at least one accomplice: Gleason timeline; the applicable entry reads: 7-26-69: Dave Ewing knocks on front door of Gary Hinman's home, Susan Atkins answers door carrying candle, said Hinman in Colorado. (He was being tortured at the time.) Creepy. Is this the 60's, too? People answering the door holding a candle? Yikes.

pg. 473, Chapter 8, 261. "...A decade later, in Carl Bernstein's groundbreaking exposé , "The CIA and the Media" (Rolling Stone, Oct 20, 1977), Bernstein reported that "CBS was unquestionably the CIA's most valuable asset," adding, "over the years the network provided cover for CIA employees, including at least one well-known foreign correspondent and several stringers" (61).

pg. 474, 261 (still 261.) Book interested me. Well at least the author and title interested me. A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History by Joan Mellen.   
pg. 493, Chapter 11 Mind Control, 369. "Deanyer had learned hypnosis in the navy: A FOIA to the FBI resulted in the release of forty-seven heavily redacted pages of a forty-nine-page file (FOIPA no. 0961945-000). The file confirmed that Deanyer, born Burnie William Smith Jr, on June 3, 1934, in Wheeling, West Virginia, learned hypnotism while stationed in Pearl Harbor with the U.S. Navy, between 1942 and 1946. After changing his name and opening the Deanyer School of Hypnotism in Honolulu, he was indicted in 1956 on charges of sex trafficking underage girls. At his trial, prosecutors presented evidence that he'd used hypnotism to induce female students at his school to become prostitutes. Several police officers testified that when they interviewed the victims they still "appeared to be in a trance and would say nothing [redacted] and refused to testify against him." Fascinating. FOIA: Freedom of Information Act. FOIPA: Freedom of Information/Privacy Act.

I'll go back and fix the html codes. With the new blogger template I am unable to save the edited links. The Boston Bruins play game 4 in eight hours. I wonder if anyone on the team is up? I wonder if anyone is still up from playing video games. Well if anyone is up I hope they are on the Bolts. 

"There Is A Whole Lot Of Patrick Beverley Drama Surrounding The NBA Players Meeting." Greenberg, Dan. (August 28, 2020) Barstool Sports. There are moles everywhere.

Articles:
Williams, Alex (July 28, 2019). "Journalist Misses His Deadline on Manson Article. By 20 Years." The NY Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/28/style/charles-manson-book.html
  • "Williams: Any advice for other reporters who want to pick up the story where you left off? O'Neill: Just move on. Don’t make the same mistake I did."

Friday, August 28, 2020

There are no coincidences

I have to read fifty more pages of this book but I need to jot my thoughts down. I'm in the second installment of a citywide lockdown. The Summer interlude. The Summer soliloquy. On my last day at work, which was a Wednesday, a song played and gave me the chills. I then had a conversation with Kathleen discussing the book that I am currently reading. I told her the connection between the song that played and the book. Now I don't remember the song. All of their songs sound alike, and it's not RHCP, but I know the name of the band and that is good enough for me. Kathleen is the same lady who brought up a conversation about Harry Potter. I didn't realize, until later after I got home and was about to take a shower, that she brought up HP because I was wearing a Gryffindor shirt at the time. The next time I saw her I told her so. I'm trying to remember the book Kathleen is reading. Something about The Dakota building in New York and a family saga. The author wrote a book about the Lions in front of the NY Public Library. I do some research. I found the public library online store. I do want a tote bag with the words, "What are you reading now?". Goodreads. Goodreads won't let me down. I search books about The Dakota building. Yes, I do want to read "Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop" by Marc Myers. Will this help me finish my low branches song? A song I'm writing where I only have the chorus figured out. A book suggestion stops me cold. "American Legends: The Life of Doris Day by Charles River". That's the mother's name right? I remember this because I would sing the line from the Grease musical as I read the book. Yeah, it is.

I want to nominate this book, no not the Doris Day book, for a 2021 book club meeting. I'm also nominating "Jaws" by Peter Benchley. For the past two Halloween's I've been watching Jaws. Last year as the DVD (yes, I still watch DVD's) played I was also watching shark attack videos on youtube. It was great. Not shark attacking humans just sharks swimming near boats. Just displaying their curiosity. I borrowed 20 books, from the library, for this time. 13 are graphic novels. At the end of the world I have books 1-5 of Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan. At the end of the world I want to be in Bora Bora reading. I'm making a second attempt on requesting books from the library. Today Alexandre Dumas was featured as a google doodle. So I requested "The Three Musketeers (The d'Artagnan Romances #1)". Why is the Three Musketeers six hundred pages long? 

Sometime this past week I fell asleep listening to a podcast interview of Tom O'Neill. In my sleeping state I listened to the podcast twice. I may have spoiled parts of the book but I'll live. I didn't watch "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood". Tarantino is too cool for me. Upon looking up a name mentioned in the book I noticed that the character was in the Hollywood movie. Which I responded with, "Oh he's in the movie". I don't know why I was surprised by that. I did watch a twenty minute video, again on youtube, of a Manson tour. I'm going to send that tour guide $20. I doubt he and I share the same political beliefs. I doubt he's doing much business at this moment. Then again maybe he is. To go on this tour it costs $80.  I want to ask the driver if he's read this book and what other books I should read. How many Manson tours are there in LA?  

What does this all mean? I don't know. I just want to write a song about it. Is this what I'm doing with my second lockdown? I don't think I did enough during the first lockdown. I did loose 15 pounds but I didn't learn a new language. I found out I'm allergic to soda and learned how to pray the rosary. Do I like any of the songs I wrote during that time? No. I read a lot of Batman 1966 graphic novels. I'm proud of that.

It's 11:16 AM and I still don't know the title of the book that Kathleen is reading. I know it (the book) was suggested to me in an ad, again on Goodreads, but I dismissed it. I'll figure it out. Also, if you know of a science fiction book where aliens stumble onto a planet delivering the promises of Christianity, that title eludes me as well. A librarian once told me that she was reading that book. Via the library store I learned that Patience and Fortitude are the names of the lions fronting the New York Public Library.

4 something PM: Lyons of 5th Avenue (it's actually Lions but I saw Lyons when I recalled the title). I was washing dishes and remembered the title. Why did it take me four hours to read 50 pages? "5 stars" me imitating Matt McCarthy imitating Dave Meltzer. Also, it's the Chelsea hotel not the Dakota. I'm off to type copious notes. I don't know if I should place it in this blog or another. I suppose the later. If I got the hotel name right would the Doris Day book have turned up in the "readers also enjoyed" section or search?

+++++

Allegedly: The BB are murders. The M&P's are murderers. If this means that Uncle Jesse is murder adjacent. Lord Have Mercy.

What I would ask author Tom O'Neill: What would you have asked Doris Day, Candice Bergen, and Hugh Hefner? Do you see any similarities between the Manson and Jeffrey Epstein case. Everyone asks this question. Do you see similarities between Manson and Dylann Roof, the 2015 Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting perpetrator. What do you think your heart rate was at when you interviewed person X? [I'm really glad that this interview was a surprise to me. Though I did hear about a "surprise" in the last chapter from a podcast. I was awake or lucid at that part. It was a surprise but it shouldn't have been a surprise but it was a surprise.] Are you still investigating? Is there a character list in the paperback edition? Though I still have fifty pages, of the notes, to read. I'm giving this book 5 stars on Goodreads. I'm glad I'm reading the notes. I was going to skip it but then I decided to read it since the story is fresh on my mind.