Charles Manson dead!

[KiraMPD]

22 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

Tex is alive, Patty Krenwinkles alive, Squeaky Fromme is alive (and free...and she tried to kill Gerald Ford too), all of em are alive i think except Susan Atkins who died of a brain tumour.

What a fuckin tragedy...

[soon]

52 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

Tex is alive, Patty Krenwinkles alive, Squeaky Fromme is alive (and free...and she tried to kill Gerald Ford too), all of em are alive i think except Susan Atkins who died of a brain tumour.

iirc Squeaky didnt have anytime to do with murders.  She only planned to assassinate Ford.  It was a plan made in a hurry on a whim out of guilt for not going the distance like her family.  She ended up changing her mind and pulling a toy gun figuring shed still bring attention to the environmental issues the family was about.  Hence the shorter sentence.

[Len Cnut]

1 minute ago, soon said:

iirc Squeaky didnt have anytime to do with murders.  She only planned to assassinate Ford.  It was a plan made in a hurry on a whim out of guilt for not going the distance like her family.  She ended up changing her mind and pulling a toy gun figuring shed still bring attention to the environmental issues the family was about.  Hence the shorter sentence.

Yeah I just meant she was a member of The Family.

[appetite4illusions]

Charles Manson can be called a poster boy for Serial Murder, but to me, that assessment was always half assed:

The only person he ever offed was Shorty Shea. He didn't kill. He just told others they should and, they did. He was no doubt, crazy, but how he was portrayed and made into an anti-hero, went against the reality of who he was and whatever the hell he thinks he stood for.

Charles Manson in much simpler terms, was a failed revolutionary...

He thought he had the power to change the world radically. He was a product of the times and came at the boiling point of the sixties, when something equally cataclysmic and shocking was inevitably going to happen anyway. He and The Family, were it.

He was more pathetic than the personification of evil. What he had was a good gimmick. The inverse Jesus. Long hair, swastika tattoo and miles, miles, miles of gibberish that endlessly fell from his mouth. The press ate it up, because they had never seen a character of his magnitude.

[appetite4illusions]

3 hours ago, KiraMPD said:

Is Tex Watson still alive? I find it kinda sad that ol' Charlie gets all the credit while Tex, the man who committed 7 of the Manson family murders, is still relatively unknown by the general public... 

Tex's words are more prolific than he is, at this point:

"I am the Devil and I'm here to do the Devil's work."

There are thousands of tween-age horror fans out there that ascribe that quote to Rob Zombie and The Devil's Rejects. I tried to explain to a group of them once at a convention that Zombie aped that line from Tex Watson. They stared at me, with no earthly idea who Tex Watson was. Just an offeneded brow that I suggested Rob Zombie didn't write that gem, himself.

[Len Cnut]

16 hours ago, appetite4illusions said:

Charles Manson can be called a poster boy for Serial Murder, but to me, that assessment was always half assed:

The only person he ever offed was Shorty Shea. He didn't kill. He just told others they should and, they did. He was no doubt, crazy, but how he was portrayed and made into an anti-hero, went against the reality of who he was and whatever the hell he thinks he stood for.

Charles Manson in much simpler terms, was a failed revolutionary...

He thought he had the power to change the world radically. He was a product of the times and came at the boiling point of the sixties, when something equally cataclysmic and shocking was inevitably going to happen anyway. He and The Family, were it.

He was more pathetic than the personification of evil. What he had was a good gimmick. The inverse Jesus. Long hair, swastika tattoo and miles, miles, miles of gibberish that endlessly fell from his mouth. The press ate it up, because they had never seen a character of his magnitude.

See, revolutionary suggests he had some sort of a workable functional ideology or manifesto which he sought to bring to bear, which he didn't, he was just a psychopathic conman with slightly above average intelligence.  He's a product of the newspapers really, not that the crimes weren't shocking and 'sensational', its their uploading into the cultural lexicon and undeserving status and defining moments of a decade and indeed a counterculture (towards which the establishment were suspicious and unfriendly) thats the reason we're talking about him today.  But he no more killed the 60s than some hairy pisshead biker did by stabbing that black lad at The Stones gig and there's been umpteen sensationalist psychopathic killers or men that have led to such carnage by way of influence before and since Manson, he just fit really well into a narrative that the public has, for one reason or another, really taken to. 

[appetite4illusions]

I don't mean to suggest he really had any chance of revolutionary success. His ideas were scattershot- a product of being crazy- and his reasoning completely collapses upon logic. Just that the way he justified all his behavior was that there was "no wrong" and to commit horrific murder, was a means to a revolutionary end.

It was his steadfast belief in whatever nonsense he was speaking that inspired the others to commit the act. He really believed every word he spoke. Whether it was logically fallable or contradictory, it was spoken from a sincere place in his mind.

The motivation to commit chaos, was a product of the revolutionary aspect of his mind. Forget "Helter Skelter" for a second. If he had just rounded up six or seven of the family and told them they should lick the blood of the pigs from their blades, I doubt that half of them would have done it. It was framed around this idea of "changing the world" which is what the sixties was all about, for almost each individual that came of age in that time.

They were going to use violence and horror to change their world and better their situation, if they got a few kicks while they did it, all the better!

You're absolutely right that the press took upon the Manson story as the perfect ribbon to tie the cultural atom bomb of the sixties. A decade of upheaval and strife. Of dashed dreams and perverted hopes. He was the right crime at the right time. The right face at the right place, and he rode the rocket of infamy to the moon. 

[Len Cnut]

18 minutes ago, appetite4illusions said:

I don't mean to suggest he really had any chance of revolutionary success. His ideas were scattershot- a product of being crazy- and his reasoning completely collapses upon logic. Just that the way he justified all his behavior was that there was "no wrong" and to commit horrific murder, was a means to a revolutionary end.

It was his steadfast belief in whatever nonsense he was speaking that inspired the others to commit the act. He really believed every word he spoke. Whether it was logically fallable or contradictory, it was spoken from a sincere place in his mind.

The motivation to commit chaos, was a product of the revolutionary aspect of his mind. Forget "Helter Skelter" for a second. If he had just rounded up six or seven of the family and told them they should lick the blood of the pigs from their blades, I doubt that half of them would have done it. It was framed around this idea of "changing the world" which is what the sixties was all about, for almost each individual that came of age in that time.

They were going to use violence and horror to change their world and better their situation, if they got a few kicks while they did it, all the better!

You're absolutely right that the press took upon the Manson story as the perfect ribbon to tie the cultural atom bomb of the sixties. A decade of upheaval and strife. Of dashed dreams and perverted hopes. He was the right crime at the right time. The right face at the right place, and he rode the rocket of infamy to the moon. 

Its just an opinion really so take it for what its worth but i don't think he believed in what he said or it came from a sincere place of mind, he was just a conman, anything he could do to keep people gathered around him he would say.  Thing is with wankers like this their hold over people don't last for long unless the invent more and more new stuff whereby those people would remain tied to him, and thats all his spiel was to me.  The guy was a pimp and a conman and used a bunch of hippie jive initially to get girls working for him and since he had girls around him this drew guys who were up for a bit and he thought 'hey, i got people following me!' and it just snowballed from there.  It started of basically as a convenient way of getting some cash in, this long haired nomadic type with a guitar looking into girls eyes and saying things to lost unloved runaway girls like 'is your mother proud of your eyes?' and 'i can see in your eyes that your a sad person', its standard pimp stuff, its just because it was Haight Ashbury and the hippie era and these un-worldly suburban planks thought he was fuckin' some kinda psychic guru person. 

Edited November 22, 2017 by Len Cnut

[appetite4illusions]

I think you're right on the money as far as the pimp/conman assessment goes.

But I believe that was merely the jumping off point. He wanted attention and community. He wanted respect and devotion. He wanted women to crave him and he definitely wanted to manipulate people for the sake of pulling the strings.

At a certain point, I think he really began believing what he was saying because people were responding to it. The old adage of the liar believing the lie. Even if it was momentary. As in, when he went to prison and his community was shattered, he may have realized at that point that he was full of malarkey. 

But as far as believing he was both Jesus and Satan, I think there was a period of time when he truly bought into his own bullshit. Once he got the thing he always wanted, power, he may have felt he could really use that power to put a dent in the world.

[DieselDaisy]

When people use the term, ''Manson killed the '60s'' I believe it is in the sense that he was a hippy, i.e., a hippy gone wrong, or a perverted hippy: he was an aspiring songwriting inhabiting the hippy communes of Topanga Canyon alongside a lot of famous and soon-to-be famous hippies who'd descended to this area in the hope of political freedom, artistic creativity and fame, e.g., members of Canned Heat, The Doors, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Dennis Wilson, etc. Manson then proceeded to indoctrinate a lot of young females who were in turn enacting their own recognizably ''hippy'' trope in that they were basically carrying forth the lyrics contained in The Beatles' She's Leaving Home - the 1960s were an itinerant age.

Many of the salient details of the Manson story were disturbingly familiar and part of the 1960s 'hippy' zeitgeist: struggling artist; middle-class youth gravitating toward large commune centres; a sense of 'dropping out'' (of the mainstream). 

[Len Cnut]

13 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

When people use the term, ''Manson killed the '60s'' I believe it is in the sense that he was a hippy, i.e., a hippy gone wrong, or a perverted hippy: he was an aspiring songwriting inhabiting the hippy communes of Topanga Canyon alongside a lot of famous and soon-to-be famous hippies who'd descended to this area in the hope of political freedom, artistic creativity and fame, e.g., members of Canned Heat, The Doors, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Dennis Wilson, etc. Manson then proceeded to indoctrinate a lot of young females who were in turn enacting their own recognizably ''hippy'' trope in that they were basically carrying forth the lyrics contained in The Beatles' She's Leaving Home - the 1960s were an itinerant age.

Many of the salient details of the Manson story were disturbingly familiar and part of the 1960s 'hippy' zeitgeist: struggling artist; middle-class youth gravitating toward large commune centres; a sense of 'dropping out'' (of the mainstream). 

Was he a hippie though?  Was he at all a hippie?  i mean he was in nick when that movement started, he just landed in the middle of it having been released, he was no more a hippie than any of the bikers or drug dealers that exploited the Haight.  And the struggling artist bit, again, thats a bit much, a prison guitar player who used his rudimentary skills of strumming and babbling perfected in solitary confinement on a bunch of impressionable youngsters.  The narrative of, the framing of him as a hippie is part of what led to this shit of him being like 'hippie cult leader Charles Manson'.  I get what you mean and I'm not trying to be pointlessly pedantic here its just an important distinction in terms of my overall point, I mean right up until 67, the fabled Summer of Love he was in nick, he didn't have no reference point for this shit, he just landed in a situation fertile to exploit, lumping him in with the hippies is doing the hippies a diservice, he's not even the right age group.

[DieselDaisy]

1 minute ago, Len Cnut said:

Was he a hippie though?  Was he at all a hippie?  i mean he was in nick when that movement started, he just landed in the middle of it having been released, he was no more a hippie than any of the bikers or drug dealers that exploited the Haight.  And the struggling artist bit, again, thats a bit much, a prison guitar player who used his rudimentary skills of strumming and babbling perfected in solitary confinement on a bunch of impressionable youngsters.  The narrative of, the framing of him as a hippie is part of what led to this shit of him being like 'hippie cult leader Charles Manson'.  I get what you mean and I'm not trying to be pointlessly pedantic here its just an important distinction in terms of my overall point, I mean right up until 67, the fabled Summer of Love he was in nick, he didn't have no reference point for this shit, he just landed in a situation fertile to exploit, lumping him in with the hippies is doing the hippies a diservice, he's not even the right age group.

Well 'hippy' is just a term, a rather nebulous one as it happens, but being that he had long hair, strummed some vaguely hippy-esque ballads, dossed at Topanga Canyon with multiple other 'long haireds' some of whom were already famous 'hippies', I think it suffices (for sake of argument). It certainly suffices so long as we are discussing Manson's impact on the 1960s zeitgeist and not Manson's own inner musings.

[Len Cnut]

His grandsons gonna pick up his remains and has set up a crowdfunding thing for people to donate so they can give him a dignified send off and claim him from a system that 'did everything in its power to destroy him'.

[EvanG]

Charisma can be dangerous, and boy did that guy have a lot of charisma. That's why so many people were fascinated by him and we're still talking about him in 2017.

[Len Cnut]

The only people who thought he was charismatic in any sense were like...no offence, mongs. 

[CHRISSY]

I don't think charisma is the right word in a Charles Manson description. Charisma invokes charm, of which he had none.

There once was in his early days no doubt a certain power, by way of his mystique. Him being older and his offering of a place to stay, the chance of belonging to something. The safety in numbers for people who felt like outcasts. But Charisma is way too much credit to the derelict he was.

We maybe should stop talking about him now.

[EvanG]

24 minutes ago, Len Cnut said:

The only people who thought he was charismatic in any sense were like...no offence, mongs. 

 

7 minutes ago, CHRISSY said:

I don't think charisma is the right word in a Charles Manson description. Charisma invokes charm, of which he had none.

Maybe I have a different definition of charisma, but anyone can have charisma. Hitler had charisma, he charmed a whole nation. Manson charmed a lot of people, especially young and naive girls. Some people that have charisma use it for good things, look at Mandela, who had incredible charisma too, and some that have it use it for terrible things.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42051402

 

Edited November 27, 2017 by EvanG

[Len Cnut]

It really aint hard to get a group of like...8 or 10 or 12 people following you, there's umpteen little fringe religion things going on run by some guy called Dwight in some remote fuckin' American outpost, The Seventh Day Recievers of Moorhead Texas or whatever.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Len Cnut

[EvanG]

No, it's not hard, people are morons. But that doesn't mean old Charlie didn't have charisma... just look at footage or pictures of the guy... he had a lot of it. Charisma isn't only for good people. 

[Len Cnut]

3 minutes ago, EvanG said:

No, it's not hard, people are morons. But that doesn't mean old Charlie didn't have charisma... just look at footage or pictures of the guy... he had a lot of it. Charisma isn't only for good people. 

Well thats the barometer for it right, 'OMG, how could he get people to follow him!', thats the standard line, I realise you don't have to be nice to be charismatic.

[DieselDaisy]

I think you need to be able to read people well, to do what Manson did. 

[EvanG]

I think he was, in that way, the complete package... had a lot of charisma, people were drawn to him, he was probably smart, at least for a nutcase, and he was a smooth talker. So if you have bad intentions, then it's easy to persuade certain people. 

Quote

"He had a quality about him that one thousandth of 1% of people have. An aura. 'Vibes,' the kids called it in the '60s. Wherever he went, kids gravitated toward him."

 

[Len Cnut]

15 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

I think you need to be able to read people well, to do what Manson did. 

Thats just bog standard street nous though isn't it? 

[Len Cnut]

3 minutes ago, Oldest Goat said:

I bet they'll make a fucking movie about him and how he was allegedly charismatic.

There's already a fuckload of those man.

[Len Cnut]

3 minutes ago, Oldest Goat said:

What about a sitcom?

Now there's an idea!   I always thought he would've made a good bad guys sidekick in a western.