Read Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson Hardcover Online
Authors: Jeff Guinn
Gregg Jakobson is an invaluable resource concerning the complicated relationship that sprang up between Charlie Manson and Dennis Wilson. Throughout this chapter, whenever someone is described as thinking or feeling something, that is because the individual talked to Jakobson (or, in a few cases, to Leslie Van Houten or Patricia Krenwinkel) about it.
Lorraine Chamberlain was very helpful in describing the friendships between many rock stars living in and around Los Angeles at the time.
As always with Manson, it’s difficult to determine dates when specific events occurred. In this chapter these uncertainties include the summer 1968 recording sessions at the small studio in Van Nuys and at Brian Wilson’s home studio. The sequence may have been Brian’s first, then Van Nuys, or vice versa. Some sources suggest that the Brian session may have taken place as late as November, but by then the Beach Boys had already recorded their drastically revised version of Charlie’s “Cease to Exist.”
For those interested in the history of the Beach Boys, I highly recommend Steven Gaines’s
Heroes & Villains.
The best book I found about the life of Dennis Wilson was Jon Stebbins’s
Dennis Wilson: The Real Beach Boy.
It is well worth tracking down.
Dennis knew no limits in his fondness:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
his longtime friends were certain that at some level:
Ibid.
Years later, Pat recalled:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview. Some published versions of the moment have Dennis picking up Pat and Yeller for the second time, but Pat remembers they had never met Dennis before this impromptu milk-and-cookies invitation.
It was well after midnight:
Gaines, pp. 201–2; Bugliosi, pp. 250–51.
Nancy Pitman especially:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
Wilson spent a lot of time talking with Charlie:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
the other women teased her about it:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
Nobody at Brother Records was impressed:
Gaines, p. 207; Sanders, p. 60; Jon Stebbins,
Dennis Wilson: The Real Beach Boy
(ECW Press, 2000), p. 130. Through a representative, surviving Beach Boys Mike Love and Al Jardine declined to be interviewed for this book. Brian Wilson recorded his impressions of Charlie Manson in his memoir,
Wouldn’t It Be Nice.
Wilson would get some of the Family girls to pile in:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
When Dennis heard the news:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
Rocker Neil Young came by Dennis’s one day:
McDonough, pp. 287–88.
a relatively high-level position that many thought he reached:
Hartman, p. 98.
But unlike Dennis Wilson:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
he thought he’d move the girl into the house at Cielo:
Ibid. Through a representative Candice Bergen said that she was unwilling to be interviewed.
Jakobson called them “the Family”:
Leslie Van Houten and Gregg Jakobson interviews.
guests entered through sliding glass doors:
Mary F. Corey interview.
the lyrics had to remain as Charlie had written them:
Gaines, p. 203.
Sometimes he’d bluntly tell him:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
Jakobson booked a quickie recording session:
The date may have been August 9, 1968, one year to the day before the Tate murders.
The results were listenable:
The tapes from this session eventually became the
LIE
album produced by Phil Kaufman at Charlie’s request after Charlie’s arrest for the Tate-LaBianca murders. The music has since been bootlegged and reproduced on several CDs, some of which are now available. Phil Kaufman generously loaned me one of the few remaining original
LIE
albums on vinyl, and my analysis is based on that.
Girls gushed about his blue eyes:
Gerry Griffin interview. Gerry knew Charles Watson in Farmersville. She loaned me her 1963 and 1964 high school yearbooks, and Tex is quite prominent in them with pictures on dozens of pages. Even his note to her is wholesome: “Dear Gerry: Here’s wishing you all the luck in the world. You are a very charming and sweet girl. I know you will go far in life.”
Soon some of the Family women began complaining:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
Gurus or any other spiritual leaders are expected:
David E. Smith interview.
they needed a permanent home:
Atkins, pp. 93–94; Sanders, pp. 39–40, 41.
So he called Bobby Beausoleil:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
there may never have been twelve months in national history:
Tom Hayden interview.
There was something in Charlie:
Hoskyns,
Waiting for the Sun
, p. 181.
Charlie also expected to be accepted:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
a teenager nicknamed Croxey:
Gaines, pp. 204–6.
it eased his conscience:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
Despar was used to musicians:
Wilson, pp. 181–83; Gaines, pp. 209–12.
When Wilson returned home:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
Wilson rented a house:
Bugliosi, p. 251; Gaines, pp. 212–13; Gregg Jakobson interview.
Chapter Ten: The Ranches
The Spahn property is now owned by a church organization that refused me permission to pass a gated area and look around. It’s an eerie place, even glimpsed from the outside. The movie set is long gone, burned in a fire, but lots of the areas visible from the road are familiar because of well-circulated photos of the Family posing there. The set may be familiar to people who faithfully watched
The Lone Ranger
and
The Cisco Kid
on TV in the 1950s.
Sandy Good said that she had a friend:
Emmons, pp. 140–45. Susan Atkins also claimed credit for suggesting Spahn Ranch to Charlie, but Susan erroneously claimed credit for lots of things.
For $1.50 apiece:
Steve Oney, “Manson: An Oral History,”
Los Angeles Magazine
, July 1, 2009.
Charlie installed Lynne:
Bravin, pp. 84–85; Sanders, p. 67.
Sex with George was part of her responsibilities:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview; Bugliosi, pp. 100–101.
Charlie initially withheld full Family membership:
Tex Watson as told to Chaplain Ray,
Will You Die for Me?: The Man Who Killed for Charles Manson Tells His Own Story
(Fleming H. Revell, 1978), pp. 57, 60–61.
the kind of isolation necessary:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
They were led by Juan Flynn:
Gregg Jakobson, Vincent Bugliosi, and Leslie Van Houten interviews; Sanders, p. 69.
One day when Flynn wanted everyone up and working:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
Charlie placed the newcomer under the supervision:
Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten interviews.
No female in the Family was ever to carry money:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
it was obvious she’d be an effective recruiter:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
He assigned her to follow him around:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
Alan Rose had been intrigued:
David E. Smith interview. According to Dr. Smith, Rose borrowed a significant amount of money from him and gave it to Charlie.
The day started early:
Smith and Rose, “The Group Marriage Commune,”
The Journal of Psychedelic Drugs.
A few times he simulated being crucified:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
someone gave the Family a case of Cool Whip:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
A memorable lesson for the Family involved a king and queen:
I was told this by a former Manson Family member.
or else albums by the Moody Blues:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
Charlie liked the music of the Doors and the Jefferson Airplane:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
Squeaky had it lucky:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
Group sex was completely orchestrated by Charlie:
Smith and Rose, “The Group Marriage Commune,”
The Journal of Psychedelic Drugs
; Gregg Jakobson interview.
Charlie would stand in front of them:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
Yet he also did considerable praising:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
Susan named her child Ze Zo Ze Cee Zadfrack:
Atkins, p. 102.
Sandy said that they were married:
I find this odd; based on Charlie’s teachings, everyone in the Family resented having to register any information with the government. If Sandy did marry Joel Pugh and occasionally take his last name, I suspect it was to ease the process of applying for child welfare for her baby. The Family had no objections to taking government money.
Wristwatches, calendars, and clocks:
Gregg Jakobson interview; Bugliosi, p. 111; Sanders, p. 73.
Charlie had a Bible:
Leslie Van Houten interview. As noted later in this chapter, Charlie liked to have Leslie read to him from Revelation.
his anti-Semitism:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
if he seemed to be violating his own philosophy:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
Terry Melcher also made a few ranch visits:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
Charlie told Jakobson about inventing the “insane game”:
Ibid.
Sex with outsiders became a daily routine:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
he stood there with the flies all over him:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
When Phil Kaufman heard that Charlie:
Phil Kaufman interview.
They appeared to be just another commune:
Mary F. Corey interview.
The real problem was that Spahn Ranch:
David Dotson interview.
the Democratic National Convention:
Tom Hayden interview; White, pp. 356–59; Bill Ayers,
Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist
(Beacon, 2001), p. 134.
After attending a Republican rally in Toledo:
Theodore White,
America in Search of Itself
, p. 464.
In the imagination of many shaken older voters:
Bob Schieffer interview.
But the song McCartney presented now:
Barry Miles,
Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now
(Henry Holt, 1997), p. 488.
the Beach Boys did some recording, too:
Timothy White, p. 284; Gregg Jakobson interview.
It was a deliberate insult:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
One morning Charlie had to run off a guy:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
a schoolteacher the Family nicknamed Juanita:
Different books have Juanita arriving at different times, but Leslie Van Houten remembers Juanita being allowed to join the Family not long after she and Gypsy came to Spahn Ranch. According to Leslie, after Charlie got the pink slip to Juanita’s vehicle and drained her bank account, he expected the rest of his followers to shun her until she left. About a year later, though, Juanita again figures in the saga of Charlie and the Family. I believe it’s the same person; apparently Juanita was better than most in hanging on in the group when Charlie no longer wanted her.
Sometimes Cathy Gillies talked about:
Bravin, pp. 91–93.
But Charlie was drawn to the adjacent property:
Bugliosi, pp. 129–30, Sanders, pp. 84–86.
he gave Barker a Beach Boys gold record:
Bugliosi, pp. 128–29.
Davis returned a few months later:
No one seems sure why Charlie sent Bruce Davis and Joel Pugh to England. He may have wanted them to explore the
possibility of moving the Family there after Charlie made it big as a recording star. When Davis returned to California in 1969, Charlie greeted him warmly and treated him like a trusted second-in-command. Joel Pugh died in London; his death was officially ruled a suicide, but a number of Manson historians, both amateur and professional, cite various mysterious circumstances and are convinced that he was murdered.
Charlie told the women to fan out into the desert:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
He tried sending some of the girls to Las Vegas:
Bravin, p. 92.
Wilson decided to drive up there:
Gregg Jakobson interview.
Squeaky approached George Spahn:
Bravin, p. 94.
Leslie read to him from the Bible:
Leslie Van Houten interview.
He always cited the Bible:
Patricia Krenwinkel interview.
Chapter Eleven: The Bible and the Beatles
It’s impossible to see into someone’s heart and know for certain what he believes. Did Charlie think the Beatles were speaking to him through the songs on the
White Album
? Did he truly expect a worldwide race war called Helter Skelter, and that he and the Family could hide in a desert bottomless pit for hundreds of years and then reemerge to rule the world? Did Charlie take the Bible literally and expect the appearance of armored locusts and multiheaded dragons to herald the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world?