“Creepy Crawlies” | 1969, April
Maybe it was Gyspy who first went around overpraising Charlie. Or maybe it was someone else, or all of them. Charlie’s life was dedicated to getting praised, and he’d push as far as he could. The problem: he had to keep up with his own image. If someone was a drug dealer, like Tex, Charlie had to me more of a drug dealer. If someone was a Satanist, like Sadie, he had to be more of a Satanist. If someone was a murderer, and some of them were, Charlie had to be more of a murderer.
Charlie would chant, “I am Charlie, and Charlie is me. You are Charlie, you are me. We are all one.” Charlie didn’t like speed, but a few of the Family members added that to the formula. Charlie pitched in racism and a more violent outlook, and the Family became the commune for psychopaths. Tex was back, as was Bruce Davis, who’d been off in London working with the Scientologists. Charlie thought he’d need an army of bikers for the Armageddon; he used the women to bring them in. When Charlie paid a traffic ticket for the president of the Straight Satans, he was awarded a “ceremonial sword.” Everyone had a sheath knife strapped on. An old prison buddy of Charlie’s was teaching the art of the break in, and the Family was going out on “Creepy Crawlies”: they’d rearrange people’s furniture while they were sleeping, just to mess with their reality. When Charlie found out the band Iron Butterfly was out of town, a Family posse ripped them off. Leslie robbed her father’s house.
Charlie had never been into guns: guns were for momma’s boys who needed cocks; if you lived by the gun, you’d die by the gun. But one of the Straight Satans, Danny DeCarlo, started hanging out with the Family (he just got divorced), and he was a gun dealer. The Family returned to Spahn; they’d need an escape route to the desert when Helter Skelter went down. The blacks, Charlie said, would rise up and kill the whites and write “pigs” on the walls in blood. Helter Skelter had only been delayed, Charlie said, because the black man had been appeased by the white woman. DeCarlo set up a munitions shop at Spahn. He took over a shack known as “the undertaker’s parlor.” Charlie liked to go into the desert and shoot off rounds with automatic weapons. The blacks weren’t competent enough to rule the world and after a little while they’d come find Charlie and the Family to take over.
Leslie: “All we did was listen to the Beatles’ White Album and read ‘Revelations’.”
04.01 In New York, 21 Black Panthers are arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. The target is law enforcement. 01 Theatrical release of Machine Gun McCain, starring John Cassavetes and Peter Falk. 04 The Smothers Brothers, too controversial for CBS television, is cancelled mid-season. 04 For the first time, a fully mechanical heart is implanted in a human. 04 The anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King sets off two days of demonstrations worldwide. Hundreds of thousands take part. 05 Family member Steven “Clem” Grogan is arrested for grand larceny and suspicious activity. 07 New York Magazine publishes “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation,” an essay by Gloria Steinem, which begins, “Once upon a time—say, ten or even five years ago—a Liberated Woman was somebody who had sex before marriage and a job afterward. Once upon the same time, a Liberated Zone was any foreign place lucky enough to have an American army in it.” 09 Three hundred students, led by Students for a Democratic Society, seize a Harvard University administrative building: 45 are injured, 200 arrested. 09 Dale Butler, owner and founder of Butler’s Buggy Shop, learns that a recently purchased V.W. is a stolen vehicle, and that it was stolen from his own lot. He informs police, who trace the VW back to Manson. 09 LP release of Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan. 11 Release of the single “Get Back” by the Beatles. 11 Students at Harvard University commence a three-day strike. 12 Based on several letters from witnesses and military participants, Colonel Howard Whitaker flies to Vietnam to investigate what will come to be known as the My Lai Massacre. In March of 1968, “Charlie Company” of the U.S. Infantry killed 400+ unarmed civilians—men, women, children, the elderly. Many of the murders were preceded by rapes and gang rapes. 15 North Korea shoots down a U.S. naval aircraft, killing 31. 19 At Cornell University, armed black students occupy a building and demand “a program relevant to black students.” 20 In Northern Ireland, British troops reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary. 20 Responding to a vote by U.C. students to create a park out of a vacant lot, the Berkeley community occupies the site and begins work. An initial force of 100 quickly grows to thousands. 22 Minority students at City College of New York occupy the main building, demanding increased enrollment. The school closes. 23 LP release of With a Little Help from My Friends by Joe Cocker. 23 Charles “Tex” Watson is arrested in Van Nuys, California. He’s tripping on belladonna. 23 In Los Angeles, the Ash Grove blues and folk club burns down. 23 Conservative faculty members at Cornell charge the administration with selling out to terrorists. They demand the campus be disarmed. 24 U.S. B-52s drop 3000-ton bombs on Vietnam and Cambodia. Anti-war demonstrations are held in 40+ U.S. cities. 24 Paul McCartney says he is not dead. 25 Bruce Davis returns to the United States. He’s quit his position at Scientology in London. Manson, in prison documents, had identified himself as a Scientologist. Davis, during his six-month tenure in London, may have worked in a diplomatic capacity with the Scientology splinter group, The Process. One of the interests of the Process (in keeping with rumors of CIA operations, as in the case of Lee Harvey Oswald), was human doubles. Bruce resembled Manson, and had a similar history of childhood violence and sexual abuse. In years to come, theories involving body doubles and The Process will circulate about Manson and the “Zodiac Killer”; at one time, Bruce Davis was a suspect in the Zodiac killings. Other doubles in the Family: Charles/Charles (Watson/Manson); Lynn “Squeaky” Fromme/Sandra Good; Ruth Ann “Ouisch” Moorehouse/Leslie Van Houten; Susan “Sadie Mae Glutz” Atkins/Sharon Tate (About the time Tate made her first film appearance, as a witch in Eye of the Devil, Atkins, was dancing in Anton LaVey production, “the Witches’ Sabbath.” Tate played a vampire in her next film, The Fearless Vampire, directed by and co-starring Roman Polanski. The Family overlapped with advisors and crew of those productions, as well as the production of Rosemary’s Baby.) 27 The National Insider publishes “Letters From The Devil” by Anton Lavey. His work, the Satanic Bible, is released by University Books, and reprinted by Avon Books later in the year. 28 Charles de Gaulle, President of France, resigns. 30 LP release of My Way by Frank Sinatra. 30 LP release of Songs from a Room by Leonard Cohen.
05.01 An Apollo 8 photograph of a lunar “earth rise” is rendered as a U.S. postage stamp. 02 LP Release of Electronic Sound by George Harrison, and Stand! by Sly & the Family Stone, which includes the single “Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey.” 07 Theatrical release of Sinful Davey, directed by John Huston, starring John Hurt. 10 In South Vietnam, The U.S. launches an offensive against Hill 937 (Hamburger Hill). U.S. bombing leaves 70 U.S. soldiers dead, and 372 wounded. When U.S. forces secure the hill, they find the North Vietnamese have long since retreated. 10 In Zap, North Dakota, “Zip to Zap,” the music festival, ends in dispersal by the National Guard. 13 Race riots in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia lead to a state of emergency. 15 Governor Reagan orders fences and gassing of the People’s Park in Berkeley. “If it’s a blood bath,” he says, “then let it be now.” Hundreds are shot with buckshot. Alan Blanchard is blinded, and James Rector dies the next day. The campus goes war zone. 18 Terry Melcher visits Spahn Ranch to hear Manson sing with the Family. Melcher plans to come back with a recording unit. 20 Clem Grogan is arrested for auto theft. He’s released. Two weeks later he’s arrested for exposing his penis to school children, and sent to the Camarillo State Mental Hospital for a 90-day observation period. In two days time, he escapes the hospital and returns to Spahn. 20 At People’s Park, mourners gather to grieve the death of James Rector. National Guard helicopters spray C.S. gas, while troops wearing gas masks attack the crowd with clubs and bayonets. Campus goes vacant. Downtown Berkeley, a maze of barbed wire, is under martial law. 21 Shirley Chisholm, U.S. House Representative from New York, addresses the House of Representatives, beginning, “Mr. Speaker, when a young woman graduates from college and starts looking for a job, she is likely to have a frustrating and even demeaning experience ahead of her. If she walks into an office for an interview, the first question she will be asked is, ‘Do you type?'” 21 In Rosario, Argentina, Luis Blanco is shot by police during a peaceful demonstration. Riots ensue. 22 In New York, at Colombia University, students take over two buildings, demanding a black studies program, and that ROTC be moved off campus. Police break through student barricades and arrest 1,000. Two hundred are injured. 25 Theatrical release of Midnight Cowboy, an X-rated drama directed by John Schlesinger. 26 In Montreal, John Lennon and Yoko Ono stage their second Bed-In. 27 In Ashland, Kentucky, 64-year-old Darwin Scott, Manson’s uncle, is hacked to death and pegged to the floor with a long kitchen knife. About fifteen miles away, an unknown Californian, hallucinogenic-using guru sojourns in the company of several female companions. Manson is out of touch with his parole officer. 29 In Cordoba, Argentina, a general strike breaks out. 29 LP release of Clouds by Joni Mitchell, and Pretties for You by Alice Cooper. 30 Civil rights riots in Curacao. 30 Thirty-thousand mourners gather in People’s Park. They thread flowers into the fences and the barbed wire. Some mourners slip flowers into the rifle muzzles of the National Guard. 31 John Lennon and Yoko Ono record “Give Peace a Chance.”