Dune Buggies | 1969, June
Terry Melcher was supposed to come to Spahn, but he didn’t show up. Gregg Jakobson had been in Death Valley, but nothing came of it. There’d been talk about a film and Meltzer’s friend, Charlene Cafritz, who’d just gotten a few million dollars in a divorce settlement, shot a bunch of footage of the Family. But that was stalled out, too.
Charlie’s people were starting to split; Helter Skelter hadn’t happened and they wanted to go home. By now—many crimes and maybe a few murders later—Charlie was worried about what they knew. He tried to make sure everyone was guilty of something so they couldn’t leave. He threatened the women, told them he’d cut their breasts off. He had a plan for the belladonna growing in the hills; the Family would process it, and with the strychnine (a byproduct), they’d poison the Los Angeles water supply. “It’s coming down,” he’d say, “Be ready.” The establishment pigs had it coming, he told Danny—they should have their throats cut and get hung by their hocks.
Charlie: “It looks like we’re gonna have to show blackie how to do it.”
Charlie was “Man’s son,” and Jesus—but he was just on a higher plane of consciousness, they were all Jesus. Charlie: “Look down on me, you will see a fool, look up at me, you will see your lord, look straight at me, you will see yourself.”
The dune buggies were expensive. A perfectly good VW was stripped down to a no frills machine that Charlie was likely to hide in the sand. Tex burned a drug dealer who Charlie thought had Black Power contacts. The dealer called Spahn with threats—Tex had left his girlfriend as collateral—so Charlie drove to L.A. and shot the guy and left him for dead.
Charlie: “There is all kinds of different families. We have to find ourselves first, God second and kind, k-i-n-d, come next. … I was working on cleaning up my house, something Nixon should have been doing. He should have been on the side of the road picking up his children. But he wasn’t. He was in the White House sending them off to war.”
Bobby screwed up a drug deal with a Family connection, Gary Hinman; then Bobby screwed up getting Hinman to refund the Hell’s Angels; then Bobby and Charlie screwed up scaring Gary—they cut his face in half; then Bobby screwed up murdering Gary. Hoping to throw off the cops, Bobby dipped his hand in Gary’s blood and wrote “Political Piggy” on the wall. Next to that, he used his fist to stamp a Black Panther paw print.
06.01 Leviathan publishes “What is the Revolutionary Potential of Women’s Liberation,” an essay by Kathy McAfee and Myrna Wood, who begin, “A great deal of confusion exists today about the role of women’s liberation in a revolutionary movement. Hundreds of women’s groups have sprung up within the past year or two, but among them, a number of very different and often conflicting ideologies have developed. … Some groups mobilize middle class women to fight for equal privileges as business women and academics; others maintain that the overthrow of capitalism is irrelevant for women.” 01 Life Magazine publishes the names and photos of 242 U.S. soldiers killed in one week in Vietnam. 01 Thomas Sowell, a black professor at Cornell University, charges the University with “paternalism.” He and other University professors resign in disgust. 03 Terry Melcher, Gregg Jakobson and Mike Deasy, a guitarist who has a studio set up in his van, visit Spahn. A wig-wearing “starlet” named Shara or Sharon is with Melcher. One Manson Family-member will later identify the starlet as Sharon Tate, but Tate is six-months pregnant, and in London. After a recording session at Spahn around this time, Melcher, the son of Doris Day, returns to his Malibu beach house and live-in girlfriend, Candace Bergen, to describe life at the ranch as “soft, simple girls; sitting naked around this Christ-like guy, all singing sweetly together.” 04 Edward “Sunshine” Pierce flees Spahn, leaving his car and belongings. Manson had asked him to kill someone, probably Melcher. 04 LP release of At San Quentin by Johnny Cash. 04 Manson is arrested for a statutory rape that occurred at Spahn. He’s released on $125 bail and the charges flatline. 05 Two-day race riot in Connecticut. Police impose curfew. 06 Life Magazine publishes photographs taken from Apollo 10 of the Earth and moon in space. 08 President Nixon initiates “Vietnamization.” South Vietnam will be on its own. 08 Formation of the Weathermen, a radical splinter group of Students for a Democratic Society. 08 At the Brown University commencement address, two-thirds of the graduating class turn their backs on Henry Kissinger. Protests interrupt commencement and graduation ceremonies nationwide. 13 Theatrical release of Blue Movie, directed by Andy Warhol. 15 The New York Times reviews Die Nigger Die! by H. Rap Brown: “The cutting edge of deep pain is there, but so is the raucous, sometimes slightly hysterical, laughter of life.” 18 At the National Convention of Students for a Democratic Society, the Weatherman, a radical faction of the 100,000 member group, seizes control of the national office. 20 LP release of Aoxomoxoa by The Grateful Dead. 22 Ohio’s Cuyahoga River, massively polluted, catches fire. Time Magazine describes a waterflow that “oozes,” and will cause death not by drowning but by “decay.” 22 In London, Judy Garland is discovered dead in her Chelsea home. The barbiturate overdose is ruled accidental. 28 With the Stonewall riots in New York City, the gay rights movement finds a national voice.