by Johnny Satan
Like, Helter Skelter is a nightclub. Helter Skelter means confusion, literally. It doesn’t mean any war with anyone. It doesn’t mean that those people are going to kill other people. It only means what it means. Helter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down fast. If you don’t see the confusion coming down fast around you, you can call it what you wish.
It is not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates.
It says: “Rise!” It says: “Kill!” Why blame it on me? I didn’t write the music. I am not the person who projected it into your social consciousness, that sanity that you projected into your social consciousness, today. You put so much into the newspaper, and then you expect people to believe what is going on. I say: back to the facts again.
How many witnesses have you got up here and projected only what they believe in. What I believe in is right now. I don’t believe in anything past now. I speak to you from now. Because there is nothing here to worry about, nothing here to think about, nothing here to be confused over. My house is not divided. My house is one with me, myself.
Then I look at the facts that you have brought in front of this court, and I look at the twelve facts that are looking at me and judging me.
If I were to judge them, what scale would that balance? Would the scale balance if I was to turn and judge you? How would you feel if I were to judge you? Could I judge you? I can only judge you if you try to judge me. That is the fact.
Mr. Bugliosi is a hard driving prosecutor, with a polished education. Semantics, words. He is a genius. He has got everything that every lawyer would want to have-except one thing: a case. He doesn’t have a case. Were I allowed to defend myself, I could have proven this to you. I could have called witnesses and showed you how these things lay, and I could have presented my picture.
You are dealing with facts and positive evidence. If you are dealing with things that are relative to the issues at hand, then you look at the facts. What else do you look at? Oh, the thong. How many people have ever worn moccasins with a leather thong in it? So you have placed me in the desert with leather clothes on and you took a leather thong from my shoe. How many people could we take leather thongs from? That is an issue. Then you move on and you say I had one around my neck. I always tie one around my head when my hair is long, it keeps it out of my eyes. And you pull it down on your neck.
And I imagine a lot of long-haired people do.
There are so many aspects to this case that could be dug into and a lot of truth could be brought up, a lot of understanding could be reached. It is a pretty hideous thing to look at seven bodies, one hundred and two stab wounds. The prosecutor, or the doctor, gets up and he shows how all the different stab wounds are one way, and then how all the different stab wounds are another way; but they are the same stab wounds in another direction. They put the hideous bodies on display and they say: “If he gets out see what will happen to you.” Implying it. I am not saying he did this. This is implied. A lot of diagrams are actually, in my opinion, senseless to the case.
Then there is Paul Watkins’ testimony. Paul Watkins was a young man who ran away from his parents and wouldn’t go home. You could ask him to go home and he would say no. He would say: “I don’t got no place to live. Can I live here?” And I’d say: “Sure.” So, he looks for a father image. I offer no father image. I say: “To be a man, boy, you have got to stand up and be your own father.” And he still hungers for a father image. So he goes off to the desert and finds a father image. When he gets on the stand, I forget what he said, whether it had any relative value; oh, I was supposed to have said to go get a knife and kill the Sheriff of Shoshone. Go get a knife and kill the Sheriff of Shoshone? I don’t know the Sheriff of Shoshone. I don’t think I have been there but once. I am not saying that I didn’t say it, but if I said it, at that time I may have thought it was a good idea.
Whether I said it in jest and whether I said it in joking, I can’t recall and reach back into my memory. I could say either way. I could say: “Oh, I was just joking.” Or I could say I was curious. But to be honest with you I don’t ever recall saying: “Get a knife and change of clothes and go do what Tex said.” Or I don’t recall saying: “Get a knife and go kill the Sheriff.”
I don’t recall saying to anyone: “Go get a knife and kill anyone or anything.” In fact it makes me mad when someone kills snakes or dogs or cats or horses. I don’t even like to eat meat because that is how much I am against killing. So you have got the guy who is against killing on the witness stand, and you are all asking him to kill you. You are asking him to judge you. Because with my words, each of your opinions or diagrams, your thoughts, are dying. What you thought was true is dying. What you thought was real is dying.
Because you all know, and I know you know, and you know that I know you know. So, let’s make that circle.
You say: “Where do we start from there?” Back to the facts again.
You say that the facts are elusive in my mind. Actually, they just don’t mean anything. The District Attorney can call them facts. They are facts. You are facts. But the facts of the case aren’t even relative, in my mind. They are relative to the Thirteenth Century. They are relative to the Eighth Century. They are relative to how old you are or what kind of watch you wear on your arm. I have never lived in time.
A bell rings, I get up. A bell rings and I go out. A bell rings, and I live my life with bells. I get up when a bell rings and I do what a bell says.
I have never lived in time. When your mind is not made in time, the whole thought is different. You look at time as being man made. And you say time is only relative to what you think it is. If you want to think me guilty then you can think me guilty and it is okay with me. I don’t dislike any of you for it. If you want to think me guilty it is okay with me. I know what I know and nothing and no one can take that from me.
You can jump up and scream: “Guilty!” and you can say what a no good guy I am, and what a devil, fiend, eeky sneaky slimy devil I am. It is your reflection and you’re right, because that is what I am. I am whatever you make me. You see, it is what happens inside the now that ... the words just lose meaning. A motion is more real than a word. The Indians spoke with it. They could explain to you with motions what they felt. This is what I intended to do if I could represent myself. Explain to you what is inside of me, how I feel about things. Because words are your words. You invented the words, and you made a dictionary and you gave me the dictionary and you said: “This is what the words mean.” Well, this is what they mean to you, but to someone else, they’ve got a different dictionary.
And things mean different things to different people, and to match the symbols up as you talk back and forward. Then you put a witness up here to say what you said. I could never say what someone else said.
I could only say what I said.
You tell me something and, tomorrow, I try to repeat it; if I didn’t write it down, I couldn’t tell you what you said. Let alone a year ago, let alone eight months ago. let alone a week ago. I am forgetful. I forget one day to the next. I forget what day it is or what month it is or what year it is. I don’t particularly care because all that real to me is right now. But then, the case is real to me, and I say: “What do I have to do to make you people let me go back to the desert with my children?”
You have your world. You are going to do whatever you do with it. I don’t have the schooling in it. I don’t believe in your church. I don’t believe in anything you do. I am not saying you are wrong, and I hope that you say I am not wrong for believing what I believe in.
Murder? Murder is another question. It is a move, it is a motion.
You take another’s life. Boom! and they’re gone. You say: “Where did they go?” They are dead. You say: “Well, that person could have made the motion. He could have taken my life just as well as I took his.” If a soldier goes off to the battlefield, he goes off with his life in front. He is giving his life. Does that not give him permission to take one?
No. Because then we bring our soldiers back and try them in court for doing the same thing we sent them to do. We train them to kill, and they go over and kill, and we prosecute them and put them in jail because they kill. If you can understand it, then I bow to your understanding. But in my understanding I wouldn’t get involved with it.
My peace is in the desert or in the jail cell, and had I not seen the sunshine in the desert I would be satisfied with the jail cell much more over your society, much more over your reality, and much more over your confusion, and much more over your world, and your word games that you play.
And each witness got up here and only testified for what was best for them, they did not testify for what was best for me. They testified for what was best for them, their own benefit. So you say: “Okay, and then what else did she say?” She said: “You only see in me what you want to see in me.” You only see in her what you put in her, because when you take LSD enough times you reach a stage of nothing. You reach a stage of no thought. An example of this: if you were to be standing in a room with someone and you were loaded on LSD and the guy says: “Do you like my sports coat?” And you would probably not pay any attention to him. About two or three minutes later the guy loaded on LSD will turn around and say: “My, you have a beautiful sports coat,” because he is only reacting. He is only reacting to the individual terminology, the person that he has in the room. As you would put two people in a cell, so would they reflect and flow on each other like as if water would seek a level.
I have been in a cell with a guy eighty years old and I listened to everything he said. “What did you do then?” And he explains to me his whole life and I sat there and listened, and I experienced vicariously his whole being, his whole life, and I look at him and he is one of my fathers. But he is also another one of your society’s rejects. Where does the garbage go? As we have tin cans and garbage alongside the road, and oil slicks in your water, so you have people, and I am one of your garbage people. I am one of your motorcycle people. I am one of what you want to call hippies. I never thought about being a hippie. I don’t know what a hippie is. A hippie is generally a guy that’s pretty nice. He will give you a shirt and a flower, and he will give you a smile, and he walks down the road. But don’t try to tell him nothing. He ain’t listening to nobody. He got his own thoughts. You try to tell him something and he will say: “Well, if that’s your bag.” He is finding himself. You, those children there were finding themselves. Whatever thay did, if they did whatever they did, is up to them. They will have to explain to you that. I’m just explaining to you what I am explaining to you. Everything is simple to me. It is what it is because that is what it is. It doesn’t go any farther. What? That is all there is. Why?
Why? Why comes from your mother. Your mother teaches you why, why, why. You go around asking your mother why and she keeps telling you: “Because, because,” and she laces your little brain with because and because. “Why?” “Because.” “Why?” And you don’t know any different. If you had two mothers, one to tell you one thing and one to tell you another, then your mind might be left where mine was. If you had a dozen parents that you went around with and couldn’t believe anything you were told and then you couldn’t disbelieve anything you were told. And it’s the same thing with this court. I don’t believe what these witnesses get up here and say but I don’t disbelieve them either. I won’t challenge them. If the guy says:
“You’re no good,” I say: “Okay. If that’s what you want me to believe it’s okay with me.”
I don’t care what you believe. I know what I am. You care what I think of you? Do you care what I think of you? No, I hardly think so.
I don’t think that any of you care about anything other than yourselves because when you find yourself, you find that everyone is out for themselves anyway. It looks that way to me here, the money that has been made, the things that I cannot talk about, and I know I can’t talk about, I won’t talk about and I will keep quiet about these things. How much money has passed over this case? How sensational do you think that you have made this case? I never made it sensational. I was hiding in the desert. You come and got me, remember? Or could you prove that? What could you prove? The only thing you can prove is what you can prove to yourselves, and you can sit here and build a lot in that jury’s mind, and they are still going to interject their personalities on you. They are going to interject their inadequate feelings; they are going to interject what they think. I look at the jury and they won’t look at me. So I wonder why they won’t look at me. They are afraid of me. And do you know why they are afraid of me? Because of the newspapers.
You projected fear. You projected fear. You made me a monster and I have to live with that the rest of my life because I cannot fight this case. If I could fight this case and I could present this case, I would take that monster back and I would take that fear back. Then you could find something else to put your fear on, because it’s all your fear. You look for something to project it on and you pick a little old scroungy nobody who eats out of a garbage can, that nobody wants, that was kicked out of the penitentiary, that has been dragged through every hell hole you can think of, and you drag him up and put him in a courtroom.
You expect to break me? Impossible – you broke me years ago.
You killed me years ago. I sat in a cell and the guy opened the door and he said: “You want out?” I looked at him and I said: “Do you want out?” You are the jail, all of you, and your whole procedure. The procedure that is on you is worse than the procedure that is on me.
I like it in there. I like it in there – it’s peaceful. I just don’t like coming to the courtroom. I would like to get this over with as soon as possible. And I’m sure everyone else would like to get it over with too.
Without being able to prepare a case, without being able to confront the witnesses and to bring out the emotions, and to bring out the reasons why witnesses say what they say, and why this hideous thing has developed into the drama that it’s moved into, would take a bigger courtroom, and it would take a bigger public, a bigger press, because you all, as big as you are, know what you are as I know what you are, and I like you anyway. I don’t want to keep rehashing the same things over. There are so many things that you can get into, Your Honour, that I have no thoughts on. It is hard to think when you really don’t care too much one way or the other.
[Interruption]
I was released from the penitentiary and I learned one lesson in the penitentiary: you don’t tell nobody nothing. You listen. When you are little you keep your mouth shut, and when someone says: “Sit down,” you sit down unless you know you can whip him, and if you know you can whip him you stand up and whip him and you tell him to sit down. Well, I pretty much sit down. I have learned to sit down because I have been whipped plenty of times for not sitting down and I have learned not to tell people something they don’t agree with. If a guy comes up to me and he says: “The Yankees are the best ball team,” I am not going to argue with that man. If he wants the Yankees to be the best ball team, it’s okay with me, so I look at him and I say: “Yeah, the Yankees are a good ball club.” And somebody else says: “The Dodgers are good,” I will agree with that; I will agree with anything they tell me. That is all I have done since I have been out of the penitentiary. I agreed with every one of you. I did the best I could to get along with you, and I have not directed one of you to do anything other than what you wanted to do.
I have always said this: You do what your love tells you and I do what my love tells me. Now if my love tells me to stand up there and fight I will stand up there and fight if I have to. But if there is any way that my personality can get round it, I try my best to get around any kind of thing that is going to disturb my peace, because all I want is to be just at peace, whatever that takes. Now in death you might find peace, and soon I may start looking in death to find my peace.
I have reflected your society in yourselves, right back at yourselves, and each one of these young girls was w
ithout a home.
Each one of these young boys was without a home. I showed them the best I could what I would do as a father, as a human being, so they would be responsible to themselves and not to be weak and not to lean on me. And I have told them many times, I don’t want no weak people around me. If you are not strong enough to stand on your own, don’t come and ask me what to do. You know what to do. This is one of the philosophies that everyone is mad at me for, because of the children, I always let the children go. “You can’t let the children go down there by themselves.” I said: “Let the children go down. If he falls, that is how he learns, you become strong by falling.” They said:
“You are not supposed to let the children do that. You are supposed to guide them.” I said: “Guide them into what? Guide them into what you have got them guided into? Guide them into dope? Guide them into armies?” I said: “No, let the children loose and follow them.” That is what I did in the desert. That is what I was doing, following your children, the ones you didn’t want, each and every one of them. I never asked them to come with me – they asked me.
[Recess]
There’s been a lot of talk about a bottomless pit. I found a hole in the desert that goes down to a river that runs North underground, and I call it a bottomless pit, because where could a river be going North underground? You could even put a boat on it. So I covered it up and I hid it and I called it “The Devil’s Hole” and we all laugh and we joke about it. You could call it a Family joke about the bottomless pit. How many people could you hide down in this hole?
Again you have a magical mystery tour that most of the time there’s forty or fifty people at the ranch playing magical mystery tour.
Randy Starr thought he was a Hollywood stunt man. He had a car all painted up and like never done any stunts. Another guy was a movie star, but he had never been in any movies, and everybody was just playing a part, you know; like most people get stuck in one part, but we were like playing different parts every day. One day you put on a cowboy hat and say: “Shoot somebody,” or the next you might have a knife fighter, or go off in the woods for a month or two to be an Indian, or just like a bunch of little kids playing. Then you establish reality within that reality of play-acting.