by Johnny Satan
“You’re a more charitable man than I, Mr. Manson,” I told him and we parted.
I drove home thinking about two things.
First, I thought about what a mockery the so-called “presumption of innocence” really is. Here is a man on trial for his life, and they are holding him in jail without bail and making all kinds of rules and restrictions that interfere with his access to people and materials that could possibly help in his defense.
No court has yet found this man guilty of the crime with which he is charged so the only constitutionally permissible reason for keeping him in jail at this time at all is to insure his presence at trial. Thus bail is not too unreasonably denied on the theory that, guilty or innocent, a man facing so drastic a penalty might run away.
But what right do they do more than merely keep him available for trial? By what twisted conception of justice do they arrogate to themselves the right to place restrictions on the number and kind of visitors he can see or the number of telephone calls he can make or whether he can receive a lawbook to help the preparation of his defense?
Despite the fact that Charles Manson has already been tried and found guilty by the mass media based on police publicity handouts designed to make the Sheriff, the District Attorney and the Police Chief look good—despite that no court has yet convicted Charles Manson of this crime, and the possibility certainly remains that he may in fact be wrongfully accused.
Yes, it was a horrible murder, but no court has yet found that this man had anything to do with it. So why does the Sheriff have the right to surround him with rules and restrictions? Why is it that an attorney cannot even make him a present of a book on jury trial technique without a fantastic lot of red tape?
Secondly, I mused over the unfairness of the court system that makes a man choose between either representing himself entirely alone, pitting his inexperience against trained trial lawyers from the District Attorney’s office, or placing himself entirely in the hands of an attorney, a man whom he does not and cannot entirely know, and thereafter remain silent, deprived of the right to speak or act on his own behalf and forced to allow his life to hang entirely on the thread of another man’s skill and good faith.
That is a terrible choice and an unnecessary one. Sure, it is more convenient for the courts that way. But remember that anyone could become a defendent in a court—even you or I—and ask yourself whether courts exist for the benefit of people or whether people exist for the convenience of courts.
I fear these are only a few of the really knotty problems raised by the Charles Manson case. When we were talking about the difficulties of a propria persona defense, Manson finally observed, “You know they can’t do anything to me.”
They can kill you,” I retorted. “That’s what they are trying to do.”
“They can’t kill me,” he replied. “They can destroy my body, but they can’t kill me.”
What can you say to a man who believes in God?
(Michael Hannon – Los Angeles Free Press, January 30, 1970)
SECOND JAIL INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES MANSON
CHARLES MANSON: When you look at things in a positive manner, everything can work out perfect. You know, like as fast as man can go, he is destroying everything he can destroy. The pace that he’s picked up in sawing the trees down, killing the animals and shooting everything. You know, I go live out in the desert and I see a lot of madness. I see big fat people coming around with guns, shooting lizards, spiders, birds, anything they can get their hands on. Just killing and killing. They’re all programmed to kill. You know, there’s one thing I flashed on the other day: A policeman took me over, and on his helmet, you know, right on his forehead, there’s a beast, a bear, a bear beast on his forehead. And I say, ‘Well, can’t the people see the mark of the beast?’ You know, it’s not ... it’s not a hard thing to see. Is there anything you want to know? That I could tell you?
Q: What’s your birthsign?
A: Scorpio.
Q: Do you know your rising sign?
A: You know, you wake up every morning and there’s another rising sign. You know, maybe I can tell you where I’m from. Everybody is always telling where I’m from and where I developed my philosophy and what I think and all this and none of this is the things I’ve always said. I’m from Juvenile Hall. I’m from the line of people nobody wants. I’m from the street. I’m from the alley. Mainly I’m from solitary confinement. You spend twenty years in institutions and you forget what the free world is. You don’t know how the free world works. And then you come out and you live in it and you say, ‘Wow, I’ve been locked up for twenty years but my mind has been free.’ And I come outside and I see everybody’s got their minds locked up and their bodies are free. You know? I’ll give it to you just like this: All my life I felt all the bad people were in jail and all the good people were on the outside. Then I would get out of jail and I would find out that the people on the outside smiled and pretended like they were good, but there wasn’t too many of ‘em, you know? And then I’d go back to jail. I think my longest time out in the last 22 years have been maybe 6 or 8 months. And I was out two – let’s see, three different times – one time for 6 months, one time for 8 months and then last time I’ve been out for three years. Well, when I got out the last time, I didn’t want out. He told me, ‘Hell no. Nobody works, you don’t have to work.’ I said, ‘Well how do you eat?’ He said, ‘Well I eat at the Diggers.’ And I said, ‘Well how can you live that way?’ He said, ‘Come on.’ He put his arm around me and like I was his brother and he showed me love. He took me to Haight-Ashbury and we slept in the park in sleeping bags and we lived on the streets and my hair got a little longer and I started playing music and people liked my music and people smiled at me and put their arms around me and hugged me – I didn’t know how to act. It just took me away, it grabbed me up, man, that there was people that are real. You know, I just didn’t think there were such real people. There were people with beards and we smoked grass. And like I had never been involved with dope – with what you call dope – except when I got out I took some LSD, which enlightened my awareness. But mainly it was the people. It was the young people walking up and down the street trading shirts with each other and throwing flowers and being happy and I just fell in love, you know. And I am still in love, I love everything. But the worst thing is, I have seen how the Haight was going, because being in jail for so long has left my awareness pretty well open. So I’ve seen the bad things that were coming into Haight, the wild problems and the people getting harrassed in the doorways and the policemen coming with sticks and they were running them up and down the street. So I got a school bus and I asked anybody, ‘Anybody wants to can go in the school bus. The school bus is not mine, it doesn’t belong to anyone. We’ll put the pink slip in the glove compartment and the school bus belongs to itself.’ And we all turned our minds off and just went around looking for a place to get away from the Man. We went to Seattle, Washington – the Man was there, everywhere we went. We went to Texas – the Man was there. We went to New Mexico – the Man was there, coming from nowhere and just grooving on the road because the road seemed to be the only place where you can be free when you’re moving from one spot to another. You seem to have the freedom in your movement to take a breath. To take a breath from the city. To take a breath from the oppression, from the madness of the city. And then we went and got out in the desert. We found a whole world out in the desert. Then I got to see that the animals were smarter than the people. You know, like I’ve never been around many animals. In jail there are hardly any animals around. Then I got to looking at the coyotes, and I got to looking at dogs and snakes and rabbits and cats and goats and mules. And we walked around for weeks, following the animals for weeks, and just see what they do. And there is a lot of love there. That’s were most of the love is, in the young people and in the animals. And that’s were my love is. You know, I don’t have any philosophy. My philosophy is ‘don’t think.’ You know, you just don
’t think. If you think, you are divided in your mind. You know, one and one is one in two parts. Like I don’t have any thought in my mind, hardly any at all, it is all love. If you love everything, you don’t have to think about things – you just love it. Whatever circumstances hand to you, whatever dealer deals you, whatever hand you get handed you, just love the hand you got, you know, and make it best you can. And that’s what I’ve always done and like there has never been any thought. I’ve never had much schooling. No mother, no father. In and out of orphanages and foster homes. And then to boys’ school and reform schools. Like it’s always been like ... my head is empty. I have no opinion. I know the truth – the truth is in no word form. It just is. And everything is the way it is because that’s the way love says so. And when you tune in with love, you tune in with yourself. You know, that’s not really a philosophy, that’s a fact and everybody who’s got love in their hearts knows that. Okay?
Q: If you’ve got anything else to say, just keep talking.
(Steve Alexander, TUESDAY’S CHILD, 1970)
After this telephone interview while he was incarcerated in the Los Angeles Hall of Justice, Manson’s phone privileges were summarily suspended by the court.
AN AUDIENCE WITH CHARLES MANSON
Moving slowly across the municipal geometry of civic buildings and police officers, a man comes toward us looking directly into the sun, his arms stretched out in supplication, like the Sierra Indian. From a hundred feet away his eyes are flashing, all two-dimensional boundaries gone. A strange place to be tripping, outside the new, all concrete, Los Angeles County Jail.
"You're from ROLLING STONE," he says.
"How did you know?"
No answer. He leads us to the steps of the jail's main entrance, pivots and again locks his gaze into the sun.
"Spirals," he whispers. "Spirals coming away... circles curling out of the sun." His fingers weave patterns in the air. A little sun dance.
"A hole in the fourth dimension," we suggest.
His easy reply: "A hole in all dimensions."
This is Clem, an early member of the family called Manson.
Inside is another, Squeaky, a friendly girl with short, red hair and freckles. Her eyes, too, are luminous, not tripping, but permanently innocent. Children from the Village of the Damned.
We went to the attorney-room window to fill out forms. Two guards watched from a glass booth above. A surprise: we were not searched.
"Step inside the gate," says a disembodied voice. "Keep clear of the gate."
After nearly an hour he comes in. The guards greet him, casual, friendly.
Q: Hi, Charlie, how are you today?
CHARLIE MANSON: Hi, man, I’m doing fine. [Smiling. He’s wearing prison clothes, blue denim jacket and pants. His hair is very long and bushy, he pushes it out of his face nervously. He looks different, older and stranger than the press photos. His beard has been shaved off recently, and it is growing back black and stubbly. He has a long face with a stubborn jaw, country faces like you see in old TVA photographs. A cajun Christ. He moves springing, light as a coyote.] Can’t shake hands. Against the rules. [He unfolds casually in the chair.]
Q: So were you really happy with your album?
C.M: All the good music was stolen. What’s there is a couple of years old. I’ve written hundreds of songs since then. I’ve been writing a lot since I was in jail. I never really dug recording, you know, all those things pointing at you. Greg would say, ‘Come down to the studio, and we’ll tape some things,’ so I went. You get into the studio, you know, and it’s hard to sing into microphones. [He clutches his pencil rigidly, like a mike.] Giant phallus symbols pointing at you. All my latent tendencies... [He starts laughing and making sucking noises. He is actually blowing the pencil!] My relationship to music is completely subliminal, it just flows through me.
Q: ‘Ego Is A Too Much Thing’ is a strange track. What do you mean by ego?
C.M: Ego is the man, the male image. [His face tenses, his eyes dart and threaten. He clenches his fist, bangs it on the table. He gets completely behind it, acting it out, the veins standing out on his neck, showing what a strain it is to be evil.] Ego is the phallic symbol, the helmet, the gun. The man behind the gun, the mind behind the man behind the gun. My philosophy is that ego is the thinking mind. The mind you scheme with, make war with. They shoved all the love in the back, hid it away. Ego is like, ‘I’m going to war with my ego stick.’ [He waves an imaginary rifle around, then sticks it in his crotch. An M-16 prick.]
Q: In ‘Ego’ there’s this line: “Your heart is a pumpin’ your paranoia’s a-jumpin’”.
C.M: Yeah, well, paranoia is just a kind of awareness, and awareness is just a form of love. Paranoia is the other side of love. Once you give in to paranoia, it ceases to exist. That’s why I say submission is a gift, just give in to it, don’t resist. It’s like saying, ‘Tie me on the cross!’ [He says this calmly, angelically dropping back in his chair.] Here, want me to hold the nail? Everything is beautiful if you want to experience it totally.
Q: How does paranoia become awareness?
C.M: It’s paranoia...and it’s paranoia...and it’s paranoia...UHN! [He mimics terror, total paranoia, scrunching up his body into a ball of vibrating fear that suddenly snaps and slumps back in ecstasy.] It’s like when I went into the courtroom. Everybody in the courtroom wanted to kill me. I saw the hatred in their eyes, and I knew they wanted to kill me, and I asked the sheriffs, ‘Is somebody going to shoot me?’ That’s why I feel like I’m already dead. I know it’s coming. It’s the cops who put that feeling into their heads. They don’t come with that. They whisper, so I can hear it, ‘Sharon Tate’s father is in court.’ And then they go over and shake him down to see if he has a gun, and they’re just putting that idea into his head. He has a nice face. I saw him the first day in court. He doesn’t want to kill me. They’re putting that into his head. You know, they say things like, ‘We wouldn’t want you to shoot the defendant.’ And every day I see him in court, his face gets a little harder, and one day he’s gonna do it. And they put the whole thing in his head, feeding him all these negative vibrations. And if you keep doing that it’s got to happen.
I know it’s coming. They all got their things pointed at me, and they want to use them badly. But actually they can’t use them, and that’s what makes them so mad. They can’t make love with them, they’re all suffering from sex paranoia. They’ve been following me for three years, trying to find something, and wherever I go there’s like thirty women.
And that really makes them mad. They can’t understand what all these women are doing with one guy. They’re looking for something dirty in everything, and if you’re looking for something, you’ll find it. You have to put up some kind of face for them and that’s the only face they understand. The answer is to accept the cross. I’ve accepted it. I can go up on the cross in my imagination. Oh, oooooh, aaaah! [The orgasmic crucifixion! He gives a long sigh of relief. Charlie’s rap is super acid rap—symbols, parables, gestures, nothing literal, everything enigmatic, resting nowhere, stopping briefly to overturn an idea, stand it on its head, and then exploit the paradox.] Have you ever seen the coyote in the desert? [ His head prowls back and forth. ] Watching, tuned in, totally aware. Christ on the cross, the coyote in the desert—it’s the same thing, man. The coyote is beautiful. He moves through the desert delicately, aware of everything, looking around. He hears every sound, smells every smell, sees everything that moves. He’s always in a state of total paranoia, and total paranoia is total awareness. You can learn from the coyote just like you can learn from a child. A baby is born into the world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world with eyes not used yet. As he grows up, his parents lay all this stuff on him.
They tell him, when they should be letting him tell them. Let the children lead you.
The Death Trip is something they pick up from their parents, mama and papa. They don’t have to die. You can live fo
rever. It’s all been put in your head. They program him by withholding love. They make him into a mechanical toy. [He sings from his album, jerking his arms like a spastic Tin Man.] I am a mechanical boy, I am my mother’s toy.
Children function on a purely spontaneous level. Their parents make them rigid. You’re born with natural instincts and the first thing they want to do is lay all their thoughts on you. By the time you’re nine or ten, you’re exactly what they want. A free soul trapped in a cage, taught to die. Everything happened perfectly for me in my life. I picked the right mother, and my father, I picked him too. He was a gas, he cut out early in the game. He didn’t want me to get hung up. [Laughs privately at his own joke.] Kids respond to music. They can hear it, they’re not so conditioned they can’t feel it. Music seldom gets to grown-ups. It gets through to the young mind that’s still open. When your mind is closed, it’s closed to God. I look at the world as God’s imagination. You are as much Him as you are willing to give up, become part of His body, become one. The beautiful thing is that it’s all there, everything’s there in your mind. This kid one time kept asking me to teach him how to play the guitar. I can’t teach anything. If you believe you can do it, you can.
I once asked a friend, ‘Teach me what snow is.’ He said, ‘well, snow is like water, it’s cold and...’ He spent months trying to teach me what snow was and finally he took some frosting out of the icebox. That was the closest he could come. You can’t communicate with words. Only with actions. That’s what Jesus Christ taught us. Words kill. They’ve filled every living thing with death. His disciples betrayed Him by writing it down. Once it was written, it was as dead as a tombstone. They didn’t live his teachings, they wrote them down. They killed Him with every word in the New Testament. Every word is another nail in the cross, another betrayal disguised as love. Every word is soaked with His blood. ‘Go, do thou likewise.’ He didn’t say write it down. The whole fucking system is built on those words, the church, the government, war, the whole Death Trip. The original sin was to write it down. Here’s one fact that’s a fact you can’t hide: ten thousand people got up on that cross, that Roman cross, to tear the establishment down from the inside. The preacher hides the ten thousand, crying ‘Holy, holy,’ talking about one man, putting up crosses everywhere. It’s all hidden under that cross.