by Johnny Satan
CM: Again? [chuckles] Well you guys are misinformed. I haven’t killed anyone.
TS: What about, uh, what about [Shorty] Shea?
CM: What about him?
TS: Well, what about him?
CM: He got killed.
TS: Well, the word is you killed him.
CM: Who?
TS: Word is you stabbed him.
CM: Oh, word.
TS: What does it feel to kill someone Charles?
CM: Word… word is that you’re an old woman. Word is you have turkey in sky. Word is… I don’t know what word is. Someone else tell you that, I didn’t tell you that.
TS: Did you kill Shea?
CM: Hell no.
TS: Did you cut, uh, [Gary] Hinman’s ear off?
CM: Hell.…yes. Yeah.
TS: Why‘d you.. How’d that feel when you cut his ear off?
CM: Uh, I felt bad about it.
TS: The truth’s fun now, isn’t the truth fun now when you... ok ok ok, you cut his ear off what did it feel like...
CM: Yeah Yeah, sure, sure. Is the truth fun? [chuckles] My Goodness.
TS: What did it feel like when you cut his ear off?
CM: Huh?
TS: Tell me about it, come on.
CM: What did it feel like?
TS: Yeah.
CM: Well I had done what he said for about 20 years. I done everything he told me to do. And I got to thinking now, why don’t this guy do something I tell him to do? And he said uh, “no”. And I said “well how comes I’m always doing what you tell me to do but then you never do what I say to?” And he said ‘Well blah blah blah” So I said “now you do what I say”. And he said “no.” I said “you do exactly what I say!” And he said “no.” “I’m telling you! I’m not asking you! I’m telling you! You do exactly what I say!” He said ‘Wow, where’d you get that ?” I said “I got it from my father in prison. He gave it to me. I had a little charm bracelet I used to carry it on when I was about that big.” TS: Mmmhmmm. Skip that for a second.
CM: Yeah.
TS: Why was it so important for him to do what you say? Why do you like having people to do what you want them to do?
CM: Because….
TS: Why do you like to control them Charles?
CM: Because. Wait a minute, no, no I was asked. The dude asked he says
“are you my brother” I said “yeah I’m your brother”, he said “how much are you my brother?” I said “completely”. See if I’m gonna explain it to you, it’s not gonna be that easy. So you’re gonna have to bear with me.
So Bobby said, he was a young dude, he said “I’m your brother” so I said “ok”.
TS: Bobby?
CM: I’m your brother. Beausoleil, Beausoleil. I just got out of prison.
TS: Wait wait, wait, wait, wait...
CM:Yeah.
TS: Let me interrupt you for a second.
CM: Yeah, well then we’re gone with that thought.
TS: No, no, no, no no because you’re getting on to something…
CM: Then we’ll go onto another one and you’ll make me look crazy.
TS: No, no, no. You can make yourself look crazy, Charles, I can’t make you look crazy and please believe me.
CM: Alright, I’ll believe you….
TS: Let me...
CM: And I’ll put it in my left hand pocket for later.
TS: Let me, let me take you back to you wanting this man Hinman...
CM: I cut the dude’s ear off because he was fucking over Bobby. And Bobby was a youngster and really didn’t know what the hell he was doing, and he was a kid and he never had no man show him nothing, see, so I was telling the boy, I said, uh, uh , the guy says “You got my money?”, I said “go over there and get your money or leave him alone.” TS: You’re taking me to another story.
CM: No I’m trying to tell you the same thing. And we’ll be here for a thousand years unless you let me finish.
TS: No, no, no, no, we won’t be here that long at all if you just speak to this one point.
CM: Ok, I made the point. Why I cut the dude’s ear off, man, that’s the point.
TS: I, I didn’t ask you that, I said why was it important to you to make Hinman do what you wanted him to do. If one follows your story…
CM: Because the dude had a gun.
TS: Ok, and if one follows your story...
CM: Yeah.
TS: Through the times at the ranch...
CM: Yeah.
TS: In southern California, it was important to Charles Manson to be a leader,...
CM: No.
TS: To have people follow him.
CM: Come on district attorney! See you’re full of brainwash. That’s the district attorney. I’m nobody’s fucking leader and I’m nobody’s follower. I got a parole officer. I got a sleeping bag and a guitar and I’m standing at old blind man’s ranch and that’s about the extent of it. All this occult and that hocus pocus stuff that you guys are playing, I don’t nothing about all that.
TS: You know nothing about something called Helter Skelter? You know nothing about it?
CM: Yeah I know about Helter Skelter! It was a song that some people sang!
TS: And that’s all it was?
CM: And some other kids picked it up in their minds. And they said “What do you think Helter Skelter is?” and I say “Well I get out of the penitentiary in the 50’s and everybody’s going [claps] “dun…. dun…. dun” [claps] and they’re walking like that. I get locked back up, and I get out of the penitentiary in 65 and it’s going [claps faster] “dun.. dun.. dun.. dun” And locked up again I come out in 69 and it’s going [claps very fast] “dundundundundundundun” and I was thinking “Wow man, wow far out”.
TS: Wow what? Wow what? Come on keep going, Charles, keep going.
CM: I was a beatnik, I was a beatnik in the 50’s before the hippies came along. You know, and I cut a rut down through Acapulco, and I smoked Acapulco before you knew what it was, and I lived in the tombs and I was in the Cook County jail in Chicago when you were playing cricket in, uh, high school. See, like you live in another world. I live in street peoples world.
TS: Manson had a plot, “Helter Skelter”.
CM: Yeah…
TS: Manson had uh, a little scheme called creepy crawlers. He’d send people in to move furniture around. Is that all a figment of someone’s imagination so far or is there any truth to that? Tell me Charles, I don’t know.
CM: It’s a fairy tale. It’s worse than a fairy tale.
TS: It’s a fairy tale?
CM: It’s, uh, it’s, it’s a comedy. It’s a comedy tragedy, uh, opera that [chuckles] was played in the, uh, early morning.
TS: Come on Charles....
CM: It was sickening. You know?
TS: Get off the space shuttle.
CM: Well that’s what the D.A. gave you as reality.
TS: Ok.
CM: He stood in the courtroom and said “this man did this and this man did that“, and you all believed him. He said “this man did that” and I said “Your honor may I speak?” and he said “No you can’t speak” and I said “your honor I got a voice, let me talk” then he said “No sit down and shut up” and then he handcuffed me and took me to the back and whipped my [inaudible], what are you gonna do? I come out and sit down, I ain’t gonna get whipped again.
TS: Didn’t you, uh, stand up in that courtroom...
CM: Sure.
TS: And by the way, by the way , let me just go back…
CM: And I felt the reproductions of it in the back of it.
TS: Ok ok, but you say the whole thing is a fairy tale. You say the whole thing is make-believe.
CM: Yeah, that’s his Helter Skelter, it wasn’t mine.
TS: Uh huh, uh huh. The body of Sharon Tate is make believe isn‘t it?
CM: Uh that’s make believe...
TS: Make believe….
CM: That’s make believe to the people that went in there and did what they di
d.
TS: And who were those people? You know…
CM: Yeah.
TS: You know, but you know who those people were.
CM: Sure I know who they were.
TS: They were with you at the Spahn’s Ranch. They were part of this thing...
CM: Yeah.
TS: If not the Manson Family or the Manson Cult, the Manson Ranch, call it what you will.
CM: So then? What?
TS: And Tex Watson testified in a court of law that you told him “go to the house that Terry Melcher used to live in and kill those people in the most gruesome way.” A man that was once your associate said that of you and now you sit here and say that’s not true, that’s all make believe?
CM: You’ve got a stone wall there, won’t you take it down a little bit. Look here, I’ll explain something to you. Um, Tex took the witness stand, and this is record, and he said “I don’t know whether I’m Charlie Manson or my mother” Tex didn’t have his own mind one way or the other . He was balanced back and forth because I had already took his mind in another game down the road that I was playing with some Hell’s Angels that you don’t know nothing about and you probably never will know nothing about it. Because you would have to know those people to get in that thought, see. But there’s different colors on different people’s backs doing different things. It’s a different world. I love the world I live in too just like Reagan loves the world he lives in.
TS: You love the world you live in?
CM: [chuckles] Most a surely. It’s me.
TS: You love all the pain that you’ve caused people?
CM: OH!
TS: All the anguish that you’ve...
CM: Oh! I don’t know pain! I don’t know pain! I have no depth of pain! I have no depth of suffering! I don’t know ridicule! I don’t know all the bad things! I haven’t been punished by you all my life since I was 10 years old! I’ve been in every reform school you’ve got across the country. I used to have to lay down and get my ass whipped till I couldn’t walk. Tell me about some pain. Yeah.
TS: And that’s our fault, it’s all these people’s fault?
CM: No, no one fault, make strong, good pain, understand pain. Not bad. Pain’s not bad, it’s good. It teaches you things. It teaches you things. Like when you put your hand in the fire, OW! You know not to do that again. Yeah I understand that.
TS: But how come you didn’t learn...
CM: That’s the reason come I never stick my hand in fire.
TS: But, excuse me! You’ve been putting your hand in the fire since you were a little boy.
CM: I have?
TS: By, you just told me a couple minutes ago.
CM: I did?
TS: That out of 47 years you’ve spent 34 of them behind bars, now if isn’t keep putting your hand in the fire, I don’t know what is.
CM: Yeah, yeah, what year was that?
TS: It’s uh, uh, the year’s not important.
CM: Oh.
TS: What’s important is you just say you learn by pain not to experience it again to put your hand in the fire. Why have you been in and out of prisons for the last 34 out your 47 years. Do you call that normal behavior Charles? Is that something you’re proud of?
CM: No, no, no. I never thought I was normal, never tried to be normal. Normal runs in that little rut down there. I don’t know nothing about being normal. I‘ve been in jail all my life, man. I lived on the handball court. This guy raised me up. All the men in the joint raised me up, told me what to do, what was right and wrong, told me where to sit down , where to stand up, I just did whatever I was told. You know, and I got to the end of it and I just turned around and said “Wow, far out.” TS: Alright, now that’s....
CM: Then I went outside and all these little kids got a hold of me and said “We want to stop the Vietnam War and we want to do this.” What? There was a war? I don’t know what’s happening. I just got out of prison. I never had any vocational, did you ever see me go to any vocational training, rehabilitation? I never played no rehabilitation. I sweep the floor in the kitchen then go play handball. I’m still 10 years old in your world. Your world I’m still a kid, I’m not gonna grow up, I’m not gonna go to college.
TS: How old are you in your world?
CM: Um, Forever. Since breakfast... I can’t remember.
TS: I don’t know what that means, come on off the space shuttle Charles.
CM: Yes… off the space shuttle.
TS: How old are you in your world?
CM: How old am I? I’m as old as my mother told me [chuckles]. How’s that?
TS: Your mother? Tell me about your mother, what did your mother tell you?
CM: My mother told me that when she worked on death row and they took that dude into hanging and his head popped off and went down them 13 stairs and rolled over by her, it scared the shit out of her. [chuckles] you know, and I said “Wow, that sure is a far out trip Moms”. So then when I got up on Death Row in cell 13 for 9 counts of murder 1969, and I looked at, at her fears of that guy’s head popping off of that hanging noose, and I said to myself “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here, I didn’t want to come here.” I didn’t break the law. The judge knew that. But the people didn’t want to hear it. The Judge knew it. He washed his hands. He said “I know it but what can I do? The people want this.”
TS: The judge never said that.
CM: Yeah.
TS: The judge never said that.
CM: That’s what Older said.
TS: No, the judge never said that.
CM: He got off and shook their hands, didn’t he?
TS: The judge did not say he washed his hands.
CM: He’s a Flying Tiger man, from Madam Shanghai’s Shack. I just wrote him a letter today.
TS: The judge did not say you were innocent Charles.
CM: Innocent?
TS: Let’s go back to your mother, what..
CM: Innocent?
TS: What is…
CM: Wait a minute, wait a minute, let’s get back to that word innocent. Are you so white and pure?
TS: The judge didn’t say you were innocent.
CM: Are you innocent?
TS: Innocent of what?
CM: Oh. That’s what I’m saying.
TS: None of us are innocent.
CM: Yeah, just because you’re convicted in a court room doesn’t mean you’re guilty of something.
TS: What does mean you’re guilty?
CM: When you know you’re guilty.
TS: And how do you feel about yourself, tell me about…
CM: I feel, I feel pretty good.
TS: [sighs] Let me take you back to your mom.
CM: Take me back to old river...
TS: What else did see talk to you about besides the fellow who’s head popped off?
CM: The head popped off, yeah. She was living in the Blue Moon Café and she hit a dude in the head with one of them bottles of uh, Jim Beam whiskey. She tried to hustle a few dollars on the corner but there wasn’t no money, so when she jammed this whiskey bottle upside that clown’s head, he went down and she took his bread and come up and got me and we left and went to Indiana.
TS: When you were a boy, did you love your mother?
CM: Uh, I didn’t know what that was.
TS: Did you respect your mother? How did you feel about , how do you feel about your mom right now? If your mother, I don’t know if she is alive Charles or not.
CM: Yeah, you don’t huh?
TS: Do you?
CM: Hmmm. Let’s see. Alive now…eah, yeah, maybe...
TS: I mean, if she could be watching this right now..
CM: She could watching this right now..
TS: What would you say to her Charles?
CM: Oh well, what would I say to her…
TS: What would you say?
CM: I’d say, “you sure did go through a lot of changes to get me as far as you did. And you did a damn good job with the help of my grandma.”
My grandma was a mountain girl [chuckles] from Kentucky up in the mountains. And uh, she never did drink or smoke or cuss or lie. She used to cook for the Salvation Army and she was a human being, a good one. I’d go to Church down there and sweep the floor for her.
TS: Well how were you in school? I’ve heard that you weren’t too good, but maybe I’ve heard wrong.
CM: Depends on which school. I did very well in reform school.
TS: [chuckles] Yeah…
CM: I did good in uh, in uh, every place that I was ever told to go good in. As much as I was allowed to do, you know. Lot of times good for some may not be the same for others. Sometimes it kinda bumps heads but when it does um, I just chew on my pipe and think about it and do the best I can.
TS: Mmmmhmmm... but...
CM: You dealt, you dealt the hand down there in LA. You and that press, you and that uh, LA Times. You dealt the hand. You put me on Life magazine and had me convicted before I walked into the courtroom. You had what people wanted to buy. When they wanted to buy it they didn’t give a damn if they had to convict the District Attorney. They’d convicted the whole building to get that dollar bill going there. They had big bucks going there. They made twenty seven million, thousand, hundred, billion and I’m bumming fifteen dollars from a friend here.
TS: Here’s another newspaper account that you can now speak to since you haven’t done it before. That on the night following the, uh, killings of the house on Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, you accompanied four people to a home occupied by Mr. & Mrs. Leno LaBianca.
CM: Yeah.
TS: That you went inside that house...
CM: Mmmhmmm.
TS: And you tied them up...
CM: Mmmmhmmmm.
TS: And assured them that they were not going to be hurt...
CM: Mmmmhmmm.
TS: That you went back outside...
CM: Mmmmhmmm
TS: And sent [Linda] Kasabian and [Patricia] Krenwinkel and [Charles]
Watson and [Susan] Atkins inside the house to kill them.
CM: Mmmmhmmm.
TS: True or false?
CM: Mmmmhmmm... [long pause]
TS: Cause you know something Charles, that’s what you were convicted of among other things.
CM: Alright.
TS: Is it true or false?
CM: Do you deserve and in theory do you....
TS: No no no. It’s, it’s a yes or no.