Charles Manson (1934-2017)

Those who have been reading this blog for a while know that I have a strong interest in 1960's pop culture, especially in regards to that era's popular music. It should come as no surprise then that I can't help but comment on the passing of Charles Manson, one of the most notorious criminals of the last century, who became a symbol for the dark side of the 1960's Dionysian dream. It isn't clear if he ever killed anyone with his own hands, but upon his orders at least nine people were murdered by members of his "family." The most infamous of these killings happened over two nights in August 1969. The most famous victim was actress Sharon Tate, wife of film director Roman Polanski, who was eight months pregnant at the time. Beyond the killings themselves, the most shocking part of the story is that this malevolent figure indeed became associated with '60's pop culture, along side lava lamps and the Beatles. The fact that Manson claimed to be inspired by songs from the White Album didn't help the association. Elements of the underground press at the time championed him as an avatar of the antiestablishment counter culture. It seems funny now that the radical left that once embraced him is now trying to distance itself from his legacy, as we shall see. 

After he and his followers were convicted and sent to prison for good a morbid fascination with Manson persisted over the decades that followed. It seemed like every few years some TV news show would feature a ratings grab interview of Manson, as if he had anything to really say. Along with a life of crime, he had been an aspiring singer-songwriter, who associated with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. He even got some studio time to cut a couple of demos. Some of these recordings have circulated as bootlegs, and Guns N' Roses and (not coincidentally) Marilyn Manson have recorded his songs. His image has appeared on T-shirts, and he's been the inspiration for fictional, as well non-fictional TV shows, movies and books.

But there is nothing inspirational about Charles Manson's story; nothing romantic or profound. Born in Cincinnati, growing up for a time in nearby Norwood, his birth certificate read "no name Maddox." Eventually his 16 year old mother Kathleen replaced the "no name" with Charles Milles, then later married the man who would adopt the child, giving him the moniker he would be known by the rest of his life. Following her lead (Kathleen may or may not have been a prostitute, but did get in some scrapes for stealing) he picked up cash here and there by robbing stores and stealing cars. When not in reform schools or juvenile halls he bounced between relatives in various states because of his mother's similar stints behind bars. He spent most of his adolescence and young adulthood in and out of prison. Once, when he was 32, he begged not to released, since incarceration was the only stability he'd known in his life up to then. By 1967 Manson found himself in San Francisco taking advantage of the free love and readily available drugs. By 1968 he was in the L.A. area, bouncing between remote locations, forming a commune of sorts that he called the Family, by attracting runaway girls and drifters. 

Some are now arguing that Manson wasn't a product of the 1960's counterculture, but was a backlash to it, and that he had more in common with today's alt-right than with the hippies of yesteryear. The first part of this thesis is plausible, the second two parts are a product of liberal wishful thinking. He may not have been a hippie, but he and his Family were certainly the products of a time and a place. In Slouching Toward Bethlehem, Joan Didion offers an image of the Haight in 1967 that is far from idealistic. We see kids, some as young as 15, run away from home, from parents who are just as happy that they were gone, experienced beyond their years but with none of the wisdom of age. It was from among these lost boys and, especially, girls that Manson drew his followers. He was a racist, yes. But his motivation for killing had as much to do with revenge for the record deal that never materialized as it did with wanting to start some kind of apocalyptic race war. He was a psychologically broken man who never knew a real home life, and was now forming one from the remnants of people more shattered than himself. He may not have been a hippie, but he sure was taking advantage of a world falling apart, and it's arguable that he could have only gathered his Family and mesmerized them in that particular time and place. 

That said, I would agree that he wasn't the product of the Counterculture, but he was the product of a counterculture. He was the product of neglect and dislocation. He was the product of what happens when the family structure breaks down and the state tries to fill the gap. He was the product of a criminal justice system that takes troubled kids and makes them monsters. He was already in his thirties when he hit Haight - Ashbury and the Summer of Love, so no, the 1960's Counterculture didn't produce him per se, but it was made for him. Take a relatively young man who had experienced too much too soon, and as a result had also acquired a peculiar, twisted wisdom, and release him into a pool of other, weaker, lost souls he could manipulate to his ends. Then throw in the drugs, and the sex and the crazy, half literate philosophy of the hippies, and you get Charles Manson.

No, there is nothing romantic about him. Nothing profound. He was neither a counterculture messiah nor a crypto Nazi. He was a twisted soul who had it just together enough to manipulate other twisted souls. He isn't a cultural icon, but a prophetic warning of what can happen when the traditional social guardrails, particularly the familial ones, fail. Don't misunderstand me. He was responsible for his actions: many go through the things he did in his life and don't end up murderers. But few end up stable productive citizens either.  

This is the part of the obit where I ask you to pray for the deceased. I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it. While I understand the sentiment, I don't like headlines or articles that proclaim that Charles Manson is in hell. That's God's prerogative, and we should never try to grasp at it, even in what may seem like open and shut cases, even if we're being rhetorical. But after reading the news getting myself to pray for him was impossible. All I could think of was Sharon Tate begging for the life of her unborn child, and my blood went hot with rage. Then I saw something about Tates sister, Debra, who "said a prayer, shed a tear, stuck a flower under my cross" when she heard the news. Make no mistake, she has practically made it her life's mission to keep  Manson and the other Family members responsible for the murders incarcerated when they come up for parol. But she also knows that hate is useless, and forgiveness the only path to true freedom. I thought, "if she could pray for him, I can too." And I went ahead and prayed three Hail Mary's for the repose of his soul. 

I ask you to do the same, and to also pray for his victims.

Abigail Folger
Voytek Frykowski
Gary Hinman
Leno LaBianca
Rosemary LaBianca
Stephen Parent
Jay Sebring
Donald Shea
Sharon Tate

Eternal rest grant unto them o Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls, and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. AMEN