The media constantly prove themselves such suckers for the combination of death, Hollywood, and the 20th century. This week MSNBC felt the need to drag out poor, 72 year-old Charlie Manson as the personification of psychedelic evil in a show luridly titled The Mind Of Manson. They didn’t even bother to wait until some kind of anniversary or parole hearing. In the interview segment, Charlie made the point that he was the squares’ scapegoat for all the stuff they hated and feared about the 1960s. And, to a degree, I have to sympathize with the guy. Beside Pol Pot, Charlie was a rank amateur. Click for some of Charlie’s recent rantings that MSNBC didn’t get. (By the way, Charlie will be next considered for parole in 2012. One more factor for a year already gathering unhealthy significance.)
Meanwhile, in this week’s LA CityBeat, my media column is all about the mass attempts to subvert Wikipedia and names the guilty.
The secret words plainly have to be Helter and Skelter
SURPRISE! This has to the Web Toy of the Week! (Thanks some girl)
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11 comments:
So did the Dylan messaging machine crash?
You know what Bob said about wicked messengers.
Sure fucking looks like it.
(From Eli he did come)
I'm going with Ed Sanders' theory that Charlie was a square from the start. His violence, racism, contempt for women were straight outta squaresville. His hippie front was a con in keeping with the "counterculture" con that is now a mainstay of the marketing world.
As the late Stevie Millen once said, "The culture that they sell us under the counter this year is the culture that they'll sell us over the counter next year, and that's why they call it the counter culture."
Not to say that nothing happened in the sixties, but Charlie is the square's Jesus, carrying the sins of Nixon. Wow, cool, I sound as crazy as him.
I'm sure that the old broads who worship him have sent him a care package of Crocs by the way.
i hate to break it to you, jon, but, while contempt for women (and certainly for old broads) may be an indicator of squareness, it is hardly absent from the minds of hippies or other so-called revolutionaries.
Charlie Manson blew the shit out of the "oh wow -- groovy" two-fingers-vertical flower child hypocrisy. I think that's why Farren likes him so much.
Some girl is right. Many of those blank eyed hippie maidens in clips of Woodstock etc., were treated little better than 20th century squaws.
What? Radical feminist hippie chicks don't count? Yes of course there were (are) violent, racist, misogynists in hippie land, but violence, racism and misogyny were not the accepted norm. Or, to put it another way, it was a little easier to challenge them when the "dude" in question claimed to be hip. In addition to head tripping, Manson was trained in violence, pimping and the manipulation of racial tensions. He was trained in prison, the hell world where squaredom sends it's shadow.
Diamond Jim, and Mick, I assure you that I am no starry eyed flower punk.
Some Girl, "Old Broad" is a term of endearment when it comes from a fat old bastard. I kind of like the image of Charlie's girlish followers turned sixty and still sending him homemade handicrafts and Crocs.
Finally, read, or reread "The Family" by Ed Sanders. Ed is America's greatest living investigative poet. I think he puts Charlie in his proper place. The mainstream media were trying to claim that the Manson cult was the "dark side" of hippiedom. Charlie certainly enjoyed playing it that way. Sanders makes a good case for the Mansonites as a lurid excrescence of the mainstream.
The Dylan Message machine seems top be working again.
jon: please do not patronize me. that is a self-serving justification for your use of sexist language. the term is a slur, no matter how much you think you should be excepted b/c you're a self-described fat old bastard.
also, violence and racism may not have been the accepted norm, but misogyny wasn't challenged on the same level, and it still isn't.
i am not accusing you of misogyny, just asking you to step outside your verbal comfort zone for a second. your argument is that you are entitled to use this phrase b/c it's affectionate, not hostile. but in the larger culture, the phrase IS hostile. it's not that easily reconciled for those of us to whom it could be applied. you are in no such position, so you can more easily rationalize your usage. but to argue for this exemption from your position of privilege isn't radical, it's status quo.
Sorta sensed the presence of an ENORMOUS HOLE in my logic. Thanks for pointing out it's whereabouts. Look, I apologize. I've supposedly been some kind of radical since the decade that refuses to die. I've hung out with lots of feminists and I still have trouble getting past the basics: Equal pay, wages for housework, that kind of thing. It's fairly recent that a lot of other feminist stuff about power relationships, language... that stuff where you have to read the postmodernists...It's only recently that I've started to get some of it. And yes, male cool cats do not have a good record when it comes to feminism, I would still insist that we have a better record than Charlie Manson, whose relationship to women is that of a pimp. My original point was an objection to the idea that Manson was anything other than a creepy con and a product of the straight world and it's creepy institutions.
Some Girl. It just crossed my mind who you might be. I have no desire to tamper with your anonymity, but I think you're operating at a MUCH higher level than me. That's not an attempt to patronize you. If you're who you might be, it's an absolute statement of fact. OK, tell us what's up. I'm listenning.
jon: hey. i doubt that i am who you think i am (although i must admit i am flattered you think i'm ANYBODY), b/c i am nobody, really. just a friend of mick's. i would certainly bet that you and other male cool cats do have a better record than charlie! as for learning the relative subtleties of sexism/patriarchy, well, even feminists have to keep re-educating ourselves and each successive generation. my problem is that the more i see it, the more i see it -- if that makes sense. and i have to take my opportunities where i find them.
anyway, thank you for considering my point.
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