Charles Manson, in conversation.

December 6, 2010 11:00 AM

My Friendship with Charles Manson.

Denise Noe, the author of this piece, is a crime writer whose The Manson Myth seeks to debunk the notion of Charles Manson as a powerful, supercharismatic monster.

posted by Sticherbeast (39 comments total)

My Sex Life with Mother Teresa [more inside]
posted by Danf at 11:05 AM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

The Manson Myth seeks to debunk the notion of Charles Manson as a powerful, supercharismatic monster.

Bob Odenkirk got there first.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 11:09 AM on December 6, 2010 [13 favorites]

"Many listeners would call his conversations “crazy.” My take is that he is not psychotic but deliberately refuses to humor his listeners by settling down to a subject or mode when he talks."

Why do I get the sinking feeling that this story is ultimately going to end with Noe caught in the bushes outside Oprah's house with a knife in her teeth?
posted by hermitosis at 11:15 AM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Brian Wilson is way more charismatic.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:15 AM on December 6, 2010

tl;dnr Charles Manson is not a racist, but dislikes Lincoln for some reason.
posted by timdicator at 11:21 AM on December 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

H&O, I've been looking for that clip for years. Thanks.
posted by steambadger at 11:27 AM on December 6, 2010

Ok...I'm thinking movie script...

But, like any good producer, I want some changes.. "Charles" ??? really??? we need a name that can be remembered... maybe Harold, or Humbolt, naw, too old fashioned... maybe, yes.that's it.. Hannibal, YES, Hannibal!

And, the girl, not a writer, too boring... maybe a policewoman, or a detective, or, yes.. and agent, an FBI agent!

and the plot, it's got lots of blood, but we need a twist, blood....flesh...tenderloin.... I'm almost there...

what?? it's been done??? damn... carry on...
posted by HuronBob at 11:28 AM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Interesting parallels to Neal Cassady. Both born during the depression, petty criminal, car thief, doper, drinker, womanizer. They probably even crossed paths. But vastly different ends.
posted by fixedgear at 11:29 AM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

tl;dr#2: He's not at all charming or charismatic but she likes him, sends him all her work and spends hours on the phone with him talking about everything from the weather to diet to gardening.
posted by DU at 11:29 AM on December 6, 2010 [6 favorites]

This just like every other thing ever written about Charles Manson. It starts out interesting, then you go WTF, then meh.
posted by Xurando at 11:35 AM on December 6, 2010 [6 favorites]

Ms. Noe and I don't mean the same thing when we use the word 'friendship'.
posted by The Mouthchew at 11:37 AM on December 6, 2010

Sort of interesting. Her assertion is that he isn't some charismatic manipulator, which is fine. But, then again, wouldn't a charismatic manipulator want her to believe that?

And here's the de rigueur pedantic nit-pick:

A video I saw on learning a foreign language noted that human beings appear to be biologically programmed to talk about the weather when they first meet.

I know this is a throw-away comment, but whatever the reason some people talk about the weather, it is not a universal. Weather-talking is pretty much a temperate, high-latitude thing. You know, where they have seasons and somewhat unpredictable weather.

I never talked about the weather (with or without folks I had just met) more than a handful of times in the tropics. Unless you call remarking that it "must be 3PM" because the rains had just started, "talking about the weather."

And on comparing notes with other travellers to similar places, we all realized we spent weeks or even months never actually mentioning the weather.
posted by clvrmnky at 11:39 AM on December 6, 2010

"In 2008 she sent her article to Manson. When he responded by calling her collect, an unusual relationship began."

As far as I could tell from the article (yes, I RTFA) there was no "unusual relationship". Just two people talking on the phone - one of them barely coherent. The article makes very little effort to explain the conversations, perhaps in a hurry to get to the foregone conclusion (my 2004 article was right in its characterization of Manson).
posted by vidur at 11:47 AM on December 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Interesting parallels to Neal Cassady. Both born during the depression, petty criminal, car thief, doper, drinker, womanizer. They probably even crossed paths. But vastly different ends.

Boy, that's for sure. One of them OD'ed and died before the age of 42, and the other is still alive at 75 and by many accounts enjoying himself.
posted by dersins at 11:48 AM on December 6, 2010

It starts out interesting, then you go WTF, then meh.

I will not write jokey MeFi taglines. I will not write jokey MeFi taglines. I will not write jokey MeFi taglines. . .
posted by The Bellman at 11:54 AM on December 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

I totally agree, vidur. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly special or unusual about their relationship; Noe lets him blather on endlessly because she thinks other people will be interested that this happened to her. But if it wasn't her, it would just be someone else, and she's certainly not getting anything out of him that others couldn't.
posted by hermitosis at 11:55 AM on December 6, 2010

seeks to debunk the notion of Charles Manson as a powerful, supercharismatic monster.

Errr, to do that, just watch one of his many rambling, incoherent parole hearings.
posted by benzenedream at 11:56 AM on December 6, 2010

seeks to debunk the notion of Charles Manson as a powerful, supercharismatic monster.

If he'd really been a powerful, supercharismatic monster, he would have totally had Peter Tork's role on The Monkees and history would have been altered forever.

Yes, I know that that rumor has been incontrovertibly debunked.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:03 PM on December 6, 2010

Without me having to click the link, is this just a case of (bizarre) name dropping?
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 12:05 PM on December 6, 2010

I first read Helter Skelter ... when I was in high school. I was fascinated by its portrait of Charles Manson: a mesmerizing and charismatic criminal

I also read Helter Skelter in high school, and my reaction of the depictions of Manson was mainly one of 'squick.' I did enjoy looking at his pictures though.

My reaction to him now is that he seems like a pretty dumb, boring old man. Being star-struck is surely the only explanation of her sitting through those conversations without hanging up.
posted by frobozz at 12:17 PM on December 6, 2010

Without me having to click the link, is this just a case of (bizarre) name dropping?

A crime writer has extended contact with Charles Manson. She winds up having several phone conversations with him. He's more or less as coherent as you remember him being.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:20 PM on December 6, 2010

I wonder if she ever rung him up on his cellphone.
posted by Burhanistan at 12:23 PM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Well, his charisma is likely, um, dimmed seeing as he's in a prison cell, and not surrounded by adoring followers. Though, as has been pointed out, she seems pretty enthralled by him, though she insists, and likely believes, that she is immune to his charms. But read the conversation which begins:

CM: You is a goat on the side of the mountain that you’ve been milking and feeding on. It’s your mother. The earth is your mother.
DN: Yeah, the earth is my mother, that’s true. It’s everybody’s mother.
CM: There’s no everybody. There’s only me. You see somebody else, that’s on you. (Laughs) Kenny made this phone call for you.
DN: Kenny made the phone call? Thank Kenny for me.
CM: I’m not going to thank him for you. I don’t have time for all that.
DN: OK.
CM: What are you doing for me, tramp? You ain’t done a damn thing for me yet.

And which proceeds with random associations and accusations and sort-of trippy insights, and think about how this would have been received by a group of young people, isolated in the hills and out of their minds on LSD a large part of the time, people who were already by all accounts unstable and who were by and large in love with him, and it all becomes pretty easy to understand. (I heard variations of this kind of dialogue during the early to mid 70s, and it was generally older men trying to get your teenage self into bed.) I mean, I've read enough about the Manson trial-- I was fascinated with and appalled by these girls, only a few years younger than myself, and with what they had done-- and I recognize this stuff from what they had repeated back to trial lawyers and journalists.

CM: Oh, well you ate a lot. You took a lot from the earth. Did you put anything back?
DN: Uh.
CM: Yeah, that’s what I thought. You took cotton when you wore your clothes, you took leather when you wore your shoes. You took the food, you took stuff from earth and never give anything back. [...] Do you have to have a garden to plant something? My God, woman. You’re in prison.
DN: I’m in prison? My youngest brother has a vegetable garden and my dad has a vegetable garden.
CM: Oh, wow, man. Your mind is locked. [...] Did you ever think of just going out and punching a little hole in the ground and throwing it in the ground and letting a tree grow there?
DN: I should have but no, I didn’t.
CM: What about an apple core? Did you every think of just taking your finger and moving a piece of dirt and dropping the apple core down in there and moving the piece of dirt back over the apple core?
DN: No, I didn’t.
CM: You never thought about anything about helping life complete itself? [...] I don’t care about what you think. I care about what I think. I live with what I think. I’m living with me, I’m not living with nobody else. [...] I don’t think you really understand the gravity, the perspective. Let me try to give it to you again. [...] I love you. Totally. Completely.
posted by jokeefe at 12:25 PM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

The greatest discussion in the world!!!

"I am the world, man, and the world is me."

"hmm, yeah."


"If you plant the seeds you are giving of yourself, and then you are, dig it, but if you take, then you are not."

"hmm, yeah"


"The shards of time reflect in the sockets of my manifested eyeballs which transforms me and you and the world into us. Do you dig me?"


"hmm, yeah"


I need a friend like this, who will just respond blankly like a robot while I am circumspect to the point of being obtuse and generally boring.
posted by Senator at 12:28 PM on December 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

I can easily see the charisma here. Notice how so many of his free associations serve to keep him in charge of the conversation. Notice how many of his tangents serve to subtly devalue the listener: he says something about how God would view the earth, and she rolls along with it, but then he points out that that's just a philosophy, he doesn't actually believe in it. Or how he says Kevin got him to call her, and she says to thank Kevin for me, but then he says (absurdly) that he doesn't have the time to vicariously thank people.

It's a long game of hide-the-ball, with him constantly dominating the conversation and contradicting the listener. Subtract years of imprisonment and add tons of drugs, and I could easily see him attracting followers.
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:28 PM on December 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

Being star-struck Making some cash off of it is surely the only explanation of her sitting through those conversations without hanging up.
posted by coolguymichael at 12:46 PM on December 6, 2010

I doubt that anyone this side of Boyd Rice is going to find this guy very compelling.
posted by Burhanistan at 12:48 PM on December 6, 2010

"Anyone this side of Boyd Rice" is going to be my favorite euphemism for "anyone sane" from now on.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:28 PM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

I can easily see the charisma here. Notice how so many of his free associations serve to keep him in charge of the conversation. Notice how many of his tangents serve to subtly devalue the listener: he says something about how God would view the earth, and she rolls along with it, but then he points out that that's just a philosophy, he doesn't actually believe in it. Or how he says Kevin got him to call her, and she says to thank Kevin for me, but then he says (absurdly) that he doesn't have the time to vicariously thank people.


Was Charles Manson the greatest Pick Up Artist of all time?
posted by bukvich at 2:19 PM on December 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Obligatory South Park reference.

Obligatory J.G. Ballard reference.

Ballard's 9th novel is set in the year 2114 AD, several generations after an ecological collapse has rendered North America virtually unlivable. (note: this summary omits the rousing conclusion, where a small army of American President robots march towards an exploding Las Vegas).
posted by ovvl at 3:17 PM on December 6, 2010

Reading those transcripts makes me want someone to write an ELIZA-type conversation simulator in the style of Charles Manson.

User: Hello
CM-3000: "Hello" is just a word in your tiny little world.
User: What did you have for lunch today?
CM-3000: I had you for lunch. I had everyone and everything for lunch.
User: That's interesting. How did I taste?
CM-3000: Once you taste the sun blackened out on the sky with the face of hate, you won't be able to taste your sandwich again. Never again.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 3:50 PM on December 6, 2010 [8 favorites]

I was having lunch with Charles Manson the other day and he said "Is it hot it in here or am I crazy?" - Gilbert Gottfried
posted by gfrobe at 4:10 PM on December 6, 2010

Argh, quick note: This: "I was fascinated with and appalled by these girls, only a few years younger than myself" should read "these girls, only a few years older than myself". Oy.
posted by jokeefe at 5:43 PM on December 6, 2010

I cannot read CM's words without them being narrated by Otis Firefly in my head. (and yes, I get the irony of that)
posted by ian1977 at 6:02 PM on December 6, 2010

My take is that he is not psychotic but deliberately refuses to humor his listeners by settling down to a subject or mode when he talks.

See how the author casts Manson in a defiant, heroic light, as if all the people who converse normally are just being sycophantic -- but not Manson.

He has made at least one very close friend, a man whose first name is Kenny and is prison for non-violent drug offenses. I have talked to Kenny many times. He’s laughed about Manson’s reputation and said, “He’s no boogeyman.” When talking to Kenny, I’ve sometimes called Manson “the boogeyman.” Kenny read “The Manson Myth” and asked me to run off a couple of copies of my article so he could show it to other people.

This anecdote reveals the stalker-ish depth of her obsession. Not only does she seek this closeness with Manson, but she goes out of her way to find, and befriend, his prison buddy Kenny, probably to be reassured by another's positive views of Manson. (What else would they talk about?) Calling Manson "boogeyman" to Kenny is a test without suspense, for her to hear how false the public's perception of their gentle mutual pal is.

Perhaps my conversations with the uniquely infamous Charles Manson are as noteworthy for what is missing as for what they contain. The helter-skelter story holds that he was obsessed with the possibility of an imminent race war between black and white people. He has never mentioned a race war when I’ve talked to him. He only makes occasional references to race.

She implies that since Manson refrained from discussing this subject with her, of late, the racial warfare ideas are less likely to have been the motive. How very narcissistic of her.

She then discusses Manson's supposed environmentalism (which she attributes to his normalcy and cruel removal from nature). Then she points out, vehemently, that her conversation with Manson regarding ecology does not mean that ecological issues motivated the killings (as if it would). And yet she maintains that Manson had a minimal role in the murders. Hmmm. If she truly believes that Manson's involvement was so peripheral, why does she hotly deny that the topics of their conversation relate to his motive?

He never expressed remorse but always maintained he does not feel much sense of responsibility for the Tate-LaBianca murders. This makes sense if, contrary to the Helter Skelter book, they were not committed either for him or at his command or as a result of any grandiose plan he dreamed up.

Or, if Manson is simply who we think he is, and does not suffer from remorse.

And then we see his total contempt for Sharon Tate, which I think suggests that the latter hypothesis is correct.

He is a career criminal – albeit one who had no extensive history of violence prior to his infamy

Not really true. For example, Manson raped a boy at knifepoint in 1952, according to his Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson#First_offenses

After all, if he really believed that he would rule the world from a palace, he would surely chafe under the harsh conditions of confinement in a small prison cell. But he does not. It’s been home for almost all of his life.

Noe has no coherence left by the article's conclusion. Manson's supposed acceptance of his lot does not evince non-guilt or relative normalcy at the time of the murders, nor does it contradict past megalomania in any way. Manson has had time to learn prison life, as she says.

As a side note, I cannot help but disdain the heavy emphasis on Tate's murder in nearly all the media related to this case, as if the non-celebrity victims of Manson's group are an afterthought. Noe only mentions one other, Sebring, here, and only through Manson's distasteful libelling of Tate.
posted by knoyers at 6:22 PM on December 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Thing major thing I got about reading Helter Skelter and The Family is that Manson was not some charismatic superman, but that he gathered the Family to him through use of skills he honed in his old job, namely, pimp, and was, much like jokeefe said, had the same routine as older guys looking for young hippie chicks. He looked out for vulnerable girls, would play some vaguely counter-culture patter for them, and get them wildly beyond their comfort zones, mostly with sex, and supply them with lots and lots of drugs, at the same time building himself up as their sun and moon. I don't doubt that "negging," like bukvich alludes too, was part of his patter.

Pimps have never had any trouble getting stables by preying on the vulnerable, and all Manson was and is a pimp. Not some kind of super-pimp, except his ambitions were much greater (and crazier) than the average.
posted by Snyder at 9:59 PM on December 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Well, it could certainly be argued that Manson wasn't charismatic enough to charm a callback from Terry Melcher.

That said, it probably doesn't take a whole lot of smooth talk to win over a bunch of teenage runaways on acid.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:31 PM on December 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Just two people talking on the phone - one of them barely coherent.

which one was the coherent one?
posted by msconduct at 8:51 AM on December 7, 2010

I need a friend like this, who will just respond blankly like a robot while I am circumspect to the point of being obtuse and generally boring.

Okay.
posted by malocchio at 1:00 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]