The story that just won’t die.
Back in December, after a respectable time after the anniversary of John Lennon’s Murder, I did a post entitled: One Man's Hero is another Man's Pariah As predicted, most of the people that replied were not yet adults in the ‘60s. Most of the replies defended either Marijuana, or John Lennon’s stellar reputation as a great humanitarian, tower of virtue, and the end-all do-all for the generation of the sixties. They didn’t see him as the pariah that glorified drugs as I had depicted him. The post is still being replied to.
I made the statement that The Beatles glorified Marijuana and other drugs that were popularized by the music of the sixties. The bands that glorified drugs were being lead through the parade by The Beatles. If you are into marijuana and other drugs you would think those kinds of statements would warm the cockles of your hearts. “Yep, drugs is good, and it hasn’t even made me any stupider, nope!” But no, everybody wanted to defend poor Johnny Lennon from my accusation that he glorified drugs. Whaaaaa…?
Hey. Either you are into Marijuana and Lennon or you aren’t. Who really cares? There is some evidence that the man who killed John Lennon, Mark David Chapman, was led into drugs at the age of 14, mostly from emulating The Beatles. Granted, he was insane. Was his insanity anyway exacerbated by his drug use? Might he have led a normal life if he had not been introduced to drugs? I don’t know, do you? How much do drugs influence some peoples insanity?
Many of the people that I know, that use Marijuana, claim that it is the only thing that keeps them sane. Many of the people that I know, that have used L.S.D, claim that it changed their lives. I’ve never used marijuana, and I’ve never used L.S.D. and I have no desire to try it. I had just about all of the life changing events that I can handle already. But, you can’t have it both ways, either drugs change you or they don’t.
Another thing that I don’t get is the recent denial that the soldiers weren’t welcomed when they came back home from the Viet Nam war. That‘s a real W.T.F moment for me. ( W.T.F. is polite for “What The Fuck”. Apparently there are people that still don’t know that. So, I uncensored it so you will know. Sorry) The soldiers were certainly NOT made to feel welcome when they came home. I don’t blame any one group more than others. We were all guilty of not supporting our soldiers as well as we should have.
I made a few talking points here, and I intend to offer more talking points in my comments below. I want to find a statement from Chapman that he got into drugs because of the Beatles, if there is one out there, and I want to find evidence that drugs do, or do not influence insanity.
Silly Ernie. It was Sarah Palin with the matchstick in the parlor, by virtue of time-travel. We know that now.
ReplyDeleteErnie, Look around you at all the talking heads! When you prove the drug point one way or not. The Insane will always disagree!
ReplyDeleteTwo clever replies already!
ReplyDeleteI wasn't sure if anybody would make the WTF / Sarah Palin connection. Should have known that Rose would.
Two Crows
Insanity is the only consistency in this world.
Let's not forget that Charles Manson claimed to be receiving messages from The Beatles music...
ReplyDeleteI suspect he was spinning their records backwards to get those messages.
ReplyDeleteThe walrus is Paul!
ReplyDeleteThe last time I was in Ernie's BC there was this kid standing in the corner talking to a book. I had to check it out, and approaching from behind I got close enough to see that it was the Catcher in the Rye. He was repeating "I can be a celebrity on the blogs" over and over in a low sing song voice.
ReplyDeleteJust thought you might want to know, Ernie, what with you getting famouser and famouser.
Rocky
ReplyDeletePretty sick humor.
Is famouser a word?
ReplyDeleteOregon
Maybe RB was talking about Brian.
ReplyDeleteJust a guess.
I did do a little online digging this AM and found that both J. Lennon's and Ronnie Reagan's assassin were into the Holden Caulfield character in JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Hmm.
Famouser sounds like a good name for a cat.
I have deleted a few attempts at humor this early AM, but my schtick has worn thin and laughs are hard to come by.
J.D. Salinger himself was a strange bird... has influenced more than a few young, hormonal-crazed boys... maybe we should look into the Salinger Connection & leave the poor Beatles & Sarah Palin alone!
ReplyDeleteErnie is MOE FAMOUSER! Pull the knives out of your back.
ReplyDeleteMark David Chapman Was reading "Catcher in The Rye" softly to himself while he awaited in ambush for John Lennon. He knew he was a sick puppy, and he tried to get help. Unfortunately he became obsessed because he had been such a strong and faithful fan of john Lennon, and he felt betrayed when Lennon wrote the song “Imagine”. To Chapman, he felt that it was the ultimate hypocrisy to be singing about “imagine no possessions” while he was traveling the world in his sailboat and fast cars, skipping from one country’s drug dealer to the next, and living the good life.
ReplyDeleteHe was going to plead insanity, but took the “Deal” instead. The deal allowed him to live… Talk about ultimate hypocrisies!
ernie wants to know what made mark david chapman crazy. well, wikipedia says that he lived in fear of his father as a child, who was physically abusive to both him and his mother. his father was a staff seargent in the air force in fort worth, texas. david became a born again christian in 1971. about the same time, i was living with 6 guys who had just got back from nam but didn't go home. some of their friends were working at letterman hospital in san francisco. they were like a mash unit. they had a house full of army medical supplys. they used to use surgical tweezers to smoke stuff and shot up whatever they could. they all became born again christians and even lived in jesus freak communes for awhile. a few years later, they wanted me to go hear this preacher named jim jones down in the filmore district. i remember this big black lady hugging me and smiling at me and trying to get me to join up. a few months later all the people i saw that day were dead. i wouldn't have drunk that grape kool aid anyhow, i was pepsi man in those days. lucky me. except for the grace of god there go i.
ReplyDeleteRose, are you listening? (;
ReplyDeletewhoah!!! Spy...that was a close call. Glad you were a pepsi man.
ReplyDeleteCan't believe the man who abducted Steven Stayner used to travel up and down the road below my house, and Jones was around Ukiah for a while recruiting....holy crap! Scary times.
Cousin
I have a friend who was in Jim Jones class when he was a school teacher in Redwood Valley. He said that he was one of the best teachers he ever had.
ReplyDeleteSpy
ReplyDeleteI not only wouldn't have drank the coolade, I wouldn't have swallowed the religion either. I find all the spirit I need in my own bones. I don't need anybody else telling me what to think.
steve's dad was a cannery mechanic. seamer mechanic as i remember. his cannery shut down during the years that his son was missing and he got hired at our place. he didn't talk much. he was a very humble nice man. you could tell he was a roller. he had the shine about him.
ReplyDeleteyears later, i met steve's wufe. she was a waitress at a coffee shop. she was very young, very religious, and very naive. after a couple of years she got a job at a mexican bar. steve would go there to pick her up after work. he had bought a harley with his hollywood money. they were having marital problems. they oiled the road between his town and where his wife worked. a mexican drove out in front of his harley on the oiled dirt road. steve died as the mexican took off and later surrendered. a couple of weeks later, i was at that bar again. this strange guy who looked like steven was checking everyone out. he picked up on me and followed me into the bathroom. he said something really sarcastic, but something told me not to turn around, not to make eye contact and to get back in the bar. a few years later i see the same guys picture in the paper for kidnapping and killing some women in yosemite. he looked like the boy next door. a perfect gentleman. scary cary.
i don't mind if people are religious as long as they respect other people's right to believe what they want. i don't think they have the right to kill me just because they think i don't measure up to their standards or don't agree with them. i'm a lot like ernie in that spirit is in my dna and i don't think it's possible for me to lose it. these days i write down indiginous for my religion.
Spy, what is a "roller"?
ReplyDeleteWas Cary bigger than Steven?
I've wondered why Cary didn't kill Kenneth Parnell. Sick!
i tried not to be too specific as these people are still alive. steve was tall but still thin when he died. cary had been living near yosemite for quite some time as a handy man. he was somewhat of a mountain man and really well built. they say he liked to skinnydip quite a bit up there.
ReplyDeletewhat i saw was someone trying to figure out why his brother died. when i saw him, he was mainly watching his sister-in-law who was dancing with the mexican customers just after the funeral which was part of her job. i think he hated women. i really can't speculate any more about it because i don't really know for sure what was going on. i'm just relating what i saw with my own eyes.
Thanks.
ReplyDeleteBut, what is a "roller"?
As I recall, Cary was arrested at a nudsit camp.
ReplyDeleteTalk about everybody being too closely connected to Stayner.
ReplyDeleteAs everybody knows, Cary Stayner killed Carole Sund, her daughter Juli Sund, their travel companion Argentinian exchange student Silvina Pelosso, and Yosemite National Institute employee Joie Armstrong.
I have another chilling connection, Carol Sund had just done a Rotary program at the Garberville Rotary Club shortly before she was killed. She was there to do a program about CASA. CASAs are Court Appointed Special Advocates who volunteer their time to helping a kid who has been neglected or abused, but who have found a home at CASA.
She was a very calm self-assured person that was a strong advocate for disadvantaged youth. She was pleasant to talk to and very informative. To read in the papers who Stayner had killed was a real blow. It’s hard to wrap your mind around how such a nice person could just be killed by anyone. It makes you realize that nobody is every truly safe.
i don't really remember the name of the group. so let's just say holy roller and i'm not talkin about skateboarders. the shine is like white light. someone who has experienced white light or who has been touched by god. sort of like being blissed out. overflowing with love. i can recognize it in others because i experienced it myself in my early 20's. he must have experienced this while surviving the disappearance of his son. imagine what he has gone through since that time. he probably still has faith in god.
ReplyDeletebut man has he been tested.
The Stayner family are Latter Day Saints.
ReplyDeletewhen something bad happens, we have a choice of forgiving or not. a lot of people just pass the bad on to someone else. it takes a real man or woman to say that the madness ends with me. i see a lot of dysfunction in families that is passed down from generation to generation. my goal this lifetime is to have the madness end with me. i know how difficult this is to achieve. i don't want to say anything else that i will live to regret. i'm lucky to have met dove who has helped show me how its done. sometimes a few kind words go a long way.
ReplyDeleteI like "indiginous" for religion, Spy. I usually write down "none" or, sometimes, "absolutely none".
ReplyDeleteI usually write down "reality" as my religion. But, have you noticed that they don't ask that question much anymore?
ReplyDeletethe more i think about it the more i like putting down indiginous for religion. both john and laura simmerly were born in california so i'm 4g california native on my mom's side. on my dad's side, my 5g grandfather was adopted by the shawnee just after the first battle of the revolutionary war. so he was an indian before 1776 or the signing of the constitution after we won. and everybody these days calls you an old timer or worse for living in california longer than they did. like we were the ones who killed all the indians because we were the first white people here. give me a break. this was northern mexico. the mexicans had been enslaving and killing indians for 300 years before we showed up at sutter creek. if anything, we saved the few that were left and we actually married into them. so an old time californio like me is just as indiginous as any fool out there.
ReplyDeleteso ernie, feel welcome to join my indiginous church. trust me. no coolaid. just northern california wine. and if you want to smoke. you have your choice. the traditional lucky strike or camel. or for you newcomers. what they call emerald gold. know what i mean. wtf
Wow, busy week sorry,.................
ReplyDeleteBeing this busy in February is highly unusual. That, and I had to take my wife to Ukiah to have a couple of teeth implanted.
Disturbing news in Egypt. A friend of mine opened a conversation a couple of days ago with "Did you hear that Obama sent the troops into Egypt?" He got the desired response... I believed him and he thinks it's pretty funny. But, of course Obama didn't send in the troops! so don't spread the rumor!
Willie brown
ReplyDelete, finesteins, jerry brown, Helen Ready belonged to Jones's church. That glide memorial church preacher would even show up sometimes. Jones had a book burning in Ukiah. I went to watch. I saw them all there shaking hands and hoopin it up. I wonder if they picked up a little crazy while they were hangin with Jim! In the religion box just put shaker, that gets them. Spy you know SNAKES!
You left out Willie Brown & the Burton boys, Two Crows. First I've heard anything about Helen Reddy connected with Jones' church. Interesting. Which book(s) were they burning?
ReplyDeleteprobably catcher in the rye. since ernie is so fascinated with lennon. there's a movie out about john's early life as a teddy boy called nowhere boy. it was recently released in the usa after opening in england in 2010. i wrote a post about his early life in the earlier post about him. which depicts his childhood for making him who he was. i do know that many people saw him as the most dangerous person in america at the time of his death. i never much cared for his attitude myself. but he doesn't even make my top ten list of people who got america on drugs. my number one pick is the cia. they were the ones experimenting with lsd as a military weapon and have backed countless drug financed regimes all over the world as illustrated in iran contra. of course, maybe ernies just a stones fan. in those days, you couldnt be a beatles fan if your were a stones fan. sort of like the niners and the raiders. some people just can't get no satisfaction.
ReplyDeleteAll I have to say is if it ain't country, it ain't music.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Robin, the books burned were bibles. Jones only believed King James version of bible, burned all other versions along with records. Singles and albums of rock music that jones deemed drug induced. I regret to say someone that believes about music and drugs the way ernie does, ended up a real nut! Does ernie ever drink KOOL-AID?
ReplyDeleteTwo Crows, you said this burning took place in Ukiah & you attended? Where was it & do you remember when? Were you a PT member? I ask because I've never heard of their burning books/bibles or records before.
ReplyDeleteROBIN; It was in the early 70's once at his church. At a church/political rally at the park with a big bonfire. No never belonged or supported jones. Later I heard he denounced the bible entirely and proclaimed he was jesus. My 85yr. old mother still lives in red wood valley while visiting them I watched from the side lines. We all should worry about people in government that were influenced by jones. Jimmy Carter's wife was one of his biggest supporters along with Moscone and Ms.A davis and the list goes on and on! Robin, this subject will open a can of worms about Gov/Drugs/music/religion/insanity/60's and there subliminal effect on ernies formidable years. And he will love it. Ernie's right this subject just won't die!
ReplyDeleteRobin, to ad intrigue to the jim jones story. Why did he travel all over the world working for different departments of the federal Gov.? Mrs jimmy carter sent jones to cuba to talk to castro. Why did the state Dept. Fly down to jonestown every month to deliver the SS checks to the retired members..One reason jonestown was built is jones had a Gov. Contract to gather and sell special butterflys that the US has used in the dye of US currency for over a hundred years. Sounds like a Contra Drug deal to me. And no I don't think jones died in 78. Only the freedom of information Act will tell some day!
ReplyDeleteTwo Crows, do I know you?
ReplyDeleteRose, are you listening? OMG!
Jones a teacher?
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who was a teacher there at the time - and to this day she is outraged by what they saw and had to deal with - she recounts, for example, a kid in her class who was always falling asleep, and she called a conference with the parents to discuss the fact that something had to be done to help her - come to find out the daughter was being kept up all night doing laundry and helping her parents with the assorted special needs kids they had been given to care for. You see, the Temple had discovered a source of money, taking kids who were wards of the state and getting paid to do so. They then allocated a miniscule sum to the families who were assigned care.
It's all detailed in the books, some by survivors, and some by reporters.
As for Carter - Jones cultivated political figures, and they loved him because he could "deliver the bodies" - ie: he'd bus in crowds to look like the candidate was popular and he'd bus in people to vote.
There's NOTHING good about that man and his history, despite what recent apologists want you to think.
Robin Shelley.... You asked if you knew me..Maybe, what did I say that makes you think we've met? Ask some questions and I will try to answer your question.
ReplyDeleteOkay. Did you ever call me about an interview regarding Jim Jones & PT in Redwood Valley?
ReplyDeleteI think making use of marijuana depends on the person, this is an example Records Search shows that marijuana do have a medical use it only depends on the person if he or she will continuously used it that will to addiction.
ReplyDeletemarijuana has its medical use records search shows that marijuana is a vitamin which a human really needs by just proper intake it can be beneficial but to those who continuously using it they lead to addiction.
ReplyDeleteRobin.... I'm not the person that call for an interview. I have studied jones involvement with the government. I'm trying to find jones connection to langley and who the handlers were! The disaster at jonestown was jim's interruption of the jewish stronghold Masada. The mass suicide rather than be taken by Rome. Twice in recent days cell phones have been found in Manson's cell. Wonder if he's calling jones?
ReplyDeleteI am a true believer in zero tolerance. I bet if Charlie was under my care he would never have a phone. Maybe a cell but that's it.
ReplyDeleteOregon
In October 1951, on a psychiatrist's recommendation, Manson was transferred to Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution. Less than a month before a scheduled February 1952 parole hearing, he "took a razor blade and held it against another boy's throat while he sodomized him. 16 years of being institutionalized later at the age of 32 he was released from terminal island in los angeles and moved to san francisco during the summer of love when everyone from los angeles moved to haight street. he left in november of 1967. in early november 1967 around 6 pm i was walking up clayton street and was just in front of the dead's house when this little guy turned right from haight and walked right up to me and called me a boowaazee pig and all the things straight people were called back in the day. i had just got back from the beach after another day of surfing all day which i had done for the previous 2 months. i had an ear infection being in the ocean because the sewer drained out at the end of the pier where we surfed. i was very tan, wild sun bleached blond hair, and piercing blue eyes.
ReplyDeleteback then i was like ross sherburn. i never talked. i was just a country bumpkin in the big city. i had just read siddartha by herman heese, the part where it says not to resist evil as a form of self protection from evil spirits or the devil. so i just stood there and listened to his tirade thinking that if i didn't react, he would go away. his talking got louder and people began to stop and watch. when he finally realized that he was being watched, he turned to them and said, "i was just playing with this guy" and walked on his way towards the park. i went across the street to buy a pepsi and surfer magazine, went back to my apartment on clayton where i found the blond lady next door who had recommended siddartha to me wanting to go to bed with me. so i quickly forgot about the little man who tried to mind play me and really enjoyed the rest of the evening, wickepedia says that mansons real father, colonel scott, was black although manson denies it but to me he was just like a certain type of black person who played mind games back in the day.
one of my friends told me that manson and his family lived on masonic between fulton and haight street. so they knew some people who lived a couple of houses down from them but that was after the fact. the white album didn't come out until november of 1968. it was very common back in the city for everyone to get together and try to figure out what the beatles were saying when a new album came out. manson didn't originate that. everyone was doing that. everyone had their own theory of what the beatles were saying. manson's version reflected his prison life where a little man like him is always being punked so he was out to punk everyone else.
of course, the fox channel has been brainwashing people to believe all kinds of crazy things that lead people to shooting that congress lady in arizona and we are still protecting the poppy fields in afganistan owned by a government financed by the poor black heroin addicts in american cities. same ol same ol.
What are you smokin when you write on this blog spy?
ReplyDeleteOregon
Oregon
ReplyDeleteSpy gave a pretty good description of San Francisco in the 60s. If I were a cop, I would say that he’s telling a good story. He’s told it the same several times through the years. I wish the hell he would leave out the part about swimming in sewer water all day, then going home to his girlfriend…
I hope he took a bath.
I think spy gives a good description of SF too but that is not what I was referring to.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Oregon
ReplyDeleteI know you better than you think... You can't stand conservatives either. You have that family trait of walking your own path.
Spy has gotten a hell of a lot more conservative in his old age. Most people would accept him as a "moderate" now. But, I'm violating my own rule here. I'm speaking for someone else, putting words in somebody else's mouth. I haven't done that since Suzy verbally slapped my mouth for stepping out of that line. See? I'm getting smarter in my old age also.
Well Ernie, you may be right but I am the one that thinks Ann is too far to the left. I would still like to see her on the supreme Court though.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Oregon
ReplyDelete"Ann is too far to the left."
Ha ha ha... You're probably right(pun). I happen to know that Ann Coulter is a Grateful Dead fan. If Ann asked you to a Grateful Dead concert would you go???
Heck no. I don't go to concerts. But I would do anything else she might suggest.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Oregan......I want to be the one that opens Ann coulter's Freek door. She's Hot!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletewhat i saw back in the day and what most people think happened is different because i actually experienced what i saw and most people learned it from the media. i had to take a reading course my freshman year in college because i never read anything but comic books growing up and in high school. i worked at a grocery store stocking shelves, stocking the soda cooler, taking out groceries. my pay was all the pepsi i could drink and all the comic books i could read. so i read superman, batman, seargent rock, the flash, green lantern, and on an on. i did my book reports on classic comics. the first real books i read were 1st editions written by jack kerouac that my friend groovy liberated from the school library. he thought they were being institutionalized, so he liberated them. i lent them out to russel who lived with the mexicans out on the peach ranch i worked at in the summertime and never got them back. but we considered ourselves individualists. we saw the hippie thing as just another way to conform or try to be cool. which to us wasn't cool. what we thought was cool, was to try to be ourselves as best as we could. groovy was way better at it than i was. my covelo upbringing kept me on the straight and narrow amidst all that madness. but i survived a whole lot better than groovy did. but he was black irish.
ReplyDeletei really don't think much of politics. i'm more into what i do and other people can do what they want. think what they want. i'm more of a healer. i might say something because i feel someone is out of balance. it could go right or left of center, whatever works. so ernie is right about me being on the middle road. spy