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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 20, 2018 16:40:49 GMT -5
Linda traveled in some of the same circles as Charles Manson or at least was in the vicinity at the time he and his "family" were doing their thing. Leslie van Houten popped up in the news today and it is an interesting subject to read about and/or discuss.companion thread: ronstadt.proboards.com/thread/4552/places-linda-lived?page=2
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Linda Ronstadt meets Leslie Van Houten
I'm currently reading Linda Ronstadt's book Simple Dreams. In her book, Linda relates how she (and her friend Nicolette Larson) were really into roller skating. This was during the late 1970's, when skating was very popular. I can relate, because I loved going to roller discos! While skating in Southern California one day, Linda and Nicolette met Leslie Van Houten.
 
On to the story (excerpted from Simple Dreams):
Nicky and I started skating on Venice Beach, which we loved because it was full of extreme Southern California characters. There were old Jewish lefties playing chess, whatever was left of the Beat Generation, Muscle Beach bodybuilders, and street performers. There were also slackers and stoners of every description lying around enjoying the warm sun and the great looking girls in skimpy clothing.
Skating liberated us from car culture. If we saw something we liked, we could stop and join in immediately without having to park. If we didn't like what we saw, we could roll on by. The two of us were both novice skaters and could stop only by grabbing on to a pole or a tree.
We had a pal named Dan Blackburn, who worked as a news correspondent for NBC. He was a good skater and offered to meet us at the beach and give us some tips. Dan said he would bring a friend he wanted us to meet. He arrived at the designated hour and introduced us to a slender brunette, quiet and pretty, with a refined, well-brought-up manner. Her name was Leslie. We skated for an hour or so, until we were accosted by a tangle of people who were lying on the ground, trying to grab our ankles and begging for water. Some of them were eating dirt. They were obviously wasted on something strong. Someone said it was "angel dust," which was the street name for PCP. The analgesic effect of angel dust can prevent users form realizing they need water, and by the time the drug starts to wear off, they are desperate with thirst.
We managed to slide away and skated to a nearby restuarant for lunch. After we ordered, we began to talk about how we felt sorry and embarrassed for the people we had seen, that they had been shorn of any dignity they may have possessed, and that angel dust looked like a bad drug. Nicky and I had never tried it, and wondered what could be its appeal. Quiet Leslie became animated and said that yes, it was a very bad drug, and could cause one to do things one would never do when sober. She said she knew this, because she herself, had done some bad things under the influence of drugs and had gone to jail. Remembering my own jail experience, I naively asked her what she was arrested for. "Murder," she replied. "Well, who did you murder?" Nicky sputtered. Leslie replied that her full name was Leslie Van Houten and that she had been part of Charles Manson's "family." Nicollete and I were choking on our burgers. She seemed so nice and normal.
We wondered as politely as we could, how she had gotten out of jail and could be lunching and roller skating with us instead of sitting in a cell with the rest of her cohorts. She was out on an appeal because her attoney disappeared during the trial, and so she was found to have had ineffective assistance at trial.
As she saw it, the combination of Charles Manson's influence, plus the drugs he had encouraged her to take, would convince the court that she was not in her right mind, and therefore innocent. Dan and Leslie left us pondering how someone's life could change so irrevocably from normal to grotesquely tragic. As we skated back to where the car was parked, we wondered, could this happen to either of us? Or someone we loved? It definitely reinforced the hearing loss argument against drugs. I remember feeling so disturbed and distracted that I lost track of what my feet were doing and fell hard on the concrete. This, added to my fall down the stairs at the Capitol theatre a few years earlier, caused yeares of back problems.
Leslie's appeal, no surprise, was ultimately unsuccessful, as she was retried and ultimatley found guilty. After close to a year of freedom, she was returned to prison, where she remains to this day.
The above photo (from this time period) was found on the "Truth on Tate-LaBianca" website.
Truthontatelabianca.com
www.lsb3.com/2014/03/linda-ronstadt-meets-leslie-van-houten.html
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 20, 2018 16:48:09 GMT -5
Not only does Linda have "CONNECTIONS" to Manson through that one experience but she also has connections to the governor denying parole to one of his "family."
Manson follower Leslie Van Houten denied parole by governor
ANDREW DALTON,
Associated Press•January 19, 2018
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The governor of California once again denied parole Friday for Leslie Van Houten, the youngest follower of murderous cult leader Charles Manson who blamed herself at her parole hearing for letting him control her life.
Gov. Jerry Brown said in his decision that Van Houten still lays too much of the blame on Manson, who died two months ago at 83.
Brown acknowledged that Van Houten's youth at the time of the crime, her more than four decades as a model prisoner and her abuse at the hands of Manson make it worth considering her release.
"However," he wrote in his decision "these factors are outweighed by negative factors that demonstrate she remains unsuitable for parole."
The 68-year-old Van Houten is serving life for the murders of wealthy grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, when Van Houten was 19. They were stabbed a day after other Manson followers killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four other people in Los Angeles.
Van Houten's attorney, Rich Pfeiffer, said Brown's decision shows an unprecedented and unlawful reliance to deny parole based on the circumstances of the crime, rather than the inmate's fitness.
"We're going to challenge this in court," Pfeiffer said. "I expect the courts to uphold the law and allow her to be released."
Pfeiffer added that he has "dozens of clients who have done much worse deeds than Leslie has done and they're out leading productive lives."
Van Houten has long been considered among the most likely candidates among Manson "family" members to be paroled, But Brown, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger before him, has steadfastly refused to let anyone associated with Manson's killings go free.
It's the second time Brown has blocked parole for Van Houten after a state parole panel recommended that she be freed.
Brown wrote Friday that Van Houten "played a vital part in the LaBianca murders, one of the most notorious of the Manson family crimes. The devastation and loss experienced by the LaBianca family and all the victims' families continues today."
Although she said at her September parole hearing that she accepts full responsibility for her role, Van Houten "still shifted blame for her own actions onto Manson to some extent."
Brown recalled Van Houten saying that she takes responsibility for "Manson being able to do what he did to all of us. I allowed it. I accept responsibility that I allowed him to conduct my life in that way."
She appeared frail at the parole hearing with her silver hair pulled back in a bun, almost unrecognizable from the young woman who pledged her allegiance to Manson.
She said at the hearing that she was devastated when her parents divorced when she was 14. Soon after, she said, she began hanging out with her school's outcast crowd and using drugs in the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia. When she was 17, she and her boyfriend ran away to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury District during the city' summer of love.
She was traveling up and down the California coast when acquaintances led her to Manson, who was holed up at an abandoned movie ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles where he had recruited what he called a "family" to survive what he insisted would be a race war he would launch by committing a series of random, horrifying murders.
At her hearing, Van Houten candidly described how she joined several other members of the group in killing the LaBiancas, carving up Leno LaBianca's body and smearing the couple's blood on the walls.
No one who took part in the Tate-LaBianca murders has been released from prison.
Manson died of natural causes on Nov. 20 at a California hospital while serving a life sentence. A man who befriended him through letters and another who purports to be his grandson are fighting in court over his body and possessions.
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 20, 2018 16:50:56 GMT -5
Excerpt from Leslie Van Houten Documentary, 1991
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 20, 2018 17:35:25 GMT -5
We all know about Linda's admiration for Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. Brian was most noticeably a big part of Linda's Adios from Cry Like A Rainstorm.
Linda lived in Topanga Canyon around the same time as the Mansons.
Charles Manson & Beach Boys - Lived In Their Mansion & Made FULL Album
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 20, 2018 20:06:24 GMT -5
For better or for worse Manson marked or caused the "end" of the Hippie movement and the 1960's culture. Things were never the same after Manson. The whole culture changed. Good luck trying to start a fan club after that for your favorite star. Hollywood retreated into itself and artists into their homes or they just moved away to safer locations. Safer in their own minds at least.
Oddly, a woman by the name of "Good" .... Sandra Good was part of the Manson Family interviewed here. She states " a man is no better than his word. Sticking together, word being good...loyalty, honor and brotherhood. It's like a soldier, reality. In other words if these people in Hollywood have to go so be it. In war sometimes killing is needed." Her words sound terribly familiar in todays discourse where we have similar comments coming from a large group motivated by its hatred for Hollywood, actors, singers (all labeled as Liberals) and those they feel are a threat. Only today this is on a national scale, even international and promoted by their own media outlets. This is a far cry to what the Hippies were about....peace, love and joy or as the unenlightened might say, sex-drugs-rock and roll..
In the early days or at least the days after this terrible event Linda seemed very reticent about contact with fans. Her management was very clear that Linda's responsibilities were to be strictly to her music and anything more than that was to be handled by her management. I don't recall her saying this was the cause but it had to weigh heavily on her mind.
This hatred for all things Hollywood seemed to have come out of this one tragic incident and has been exploited unfairly. A cultural divide had begun. And that single minded resentment is very strong today and pushed as a scapegoat for all that is wrong with America.
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 20, 2018 20:50:03 GMT -5
Many have tied Manson AND the counter culture-Hippie Movement to the CIA. Here are a couple of interesting conversations with Dave McGowan who tries to bridge those gaps.
Laurel Canyon, where the Hippie movement began:
Dave McGowan - Murder, Mystery, Mayhem: The Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
CIA Hippie Mind Control: Inside Laurel Canyon with Dave McGowan
Linda mentioned around 13:20
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 20, 2018 21:17:39 GMT -5
Fresh Air Weekend: Linda Ronstadt, Charles Manson And Robbie Fulks By editor • Sep 21, 2013
Originally published on September 24, 2013 12:15 pm
Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:
In Memoir, Linda Ronstadt Describes Her 'Simple Dreams': Last month, Ronstadt revealed that she has Parkinson's disease and can no longer sing. Her new memoir, Simple Dreams, reflects on a long career. In this conversation with Fresh Air's Terry Gross, she offers frank insights on sex, drugs, and why "competition was for horse races."
Bio Credits Manson's Terrible Rise To Right Place And Time: California parolee Charles Manson arrived in San Francisco in 1967, when the city was full of young waifs looking for a guru. In Manson, Jeff Guinn argues that if the cult leader had instead been paroled in a place like Nebraska, he likely would not have been so successful.
Robbie Fulks: Exhilarating And Bitter On 'Gone Away Backward': The singer's new album is a work of great, accomplished craft about the pointlessness of crafting anything you care about, because the world is just going to ruin it on you.
You can listen to the original interviews here:
ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/fa/2013/09/20130917_fa_01.mp3?orgId=427869011&topicId=1105&aggIds=100876926&d=2704&p=13&story=223172521&siteplayer=true&dl=1
ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/fa/2013/09/20130918_fa_01.mp3?orgId=427869011&topicId=1033&d=2733&p=13&story=223463616&siteplayer=true&dl=1
ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/fa/2013/09/20130919_fa_02.mp3?orgId=427869011&topicId=1104&d=435&p=13&story=224063426&siteplayer=true&dl=1
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 20, 2018 22:00:09 GMT -5
Spawn of Satan: The Charles Manson Story (Crime Documentary)
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jan 21, 2018 1:48:57 GMT -5
THE PLOT THICKENS. Amazing what you can find on the internet. This is a new twist I wasn't aware of and fits right in to the CIA MK Ultra theory:The Manson murders Jul 6, 2007 at 11:48am
Post by philovance on Jul 6, 2007 at 11:48am
Some facts about the Sharon Tate murders that have not been widely publicized.
Sharon's father was high level military intelligence. At the time Bobby Kennedy announced that he was going to run for the presidency, the CIA's favorite director and Zionist operative, John Frankenheimer, (The Manchurian Candidate, Seconds, Seven Days in May, The Gypsy Moths, French Connection 2, Black Sunday, the Holocroft Covenant, Year of the Gun, Ronin etc.) called Bobby and asked to follow him and film him throughout his election campaign. Frankenheimer went everywhere and filmed everything Bobby did during the campaign. The night prior to the California primary, Bobby Kennedy, Frankenheimer, Sharon Tate and others stayed at the Tate residence, and had dinner and a party there. The following evening, Bobby was driven to the Ambassador hotel along with Tate and Frankenheimer who had kept tabs of Bobby's every movement during the campaign.
It appears that the Sharon Tate murders were more than an effort to start a race war. Manson was a CIA and Mafia asset, doing hits and black bag jobs for the Boys while running his family using MK-Ultra mind control techniques to manage his "family". On an early nineties Hard Copy TV program, Manson admitted he killed La Bianco, who was a bookie, because he was holding out money to his superior, Frankie Carbo, the mob boss who was in Federal prison in Illinois at the time and who controlled organized boxing up to Sonny Liston's time. The interviewer sat there with glazed look while Manson went on how dumb and uninformed the average American is. He denied any connection to the Sharon Tate murder.
There is a strong probability that Sharon Tate was targeted because of her knowledge of the Bobby Kennedy murder and perhaps she was talking to other people about the RFK murder. LAPD did everything they could to stifle the Tate murder investigation but finally had to pick up members of Manson's "family" who may or may not have been the only killers. The rabbit hole goes deeper than you know.
Read more: 60if.proboards.com/thread/2983?page=2#ixzz54nbaORGE
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Jun 3, 2019 21:11:32 GMT -5
California governor won't free Manson follower Van HoutenAssociated Press Don Thompson, Associated Press,Associated Press 1 hour 21 m FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2017, file photo, Leslie Van Houten attends her parole hearing at the California Institution for Women in Corona, Calif. California Gov. Gavin Newsom overruled a parole board's decision to free Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten on Monday, June 3, 2019, marking the third time a governor has stopped the release of the youngest member of Manson's murderous cult. Van Houten, 69, is still a threat, Newsom said, though she has spent nearly half a century behind bars and received reports of good behavior and testimonials about her rehabilitation. (Stan Lim/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom overruled a parole board's decision to free Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten on Monday, marking the third time a governor has stopped the release of the youngest member of Manson's murderous cult.Van Houten, 69, is still a threat, Newsom said, though she has spent nearly half a century behind bars and received reports of good behavior and testimonials about her rehabilitation.
"While I commend Ms. Van Houten for her efforts at rehabilitation and acknowledge her youth at the time of the crimes, I am concerned about her role in these killings and her potential for future violence," he wrote in his decision. "Ms. Van Houten was an eager participant in the killing of the LaBiancas and played a significant role."
Van Houten was 19 when she and other cult members stabbed to death wealthy Los Angeles grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in August 1969. She said they carved up Leno LaBianca's body and smeared the couple's blood on the walls.
The slayings came the day after other Manson followers, not including Van Houten, killed pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in violence that spread fear throughout Los Angeles and riveted the nation.
No one who took part in the Tate-LaBianca murders has been released from prison. It was the first time Newsom rejected parole for Van Houten, while former Gov. Jerry Brown denied her release twice.
"Nobody wants to put their name on her release, but when they're speaking honestly or off the record, everyone wants her to go home," said Van Houten's attorney, Rich Pfeiffer.
Newsom is "going to have more political aspirations that go well beyond the state of California, and he doesn't want this tagging behind him," he added. "Not a surprise. I would have been shocked if he would have said 'Go home.'"
Earlier this year, Newsom reversed a parole recommendation to free Manson follower Robert Beausoleil for an unrelated murder. Beausoleil was convicted of killing musician Gary Hinman.
Newsom's decision on Van Houten outlined her participation in graphic detail, noting that after the killings, she "drank chocolate milk from the LaBiancas' refrigerator" before fleeing.
"The gruesome crimes perpetuated by Ms. Van Houten and other Manson Family members in an attempt to incite social chaos continue to inspire fear to this day," Newsom wrote.
Van Houten is still minimizing her responsibility and Manson's "violent and controlling actions," he said, and she continues to lack insight into her reasons for participating.
Van Houten's lawyer said in January after her latest release recommendation that the parole board found she had taken full responsibility for her role in the killings.
"She chose to go with Manson," Pfeiffer said. "She chose to listen to him. And she acknowledges that."
Van Houten has described a troubled childhood that led her to use drugs and hang around with outcasts. When she was 17, she and a boyfriend ran away to San Francisco during the so-called Summer of Love in 1967.
She later encountered Manson while traveling the coast. Manson had holed up with his "family" at an abandoned movie ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles when he launched a plan to spark a race war by committing a series of random, terrifying murders.
Brown rejected parole for Van Houten in 2017 because he said she still blamed the cult leader too much for the murders. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge upheld Brown's decision last year, finding that Van Houten posed "an unreasonable risk of danger to society."
An appeals court will decide whether to uphold or reject that ruling by the end of July.
"No governor's ever going to let her out," said Pfeiffer, Van Houten's attorney who's pinning his hopes on the appeals court. "They are bound by law to enforce the law independently. They have to do it whether or not it's popular with the public ... and the law is that she should be released."
Manson and his followers were sentenced to death in 1971, though those punishments were commuted to life in prison after the California Supreme Court ruled capital punishment unconstitutional in 1972. Van Houten's case was overturned on appeal and she was later convicted and sentenced to seven years to life in prison.
Tate's sister, Debra Tate, has routinely shown up to parole and court hearings to oppose the release of any Manson follower. Even though Van Houten didn't take part in her sister's murder, Tate said she didn't deserve release under any circumstances.
Supporters of Van Houten said she had been a model prisoner who mentored dozens of inmates and helped them come to terms with their crimes.
Manson died in 2017 of natural causes at a California hospital while serving a life sentence.
www.yahoo.com/finance/news/california-governor-wont-free-manson-follower-van-houten-230925049.html
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Post by germancanadian on Jun 3, 2019 21:22:44 GMT -5
Good news, none of the Manson family should ever be released. I like Jerry Brown's politics, liberal on most issues, but not soft on crime.
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Post by erik on Jun 3, 2019 21:59:49 GMT -5
Quote by germancanadian:
I think it has to do more with the magnitude of this particular crime, which was not only incredibly heinous but which had all of Los Angeles on edge for most of the second half of 1969. In fact, the horrific nature of the crimes may have been so shocking to Linda that she only touched on it as briefly as she did in her memoir. given that she was living in Topanga Canyon during the time the Family was there and when they went on their mass murder spree that summer. She may have blocked off some of those memories because it hit too close to her and the rest of the L.A. hippie community.
As for Jerry Brown's record on crime, I think he thinks realistically about it. Being liberal doesn't necessarily mean being soft on crime, nor does being a "tough-on-crime" Rightie mean being realistic, let alone smart, about it (IMHO).
The reason the Manson Family members keep coming up for parole every couple of years is that, while they were all originally sentenced to death in 1971, the death penalty, which involved the gas chamber back then, was deemed unconstitutional in 1972; so they all got life terms with the possibility of parole. The death penalty was reinstated in 1977, during Brown's first tenure as governor, but by then it no longer applied to either Manson or his followers.
But however much they may be model citizens in their individual incarcerations, it is very unlikely, and I would say impossible, that any of them will ever be released from prison in anything other than hearses. Too many people remember what they did; and years and decades of seeing Manson being given all those photo-ops by almost every high-priced TV news pundit, including Geraldo Rivera, still make people shiver. It ain't-a-gonna happen.
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Post by musedeva on Jun 4, 2019 17:14:29 GMT -5
Oh WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what the hell was that reporter thinking bringing leslie "along" to meet Linda and Nicky? did he want to "report" on their reaction to Leslies "admission" or what...that is really twisted....no wonder Linda fell.....and shame she suffered a long time injury
the whole manson thing was utilized by MSm to kill the intent of the sixties.....but the intent is back...with alot of knowledge of responsibilities involved...and I think that is a good thing....obviously Linda was traumatized along with alot of angelinos
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Aug 12, 2019 0:19:40 GMT -5
Interesting video about LA during the time of Manson.L.A. in the Time of Charles Manson (Full version)From that same time period while Brian's brother was hanging with Charles Manson, Brian was hanging with Linda Ronstadt:
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Aug 12, 2019 20:25:31 GMT -5
If Linda wasn't spooked by Manson, this certainly had to shake her. I know her mom was besides herself when this happened:
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Post by GLinNC on Aug 12, 2019 22:50:33 GMT -5
Could this thread please be removed from the site? I know it’s an event that is now a part of our “national consciousness,” but I have a feeling I’m not the only person who’d prefer not to see this name here. On that note, while it sort of is an interesting story that Mrs. R and Nicolette Larson briefly met Leslie V H, I’ve occasionally thought, “She probably should have left that story out of the book...”
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Post by Nuck on Aug 12, 2019 23:27:21 GMT -5
The Manson anecdote was Linda's concession to the publisher to add some shock value to the book. If only she would dish the dirt on why Jann Wenner went from being a close personal friend to someone who reviled her! That would be a story worth telling.
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Aug 13, 2019 3:40:43 GMT -5
Could this thread please be removed from the site? I know it’s an event that is now a part of our “national consciousness,” but I have a feeling I’m not the only person who’d prefer not to see this name here. On that note, while it sort of is an interesting story that Mrs. R and Nicolette Larson briefly met Leslie V H, I’ve occasionally thought, “She probably should have left that story out of the book...” It was a huge and important part of the music scene of the 1960s and 70's and it changed their world forever. Hiding it or ignoring it won't change history and that is what this thread is about. Because of that and other incidents Linda and others have kept a distance from fans. I and some others here ran fan clubs for Linda back then and I can tell you that some of the scariest humans wrote letters to me thinking they were to Linda. She or her managers at the time made some wise decisions. It was the world we lived in. I wish she would have commented on it even more than she did and am curious to know if she had conversations with Brian Wilson about his brother's involvement with Manson. |
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Post by ronstadtfanaz on Aug 13, 2019 3:57:57 GMT -5
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Post by musedeva on Aug 13, 2019 16:44:25 GMT -5
doing the dishes the other day.....started thinking about this "herstory" re manson/la crime
She was probably saved by her family!!! Wasn't her brother a head cop in Tucson? Think about it...her family was
probably constantly calling the LA cops to check on her and following her whereabouts.....i sure would of been if she was my relation!!!
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