Mine is a long take. Read Helter Skelter and the Family when I was 10. Met Bugliosi when he spoke at University of Idaho in maybe 87. Don't have a Charlie autograph, but the day's not over.

I bought into the HS motive, with a hint of drug burn, up until the past maybe 10 years.

HS is what he told the Family it was all about. He may have believed it himself...to a pont. He did classic cult stuff to get them into his orbit. The addition of a con's hustle, which he has down to a t, really sucked them in. But being a con is what led to the fracture. The casual violence, which escalated to the murders, was too unpredictable and arbitrary for a few folks. And when you start losing folks, it gives other folks ideas and suddenly it's just Squeaky and Sandy left at the Ranch.

Charlie was a con, plain and simple. A little smarter than average and had a great hustle. I think his big thing was control. And what's more controlling than getting people to kill for you? I don't think CM had the balls to do the killing himself. He's documented to have tried it once, but not again. I think it probably made him a little queasy. But getting others to do it for him? He probably got a little tingle down there when that happened.

LaBiancha is a mystery to me. I can't find a reason for them to be targeted, other than luck of the draw. But crimes don't happen in a vacuum. Unexplainable shit just happens.

Tate was targeted because Terry Melcher jerked CM around about a record deal. He was pissed because he'd schmoozed all these Jew recording industry people, but not one would give him the deal he deserved. As an aside, he'd have jettisoned the Family before the ink was dry on his contract had he gotten one. He didn't give 2 shits who was living there. It was Melcher's house, and he'd get the message.

I don't think he's mentally ill like bi- polar, although I think that's what he tries to pass off. More mentally ill like sociopath. Which is a strength in the killing business.

What if he'd gotten his record deal? How would things have changed? Would he be all beloved, a musical elder statesman, like Willie Nelson or Paul McCartney? Or a talentless buffoon like Willie Nelson or Pail McCartney?