INSIDE THE LC: THE STRANGE BUT MOSTLY TRUE STORY OF LAUREL CANYON AND THE BIRTH OF THE HIPPIE GENERATION: PART X
BY DAVE MCGOWAN | AUG 29, 2008
“By the time Manson shifted base from Rustic Canyon to an old ranch in Chatsworth, he’d begun formulating the notion that he and his followers had to prepare themselves for a race war with Black America.” —Barney Hoskyns (in Hotel California, his take on the Laurel Canyon/Sunset Strip scene)
“There were a lot of weird people around. There was one guy who had a parrot called Captain Blood, and he was always scrawling real cryptic things on the inside walls of my house – Neil Young’s too.” — Joni Mitchell, describing the Laurel Canyon scene at the tail end of the 1960s
Dennis Wilson, The Beach Boys
In this outing, we will be temporarily leaving Laurel Canyon. But don’t worry; we won’t be traveling far, and we’ll be returning soon enough.
Today we will be exploring Rustic Canyon, which lies about nine miles west of Laurel Canyon. It was there, in Lower Rustic Canyon, that Beach Boy Dennis Wilson lived in whatSteven Gaines described in Heroes and Villains as “a palatial log-cabin-style house at 14400 Sunset Boulevard that had once belonged to humorist Will Rogers.” The expansive home sat on three landscaped acres of gently rolling hills.
In the summer of 1968, as is fairly well known, Charlie Manson and various members of his entourage moved in with Wilson. “Tex” Watson, curiously enough, was already living there. As many as two-dozen members of Manson’s clan spent the entire summer there, with Wilson picking up the tab for all expenses. The Mansonites (mostly nubile young women) regularly drove Wilson’s expensive cars and demolished at least one of them. Dennis didn’t seem to mind; he was busy recording Manson in his home studio and inviting fellow musicians, like Neil Young, over to the house to hear Charlie perform (Young was so impressed that he urged Mo Ostin to sign him).
Dennis would later claim that he had destroyed all the Manson demo tapes,that he remembered almost nothing of his time with Charlie and the Family,and that he certainly knew nothing about the Tate and LaBianca murders,which were committed in the summer of 1969, about a year after the Family had vacated the Rustic Canyon residence.
At some point in time, Wilson had a change of heart and decided that maybe he did indeed know a little something about the murders. “I know why Charles Manson did what he did,” said Dennis. “Someday, I’ll tell the world. I’ll write a book and explain why he did it.” Needless to say, that book was never written and Wilson’s story, if indeed he had one, was never told. Instead, Dennis Wilson drowned under questionable circumstances on December 28, 1983, in the marina where his beloved ship was docked.
Revisit the canyon later. New Q post for now. I have much in memory. Tying Obama to those at canyon indirectly
Im not surprised, few parrots have any amount of higher education.
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