Happy Birthday, Charlie!

 

Yes, it's that time of year again -- another birthday for Charlie Manson! 

 

Happy 80th, Charlie!  We wish you many more!

 

Not only is he STILL American's best-loved terrorist bizarro, with prison trusties hauling in sack after sack of fan mail for him to read on a daily basis.  AS MOST OF YOU KNOW, he's also about to become a newlywed for the third time, if the paperwork goes through.  Life is good, no actually GREAT, for Charlie.  He doesn't have to work; he can play his guitar and write music all the livelong day when he's not leading the young to enlightenment; and most of all, he has reached the acme of human potential:  EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, KNOWS HIS NAME.

 

I think it says a great deal about human nature that the mastermind of a very-unclear number of brutal murders is a household word, a cultural icon and, really, pretty close to a Jungian archetype. 

 

>> When someone can say "I'm the Charles Manson of...(fill in the blank)" and everyone listening knows what you mean without asking -- YOU HAVE MADE IT.

 

>> When authors, filmmakers and musicians are fighting over the chance to publish your every thought -- YOU HAVE MADE IT.

 

>> When you have done things far worse than Richard Nixon ever dreamed of, yet are remembered  more affectionately -- YOU HAVE MADE IT.

 

>> When you're living out a richly-deserved life sentence for murder and conspiracy to commit murder, with a variety of corollaries like auto theft, violation of the Mann Act and damaging your followers' ability to make moral decisions -- dude, YOU HAVE MADE IT.

 

>> When a steady proportion of know-nothings on the Internet and in print are trying to argue that you're an INNOCENT MAN despite all the criminal convictions -- THAT REALLY COUNTS FOR SOMETHING IN AMERICA.

 

>> When you can cheerfully answer to the names "Jesus Christ," "The Devil," and "God" WITHOUT HEARING THE CONTRADICTION -- that is a serious accomplishment, although what you've accomplished there I'm really not sure.

 

>> When your face is the one they choose for EVERY book jacket listing famous serial killers -- even though you aren't a recreational killer at all, and you're obviously a whacked-out terrorist like Osama bin Laden or Tim McVeigh -- well, WAY TO KEEP THEM ON THEIR TOES!  Obviously you're doing a great job of keeping everyone in the dark about what you're about NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES GERALDO RIVERA  INTERVIEWS YOU.

 

One thing you have consistently done through your whole criminal career is show us what human beings are really made of -- attention-sucking greed,  desperate longing for stardom and LOUSY THINKING.

 

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!