(Eyewitness News ABC7NY) Dec. 12, 2025: The legendary actor continues to be an endless fountain of charm, grace, and chutzpah. Check out more Eyewitness News: abc7ny.com. #entertainment #news #nyc
A journalist's 20-year fascination with the Manson murders leads to shocking new revelations about the FBI's involvement in this riveting reassessment of an infamous case in American history.
Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young ["hippie"] followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate, at that time eight months pregnant. With no mercy and seemingly no motive, the Manson Family followed their leader's every order.
CIA creation Charlie Manson, LSD narcissist
Their crimes lit a flame of paranoia across the nation, spelling the end of [the hippies' great counterculture reputation and] the 1960s. Manson became one of history's most infamous criminals, his name forever attached to an era when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia -- or dystopia -- was just an acid trip away.
Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the Manso murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the "official" story, including
police carelessness,
legal misconduct, and
potential surveillance by intelligence agents.
When a tense interview with Vincent Bugliosi -- prosecutor of the Manson Family and author of Helter Skelter -- turned a friendly source into a nemesis, O'Neill knew he was onto something. But every discovery brought more questions:
Who were Manson's real friends in Hollywood?
How far would they go to hide their ties?
Why didn't law enforcement, including Manson's own parole officer, act on their many chances to stop him?
And how did Manson, an illiterate ex-con, turn a group of peaceful hippies into senseless and remorseless killers?
O'Neill's quest for the truth led him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from San Francisco's summer of love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control [MKUltra] experiments, on a trail rife with shady cover-ups and suspicious coincidences.
The product of two decades of reporting, hundreds of new interviews, and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA, Chaos mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Steven Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders.
(CBS News) June 11, 2025: Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson, born in Inglewood and raised in Hawthorne, both in Los Angeles, California, has died at 82. Rolling Stone contributor Joe Levy joined CBS News to discuss the artist. Surfing blond sex symbols from sunny Southern California or dysfunctional Christians on drugs trying to reach a sound never heard before, inspiring The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band?
CBS News 24/7 is the premier anchored streaming news service from CBS News and Stations that is available free to everyone with access to the internet and is the destination for breaking news, live events, original reporting and storytelling, and programs from CBS News and Stations' top anchors and correspondents working locally, nationally, and around the planet. It is available on more than 30 platforms across mobile, desktop and connected TVs for free, as well as CBSNews.com and Paramount+ and live in 91 countries.
(mtdd1948) June 15, 2017: India's famed Taj Mahal is an entirely Islamic architectural masterpiece created by Muslims in a land of rock-cut Buddhist marvels and countless Hindu temples? Let's take an overland "magic bus" trip from stuffy London, England, to wild Kathmandu, Nepal.
1967: The Summer of Love
(Free Documentary - History) April 19, 2024: In 1967 an expressive, colorful musical force painted a backdrop of love, social change, fashion, turmoil, and war.
Son, drop your gun and come back home to us!
The world remembers the "Summer of Love" in 1967 [which we always thought took place in '69] as one of those moments when a unique and creative explosion of rock music and popular culture arrived in the UK and US.
This documentary is driven by the soundtrack of the time, which kept the imperial American troops company as they massacred millions of Buddhists in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, powered the American Anti-War and Civil Rights movements, which opened the hearts and minds of Baby Boomers who had matured into hope-filled teens.
This special celebrates 1967 as a famous year full of music and change. “Stick a flower in your hair [or a soldier's rifle at Kent State] and remember that you are Us not Them.”
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(Digitalbondo) The Summer of Love was 50 years ago, way back in 1967. The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival ran from June 10th to the 11th, 1967. Here are home movies (from a kind of recording time machine) of The Seeds, Country Joe and the Fish, The Jefferson Airplane, and The Byrds by John Cuniberti. Music by The Byrds.
Why is summer for love? - It's the outfits.
June 10, 1967, was an important day for the Summer of Love and for music history.
Over two days (June 10-11, 1967), tens of thousands of music fans (many of the shiny hippies) would participate in the first rock festival in American history.
While the Monterey Pop Festival is often credited with being the first rock music festival in history, in fact it was the “Fantasy Fair” that deserves the honor.
Led by KFRC, an AM radio station, the festival featured the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds, Sons of Champlin, and many other bands that were gaining notice throughout California and beyond.
We saw it on an IMAX screen, sitting in the front row heads cranked up to take in the whole screen, for it to be in our faces and extra loud. And that it was. It's good, really good. It's no The Song Remains the Same, which is a filmed concert at Madison Square Garden, New York, in the 1970s with the conceit of introducing them as legendary, bigger-than-life figures, particularly Page, who lived in a castle next to Loch Ness. This is a talking head documentary interspersed with historical footage and tight editing. The most amazing thing about it is that it does not pander to Johnny-come-lately fans. There is no mention of "Stairway to Heaven," their biggest hit ever. This is about the early, heavy days, coming out of nowhere by combining early blues from The States (muddy "Black" music), which a lot of young Brits were hearing for the first time with this new thing called "rock 'n roll."
What's so great about the greatest band ever? - The movie never makes it to 1973 and the Starship
Led Zeppelin band, promo portrait, 1971
Like Elvis and others appropriated the blood, sweat, and tears of post-slavery suffering crystalized into music, so Led Zeppelin paid homage to their heroes and cashed in like those heroes never did. It was blatant with Elvis and not so obvious where Led Zeppelin, most notably lead guitarist Jimmy Page, was coming up with the inspiration for so many catchy riffs (a demon named Zoso, the Devil, spirits of the dead still under contract, lifting ideas from the fertile London scene of his day, entheogenic drugs?), loud amplification, and blending the hardest music anyone had ever heard with plaintive love ballads of the hippie era (late 60s, early 70s). Sadly, there was no mention of the sexual abuse of young groupies, for which they are infamous, or recreational drug use. Some lawyer or PR firm was smart to keep a lid on those facets of their career. The movie ends abruptly with their second album before as they are reaching superstardom. Highly recommended! Fans will love it. Out now in wide release. INFO: becomingledzeppelinfilm.com
Led Zeppelin documentary (video); Seth Auberon, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
(After Skool) Jan. 7, 2025: In this animation, Alan Watts explains how most of us are failing to experience the reality of life for what it really is. We get so caught up in language, ego, time, money, "problems," and distractions that we miss the beauty of the present moment -- the eternal Now.
It's an inspirational and profound speech on the real and tangible here and now. What were we previously thinking, carrying on and going about on autopilot?
WARNING: This is NOT a test run. This is your real life. Live.
Original audio sourced from: “Alan Watts - Limits of Language-2."
► Follow the Alan Watts Organization:
Speech courtesy of alanwatts.org. Instagram: alanwattsorg. Facebook: alanwattsauthor. YouTube: @alanwattsorg
"The times they are a changin'," icon Bob "Deal with the Devil" Dylan sang (Elaine Mayes/Getty)
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Berkeley in the Sixties (film)
Jethro Tull has that song, "Living in the Past." We have to wonder if we're sad, pining for what was or, worse, what might have been, or worrying by always forecasting the future. Almost certainly, we're stuck in the past, thinking about all the good parts of the Sixties in Berkeley. But that means forgetting almost all of the bad. We have made progress as a country, in as much as things have not changed for the better nearly enough for our liking. Still, it's fun to reminisce and imagine how it must have been when we know it wasn't. The Sixties have good PR and drive us to arise and make things even better for the whole world.
The decade of the 1960s was one of the most tumultuous decades in American history. It was marked by peaceful political radicalism, violent American imperialism abroad and conservative clampdowns at home, unpopular overseas wars, popular anti-war and civil rights movements, and the terrifying threat of nuclear Armageddon in a phony "Cold War" used by cynical Russian and American leaders to control their gullible populations.
But there were breakthroughs too thanks to those citizen struggles: in civil rights, free love, reproductive rights, reverse engineering of ET technology from UFOs that came into the possession of various governments (with the US distributing the advanced technology to private industry to enrich them as it was given to the world population with the sudden appearance of transistors, chips, computers, Velcro, and more in a single century than thousands of years leading up to it, with the rate of advances still growing exponentially), and space travel.
Those dirty hippies on the road took over America with the movie Easy Rider (1969):
What is he holding in his hands? Drink, smoke
What's the big deal about Kerouac (1922-1969) — can he even write? Let's look at an excerpt from On the Road the book that made him famous:
"...and I shambled after as usual as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
American Buddhist Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) is recognized for his style, which is stream of consciousness called "spontaneous prose."
Sit like the Buddha sat.
Thematically, his work covers topics such as Buddhism, promiscuity, his Catholic spirituality, drugs, jazz, travel, life in New York City, and poverty.
He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beat Poets, a progenitor (precursor) ofthe hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements [8]. He has left a lasting legacy; he greatly influenced many 1960s cultural icons, including the Beatles, the Doors, Bob Dylan, and the founder of theGrateful Dead Jerry Garcia.
At age 6, he went to Catholic Confession and was told to say a rosary as punishment, during which he heard God tell him that he had a good soul, that he would suffer in life and die in pain and horror, but that in the end he would receive salvation [22]. His dying brother had a vision of the Virgin Mary (as the nuns fawned over him, convinced that he was a saint). This, combined with a later study of Buddhism and an ongoing commitment to Christianity, solidified the worldview that informed his work [22].
In 1954, Kerouac discovered Dwight Goddard's A Buddhist Bible at the San Jose Library, which marked the beginning of his study of Buddhism.
Between 1955 and 1956, he lived on and off with his sister, whom he called "Nin," and her husband, Paul Blake, at their home outside of Rocky Mount, N.C. ("Testament, Va." in his works) where he meditated on Buddhism and studied it [49].
He wrote Some of the Dharma, an imaginative treatise on Buddhism, while living there [50, 51]. However, Kerouac had earlier taken an interest in Eastern thought.
In 1955, Kerouac wrote a biography of Siddhartha Gautama entitled Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha, which remained unpublished during his lifetime, but eventually serialized in Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, 1993–95. It was published by Viking in September 2008 [52].
The success of his book On the Road brought Kerouac instant fame. His celebrity status brought publishers desiring unwanted manuscripts that were previously rejected before its publication [19].
After nine months, he no longer felt safe in public. He was badly beaten by three men outside the San Remo Cafe at 189 Bleecker Street in NYC one night. Neal Cassady, possibly as a result of his new notoriety as the central character of the book, was framed (set up) then arrested for selling marijuana [58, 59].
In response, Kerouac chronicled parts of his own experience with Buddhism, as well as some of his adventures with Gary Snyder and other San Francisco-area poets, in The Dharma Bums, set in California and Washington and published in 1958.
I'm like a rebel without a cause, Daddy-O.
It was written in Orlando between Nov. 26 [60] and Dec. 7, 1957 [61]. To begin writing The Dharma Bums, Kerouac typed onto a ten-foot length of teleprinter paper, to avoid interrupting his flow for paper changes, as he had done six years previously for On the Road[60].
Kerouac was demoralized by criticism of The Dharma Bums from such respected figures in the American field of Buddhism as Zen teachers Ruth Fuller Sasaki and the great Alan Watts.
He wrote to Snyder, referring to a meeting with Zen teacher and Nobel Peace Prize nominee (1963) D. T. Suzuki, that "even Suzuki was looking at me through slitted eyes as though I was a monstrous imposter."
He passed up the opportunity to reunite with Snyder in California and explained to Philip Whalen, "I'd be ashamed to confront you and Gary now I've become so decadent and drunk and don't give a shit. I'm not a Buddhist any more" [62].
In further reaction to their criticism, he quoted part of Abe Green's café recitation, Thrasonical Yawning in the Abattoir of the Soul: "A gaping, rabid congregation, eager to bathe, are washed over by the Font of Euphoria, and bask like protozoans in the celebrated light."
Kerouac used earnings from On the Road to purchase the first of three homes in Northport, New York — a wood-framed Victorian on Gilbert Street that he shared with his mother, Gabrielle. They moved there in March 1958 and stayed in Northport for six years, moving twice during that time.
Kerouac is generally considered to be the father of the Beat movement, although he actively disliked such labels. Kerouac's method was heavily influenced by the prolific explosion of jazz, especially the Bebop genre established by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and others.
Later, Kerouac included ideas he developed from his Buddhist studies that began with Gary Snyder. He often referred to his style as "spontaneous prose" [78].
Although Kerouac's prose was spontaneous and purportedly without edits, he primarily wrote autobiographical novels (or roman à clef) based upon actual events from his life and the people with whom he interacted.
This approach is reflected also by his plot structure: Kerouac's narratives were not heavily focused on traditional plot structures. Instead, his works often revolved around a series of episodic encounters, road trips, and personal reflections.
The emphasis was on the characters' experiences and the exploration of themes such as freedom, rebellion, and the search for meaning.
Many of his books exemplified this spontaneous approach, including On the Road, Visions of Cody, Visions of Gerard, Big Sur, and The Subterraneans.
The central features of this writing method were the ideas of breath (borrowed from jazz and from Buddhist breathing meditation), improvising words over the inherent structures of mind and language, and limited revision.
Connected with this idea of breath was the elimination of the period (.), substituting instead a long connecting dash (—). As such, the phrases occurring between dashes might resemble improvisational jazz licks.
Kerouac's early writing, particularly his first novel, The Town and the City, was more conventional and bore a strong influence of Thomas Wolfe.
The technique Kerouac developed that later gained him notoriety was heavily influenced by jazz, especially Bebop, and later, by Buddhism, as well as the Joan Anderson letter written by Neal Cassady [91].
Mahayana Buddhist sutra
The Diamond Sutra was the most important Buddhist text for Kerouac and "probably one of the three or four most influential things he ever read" [92].
In 1955, he began an intensive study of this sutra, in a repeating weekly cycle, devoting one day to each of the six spiritual perfections (pāramitās), and the seventh to the concluding passage on meditative stillness or superconsciousness (samādhi).
This was his sole reading on Desolation Peak, and he hoped by this means to condition his mind to emptiness (aware of the universal characteristic that all things are impersonal), and possibly to have a vision [93] like an Indian seer (rishi).
Hooray for influential Irishman James Joyce!
Irish James Joyce (author of Finnegans Wake, 1939) was also a literary influence on Kerouac, who alluded to Joyce more than any other author [94]. Kerouac had high esteem for Joyce, and he often used Joyce's stream-of-consciousness technique [94, 95].
Regarding On the Road, he wrote in a letter to fellow Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, "I can tell you now as I look back on the flood of language. It is like Ulysses and should be treated with the same gravity" [96].
Additionally, Kerouac admired Joyce's experimental use of language, as seen in his novel Visions of Cody, which uses an unconventional narrative as well as a multiplicity of authorial voices [97]. More: Jack Kerouac
Dhr. Seven, Charles Harmon, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit Kerouac
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He wrote Some of the Dharma, an imaginative treatise on Buddhism, while living there [50, 51]. However, Kerouac had earlier taken an interest in Eastern thought.
