FHF: Okay, rolling, we'll start...

MANSON: Polite?

FHF: Pardon?

MANSON: Polite? Do you want me to be polite?

FHF: Naw, go with it.

MANSON: Check it, cuz I'll be nice and polite and not scare the heeby-jeeby out of all them motherfuckers, you dig? I can flow... like peotry, I'm so free.

FHF: Go ahead and tell me your story.

MANSON: I came unto this Universe, I go as I go. Born in Kentucky, I raised in some county… um… Moorehead. November, 1930s. I go as I go. My folk was the uh… uh… running the Sweet Moon, dig? Shit... (coughs violently) ...moonshine, man, used to run up through the hills. You come up there, we got guns. You come up looking round, we were aiming to shoot, boy. You dig what I'm saying? Raising pigs, hogs, cows and chickens. Whatever got us through the winter. You dig?

FHF: Explain further.

MANSON: My uncle sent me out into the world to pimp and steal. I learned what I learned from living in the hills, man. You dig? My uncle done blew his shit up, blew it all to shit. Blew it all just so's the sheriff don't look around. His whole world gone… (small pause) BOOOOOM! Fuck it, man. He's now gone into the void, same void I'm in. I'm stuck in the Word War II

FHF: World War II?

MANSON: You're following me. I'm stuck in W. W. II, you're stuck in Vietnam.

FHF: More like the Gulf War. I'm only 23 (interview was done in 1993).

MANSON: Well then, your brothers are like my kids. I was born into the second World War linked me to Korea, you're linked to the Gulf thing, born in Vietnam War.

FHF: I see. Then why do so many people place you with hippies?

MANSON: Well… let's put it this way to you. I was having fun smoking grass (makes puffing sounds) and there's nobody smoking this shit nowhere, except maybe... Texas. Went to prison as a beatnik. Don't know if you know what a beatnik is then, but what the punkers been in the 70s was what hippies what were in the 60s is what we were back in the 50s.

FHF: What was it like spending a large part of your youth in jails?

MANSON: It's a long time ago back in the 50s and reform school. I'd fight and get myself in trouble, dig? They lock me up in solitary confinement and I would think back to my birth. Birth, man - then to jail. That was a long time ago, I turned it all off when I was 17 (starts to laugh).

FHF: Where did you see yourself if you turned it all off?

MANSON: I saw myself to be where ever I was. I don't move. If I go here I'm here, if I go there I'm still here. If I move there I'm still there. That's what I call alikeness.

FHF: Wait. Help us all out and explain this "alikeness".

MANSON: I like you, man, you know. You seem alright to me. You dig what I'm saying? So I accept you as "aliken". So when I take you in, you're like, my kin. I never had a family, so I make those who think like me my kin. So you're alike, you're my kin, dig? You know, and I accept you.

FHF: A link between people who think along the same lines. Your version of the collective unconscious in a sense. Um…What do you feel is your destiny?

MANSON: To stay alive! We all do what we need to stay alive. To survive. To call everything you got as your own, as your own.

FHF: Let me ask you, how do you feel about bands like Guns-N-Roses doing a cover of your music?

MANSON: So many people are just shadows. Elvis Presley was only a shadow of that that was playing up over someboby that was dying in some shack in Mississippi. In Kentucky. In Tennessee. You see what I'm saying. Actors man, actors! These people act, but the real people who write music are sitting here with me. They write a story on the life of someone who's in here. We die so's they can put a movie out, dig? We know we ain't good guys, but those out there who steal from us are no better. Say I start to build a house, and these people come along. I say, "You like my house? I'm building." and they hit me over the head and take my house and ask you, "Yeah… uh… do you like the house I built?" Everything we do in here, man, they'll play off and tell you that they came up with it. The music business, the actors, the government… it's all nothing but con. Demon, man, demon, you dig? (starts to chuckle) Running a scam on me. I give you what I give you, but what you take. That's another story, I kill for that. I send it back at you. I won't touch 'em, but I send it all back around. Heeeeeuh, heeeeeeeooooooowww (some karate-like noises) HOO! And that's that, you dig what I'm saying. I live it. It's all in my mind, cuz I live in there, in here, in my head. In my mind, it's all here.

FHF: I've heard you say that before. You made remarks and I'd like you to tell me: Do you think your mind has power in the world?

MANSON: (starts to laugh) Oh brother, yes. Yes, I think so. Shit... it does!

FHF: Even though you're locked up?

MANSON: Shit! You know the last motherfucker that sent me round! Sending me to Vackerville, pulled me out of San Quentin. They touch paper, my name is on it. One blew his brains out, some got stabbed. Did I do it? (chuckles) My hands were with me over here, you dig, but my mind is everywhere.

FHF: What is it like in prison?

MANSON: It don't matter what I want, they don't like it. If I went, "Hmmmmmm, I would like to stand up straight." They make a rule NO STANDING UP STRAIGHT! They block my access to the outside, cut off my mail, can't get no stamps to write out. They want to... to try and shut me up. They try to put 'em off on me. They lie to me, they cheat me. I pick my nose wipe it on the wall and they pick it up and take it to their kids and tell 'em who gave it to them. They use it as a sick keepsake. Tell their kids that it came from the devil, they rub it on their cocks and jerk off then come here and smack me. Motherfuckers!

FHF: You think that may be their way as a balancing of their persona. They feel their job is to protect the world from "monsters", they lash out on you for the "rest of the world," yet they seem to be fascinated with you and your personality.

MANSON: That's the Abraxas.

FHF: I've heard it before, but explain your concept of Abraxas (a Gnostic deity symbolically used to denote a balance between good and evil).

MANSON: That's the same respect I give to those motherfuckers that smack me. That's Abraxas! I go, "Fuck you, you pile of shit," and spit in his face. Then later the same guy comes round with my food. He gives me food to live to the next day, and I let him live to see the next day. That is Abraxas. Abraxas is equilibrium.

FHF: You mentioned survival a few times. How do you think you have survived so well being placed in this situation?

MANSON: Cuz I'm very… uh… I'm very... I can adapt to all things. I am adapting at all times. Spahn Ranch was nothing more than the rest of the world kicking us out, man. We adapted to the environment they been given us, you dig? They said, "Get out!" I had no problem with that, I wanted to leave. You dig what I'm saying? So we went to the ranch.

FHF: Spahn Ranch, were you lived with what they called "The Family." Explain "The Family."

MANSON: Some friends, a bunch of guys and gals, broads and me, living happily. Dum de do do (starts to sing and hum) They were a buch of girls following me around. But I've always had that kind of entourage.

FHF: To some that would sound sexist. What would your take on feminism be?

MANSON: Look at me, man. I'm as beautiful a woman as they come. The girls know that. (laughs hysterically) All my girls know that.

FHF: Do you have many good memories about these people.

MANSON: Sure! All of them, all of them. They are beautiful.

FHF: Even Squeaky? Though she tried to kill then-president Ford.

MANSON: She's right on. They all know what each got to do, see. She knows what she has to do to survive on earth. All those people that were with me, they know what they got to so. Those that are with me know, and those that are not with me are not with themselves.

FHF: Tex, he's a born-again. He preaches against everything you stood for back at the ranch.

MANSON: Tex? He's beautiful. He did his, you know. He was with me for a while, and in that while we was beautiful back then. We experimented with ourselves and our bodies and shit, you dig? He was walking around singing and we were like, "I can dig this." Then he goes back to what his daddy and mommy taught him, and I'm here and I say if he can get anything new over there, you know what I'm saying, he's welcome there. But there ain't nothing new over there, you know. I told him, "You go over there, if you find anything new you let me know," cuz I have it all already. I'll tell you what for. He got his new trip, waving his finger, "Jesus, Jesus." I'll save you all a trip, ain't nothing new there. I'm still here. I haven't gone there, you dig what I'm saying. You see, if it hadn't been for those people they all call my "family," I wouldn't be in here. They're the ones who ran around screamed helter skelter, and when they get caught they say, "Well come with us and we'll show you who we're with." I wasn't trying to get no attention. That's why I was out in the desert. Do you see what I'm saying. I had a few bad friends, and they hurt some folks, but I have always had friend as that hurt folks. I got some bad people round, and that's alright, cuz you've got to have responsibility for your actions.

FHF: You're saying they took no responsibility for what they did. If they just pawned it off on you then you must feel they did not gave you a fair shake.

MANSON: No one gives a hobo a his fair share. I was stupid. Stupid to trust people, stupid to think I had any rights in America. I got out of jail when I was still young and I launched myself according to their rules. They told me what to do and I did it. These ding-dings are keeping me locked up cuz they're afraid. I run my life by the letter of the law, and I don't do nothing, and them come looking for me one day, and say, "I think you have some explaining to do." I didn't do a thing. I'm in here because they don't know what to do with a man who has all these girls, and these bikers, they listen to me too.

FHF: What about those motorcycle gangs?

MANSON: The Straight Satans. They were my bunch.

FHF: Do you miss riding?

MANSON: Fuck it! I ride all the time.

FHF: But you're inside, or do you ride mentally?

MANSON: I ride, but they want me to stay here. They get their lawyers and people to represent the lawyers and lawyers to represent the lawyers who represent the lawyers until you got more shit in a single room than you know what to do with, you dig? And all this shit turns out to be my life. Fucking represent a big ol' room full of shit that is my existence, you know what I'm saying?

FHF: I understand, but lets go back a moment. When you were talking about Tex, you put down Jesus and his philosophy as "nothing new." Elaborate.

MANSON: You see it all like I do, son. Jesus is so small. We see him on the cross, and we go (makes yawning noise). Bored. Fuck 'em, cuz they're all so small. If I could nail him back up on the cross he'd never come down, I mean, why would he want to? To look around and say, I am nothing. There were other gods long before me. And there's gonna be many more, buddy boy! It's all the same, just a new tag for you ninnies to look at and ask what the price is. You still pay the same. All these people claiming to sell you Christ, heh (chuckles). They sell it, but they don't believe in it.

FHF: I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but you hear it all the time. I need you to clarify. Do you have any allegiance to Satan?

MANSON: I have allegiance to horse shit. They all bow to bigger gods. The devil is nothing more than me sitting in your inner ear saying, "Do this for me, do that for me." The devil is razor wire and tissue paper. He's mean and nasty with a kiss on the lips, you dig? Christ, Satan, whatever. The devil doesn't cry and Christ don't run with the wolves. I have allegiance to Awareness.

FHF: Awareness?

MANSON: Awareness is what it is. I am aware of my planet and what it is doing. It's me and me trying to save my planet. Saving my earth, my air, my trees, my water, my animals. The know that everything is god. And we got to save god from dying. Everything is god, man. I am Awareness because I am here and there, everywhere at one time. I am that Satan. I am that Christ.

FHF: How do you feel about extremist groups, whether leftist or to the right, using you as a symbol, or even a philosopher?

MANSON: If I could smash their heads in to let some smarts in. They go out to protest something, but they… um… they are against power plants, but use electricity. Complain about pollution, then get in their cars. You can't protest the cutting down of a forest with paperwork. Think about it, man! No sense, no how. Dig? It is just starting to pick up in these people's heads, "Hey man, this ol'dude got something." Well, I've been trying to tell you for the last 50 years. Shit or get off the motherfucker. Fuck all that wing shit. Left wing, right wing? You need both wings to fly, baby! Why would anyone want to follow me anyhow. Ain't no talking to half the motherfuckers out there. No communication, I mean, they'll talk, you dig, but they ain't getting it in their heads.

FHF: Who, the American public?

MANSON: Ain't no intelligence there, man!

FHF: Do you think we will all destroy ourselves?

MANSON: You're all going to be gone. I am already gone. I'm just not giving that end any more rope than it already needs, you know.

FHF: Are you upset with the picture the media has painted of you? A monster.

MANSON: Fuck them, what do I care. If you wanted to talk to me, you should have talked to Bugliosi. He seemed to have a better version of my story anyhow. The media is an ad for product. It ain't news, it's how to sell you their version of what happened that day. I happened long ago, and they won't forget me. The media is a crying baby and do-gooders having their way with your mind. They ask me stuff all the time, son. I have nothing for them, they interpret me as if I'm a monster. Then the world will see me as a monster. Goody! I don't need the attention. I don't want all these people following me. I am me and I try to survive. I need no one out there to survive. People asking what I have to tell them. What do they care? Follow someone else. Ask someone else to lead you. To lead you away from me. There are 5 billion people here, how can I get away from them all, you dig what I'm saying?

FHF: Yeah.

MANSON: Listen, my time's running out.

FHF: Shit, uh… tell me something to finish off the interview. Do you have anything to tell the world?

MANSON: Um… I'm... uh… this is my time boys (hand covers phone and starts talking to someone else). Yeah, yeah… I said all I can say. I ain't gonna say nothing to the people out there. This is you and me, dig. We're talking and I'm getting my point to you. Fuck everyone else. Print that, yeah, I like that, man… (short pause) yeah… I like you.

FHF: Thanks, but you don't feel you need to say something in specific to anyone?

MANSON: Naw, man. That's your thing. Your reality. It's up to you to tell them shit. (long pause) You've been through a lot haven't you? Well, that's good, it's why some people relate.

FHF: Thanks.

MANSON: Mm-hmm.

This interview was done after three months of waiting for a response from prison officials, as I pretended to be an "serious" reporter. After being denied, I wrote Charles Manson and asked him to call collect. The preceding interview was done via a 25 minute phone call between Manson and myself.

This interview appeared in issue #3 of Feast of Hate and Fear, along with a 7" split between Timescape Zero and Subliminal Criminal, 1993. Manson wrote me last in 1994, calling me "Ding Dong" and threatening I leave Sandra Good alone, though I only mailed her an invitation for an interview.