How Helter Skelter Has Changed My Life
So perhaps killaho can back me up on this one: Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter is the freakiest damn book I've ever read.
For those who do not know me very well, I cannot suspend disbelief. I lack whatever chemical it is in the brain that allows a person to be scared when, say, Mel Gibson is being chased by tall and lanky aliens or when Neve Campbell is being chased by a guy in a cheap costume with a knife.
I laughed at the Ring. Thank God for HBO on-demand, for The Ring is one of the more entertaining films I've seen in awhile.
seven days
But I digress.
Back to Helter Skelter. Now, I've been hiding the cover and spine while riding the bus in to work, so that I don't appear to be the morbid creep that I apparently am. Thanks to Mr. Bugliosi and his publisher, even with the slightest glimpse at the book you realize there is something just a little "off" about the person holding it:
Subtle, no?
One of the attorneys in my office was quite impressed that I had chosen to read the book, saying that it had been suggested to him in law school as a good trial advocacy book. (I had overheard an attorney friend tell him it was being taught in some law schools) It also, he says, "demonstrates how the police manage to screw everything up and the prosecutor then has to go and fix it." Which, although a pretty harsh statement, comes across very strongly in the book.
The book is about 700 pages long, and I read it in a week. let me tell you, this shit scared the bejesus out of me. As you are probably aware, Charles Manson got together a group of weak personalities and runaways and had them kill people at his command. They wrote things like "Pig" and "Helter Skelter" in blood on the walls. One man was stabbed fifty times, shot three times and had his head bashed in with a shotgun. Sharon Tate was pregnant, stabbed thirty something times and hung by her feet. The graphic descriptions of how these teenage girls wanted to cut out their victims' eyeballs and squish them against the walls was just too much.
All graphic stuff aside, it was more the spookiness of the novel that got to me. I started to notice myself not wanting to turn off the lights, or go into the kitchen if it was dark and no one was home. Everytime the phone rang I jumped out of my skin. Last week I was chatting online with rdg:
Ryan: Thats weird.
Me: What is?
Ryan: I just answered the phone and it cut out in the middle of the caller's sentence.
Ryan: And now I picked up the phone and its dead.
Me: OH MY GOD DON'T TELL ME THAT, THAT IS SO CREEPY!
Ryan: It's not creepy.
Me: UGH YES IT IS I'M READING HELTER SKELTER!
Ryan: Its 3 in the afternoon, Laura.
Me: BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED TO SHARON TATE'S HOUSE BEFORE THEY KILLED HER!
I pinpoint this day as the day I officially "lost it" and became terrified of Charles Manson. Who, for the record, is locked up in California and is six inches shorter than me. I outweigh him by probably fifty pounds. *Sigh*. To my credit, he did leap ten feet across the defendants' table at the judge during his trial. Fear.
Joey B seems to think its strange that I can't suspend disbelief in movies, but this book is scaring the hell out of me. I think it makes perfect sense considering this shit actually happened.
The attorney in my office asked me: "I remember from that book how the used to just sneak around inside peoples houses in the middle of the night...they had a word for it. What did they call it?"
Me: "I don't know, I'm not there yet"
That night I read about it. They would dress in dark clothes and quietly enter people's homes while they slept, closing windows and doors and subtly moving things around the house so that the occupants would think, but be uncertain, that someone had broken in.
They called it "creepy-crawling."
So for the past few days I've been convinced I'm getting creepy-crawled. The other night my roommate Andrew was, I thought, in the living room or out on the deck smoking a cigarette while I watched TV in my bedroom. Hearing a noise I tentatively walked towards the door that leads to our deck saying: "Andrew? Andrew?' My voice got more and more desperate as I heard more noises yet no response from my roommate.
I locked myself in my bedroom.
Ten minutes later I decided I was being ridiculous and went to go see what was going on.
"Andrew? Andrew? Andrew???" very small voice: "Andrew?" I bravely step onto the deck.
Andrew's cell phone is lying there, and he is nowhere in sight.
I run back into my room and lock myself inside. I turn on the Disney Channel, terrified. About half an hour later I venture out again to see him calmly smoking a cigarette on the deck.
Me: "FUCK YOU FOR JUST DISAPPEARING AND LEAVING YOUR PHONE WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!"
I don't think I've ever seen Andrew so confused and startled. He explained to me he had been watering the lawn while I explained to him that I had gone insane, thanks to Helter Skelter.
The next night he came home from work to make sure I hadn't driven myself crazy being home alone all day, for fear "of a book."
Thank God I have finally finished the thing. It really is a superior true crime book, if you like that sort of thing. I want to read another book by the same author, but am far too embarassed to have it special ordered. Heh.
Pick it up, great summer reading. Bwahahaha.
For those who do not know me very well, I cannot suspend disbelief. I lack whatever chemical it is in the brain that allows a person to be scared when, say, Mel Gibson is being chased by tall and lanky aliens or when Neve Campbell is being chased by a guy in a cheap costume with a knife.
I laughed at the Ring. Thank God for HBO on-demand, for The Ring is one of the more entertaining films I've seen in awhile.
seven days
But I digress.
Back to Helter Skelter. Now, I've been hiding the cover and spine while riding the bus in to work, so that I don't appear to be the morbid creep that I apparently am. Thanks to Mr. Bugliosi and his publisher, even with the slightest glimpse at the book you realize there is something just a little "off" about the person holding it:
Subtle, no?
One of the attorneys in my office was quite impressed that I had chosen to read the book, saying that it had been suggested to him in law school as a good trial advocacy book. (I had overheard an attorney friend tell him it was being taught in some law schools) It also, he says, "demonstrates how the police manage to screw everything up and the prosecutor then has to go and fix it." Which, although a pretty harsh statement, comes across very strongly in the book.
The book is about 700 pages long, and I read it in a week. let me tell you, this shit scared the bejesus out of me. As you are probably aware, Charles Manson got together a group of weak personalities and runaways and had them kill people at his command. They wrote things like "Pig" and "Helter Skelter" in blood on the walls. One man was stabbed fifty times, shot three times and had his head bashed in with a shotgun. Sharon Tate was pregnant, stabbed thirty something times and hung by her feet. The graphic descriptions of how these teenage girls wanted to cut out their victims' eyeballs and squish them against the walls was just too much.
All graphic stuff aside, it was more the spookiness of the novel that got to me. I started to notice myself not wanting to turn off the lights, or go into the kitchen if it was dark and no one was home. Everytime the phone rang I jumped out of my skin. Last week I was chatting online with rdg:
Ryan: Thats weird.
Me: What is?
Ryan: I just answered the phone and it cut out in the middle of the caller's sentence.
Ryan: And now I picked up the phone and its dead.
Me: OH MY GOD DON'T TELL ME THAT, THAT IS SO CREEPY!
Ryan: It's not creepy.
Me: UGH YES IT IS I'M READING HELTER SKELTER!
Ryan: Its 3 in the afternoon, Laura.
Me: BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED TO SHARON TATE'S HOUSE BEFORE THEY KILLED HER!
I pinpoint this day as the day I officially "lost it" and became terrified of Charles Manson. Who, for the record, is locked up in California and is six inches shorter than me. I outweigh him by probably fifty pounds. *Sigh*. To my credit, he did leap ten feet across the defendants' table at the judge during his trial. Fear.
Joey B seems to think its strange that I can't suspend disbelief in movies, but this book is scaring the hell out of me. I think it makes perfect sense considering this shit actually happened.
The attorney in my office asked me: "I remember from that book how the used to just sneak around inside peoples houses in the middle of the night...they had a word for it. What did they call it?"
Me: "I don't know, I'm not there yet"
That night I read about it. They would dress in dark clothes and quietly enter people's homes while they slept, closing windows and doors and subtly moving things around the house so that the occupants would think, but be uncertain, that someone had broken in.
They called it "creepy-crawling."
So for the past few days I've been convinced I'm getting creepy-crawled. The other night my roommate Andrew was, I thought, in the living room or out on the deck smoking a cigarette while I watched TV in my bedroom. Hearing a noise I tentatively walked towards the door that leads to our deck saying: "Andrew? Andrew?' My voice got more and more desperate as I heard more noises yet no response from my roommate.
I locked myself in my bedroom.
Ten minutes later I decided I was being ridiculous and went to go see what was going on.
"Andrew? Andrew? Andrew???" very small voice: "Andrew?" I bravely step onto the deck.
Andrew's cell phone is lying there, and he is nowhere in sight.
I run back into my room and lock myself inside. I turn on the Disney Channel, terrified. About half an hour later I venture out again to see him calmly smoking a cigarette on the deck.
Me: "FUCK YOU FOR JUST DISAPPEARING AND LEAVING YOUR PHONE WHAT ARE YOU THINKING!"
I don't think I've ever seen Andrew so confused and startled. He explained to me he had been watering the lawn while I explained to him that I had gone insane, thanks to Helter Skelter.
The next night he came home from work to make sure I hadn't driven myself crazy being home alone all day, for fear "of a book."
Thank God I have finally finished the thing. It really is a superior true crime book, if you like that sort of thing. I want to read another book by the same author, but am far too embarassed to have it special ordered. Heh.
Pick it up, great summer reading. Bwahahaha.