Atkins Die It!

In my last flogging, I dealt with a recent death I found personally heart-breaking: my darling Henry Gibson. Well this week Death has struck again, only this time he's done some good, and taken a tremendously evil creature to a long-deserved demise. Susan Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz, has died. There's no way that's anything but good news. She died slowly of cancer. Hopefully it was excruciatingly painful. With any luck, she died in agony and despair.

Now why am I, normally the kindest, most compassionate, most utterly-selfless person on earth, doing a Fred Astaire tap dance special on the grave of Susan Atkins? Look at this picture.

That is gorgeous Sharon Tate Polanski. In 1969, she was a budding movie star. She'd made a splash in the slick trashy soap opera movie Valley of the Dolls with Patty Duke and Susan Hayward. While making The Fearless Vampire Killers, aka Dance of the Vampires, she and genius director Roman Polanski fell in love and got married. Roman went on to have his own sexual and legal troubles, but if it hadn't been for Susan Atkins, those aberrations in his life would probably never have happened.



One night, some 40 years ago last month, on August 9, 1969, pregnant with her and Roman's first child, she pleaded for her baby's life to Susan Atkins. And what did poor little "I had an unhappy childhood" Susan Atkins reply to Sharon?

"I have no pity for you, bitch!" And then she stabbed Sharon 16 times, many of the knife wounds stabbing into the fetus as well. Then Susan wrote "Pig" in Sharon's blood on the front door of the Polanski house. She also took time from her busy night to stab Voytek Frykowski to death as well. Busy knives are happy knives.

What terrible thing had Sharon and Voytek done to Susan to provoke such a terrible act from her?

Nothing at all. They'd never met before. She'd never heard of them, and they'd never heard of her. In fact, Susan and her companions in murder, Charles "Tex" Watson, Patricia Krenwinkle, and Linda Kasabian, thought other people lived there, but since they'd gone to all the trouble to drop in uninvited, why not also kill Steven Parent, Jay Sebring, and Abagail Folger? And the next night, along with Leslie Van Houten, they killed Leno & Rosemary LaBianca, two total strangers of whom they knew nothing at all. It was something to do. Apparently there was nothing good on television, although the newscasts had been pretty lurid that day, and the next day, even more so.

So fuck this evil bitch. She's died of a horrible cancer. Good. Thank you, Cancer. Munchkins: commence singing!

She was acting under the orders of Charles Manson. Charlie's hideous death is a pleasure that still awaits us. But Charlie's orders in no way expiate Susan even a quark-sized iota. Fuck her. Fuck him.

Let's be clear, though hardly guiltless, Linda Kasabian didn't kill anyone, and her testimony was crucial to sending Susan to prison until her parole into hell yesterday.

Sharon wasn't even Susan's first murder. She'd earlier killed a musician named Gary Hinman, as a favor for Charlie. She was thoughtful that way. Always willing to slaughter someone for a friend.

Here she is with Krenwinkle and Van Houton, three little maids from hell indeed, and now Susan has gone home again.

In prison. Susan embraced Christianity, often the last resort of the truly insane, evil, or frightened. They usually then try to claim they are now good people, having become Christians; never mind that Christians have committed many of the worst mass crimes in history. Adolf Hitler was a Christian, after all, as any Jew can tell you.


But the good thing about Susan's alleged conversion is that she'd then believe in Hell, and could be good and terrified of spending eternity roasting on a spit. I almost wish I could believe in it too. Oblivion is letting her off too easily. On the other hand, Poor Hell. Susan Atkins will lower the tone of the place.

She got married twice while in prison. Her first husband, Donald Laisure, had been previously married 35 times! Good lord, he makes me look like an old maid! He dumped her when wife number 37 sashayed into his life. Till lunch we do part.

Then she married her lawyer. I knew defense lawyers could be scuzzballs, but can you possibly sink any lower than marrying Susan Atkins?

She applied for parole again and again, but was always stymied by one simple question: Are Sharon Tate and her baby still dead? They are? Well then, Susan, fuck you. Her last time up for parole she asked for "compassionate release," since she was dying of cancer.

Compassionate release? Perhaps the parole board remembered her answer when Sharon Tate pleaded with her for mercy and compassion, because freely translated, the parole board's answer was "We have no pity for you, bitch."

And we can only look forward to the deaths of her accomplices as pleasures yet to come. It's kind of nice that they've had long lives, because I don't believe the dead suffer.

When I find out where the evil cow is buried I'll let you know, and we can hold a grand ball. We need a lot of people dancing on this evil creature's grave.


On a lighter note, I am flogging away at The Huffington Post, recapping Survivor: Samoa. Catch the latest one: Law & Order: Samoan Psycho Unit. Enjoy.

Cheers darlings.

Regarding Henry.

At my age (112, but who's counting?), I've survived the deaths of so many, many people that I don't react as much as I should anymore. But this week we had a passing that I actually shed tears over. My dear, sweet Henry Gibson.


Everyone knew his great talent, and have seen his over 100 movie and TV appearances. Is it possible he's still best known for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In 40 years later, after such films as Nashville, The Blues Brothers, Kiss Me Stupid, The Long Goodbye, Innerspace, The 'Burbs, Magnolia, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, and The Incredible Shrinking Woman? The man worked for such directors as Robert Altman, Joe Dante, John Landis, and Billy Wilder. (He was also directed by Jerry Lewis, having made his screen debut in the original The Nutty Professor, but it didn't seem to hurt his career.)


But along with his great talent, there was the man himself. As it happens, I had the joy of knowing Henry a bit, back in his Laugh-In days. Little Dougie was a mere stagestruck 18 year old when he met Henry on the Laugh-In set at NBC in Burbank. Henry took a shine to the stagestruck teenager, and allowed him to sit about his dressing room, just chatting about any and everything.


Henry was the sweetest, kindest man who ever lived. That warm, loving persona he put out on TV, reading his poems was the real man. And every time he read a poem labelled "By Henry Gibson," it was by Henry Gibson. Henry only performed his own poems on the show.


So I think the best way to remember Henry is to share a couple of his charming verses. These poems are indeed "by Henry Gibson."


The Cobra
The cobra always wears a smile
As he creeps across the ground
He grins like he's up in the clouds
I think that he turns on.


The Bullfrog
The bullfrog is my pal true blue.
He don't smoke or drink or chew.
His only hang-up is he sniffs glue.
If I was a bullfrog I would too.


Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan,
What are yuh doin'?


The Thumbnail
Did you ever stop to figure
Why the thumbnail is so hard?
Well it hasn't any choice
With all that skin to guard.
It may look fat and pudgy
But it's heart is good and true.
It's prettier than a toenail
And easier to chew.


Admit it, you didn't just smile; you laughed.


The world has become a less-funny place lately, and I'm not just referring to Jay Leno's excruciating new TV show, although it's hard to be less funny than that thing. (An over-50% drop in the ratings between the first show and the fourth. Ouch.) The loss of Henry Gibson is a personal one to me, but the loss of Larry Gelbart, whom I never met, makes the world less funny as well. Rather than go on and on about this genius's brilliant resume, allow me instead to refer you to a remembrance of him by someone who knew him, our mutual friend, little Kent Levine, who posted a beautiful and moving memory of their years of friendship over on his blog.


But the closest you can come to spending some actual time with Larry listening to his stories is to read his wonderful 1998 memoir Laughing Matters: On Writing M*A*S*H, Tootsie, Oh God!, and a Few Other Funny Things. Find a copy online, order it, and read it. In a desperate pinch, you can even read it at a public library, although their books are crawling with germs. You can't borrow my copy, as I am rereading it.


My gig recapping Big Brother 11 over at The Huffington Post ended this week, with my account of the finale, Big Brother 11: Dumb Luck. A surprise highlight of the gig was having dinner the night before the finale with BB houseguest Casey and his lovely wife, just the two of them, me, and Little Dougie, who insisted on crashing the party uninvited. Typical!



However, I have immediately begun recapping Survivor: Samoa, with my first posting, Survivor Samoa: Samoa, Samerrier.

Wait a minute! What is Kanye West doing in there? That egomaniac is even interrupting flogs now! Take that bottle of Hennessey's away from him and give it to me. Honestly Kanye, behavior like yours could give alcoholism a bad name. Do you want that on your conscience as well?


Here's the cast now. And come Monday, check out my Emmy Awards Show review on the HuffPo as well.

Meanwhile, in Henry's honor, I'm getting plastered on Gibsons. Cheers darlings.