The Least Romantic Story EVER, Just In Time For Valentines Day

Who wouldn't fall for this guy? Well, nobody would.
Charles Manson is once again unlucky in love
as Valentine's Day approaches.  

Just in time for Valentine's Day, coming up this weekend, I have what is certainly the least romantic story I've heard in ages.

Hey, I've got to be a contrarian.

Before I go on, I have to tell you I'm not making up any of what you are about to read up. My imagination isn't that good, or that sick. Maybe people involved are making a lot of stuff up, but not me.

So here it goes:

If any of this is true, and it's coming from the New York Post, so it might be embellished, it appears the expected wedding of Charles Manson is not going to happen after all.

The news is enough to make your red roses wilt on the spot, isn't it.

Manson, you might recall, is the ringleader of a weird murder spree in California way back in 1969. He and his followers thought that if they murdered actress Sharon Tate and eight others to start some sort of race riot or revolution or something, I don't know.

Manson was sentenced to life behind bars and is now 80 years old.

But, romance blooms, even in prison, or so Manson thought. A woman named Afton Elaine Burton, 27, announced in 2013 she planned to marry Manson.

Rolling Stone magazine had all the deets on the marriage back in November, 2013. At least that's how things stood, until romance faded. So sad.

But back then the love affair between Manson and Burton, referred to as "Star" in Rolling Stone, was in full torrid bloom.  

Star and her apparently ex-fiance Charlie Manson in,
um, happier times last year.  

"Star is a (then) 25 year old brunette who's been loyally visiting Manson in jail since she was 19 years old and maintains several websites devoted to defending Manson and his pro-Earth environmental causes," Rolling Stone reported.

Too bad Manson wasn't also anti-murder, but I guess you can't have everything.

Rolling Stone goes on:

"In 2007, Star moved to Corcoran to be near Charlie, who she visits each Saturday and Sunday for up to five hours a day. 'Yeah, well, people can think I'm crazy,' she likes to say. 'But they don't know. This is what's right for me. This is what I was born for.'"

Well, she's right on one point. She did seem crazy. I guess at the time we would have congratulated Star for snagging the world's least available bachelor, and the one you'd least want to take home to meet Momma.

Burton, or Star, had some pretty strong opinions. She carved an "X" into her forehead to match Manson's lovely visage.  Star strongly resembles Susan Atkins, one of the members of Manson's "family" that carried out the horrible murders back in 1969.

Jealous lover that she was portraying, Burton, or "Star" hated Atkins. "That bitch was fucking crazy....She was a crazy fucking whore."

Alrighty, then.

But as I noted, sometimes blossoming love withers on the vine. And such is the case with Star and Charlie.

If the New York Post is right, Star's intention was not to marry out of love, but for money. Yeah, yeah, I know,  Manson doesn't have any money, given that he's been in prison for what, 45 years or so?

It turns out Star is an entrepreneur!

Her plan was to marry Manson, then when he died, she'd gain custody of his corpse. And it might not be too long before Manson dies. He is 80 years old. So Star maybe thought she was getting a quick return on her investment.

How would she make money, though?

Easy! After Manson dies, she and her pal Craig Hammond would put his corpse in a glass crypt. As the New York Post put it, "The pair figured their bizarre California version of Lenin's Tomb would draw huge crowds and make big money."

There's where I question the business plan.

It is true that California draws LOTS of tourists, what with Yosemite Park, Hollywood, the redwood forests, the beauty of San Francisco, the luscious wines of Napa Valley and Disneyland Resort (despite the measles epidemic.)

Maybe I'm closed minded, but I don't think tourists would exactly flock to see Charlie Manson's dead body. If I went to California as a tourist, that would be extra low on my bucket list. But what do I know?  I'm not the lead editor at Travel and Leisure, so my expertise in tourism might not be up to snuff.

The Post reported that a journalist told the paper that the cunning Manson found out about that Star was in it for money, not love, so Manson pulled the plug on the wedding plans.

Besides, Manson reportedly had another reason not to go along with Star's plan. He believes he is immortal, so Star would have no corpse to display. No corpse, no tourist attraction, right?

As you can see, this story isn't exactly a lovely Valentine. But now you can be cheerful.

Even if there's no romance in your life at the moment. Even if Mr. or Ms. Right hasn't entered the picture yet. Even if you're going to spend Valentine's Day alone watching re-runs of "Divorce Court," your life is still much more romantic and lovely than Manson or Star's.

You've got to count your blessings, right?

Icky People Doing Icky Things: Crime News Gets Disgusting

I never resist turning this blog into something especially tawdry and I found some really icky things to get things going.

Oh, I know you're not going to skip over this. Everybody loves train wrecks, so you'll read.

David Viens looking somber after his
arrest for cooking his wife's dead body. Yuck!

The first bit of disgusting news comes from a murder trial in which a restaurant owner is accused of killing his wife.

So far, so routine, as far as murders go. But the allegation is that to ditch the body, he slowly cooked her for four days.  Ewwww!!!   He then disposed some of the body in a grease drain and some in the trash, according to the allegations.

It's unclear why David Veins chose to dispose of the body this way. I guess he thought it would be harder to trace? I don't know, I have no expertise in murder victim disposal.  He might have been right: Authorities have never found the body.

Veins said he hid his wife's skull in his mother's attic, but a search there turned up nada, police said.
Still, if I was the mother, I'd move to an undisclosed location.

As Steve Martin,  looking on the bright side in a Tweet, said, "Sometimes lawyers give good advice, Chef who cooked dead wife won't testify in his defense." 

Though Viens didn't buy that. He tried to fire his lawyer during the trial, but the judge said no.

In any event, best not to eat at Viens' California restaurant called Thyme Comtemporary Cafe. Avoid the stir fry, particularly.

The second super tawdry case starts out gross and just keeps getting worse and worse.  A Florida man is accused of bestiality with a donkey.  Too much exposure to "Hee-Haw" episodes as a kid maybe?

The accused, Carlos Romero, 21, a farmhand from Ocala area, said Florida's anti bestiality laws are backwards and ought to be repealed.

Carlos Romero NOT looking somber after his arrest for
having, ahem, relations with a donkey.

But he used the occasion of his arrest to lobby against anti bestiality laws.

I don't see Florida legislators getting on that bandwagon anytime soon, do you?

Romero says he preferred the 21 month old minature donkey, named Doodles, because he is not a people person.

I'll say! But this arrest makes things convenient, because people won't want to hang out with Romero, either. So he can not be a people person safe in the knowledge that people won't bother him. 

On the other hand, Romero won't be getting near any farms anytime soon, so his sex life is sure to suffer. Which of course is good news for us and the entire animal kingdom.

Romero told a judge that he wants his donkey back, but the judge wisely decided against it. Said donkey has probably fled as far as possible away from Ocala, Florida.

Storm, NYC Style: Cigarette Butts Attack

Up here in Vermont, it hasn't rained much this summer, but when it has, we tended to get violent storms with high winds that push down trees, lightning that starts fires, torrential rains that turn streets into rivers, and hail that pelts gardens into pulp.

But, we should consider ourselves lucky. In New York, they had a bad thunderstorm Wednesday, which filled subway stations with disgusting water laced with rat crap and urine (and people walked through it anyway, YUCK!)

At least Vermont storms are a bit cleaner than those in the Big Apple, no? As proof, I offer you this video of an overwhelmed subway drain during the storm geysering water and lots and lots of old cigarette butts.

Look at it this way: The video is a good incentive to stop smoking for those of you who do indulge: