Feb, 3, 2003 - We Will Never Forget

April 5, 1962 ~~ February, 2003

"what we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose . . . for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us." Helen Keller

The Time: 2:21 AM

The Place: The House of Blues

The relentlessly cheerful California girl, still dreaming of stardom, despite years of restaurant work and trashy TV roles clocked out of the Hollywood hot spot and reluctantly climbs into a limousine for "one drink only" at Phil Spector's "1930s Moorish castle" on the fringes of LA. DON'T GO LANA DON'T GO

Some said if Phil had had his usual driver, nothing would have happened. His usual driver would have said, "No, Phil, you promised," when he ordered a drink at the Grill early that evening; he would have said, "Come on, Phil, no drinking," when he ordered another one at Dan Tana's; he would have said, "Phil, you know how you get," and taken the next one away from him when they went to Trader Vic's. And later when Phil was downing Bacardi 150's and champagne at the House of Blues, the driver would have said, "OK, buddy, I'm taking you home now," and then later that night, when the gun went off, the driver would have said, "No problem, I'll take care of it". DON'T GO LANA DON'T GO

But instead Spector came out of his castle, gun in hand, and said to the substitute limo driver, "I think I just killed someone". Perhaps we will never know at what point the gun was drawn, who produced it, or why. We wonder what difference that makes in the scheme of things anyway. DON'T GO LANA DON'T GO

But we do know this special lady was shot in the face and when authorities arrived, Lana was dead as she sat waiting to leave, lying in a pool of blood in the marble foyer, while Phil Spector wandered about his house washing his hands and churning alibis, as the essence of life drained from her lovely body. DON'T GO LANA DON'T GO

Spector's long history - forever angry, selfish, impulsive, manipulative, depraved, indulged, appeased, self-centred, grandiose, pleasured by guns, and violent abuse of women was well-known in that strange place called Hollywood. Phil has never once been held publicly accountable for his actions. And because of his unaccountability how could Lana have imagined what lay ahead? DON'T GO LANA DON'T GO

Five years after the beast dragged the beauty to his lair on that winter night five years ago, little could she have known, he would finally snap ~ unable to handle his liquor, refusing to abide a simple rejection, one more door closing, one more pair of lovely footsteps skittering away, that there was so much to fear. DON'T GO LANA DON'T GO

This son of Satan, master of madness, demon of depravity, who would make the Marquise de Sade proud, still walks the halls of his Castle a free man. Manipulation of the system, countless legal tricks, he is still free. And those who loved the real Lana Clarkson sit and wait. Wait for the Justice that has to happen. Doesn't it? DON'T GO LANA DON'T GO

Among those who knew and loved the real Lana Clarkson, some mysteriously woke up at 2:21 AM, others didn't sleep at all. But all of us stand together to demand Justice. We will not forget, we will not rest until he sits behind bars and pays for distinguishing the light that was Lana. DON'T GO LANA DON'T GO

We light candles for Lana at: http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=lana

One special personal friend of Lana remembers with these lyrics:

Not Ready To Make Nice - Lyrics/Dixie Chicks

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting.

UNTIL THERE IS JUSTICE WE WON'T GO LANA ~~ WE WON'T GO

Thoughts on Sunday Bloody Sunday

Scott Peterson, O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector, Bobby Cutts, Drew Peterson, Cesar Armando Laurean - how many more?

WHY? WHY? WHY?

BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO!

Laci Peterson. Kathleen Peterson. Almost certainly Stacy Peterson. Nicole Simpson. Lana Clarkson. Christa Worthington. Those are just the famous ones. Maria Lauterbach. Amina Yaser Said. Sarah Yaser Said. Those are just the most recent "newsworthy” ones.

Fact: Women Murdered in the U.S in 2000 - recent yearly statistics available from the U.S. Department of Justice - more than 33 percent were killed by an intimate partner.

Fact: Nationally, homicide is a leading killer of young women—pregnant or not.

Must have missed the memo, because I thought we were supposed to be a civilized society, striving for improvement. We were supposed to be kind towards one other. War or attack aside, we were certainly not supposed to annihilate other human beings.

Instead, we seem to be in a place and time of unprecedented violence towards women and children. In a society that is completely hit-and-miss when it comes to convicting, imprisoning, or punishing the murderers.

Maybe it was always like this, but has the need to hammer it home for the 24 hour ratings-grabbing media reporting changed the program? It certainly feels as if our society has descended into some sort of collective psychosis - a violent whirlpool of rage, entitlement, and devaluation of human life.

Turn on any crime show (and I confess I watch some of them) and there are literally nonstop images of - mostly - women and young girls bound, tortured, pleading for their lives from behind their gags. Yes, the heroes and heroines are working feverishly to rescue these victims, but the camera always cuts back to those victims. And of course, women and children are much easier to target and victimize, on screen and off.

Have we become immune to the horrors of these acts and these images? I don't want to believe that this is what entertainment is, or that we have become a society so intellectually and spiritually impoverished that we think that as entertainment goes, so real life must follow.

Walking my dogs this morning, I had to pull hard to stop Sabre, an 80 lb. ball of fur, from going after a rabbit. That is instinct. Sabre doesn't see the rabbit as a living breathing creature with rights equal to his.

Humans are supposed to be more highly evolved. But if there is anything like an ethical evolutionary scale, we, the Human Race, are cashing in the chips, calling it a loss, and relegating ourselves to the lowest possible level imaginable.

From W.B. Yeats' poem "Slouching Towards Bethlehem": . . .

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. . .

What wouldn't I give to disagree with Yeats?