Charles Manson unveiled his newest look this week. The so-called mastermind behind the Tate-LaBianca killings made the news when Rolling Stone revealed his relationship with a 25-year-old woman named Star. She was attracted to California Corcoran State Prison’s most infamous inmate thanks to his environmentalist beliefs. Interesting as that is, I’m more taken with Manson’s latest hairdo. I’ve been following the evolution of Charlie’s hair for decades, an interest that I share with filmmaker John Waters. His 2004 retrospective at New York’s New Museum for Contemporary Art included a series of photographs called "Manson Copies", in which he juxtaposed Manson with movie stars like Richard Gere and Brad Pitt.

“Well, every five years Charles Manson has a parole hearing, and I watch it for one reason: he has a new look every time,” Waters told the New York Times. “So I watch him, then I find an unsuspecting movie star who happens to look exactly like him in that incarnation, and pair them together, to show that no matter what, Manson’s more famous.” Following that train of thought, Manson’s contemporary style—a sort of tightly cropped flat top combo Mohawk—kinda recalls Hugh Dillon’s look in Hard Core Logo. Just not very much. And Manson is definitely more famous than the lead singer of the Headstones (except maybe in the more miserable parts of Ontario), so the point is moot. In terms of this season’s look, meanwhile, I’m giving Charlie a sideways thumb. While I’m taken with its severe lines and close formation, it pales beside “the Divine.”

Georgia Straight, November 2013