By Hugh Kenny
On October 12th of 1978,, Attorney Paul Morantz reached into his Pacific Palisades mailbox and was promptly bitten by a four foot Diamondback rattlesnake. It had been gingerly deposited there by two of my friends.
One friend was Lance Kenton, the young, beautiful and otherwise courteous son of Big Band leader Stan Kenton and the other was Joe Musico, an older and more sinister figure. He shared the eyes and the temperament of the rattlesnake.
Los Angeles Policeman holding the snake. Photo UPI press
Although Musico claimed to have performed combat infiltrations in Viet Nam, he parked their reptile delivery vehicle near the scene of the crime. The letters on the side doors proclaimed , Synanon…The People Business. This eye catching graphic, indeed, caught the eye of more than one witness. So Lance and Joe were soon arrested and charged with attempted murder.
Earlier… Twelve years earlier, in 1964. I had seen a big spread in Life Magazine. It heralded Synanon, a drug rehabilitation community, as being The Tunnel Back to the Human Race. It made a big splash in New York and as a result I joined a great exodus of junkies from the East Coast. In some neighborhoods the merchants came up with the airfares because it was cheaper then continuing to replace what ever we were stealing. Up to that point, the slogan, “Once a Junkie, alway a Junkie” pretty much held true. It was why we used junk in the first place. It was the ultimate forbidden fruit, condemning you eternally to petty crime and prison.
There were no rehabilitation programs back then other than the failed attempts produced by the prison system. At Synanon there was no program to combat drug use. It was more like: We are such a cool place and we are such cool people that if you want to use drugs go someplace else because we don’t. It was difficult to join and easy to leave. The first thing I was told when I got to Synanon, was that there were only two Rules. They called them Cardinal Rules. Everything else was forgivable.
These Cardinal rules were were: One: No violence or threat of physical violence. and two: No alcohol or drugs. Twelve years later we had a railway car full of AR-15s, shotguns, and ammunition, The board of directors were strapped with Berettas and the elite were sloshing bourbon with the Founder at special parties. We went from, “ Please let me first and always examine myself” to “Don’t fuck with Synanon”
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