Chuck Negron & Wonderland
I had posted before about how the album shown in the living room in the crime scene video is by Three Dog Night. If you missed that post, just use the search button. It was obvious that the gang at the house had been jamming to this record and that maybe singer Chuck Negron was going to stop by… maybe Barbara and Susan had not met him yet. I have also never seen Wonderland described as “upscale” by anyone else. Classic.
Here’s what Chuck had to say in an interview for a book titled, The Harder They Fall, which is about celebrities and addiction:
Drugs led to all kinds of problems. Some dealers once shot through the walls of my house in Los Angeles when I was inside. They wanted me to pay my drug debts. I remember terrible fights — one with Janis Joplin where I called her an ugly slut. She was a nice, sweet person and was one of many musicians I knew who died defeated, tortured deaths.
I don’t know why I stayed alive. I used dirty needles. Four people were beaten to death with baseball bats at an upscale heroin shooting gallery in Laurel Canyon. Centering on porn-film legend John Holmes it became known as the Wonderland Murders. The carnage happened in the very place I was spending most of my evenings at the time — except that murderous one. Once I almost drove my whole family into the canyon as we headed down Mulholland Drive in our little red Volkswagen. I had popped some downers before we left home and blacked out. At the last minute, Julia slammed on the brakes. I almost bled to death after demolishing my car on a Sunset Boulevard streetlamp. I cracked my head open, collapsed a lung, and mangled my body. The firefighters had to cut me out from that automobile.
With musicians I knew toppling like ten pins, death was very close up, and I thought about suicide and attempted it as well. Once I hung myself with a belt in the closet of a shabby motel room, only a rusty overhead pipe collapsed and saved me. Another time I walked directly in front of a moving bus on purpose. Compared to facing my probation officer with another dirty drug test, it seemed like a good alternative. I overdosed routinely. Other druggies had to beat me back to life after one overdose, subsequent to which my body was black-and-blue from the neck down.
Bonnie Brae 8:34 am on May 2, 2013 Permalink |
I think compared to most shooting galleries, Wonderland probably was upscale.
It’s all relative.
John 9:06 am on May 2, 2013 Permalink |
Yes, I guess you are right. It was nice. Joy was a very generous woman.
John W 3:40 pm on May 7, 2013 Permalink |
Chuck overdosed and his drug friends beat him back to life. Wow. I bet eventually he was like “Awright you fukkers, i’m up!! Stop hitting me!”
localarts 10:54 am on May 2, 2013 Permalink |
Imagine if that album came up for auction on eBay and it had Chuck’s autograph and the cast off blood spatter still on it. Whom amongst you would be willing to break the bank to won it!!
John 3:15 pm on May 2, 2013 Permalink |
Since I have always had a thing for Barbara, I don’t know if I could do it, as Holmes stood by watching her die.
localarts 7:25 pm on May 2, 2013 Permalink |
This is true, but you would be owning a piece of Wonderland lore. Can you just imagine how much more national attention the murders would have received if Negron would have been there that night. If Ed Nash and Holmes thought the heat was coming down hard after… well lets just say everybody involved in the murders would have been in the express lane to the gas chamber.
John W 11:18 am on May 4, 2013 Permalink |
I guess I read that Christina Applegate remembered seeing the bloody furniture and mattresses by the street on trash day. I would have liked to have a clock radio or Ronnie’s nightstand!!
apple 6:19 am on August 18, 2014 Permalink |
Has anybody here read Three Dog Nightmare by Chuck Negron ? He goes into his dealings at Wonderland . So sad that his wife and him brought Chuck Jr into this world addicted to Heroin only to see him grow up and become addicted again . Damn I almost fell over when I saw Chuck Negron on A & E Intervention completely clean and sober only to realize his son was the addict . It was just crazy .
John 8:18 am on August 20, 2014 Permalink |
It’s a good read and he has a good Wonderland chapter. Good stuff from another point of view (as customer and friend of Joy)
Kathleen 11:07 am on April 13, 2015 Permalink |
I owned this book for quite awhile. Very good read. The makes O.Z.Z.Y. and some of the others out there who thought they were big drugs users look like kindergarteners.