Garlic Festival Shooting, Oz, Zaragoza, and Aragon

Even garlic will not keep away evil, today.

There has been a mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. The shooting Sunday night, July 28, 2019, was on the final day of the annual event at Christmas Hill Park in Gilroy, California. The incident left three dead, 15 injured and the suspected shooter killed by police. Several others were injured in the chaos after shots were fired, but were not shot, authorities said.

"No, Oz never did give nothin' to the Tin Man, that he didn't, didn't already have ..." Tin Man by America. 1974 (h/t A.W. Griffin)

Are we in Oz? The band Tin Man (w/singer Jack van Breen) began its encore when shots rang out at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. A man wearing camouflage, a green shirt & a gray handkerchief around his neck fired into the food area with a rifle. Van Breen was the eyewitness giving this description to the police.

The first dead victim identified was 6-year-old Stephen Romero.

The shooter has been identified as Santino William Legan, 19, who was killed by police at the scene.

Santino is the Italian pet form of Santo, the Italian word for “saint” (from the Latin “sanctus” meaning “sacred, saint”). As a diminutive form, Santino essentially means “little saint”. It’s unclear how common this name is in Italy or when it started circulating as a masculine given name, but we do know that Americans were introduced to it in Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel The Godfather about the Sicilian Mafia family Corleone. Santino “Sonny” Corleone is the oldest of Don Corleone’s three sons (played by James Caan in the 1972 film adaptation). Ironically, as the most brazen and violent of the brothers, Santino Corleone was far from being a “little saint” (although he does have a soft side that rears its saintly self on occasion).

The root of the ancient Dalriadan-Scottish name Legan is the personal name Robert. Known as the Clan Donnachaidh, the family's origins are very distinguished, as the senior branch of the line were the hereditary abbots of Dunkeld, who traced their descent from Iona. In addition, Abbot Duncan of Dunkeld, the Robertson progenitor, was killed in battle in 964, as he led the warriors, bearing, a reliquary of St. Columba. His grandson, Abbot Crinan of Dunkeld, married the Kings daughter and then fathered King Duncan I of Scotland who was killed by MacBeth (of Shakespearean fame). Crinan is buried at the Isle of lona, burial place of Scotland's early Kings.
The surname Legan was first found in Atholl. King Duncan's younger son, Maelmore, sired Madadh, Earl of Atholl, and his grandson, Earl Henry, was father to Conan who held vast territories in this area. Conan of Glenerochie was the first Chief of the Robertsons and gave his name to the Clan Connchaidh or Duncan. His successor, Duncan, the 5th Chief, led the Clan in the army of King Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314 against the English. For this service, and his subsequent staunch support of the Scottish Crown, his grandson Robert of Struan was granted the lands and barony in 1451.

Before the shooting, Legan left this social media message:

mes·ti·zo = (in Latin America) a man of mixed race, especially one having Spanish and indigenous descent.

-Legan, Who Identifies as Being of Italian & Iranian Descent, Posted on Instagram Before the Shooting. The Account Was Removed But Heavy Obtained Screenshots
-Legan’s Grandfather Tom Legan, a West Point Graduate, Was the Santa Clara County Supervisor. He Was Accused & Acquitted of Sexually Assaulting His Daughter. Legan’s Brother is a Noted Boxer
Source.

Legan’s grandfather was Tom Legan, a West Point graduate who died in May of 2018. According to his obituary, The elder Legan served as a “captain in Korea as a Nuclear Weapons Officer and completed his military service in Germany. As a civilian, Tom was Western Regional Marketing Director for Kaiser Cement and was thereafter appointed and then elected as Santa Clara County Supervisor for two terms.”

In 1988, he was acquitted by a jury of the alleged rape of his eldest daughter. The Los Angeles Times reported that he was “found innocent Friday of three counts of molesting his elder daughter in 1982.” Legan was seeking re-election at the time. Source.

++++

July 25, 2019 - Another California Mass Shooting Began as Domestic Violence

A 26-year-old who embarked on a shooting rampage that left four dead — beginning with his own family and ending with a stranger on a bus — was arrested Thursday afternoon, July 25, 2019, after an hours-long manhunt that cast a shadow of fear across the sweltering San Fernando Valley.

Still armed with the gun authorities allege he used in the crime, Gerry Dean Zaragoza was taken into custody about 2:30 p.m. when two law enforcement officers with the LAPD and FBI joint fugitive task force spotted him walking on Canoga Avenue near Gault Street.

Zaragoza Name Meaning. Spanish: habitational name from the city of Zaragoza in northeast Spain, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Aragon. The name derives, via Arabic, from Latin Caesarea Augusta, the name bestowed in the 1st century AD by the Emperor Augustus.

Aragon, an independent kingdom from 1035 to 1479, which took its name from the river Aragón that arises in its northwestern corner. The river name is of obscure origin; it may be related to Basque (h)ara(n) 'valley'.

The officers yelled for him to get his hands up. He refused, and they used a Taser to subdue him outside a glass shop.

Zaragoza suffered minor injuries during the arrest and was taken away in handcuffs on a stretcher. He was armed with a similar-caliber weapon as the one used in the shootings.

Police say Zaragoza’s rampage began about 12 hours earlier — shortly before 2 a.m. — when he allegedly gunned down his family inside an apartment in the 21900 block of Roscoe Boulevard in Canoga Park.

His 50-year-old father and 20-year-old brother were fatally shot. His mother was shot and taken to the hospital in stable condition, police said.

Police say Zaragoza fled the apartment after the shooting. About 45 minutes later, authorities allege, Zaragoza opened fire outside a Shell gas station in the 6700 block of Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood.

When police arrived, they found a man and a woman suffering from gunshot wounds. The woman, Zaragoza former girlfriend, died at a hospital. The man remains in critical condition. Hours later, police said, Zaragoza shot and killed a stranger on a bus in Van Nuys, in the center of the valley.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood's Death Ripple

In a year filled with several significant 50th anniversaries ~ of the Moon Landing, of the Woodstock music festival, of the Beatles' last performance, of the battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam, of the Stonewall riots in New York City ~ another one is the series of killings carried out by the Manson Family on August 8-9, 1969.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (stylized Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood) is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, which involves, of sorts, the timeline and people of the Manson Family killings in Los Angeles 1969.

These were the days of hippies and Hollywood stars and rock stars. Sometimes they overlapped. Especially in 1969.

Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, and Michelle Phillips.

Leading up to the film opening, the release date was changed from August 9, 2019 to July 26, 2019. The August date, of course, would had been the 50th anniversary of the actual Tate murders (which began with the invasion of the residence on the 8th but occurred on the 9th).

July 26th is the birthday of Mick Jagger, Stanley Kubrick, Aldous Huxley and Carl Jung. July 26th is the birthday of actors Helen Mirren, Sandra Bullock, Olivia Williams, and Kate Beckinsale.

Before the movie was released, some characters involved in the film passed away.

Charles Manson and Damon Herriman

Charles Manson died on November 19, 2017, from cardiac arrest resulting from respiratory failure and colon cancer.

Burt Reynolds and George Spahn. Spahn died September 22, 1974, at 85.

Bruce Dern and Burt Reynolds

Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. was born February 11, 1936, in Lansing, Michigan. Reynolds died of a heart attack at the Jupiter Medical Center in Jupiter, Florida, on September 6, 2018, at the age of 82. In May 2018, he joined the cast for Quentin Tarantino's film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as George Spahn (an eighty year old blind man who rented out his ranch to Charles Manson), but he died before shooting his scenes, and was later replaced by Bruce Dern. Reynolds' body was cremated at the Gold Coast Crematory in Florida.

Luke Perry (born October 11, 1966), who played Scott Lancer (read "Wayne Maunder") in the Tarantino film, died. Perry had a massive stroke at his home in Sherman Oaks, California, on February 27, 2019. Five days later on March 4, he died of complications from it. He was 52 years old. (See the CNN obit here.)

Wayne Maunder, the star of 1960s TV Westerns who inspired the Luke Perry character in Quentin Tarantino’s film, died of cardiovascular disease November 11, 2018, in Battleboro, Vt., a Vermont Department of Health spokesperson confirmed to Variety. He was 80.

The 1960s-1970s real-life actor Wayne Maunder lived next door to Sharon Tate. 

Maunder was born December 19, 1937, in New Brunswick, Canada, and was raised in Bangor, Maine. Following high school, he had stretches in the U.S. Navy and tryouts for baseball teams like the Milwaukee Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Later, Maunder caught the acting bug and studied under Stella Adler in New York City.

In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the relationship between actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double/best friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is directly modeled on the friendship between Burt Reynolds and stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham, both of whom are now deceased.

Quentin Tarantino has called this film his "love letter to Hollywood," the old Hollywood, the glory days, the star systems that giveth and taketh away.

There are stars, stories of stars, and fictions of stars in this film. It is a motion picture of actors, acting and not acting, growing old, and hippies. How many of these faces will die, sooner than later?

Steve McQueen, Bruce Lee, and Fumio Demura.

Auburn, Maine, native Breanna Wing, Edward Little High School graduate of 2007, where she played field hockey, lacrosse and acted in the drama club, plays the hitchhiker Cheyenne who Sharon Tate (Maggie Robbie) picks up in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.

movie Manson Family hippies

vs

the real Manson Family

Tate Killers: Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel.

Sharon Tate and Nancy Kwan training with Bruce Lee.

Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski

Sharon Tate and the other targets of the Manson family -- Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski -- depicted here are obviously all real people, as were Manson himself and his followers Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian, the latter of whom became a cooperating witness at trial but is shown in the movie as fleeing before the crimes begin. (Ditto Dakota Fanning as Manson follower Squeaky Fromme.) Obviously, the fates of all the aforementioned people differ greatly in real life than what transpired in the film.

Unless you’re brand new to the planet Earth, yes, Bruce Lee was a real guy, the greatest martial artist-star of his time (arguably, of all time). Lee is depicted in the film, by Mike Moh, during his time starring as Kato on The Green Hornet. And, yes, he really did train Sharon Tate in karate when she was co-starring in the Dean Martin spy spoof The Wrecking Crew.
Homeland’s Damian Lewis plays Steve McQueen in one scene set at the Playboy Mansion. McQueen, like Rick Dalton, began as the star of a TV western about a bounty hunter — Wanted: Dead or Alive —before he became a movie star and pop culture icon thanks to films like The Magnificent Seven, Bullitt, and The Great Escape, which Rick fantasizes about starring in instead of McQueen at one point.
Timothy Olyphant and the late Luke Perry also play real people in the movie. Yes, Lancer was a real TV series and the actors they play — James Stacey and Wayne Maunder — were real. The last shot we see of Olyphant in the film, driving off on his motorcycle, is also a harbinger of the tragic fate that lay in store for Stacey (he lost two limbs and his girlfriend was killed in a motorcycle accident when they were hit by a drunk driver).
Also real? The TV series The FBI that Rick films a guest spot on as the bad guy of the week.
The Mamas and Papas’ Michelle Phillips and Mama Cass pop up during the Playboy Mansion scene.
With his silver mane and oversized glasses, Al Pacino's Marvin Schwarzs appears to be patterned after legendary Hollywood talent agent Lew Wasserman. Source.

Quentin Tarantino celebrates Hollywood with the people and the music, in many ways like Peyton Reed  did with the technicolor of Hollywood in Down With Love.

Tarantino did his homework. I thoroughly enjoyed Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. But I do predict, in addition to those connected to the film who are deceased, a few more people will soon die in the wake of this film. There is a feeling with this movie of a "death ripple."