Speaker 1: What again, l ronning my hubbards. It's part two Hubbard's
Speaker 1: death episodes. My guests, as with last time, Abe Epperson,
Speaker 1: Michael Swain, none of you will have noticed the joke
Speaker 1: in that, but I pointed to the wrong person. It
Speaker 1: did not translate visually hilarious. Another thing that's not going
Speaker 1: to translate visually is me getting ready the next product
Speaker 1: I'm going to throw during this episode, tired of the bagels,
Speaker 1: so Robert took out his big knife and I was
Speaker 1: stabbing a plastic of a many many Kleenex boxes. He
Speaker 1: pulled one off. I'm gonna be throwing clean X boxes.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw the first one to the window right
Speaker 1: between us, right between to the windows and to the walls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you know the rest of that song, you
Speaker 1: know why we need so much clean Ax. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: got a ten pack is packing. It is a lot
Speaker 1: of clean ax. That is a lot of CLEANX. He
Speaker 1: will throw all of them by the end of this episode.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to pop open one of
Speaker 1: those bad boys and throw individual kleen Ax. But that's
Speaker 1: not as impact. That does not have the impact active
Speaker 1: throwing a whole box of clean is it? Important to
Speaker 1: you that the box be filled with clean X. There
Speaker 1: could have just be a box with a similar weight.
Speaker 1: I think I'm just gonna throw a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: over the course of the rest of my career. Understood.
Speaker 1: I like I like tossing. I like throwing both good things,
Speaker 1: both fun. Get some salads in here for you. I
Speaker 1: would love to toss themself. Hello everyone on their early
Speaker 1: morning commute. Welcome the Robert and the pig and the
Speaker 1: other pig. It's your drive times. You know what I hate?
Speaker 1: Drive times? Yeah, that was a good one. Sophie, who
Speaker 1: cleans up in here? Is it me? Oh? It's you,
Speaker 1: it's Sophie. Well, we've already established the joke. So this
Speaker 1: is going to keep happening, and there's no way to
Speaker 1: stop it. I can't. I can't over exaggerate your lack
Speaker 1: of enthusiasts. So far, you pick pretty easy things to
Speaker 1: clean out. When it evolves to throwing confetti, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna throw ornaments, yeatter them against the walls. Just push
Speaker 1: class everything, Push pins everywhere, Push pins like a home
Speaker 1: alone that you Bullets, just whatever, just bullets. It's just awesome.
Speaker 1: I'd think someone who's barefoot so much of the time,
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to scatter pointy things around the ground. But okay, no,
Speaker 1: let's got those councils. It's fine, it's fine. You know
Speaker 1: what else is fine? Ron Hubbard's career. I disagree. I
Speaker 1: can't wait, it's just fine. I might agree with that
Speaker 1: by the end. Oh, of course it's fine. I mean, now, a,
Speaker 1: you do quite a lot of directing on your own,
Speaker 1: so I think you might pick up some tips and oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn from the master my next set. Oh
Speaker 1: it's gonna be bad, because this is a master class.
Speaker 1: This is a master class. Right now, Everyone who listens
Speaker 1: to this episode will be qualified to direct a Hollywood production. Yes,
Speaker 1: it just takes this much school by behind the best.
Speaker 1: It really does only take that much if you also
Speaker 1: have millions, literally infinite money. Now, life on the run
Speaker 1: is not good for anyone's health. Despite his vast wealth
Speaker 1: and the opulent surroundings of the Lakita Ranch where he
Speaker 1: hid out in southern California, by early nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 1: Hubbard's lifestyle was catching up with him again. Anne Rosenbloom,
Speaker 1: who trained to be a messenger during this period, was
Speaker 1: horrified by his appearance when she first met him. Quote
Speaker 1: the first night I was there, I didn't talk to
Speaker 1: LRH since he was busy, but I saw him. He
Speaker 1: had long, reddish gray hair down past his shoulders, rotting teeth,
Speaker 1: and a really fat gut. He didn't look anything like
Speaker 1: his pictures. When next day I met him, he was
Speaker 1: doing exercises in his courtyard and called me over. I
Speaker 1: was nervous meeting him. I was really surprised that I
Speaker 1: didn't feel this electric something or other that I was
Speaker 1: told happens when you are around him. So these were
Speaker 1: in the last days before the FBI dragnet closed down
Speaker 1: around Mary Sue Hubbard and all of l Ron's people
Speaker 1: with the Guardian's office, and Mary Sue became extra protective
Speaker 1: of her husband during this period. Her dogs, which were
Speaker 1: said to be clear, guarded him at all times. If
Speaker 1: they barked at you, it was a sign that you
Speaker 1: were secretly committing crimes against the Hubbards, or had done
Speaker 1: so in a past line. Oh, that's not going to
Speaker 1: stoke his paranoia. Anytime the dog barks that mailman is
Speaker 1: an agent who opposes the church. What happens when the
Speaker 1: dog barks at him? Yeah, or Oh, I don't think
Speaker 1: the dogs stare around if they bark at him. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they just have new dogs on deck. That dog toy
Speaker 1: is a suppressive person who knew now. Elron continued to
Speaker 1: innovate his tech during this period. His main interest was
Speaker 1: the purification rundown, which he viewed as a cure for
Speaker 1: drug addiction. This was an evolution of Hubbard's GUK vitamin treatment,
Speaker 1: which we talked about during the first three parter. Today,
Speaker 1: the purification rundown is a popular scientology treatment that involves
Speaker 1: massive doses of vitamins and a sweat lodge. In Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: it killed four people over the course of three years.
Speaker 1: Hubbard developed this treatment based on what he believed with
Speaker 1: the effects of LSD on the body. According to Jim Kalki,
Speaker 1: one of Hubbard's longtime helpers, quote, all the information came
Speaker 1: from one person who had taken LSD once. That was
Speaker 1: how he did his research. It's pretty chill, dude, all right,
Speaker 1: it's this is my shit right here. Honestly, it was good.
Speaker 1: Now Hubbard became convinced that the purification rundown was going
Speaker 1: to cure all of the world's drug addictions. He decided
Speaker 1: This achievement had clearly earned him a Nobel Prize, and
Speaker 1: he wrote it an order to his pr officer authorizing
Speaker 1: the expenditure of unlimited funds to win him the Nobel Prize.
Speaker 1: He so clearly deserved this, he didn't. He didn't get
Speaker 1: a Nobel Oh really, it turns out it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to bribe this guy. I can't say that it's cannon.
Speaker 1: I do think. You know, if the listeners of this
Speaker 1: podcast want to get me a Nobel Prize, I will
Speaker 1: do drugs off of it. That's what I would You
Speaker 1: rather get a Nobel Prize for stopping all drug use
Speaker 1: you personally, or just have listeners send you some drugs? Oh?
Speaker 1: I would I would rather get the Nobel Prize. I've
Speaker 1: got a blacksmith, So I take the Nobel prize to
Speaker 1: my blacksmith and have it forged into a crack pipe
Speaker 1: smoking Except if you want to see me throwing some stuff,
Speaker 1: you give me some crack and a Nobel Peace pipe
Speaker 1: as well. I think the Nobel Peace Prize and you
Speaker 1: know where that cash prize is all going to be spent? Yeah,
Speaker 1: under a bridge filling up that pipe. Then you're gonna
Speaker 1: get shived for your golden pipe. So that's gone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what happens under bridges. It's not going to be
Speaker 1: great now. Hubbard transferred from Lakinta to hide out in Sparks, Nevada.
Speaker 1: After the FBI crashed down on operations snow White. All
Speaker 1: contact with the Guardian's Office and the Hubbard family was suspended,
Speaker 1: and LRH relied on his child messengers to deliver his
Speaker 1: words to and from church leadership. On May twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, Star Wars launched to a world of
Speaker 1: unsuspecting moviegoers. Here we go. It made conservatively all the
Speaker 1: money and changed both Hollywood and the world forever. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if l Ron Hubbard ever actually saw
Speaker 1: Star Wars. I kind of doubt it because he was
Speaker 1: a horrible narcissist who probably never read or watched anyone
Speaker 1: else's science fiction. But it's possible. I know he read
Speaker 1: a lot of Harlan Ellison, who is my favorite side fi.
Speaker 1: He definitely Yeah, Well, like personal friends, and I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, you feel the guilt or like you have to,
Speaker 1: but you imagine the one person who could get along
Speaker 1: with l Ron Hubbard. Of course, it's hard Elison. It's
Speaker 1: just weird that if you he seems to really like
Speaker 1: sci fi. Yeah, he resist, it's hard to like. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he ever saw it, but he definitely
Speaker 1: paid attention to its financial success. From July to December
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy seven, while hiding out in Sparks, Nevada,
Speaker 1: he worked feverishly on the screenplay for a feature film,
Speaker 1: Revolt in the Stars. This was a dramatization of one
Speaker 1: of the Star Wars. Yeah, it's a war that does
Speaker 1: occur the stars. Yeah, a star wars. Yeah, a star war,
Speaker 1: if you will. This was a dramatization of one of
Speaker 1: the highest level scientology training courses, the OT three Information
Speaker 1: or Operating Thetans. I'm gonna give that shit away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you had to pay one hundred grand for that. There's
Speaker 1: actually some weird stuff regarding that, which we'll get to here.
Speaker 1: So the rough plot was that an evil space dictator Xenu,
Speaker 1: murdered seventy six planets worth of aliens, sucked in their
Speaker 1: frozen goats to Earth and blew them up with nuclear bombs.
Speaker 1: Strapped a volcanoes. Ghosts are water vapor and they all
Speaker 1: have swords you can freeze aghast. Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: just figured out how we can solve global warming. All right.
Speaker 1: People least likely to believe in global warming are also
Speaker 1: probably gonna be the most superstitious people in the country.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna guess global warming deniers also have a
Speaker 1: high tendency to believe them magical thinking. You convince them
Speaker 1: that if the ice caps melt, all of the ghosts
Speaker 1: will be freed. I think we have a plan. Then
Speaker 1: we got a problem, and we gotta put We gotta
Speaker 1: cool down the world to keep the ghost frozen. Ghost
Speaker 1: dictators need to never stop doing whatever drug they did.
Speaker 1: It's a child, right, And there are ghosts in the
Speaker 1: North Pole, there are coasts in the North poland they
Speaker 1: will kill us if we don't freeze them. These are
Speaker 1: the myths of our time that we need to embrace
Speaker 1: that will help us. It's like that I saw a
Speaker 1: post where someone, some anti vaxxer was talking about how
Speaker 1: you can actually make vaccine safe if you rub a
Speaker 1: potato on the vaccine injection site, and it's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: just tell him that, Yeah, vaccinate your kids and rub
Speaker 1: him with the potato. Just release all of Dan Aykroyd's books. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ten years later, the Potato Flew decimates the population of
Speaker 1: North America. Hot Potatoes. That will be the last Fox
Speaker 1: News Chiron before everyone dies. Potatoes are too hot, the
Speaker 1: hot potato and the round is over. Oh boy, Potato
Speaker 1: verse ghost. Now, if you paid attention to anything I've
Speaker 1: said about Alon Hubbard over the last five hours or
Speaker 1: so of podcasts about the fucker, you know that he's
Speaker 1: literally incapable of giving up on any single idea he
Speaker 1: ever had. Now, y'all remember Excalibur, the book Hubbard claimed
Speaker 1: to have written in nineteen thirty eight that he said
Speaker 1: was so profound it caused people to commit suicide. And
Speaker 1: after reading it, Yeah, it locked away from how I
Speaker 1: know the words caliber from? Is that? Well? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like the MANI Python, the funniest joke that you can't see.
Speaker 1: But with psychology, Yeah, yeah, philosophy the second you go
Speaker 1: mad right as you love? Would that be good? That's
Speaker 1: not a feather in your cap. You're like, this guy
Speaker 1: read my book and committed suicide right after. I think
Speaker 1: that means it's super good. That comic Con panel we
Speaker 1: have today George R. Martin and the guy who wrote
Speaker 1: the book that makes everyone kill themselves, My name is
Speaker 1: l Forty years after his claims about Excalibur started, Hubbard
Speaker 1: made the same claims about the OT three course materials.
Speaker 1: Scientologists weren't exposed to the Xenu story until they were
Speaker 1: several years and thousands of dollars into the religion already.
Speaker 1: That's because, according to Hubbard, learning the story of Xenu
Speaker 1: would cause death in a matter of days. According to
Speaker 1: Tony Ortega, a former scientologist who's now an activist against
Speaker 1: the church, quote, if we follow his logic, his intention
Speaker 1: in writing it was to produce a film that, if
Speaker 1: shown to the world, would kill off all the non
Speaker 1: OT three part of the population. Oh manicide, the biblical flood. Yeah, forever.
Speaker 1: Everyone who's not hasn't paid me enough money to be
Speaker 1: at this level. He's gonna make a movie to kill everybody.
Speaker 1: He's gonna make a fucking passion of the wrong. I'm
Speaker 1: firmly convinced, And of course there's no way to prove that.
Speaker 1: At every step, a large chunk of him knows that,
Speaker 1: and it's probably the thing's most proud of. Ye look
Speaker 1: at how I built a billion dollar empire on nothing.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of that. So I don't think he wrote
Speaker 1: it thinking this will kill everything. But it's still every
Speaker 1: detail of his life is better if you assume he
Speaker 1: believed his own it is. Yeah, I think he started
Speaker 1: to at a certain point. You don't know how you
Speaker 1: don't mix it up. You don't make the kids search
Speaker 1: for gold for months on on, like cramped sailing vessels
Speaker 1: if you don't really believe they might find some. And
Speaker 1: some of the paranoid shit he did, you're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's not fabricated. He's really grappling with paranoia. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: definitely paranoid. I imagine like little l Ron, Little Ron, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like going to the ice cream truck and like say
Speaker 1: saying to the guys sell the ice cream, like you
Speaker 1: know that popsicles are ghosts, and he goes really he's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that worked. I know what my life is.
Speaker 1: Oh god. I do like to think about, like what
Speaker 1: would happen if this movie was made and did what
Speaker 1: Hubbard said it would do, and like everyone who watched
Speaker 1: it killed themselves because I have conversations with your friends
Speaker 1: would be like, you know, there's that new movie that
Speaker 1: makes everybody kill themselves you want to go see Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of do you kind of like I love life.
Speaker 1: But also I have the AMC movie past I got
Speaker 1: to use it on something, use it on something, and
Speaker 1: I am dying to know the details anymore. And watch
Speaker 1: the murder movie. Also, what a weird experience if you
Speaker 1: came into the room late and everyone is dead but
Speaker 1: there's one person and you're like, ew, you're a OT
Speaker 1: three in scientology. I did not know that, and they're like,
Speaker 1: I know. So. Another thing that Ortega notes in his
Speaker 1: article about Revolting the Stars is that John Travolta is
Speaker 1: still to this day expressing a desire to make the
Speaker 1: movie into a major Hollywood production, which may mean that
Speaker 1: John Travolta secretly wants to commit mass planetary genocide. At
Speaker 1: the very least he knows that thing. Yeah, the idea
Speaker 1: that John Travolta is trying to wipe out all life
Speaker 1: on Earth that's not scientology is now my favorite conspiracy theory. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I also believe that now, probably thanks to the popularity
Speaker 1: of this podcast, some group of nerds who I will
Speaker 1: love forever forever will find this and shoot it on
Speaker 1: their phones and send it to us shooting bastards. Yeah,
Speaker 1: please make the movie that kills everything, which is basically
Speaker 1: he just thought of the Ring. Yeah, the Ring, but
Speaker 1: for everyone, for everyone. Yeah, and just as as sort
Speaker 1: of future payment to whoever does shoot Revolt in the Stars,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw another box of clean us, right, yea
Speaker 1: Mazzle number three. That's a scientology thing, right, yep? I
Speaker 1: think so, or take it. Apparently read through the script
Speaker 1: for a Volt among the Stars, which I think you
Speaker 1: can find if you really look for it, and he
Speaker 1: summed up its plot this way. Quote in the script
Speaker 1: Hubbard wrote for the movie. The character rawl, clearly based
Speaker 1: on Hubbard himself, takes on the mit of various two
Speaker 1: dimensional characters with single syllable names Chi and men who
Speaker 1: have wandered out of an episode of Flash Gordon. The
Speaker 1: screenplay apparently ends on these lines. As the evil Xenu
Speaker 1: is strapped into a prison inside of one of the
Speaker 1: volcanoes he previously bombed to murder space ghosts wetting his
Speaker 1: dry cracked lips. Xenu looked up at the doctor, some
Speaker 1: terror showing in his glazed eyes. These devices keep one
Speaker 1: alive forever, don't talk, snapped the doctor. A guard stepped forward.
Speaker 1: Don't talk to the prisoner. Despairing Xenu rolled his eyes.
Speaker 1: How long is forever? No one answered? No one knew, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: what what? What? What fuck you can talking about? I mean,
Speaker 1: it sounds like I've been to film school, and there's
Speaker 1: quite a bit of scripts that are suspicious of this
Speaker 1: type of arriety. By the way, when your movie Revolt
Speaker 1: among the Stars comes out, everyone's going to refer to
Speaker 1: it as rats. He is so good, Look with that now.
Speaker 1: Hubbard's dream was to make the movie himself and add
Speaker 1: George Lucas to his list of accomplishments, alongside aviation pioneer,
Speaker 1: treasure hunter, profit and surprisingly good at sex. This gradually
Speaker 1: expanded into a desire to add a whole film production
Speaker 1: wing to the Church of Scientology. The Sena Org, a
Speaker 1: ten acre ranch around Lakina, was purchased, code named Monroe,
Speaker 1: and turned into housing for the production staff for l
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard's new film company, Slash Cult. The studio was
Speaker 1: built on a one hundred and forty acre grapefruit farm
Speaker 1: that the church also purchased. How do you give notes
Speaker 1: when you're in a call? Like if everyone acting in
Speaker 1: a hand producing it is on set, there are no notes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you do what he tells you. This. I uctually think
Speaker 1: the set's a little a little goudy, right now. That's suppressive, dude,
Speaker 1: that's suppressive mood. He kills everyone though, like does the
Speaker 1: screenplay just like paralyze them or is it the like
Speaker 1: what stage does the magic like kill yourself? Well, all
Speaker 1: of these people are OT three, so they can so
Speaker 1: they can do whatever there. I bet his plan was
Speaker 1: to do the opposite. Let the movie come out, no
Speaker 1: one dies, and then say see, you're all scientologists. You
Speaker 1: don't even know it. And I see now. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: they buy several different giant ranches to add to the
Speaker 1: already giant ranch and turn into a film production studio. Now,
Speaker 1: according to the book, beaar Face, Messiah, quote, lights, Dolly's, cameras,
Speaker 1: and a vast range of technical equipment were all moved
Speaker 1: into the new studio. Hubbard took to wearing a cowboy hat, suspenders,
Speaker 1: and a bandana, which he imagined gave him an artistic
Speaker 1: me in appropriate to a director. The sene Org was
Speaker 1: to cut its teeth, making simple promotional films illustrating various
Speaker 1: situations in which Scientology could be used beneficially. Hubbard wrote
Speaker 1: all the scripts and knew exactly what he wanted, constantly
Speaker 1: biting into a raw grapefruit. He just care. Isn't all
Speaker 1: that Thompson right now? He is? Hunter would be shooting
Speaker 1: at people. Hunter would have a shot at people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's he's using cameras. So Hubbard knew what he wanted,
Speaker 1: but found out that it was it's really hard to
Speaker 1: make movies like this is kind of a difficult thing
Speaker 1: to do, and so his first productions did not all
Speaker 1: go well. Now, some of this had to do with
Speaker 1: the fact that the random assortment of people who'd found
Speaker 1: the Church of Scientology compelling did not all possess the
Speaker 1: incredibly specific technical know how necessary to make films. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to note that this had been true of l.
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard's navy too, and they'd sort of faked it
Speaker 1: until they made it. But it turns out that the
Speaker 1: same strategy does not work with movie making, Thus answering
Speaker 1: forever the age old question, is it harder to captain
Speaker 1: a boat or man a boom mic? Harder to man
Speaker 1: of boom mic? Apparently easier to get random people to
Speaker 1: be part of a navy. Well, there's no because you
Speaker 1: can drop depth charges and say you hit something. That's fine.
Speaker 1: When you're shooting a movie. If you don't get the scene,
Speaker 1: it's not listen to it and say this is shitty sound.
Speaker 1: So the church put out a call to any members
Speaker 1: of the faith who had even vaguely relevant experience in
Speaker 1: the film industry. The best they could do was Adele
Speaker 1: and Ernie Hartwell, championship ballroom dancers, who had taken a
Speaker 1: few courses and were told that the sina Org would
Speaker 1: be their path into the scientology elite. They were not
Speaker 1: impressed upon their arrival to the cina Org. Ernie later recalled,
Speaker 1: I was absolutely shocked to see everyone running around in shorts,
Speaker 1: ragged clothes, dirty and unkemped. They put us in a
Speaker 1: little three room shack on the edge of the ranch.
Speaker 1: We go inside and what a mess. The place was
Speaker 1: overrun with bugs and insects. Adele said, quote. The main
Speaker 1: thing I disliked was that when we first got there,
Speaker 1: we were programmed on the lies we had to tell.
Speaker 1: If we ran into one of our friends, we had
Speaker 1: to tell a lie to them and say that we
Speaker 1: were just there for a vacation who were schooled on
Speaker 1: how to get away from process servers, FBI agents, and
Speaker 1: any government officials or any policemen who wanted anything to
Speaker 1: do with Ubbert. Welcome to our production company. Here's what
Speaker 1: you say to the SBI. E I bet just it.
Speaker 1: Being in California, there's a fair chance some of these
Speaker 1: people probably would have gone to film school if they
Speaker 1: weren't broke from spending all their money on the Church
Speaker 1: of Scientology. And they came from everywhere though. Sure he
Speaker 1: just moved them to like you just had to go
Speaker 1: wherever you be. But they have all the money. Send
Speaker 1: some people to film school if Yeah, what great voices
Speaker 1: were squashed out by al Ron Hubbard's movie making an interprese? Hey,
Speaker 1: I want to see these cult people's movie. I do
Speaker 1: desperately want to see these cult people's movies. You know
Speaker 1: what else? I want to see or at least listen
Speaker 1: to the fine products and services that have advertised on
Speaker 1: our show and or program. Oh, I love those. I
Speaker 1: want to see them, but kind of fingers crossed, I'll
Speaker 1: just close my eyes and imagine. Yeah, our ads are
Speaker 1: randomly generated a lot of the time, so it is
Speaker 1: possible the Church of Scientology will advertise. If so, I'm
Speaker 1: actually fine with that. If they if they advertise on
Speaker 1: this episode, totally doubt I'm not. I'm okay with it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if listening through all this an ad
Speaker 1: for the Church of Scientology makes you decide, you know what, Yes,
Speaker 1: that is true. Me. You clicked on this and you're like,
Speaker 1: but the ad really resonated. Yeah, all right, products we're
Speaker 1: back and Sophie is actually leaving the room. She's about
Speaker 1: to open the door, which is bad for sound quality
Speaker 1: but good for what I like to call cinema verite,
Speaker 1: a term I invented for podcasts. Being true, we're really
Speaker 1: peeling back the podcasting curtain. Yeah, because I didn't the
Speaker 1: term loosely affiliated with podcasts. Yeah, that's the word cinema
Speaker 1: and the curtain. Well, you know, the main goal when
Speaker 1: you make a podcast is to uh just broadcast to
Speaker 1: everyone else that, yes, you should also have a podcast.
Speaker 1: You should have a podcast all rest till every there's
Speaker 1: as many podcasts as there are people. I want there
Speaker 1: to be twice as many podcasts as people, and until
Speaker 1: there are I will continue to throw I laughed, but
Speaker 1: it hit me in the throat. Well, you know what
Speaker 1: they say about throats, Michael Products and Services. It's the
Speaker 1: laziest part of the body, that's true. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: Well there's parstalsis so l Ron Hubbard aw Tour director
Speaker 1: was still desperately afraid of being brought in by a
Speaker 1: surprise police rate. A souped up, dodged dart with a
Speaker 1: full tank of gas was kept on stand by twenty
Speaker 1: four to seven outside of his production facility. He just
Speaker 1: fuckinging run car. The director has a like, I feel
Speaker 1: like everything you said so far is applicable only to
Speaker 1: l Ron Hubbard or Roman Polanski. Every day put a
Speaker 1: Philly cheese steak on the dashboard and replaced it the
Speaker 1: next day he might have to go. And it occurs
Speaker 1: to me that we should just have a table of disguises.
Speaker 1: They literally did all right now. I don't know if
Speaker 1: any of y'all are aware of this, but AU Tour
Speaker 1: directors are not known to be mentally healthy people. At
Speaker 1: the best of times. Ol Ron Hubbard might have given
Speaker 1: a guy like Stanley Kubrick a run for his money
Speaker 1: in the crazy pants category. Stanley Kubrick finished movies. He
Speaker 1: did finish movies. Adele first met Hubbard when she was
Speaker 1: working in the wardrobe department and heard him start to
Speaker 1: scream at a group of his underlings. This is a
Speaker 1: quote of Hubbard directings, Oh hey, you dirty, goddamn sons
Speaker 1: of bitches, you're so goddamn stupid. Fuck you, you cocksuckers.
Speaker 1: It seemed to go on for several minutes. I had
Speaker 1: something in my hand and it fell to the floor.
Speaker 1: I said, who in the world is that? They said
Speaker 1: it was the Boss. We weren't allowed to use the
Speaker 1: name Hubbard for security reasons. You mean the leader of
Speaker 1: the church speaks like that, I asked, Oh, yes, was
Speaker 1: the reply. He doesn't believe in keeping anything back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is straight out of the book of a usc
Speaker 1: School Cinematic Arts. Actually, goddamn sons of bitches. Adele's first
Speaker 1: big job was makeup assistant on a Hubbard flick called
Speaker 1: The Unfathomable Man. It was a modest project, covering the
Speaker 1: entire history of the human race from the beginning of
Speaker 1: time to the modern era through the eyes of el
Speaker 1: Run Hubbard. I'm sorry that this is a great time.
Speaker 1: You can't even think of it. What's the first thing
Speaker 1: you think? Well, he's a man. Well, I can think
Speaker 1: of a man. You can't not this guy. Adele's recollections
Speaker 1: make it sound rather surprisingly like a Sam Raimi flick quote.
Speaker 1: Did he ever like those films to be bloody? It
Speaker 1: was enough to make you sick. We'd be shooting a
Speaker 1: scene and all of a sudden he'd yell, stop, make
Speaker 1: it more gory. We'd go running out on the set
Speaker 1: and with all this carrow syrup and food coloring, and
Speaker 1: we'd just dump it all over the actors. Then we'd
Speaker 1: foam some more, and he'd stop it again and say
Speaker 1: it's still not gory enough. Then we'd throw more blood
Speaker 1: on them. Well, he's competing with the Bible, so he's
Speaker 1: kind of matches. Every religion needs to match a certain
Speaker 1: level of gore just to keep our interest. I just
Speaker 1: imagine him at monitor and when they nail like how
Speaker 1: much blood, He's just yes, this will bring scientology to
Speaker 1: the masses. Okay, now pour some blood on me. Okay,
Speaker 1: now we can continue. Get the disguises. The movie included
Speaker 1: a scene where an FBI office was bombed. This was
Speaker 1: understandably al Ron Hubbard's favorite part. He jerked off well
Speaker 1: at that scene I imagine he grew a little over
Speaker 1: enthusiastic and had so much blood dumped on his actors
Speaker 1: that their clothing stuck to their bodies and had to
Speaker 1: be cut off by the wardrobe people. Hubbard made up
Speaker 1: for his general lack of knowledge of how to make
Speaker 1: movies by being an incredibly persnickety asshole. According to bare
Speaker 1: Face Messiah quote, when the Sena Org was shooting in
Speaker 1: the studio, all the sets had to be cleaned and
Speaker 1: scrubbed with special soap every morning before Hubbard arrived, and
Speaker 1: the messengers would go round with white gloves to a
Speaker 1: shear it had been done properly. Hubbard had a director's
Speaker 1: chair that no one else was allowed to sit in,
Speaker 1: and as he was walking around the set, a messenger
Speaker 1: would follow close behind him, ready to put the chair
Speaker 1: underneath him if he chose to sit down. One unfortunate
Speaker 1: girl got the positioning wrong by a few minutes inches,
Speaker 1: and it's the commodore sat down chair. It's slapstick comedy
Speaker 1: until you learn they're like, she was swiftly beaten the yea.
Speaker 1: She was put in Scientology's prison. Yeah, of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's real. She was tortured, Yeah, and you know, well,
Speaker 1: it's worth it if the work stands up to the test.
Speaker 1: That's why we have an Academy Award for cleanest set.
Speaker 1: That's very key to filmmak Wait is it really and
Speaker 1: all the specs is a Nobel Peace Prize material? And
Speaker 1: he's like, you know, directing a movie, you keep the
Speaker 1: set clean, you place the chair as correctly. You have
Speaker 1: a lot of blood. Now. The numerous stories that Hubbard
Speaker 1: tried to film all had grand narratives, usually starting at
Speaker 1: the very beginning of galactic history. One film, The Problems
Speaker 1: of Life, was about a young couple who felt their
Speaker 1: existence lack meaning. They asked for advice from a psychiatrist
Speaker 1: who was played as a violently insane person. The next
Speaker 1: asked help from a scientist who was also violently insane.
Speaker 1: Then they found a scientologist who was a perfect being
Speaker 1: of pure contentment. Keema Douglas, an artist and scientologist who
Speaker 1: spent time with Hubbard during this period, noted quote The
Speaker 1: trouble was that he wanted to make movies that would
Speaker 1: take over Hollywood, but they were terrible, really terrible. The
Speaker 1: crew would have to do scenes over and over again
Speaker 1: before he was satisfied. Occasionally the day would end up
Speaker 1: with a fine well done everyone, but more often there
Speaker 1: were tantrums and he'd storm off the set, screaming that
Speaker 1: it had better be right tomorrow. On Hubbard, fix it,
Speaker 1: fix it for more beatings for you all. I've got
Speaker 1: to go have sex, surprising. It's better be a movie
Speaker 1: when I get back. All the while as all run,
Speaker 1: Hubbard painstakingly acquired roughly the amount of expertise one would
Speaker 1: receive in the first semester of film school. He was
Speaker 1: raising money to make Revolt in the Stars a reality.
Speaker 1: He succeeded in putting together millions of dollars to make
Speaker 1: the film and funneled it through a production company called
Speaker 1: a Brilliant Film Company. Tragically, Hubbard was as bad at
Speaker 1: running a production company as he was at everything that
Speaker 1: wasn't infiltrating the federal government. A Brilliant Film Company went bankrupt,
Speaker 1: and Revolt in the Stars was never more than a
Speaker 1: few costumes in an unbelievably bad screenplay. I'd still pay
Speaker 1: a lot to see those pay a lot costumes. Someone's
Speaker 1: got those costumes, someone's got They are like religious art,
Speaker 1: like artifacts. Now, right, there's a church of Scientology where
Speaker 1: there's a case like you'd see a dark light. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it's that thing we never made. There's and they
Speaker 1: all still have the blood on him, and it's still
Speaker 1: unsure of whether or not it's the fake blood or
Speaker 1: the real blood from the beatings from and when they
Speaker 1: cut them out of the clothes. Yeah, you know, there
Speaker 1: were some scissors accidents. In late nineteen seventy eight, a
Speaker 1: few days after Mary Sue Hubbard and ten other top
Speaker 1: scientologists were indicted for their rampant crimes, l Ron Hubbard
Speaker 1: collapsed while filming a very stupid movie in one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty degree heat. He recovered, but it had become
Speaker 1: abundantly clear to everyone that the ranch in southern California
Speaker 1: and the strenuous life of an auteur film director were
Speaker 1: not suited for the ailing old man now. During this time,
Speaker 1: el Ron Hubbard continued to receive regular auditing sessions. His
Speaker 1: auditor was a fellow named Mayo, and Mayo grew increasingly
Speaker 1: unsettled about the revelations he received from the Great Profit
Speaker 1: of Scientology. As he recovered from heatstroke. Quote from Mayol,
Speaker 1: he revealed things about himself in his past which absolutely
Speaker 1: contradicted what we'd been told about him. He wasn't taking
Speaker 1: any great risk because I was a loyal and trusted
Speaker 1: subject and had a duty to keep such things confidential.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just what I discovered about his past. I
Speaker 1: didn't care where he was born or what he had
Speaker 1: done in the war. It didn't mean a thing to me.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a loyal Scientologist because he had an illustrious
Speaker 1: war record. What worried me is that when I saw
Speaker 1: things he did and heard statements he made that showed
Speaker 1: his intentions were different from what they appeared to be
Speaker 1: when I was with him. Messengers often arrived with suitcases
Speaker 1: full of money, wadds one hundred dollar bills, Yet he
Speaker 1: had always said and written that he never received a
Speaker 1: penny from Scientology who had asked to see it. The
Speaker 1: messenger would opened the case, and he'd gloat over it
Speaker 1: for a bit before it was put away in a
Speaker 1: safe in his bedroom. He didn't really spend much. I
Speaker 1: guess it was getaway money. I didn't mind the idea
Speaker 1: of him having money or being rich. I thought he
Speaker 1: had done tremendous wonders and should be well paid for it.
Speaker 1: But why did he have to lie about it. I
Speaker 1: slowly began to realize that he wasn't acting for the
Speaker 1: public good or for the benefit of mankind. It might
Speaker 1: have started out like that, but it was no longer.
Speaker 1: So one day we were all talking about the price
Speaker 1: of gold or something like that, and he said to
Speaker 1: me very emphatically that he was obsessed by an insatiable
Speaker 1: lust for money and power. I'll never forget it. Those
Speaker 1: were his exact words, an insatiable lust for money and power.
Speaker 1: I love yeah, pleesus. Yeah. Also, because if you're at
Speaker 1: that level where you're hit the boss's auditor, you must
Speaker 1: have already been exposed repeatedly to the fact that the
Speaker 1: purpose of auditing is not to keep it confidential. The
Speaker 1: purpose of auditing is to have dirt on people. Don't
Speaker 1: know how this guy didn't walk away with a portion
Speaker 1: of the gold, is what I'm getting. Yeah, he may have. Hey,
Speaker 1: guess what, Boss, Yeah, I have a recording. Now, you idiot,
Speaker 1: you're dying, the old idiot. I think the guy you
Speaker 1: put in that job is the guy you know is
Speaker 1: never going to betray you, right, yeah, Yeah, And he
Speaker 1: didn't while Hubbard was alive. Eventually, it seems like he
Speaker 1: came clear. I'm sure it was a process so all
Speaker 1: the pieces didn't align. But hearing this quote, now, you're like,
Speaker 1: if you felt this way, then you could have walked
Speaker 1: away with a chunk of that gold, probably away with
Speaker 1: one of those suitcases of dirty hundred dollars bills. Because
Speaker 1: if there's anything Hubbard's going to respond to, it's blackmail. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: After a couple months of convalescence, Hubbard was healthy enough
Speaker 1: to get back to directing movies. Naturally, he made his
Speaker 1: auditor an actor quote. He walked around with an electric bullhorn,
Speaker 1: yelling orders through it, even if the person was only
Speaker 1: a few feet away. The crew were in a constant
Speaker 1: state of fear. He'd say he wanted a certain set
Speaker 1: built and describe it. Everyone would work in a frenzied
Speaker 1: state to get it done, often through the night, not
Speaker 1: stopping for meals and praying it would be right and
Speaker 1: that they would not get into trouble. When he arrived
Speaker 1: to begin shooting me and he invariably decided he didn't
Speaker 1: like it. It had been altered. He wanted it blue,
Speaker 1: not green. Some of the crew would be sent to
Speaker 1: RPF Scientology prison, and others would be running around trying
Speaker 1: to find some blue paint. Then he'd want to know
Speaker 1: white it was blue and not yellow. Have you seen
Speaker 1: the Star Wars documentary, Yes, Empire Dreams where he can't
Speaker 1: pronounce his own gungans, gungansungans. George, you wrote this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all poetry, right, there's a weird synergy in the fact.
Speaker 1: Did you hear about the plot? Lucas released details of
Speaker 1: the plot he was gonna do if he had done seven,
Speaker 1: eight and nine, and then involved tiny creatures that live
Speaker 1: in your blood called the will. He loves tiny creatures
Speaker 1: living in your books. It's thetans. Dude, you were like,
Speaker 1: they are the same Lucas Now that he is officially
Speaker 1: I guess traded Star Wars to quote white Slavers not
Speaker 1: totally inaccurate. Disc It doesn't mean that one of them
Speaker 1: is on the right side. Yeah, think for the good
Speaker 1: of everyone, he may as well buckle down and make
Speaker 1: a revolt among the stars. I think Lucas is the
Speaker 1: man to do it. He is He's the only man
Speaker 1: to do it. He's the only man to finally make
Speaker 1: revolt among the stars reality. I'm holding Chekhov's kleenox box
Speaker 1: and illustrate another point about filmmaking, which is that you
Speaker 1: should always throw Kleenex at the walls. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it's like a bullhorn. Yeah, as Chekhov's tools go.
Speaker 1: That one didn't like stretch the tension out. But sure
Speaker 1: it did not. It did not. I didn't go to
Speaker 1: film school. Yeah, don't let that stop you. I just
Speaker 1: we got five more of these Kleenexes that I got
Speaker 1: a toss, and I'm starting to realize I may not
Speaker 1: have that much anger. So some of some of these
Speaker 1: tosses are going to be less impactful than Sorry, just
Speaker 1: where we are right now, can't not toss them. They
Speaker 1: can be sad Kleenex tossing boxes, sad Kleenex. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get back to the thing. Here's Mayo again, talking
Speaker 1: about eln hubbrid is a director and being an actor
Speaker 1: under him. Quote, when I was trying to be an actor,
Speaker 1: I'd have to do the same line over and over again.
Speaker 1: It was never right. It was too loud, too quiet,
Speaker 1: too intense, not intense enough. Then he'd scream, why aren't
Speaker 1: you doing it enthusiastically. He'd end up stamping off, screaming
Speaker 1: that it was all impossible. And that no one would
Speaker 1: do what he said. One of the main reasons why
Speaker 1: he got sick, I think was that he had so
Speaker 1: many failures and so much frustration and upset over the movies.
Speaker 1: Everyone was tiptoeing around waiting for explosions. So yeah, because
Speaker 1: this man is someone who just tells people how he
Speaker 1: wants the world to be and it just happens. And
Speaker 1: in filmmaking they have to like create it for themselves,
Speaker 1: they have to act. It's the one thing like he
Speaker 1: gets through his whole life doing that basically right, and
Speaker 1: it works with his private navy, but it can't work
Speaker 1: with filmmaking, which can't ask force the audience to think
Speaker 1: the movie's entertaining. Yeah, you have to make an entertaining movie, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: nor can you get the thing that's in your head
Speaker 1: absolutely perfect every time, like by every performer so so,
Speaker 1: but also as an actor, I mean, come off in Mail,
Speaker 1: I had to say the line a bunch of times.
Speaker 1: That's that's the process of acting for films. You get
Speaker 1: the feeling though that it was like literally for days
Speaker 1: at a time sometimes and it was like he would
Speaker 1: just say more enthusiastically, lesson like he doesn't know how
Speaker 1: to direct you like, he's not sitting down, like like,
Speaker 1: only walk you through your motivation here. You have to
Speaker 1: understand why it's wrong. He was just shouting no, it's
Speaker 1: not right. For well example, a very basic rule of
Speaker 1: directing is it's widely frowned upon to just say do
Speaker 1: this emotion like, that's the most basic director right right.
Speaker 1: I also love that notes. His notes are basically go
Speaker 1: in a direction, go in the opposite director, like these
Speaker 1: ambiguous definitions of what he wants. That sounds real clear
Speaker 1: to me. That sounds like a guy with vision. If
Speaker 1: only he had been a YouTube personality and just said
Speaker 1: fuck it, I will be all the parts and I
Speaker 1: will shoot this advira, he would be a huge hit
Speaker 1: on YouTube if he were alive and younger today, for sure,
Speaker 1: that would that would be he would own that place.
Speaker 1: He would be one of those channels you end up
Speaker 1: on one you're three clicks away from a decent good
Speaker 1: God Year video, and he would be convincing I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna guess you're convincing millions that the Holocaust didn't happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you see that kind of cultism and tribalism and like
Speaker 1: twitch streamers and stuff, it's pretty Oh, he would be
Speaker 1: so good at twitch, he would be incredible. Now, I
Speaker 1: do want to note as we as we get to
Speaker 1: this point that that I think the story, like the
Speaker 1: fact that l Ron Hubbard finally failed when he tried
Speaker 1: to stumble into filmmaking, is proof of something important, which
Speaker 1: is that the US Navy and all navies are a
Speaker 1: bunch of pansy waste, little little little woost factories. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: Hollywood is where shit really gets done. So suck on it,
Speaker 1: fucking aircraft carrier whimps. We got our prop goods. We're
Speaker 1: pretty we're pretty close to the ocean right now. So
Speaker 1: I'm a little nervous. What are they going to do?
Speaker 1: They can't make a movie, That's what this proves. Well,
Speaker 1: we've also such a navy coast guard much like yeah,
Speaker 1: take it, coastguard. Fucking movies is what's hard. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the real that's the message here, not these not these
Speaker 1: people have their cushy wars. They're easy jobs on submarines.
Speaker 1: What's hard as movies. Yeah, Well, that's what we can
Speaker 1: all agree is what we do is the most important, best,
Speaker 1: the most important, and the most difficult job. I would
Speaker 1: like to see anyone in the goddamn Navy tossa clean xbox.
Speaker 1: See I expected you to grab that clean xbox, and
Speaker 1: you grab that one, so now you have to go
Speaker 1: to jail. Fun fact, all of Hollywood's like Dolly industry,
Speaker 1: the things that move cameras in space kind of thing
Speaker 1: that was all adopted from Navy. Uh technology for putting
Speaker 1: bombs into places. We've been reverse infiltrated by some navy.
Speaker 1: Navy you're in the pocket of big Navy, aren't you.
Speaker 1: I am a big Navy rucually different from old Navy. Sorry, Navy,
Speaker 1: I'm not really that Sorry. It's fun. You got boats.
Speaker 1: You're fine now. Eventually, the stress of running the Center
Speaker 1: organ dealing with the brutal California desert climate, as well
Speaker 1: as his growing fear that the FBI was closing in
Speaker 1: on him, forced l Ron Hoverd to make what would
Speaker 1: become his very last move to a tiny farming town
Speaker 1: called Himmet California. Oh boy, lots of time and yeah,
Speaker 1: a nice little camping camping well around Himmet area. I
Speaker 1: love camping and you know what else, I love products,
Speaker 1: oh services, Just those two things. No other room for
Speaker 1: love in my life. Boy, just product service. The rule
Speaker 1: of three is not being fulfilled. Is going to just
Speaker 1: kill me? This whole break well, yea, too bad. I
Speaker 1: could not condiments. I hope, I really, I hope. I
Speaker 1: hope it's a condoment for Gooper's peanut butter and jelly
Speaker 1: and one condiment once we're back. So l Ron Hubbard
Speaker 1: moved to Hemmett, California, in secret. His location was known
Speaker 1: only to a handful of people within the church for
Speaker 1: the next six years. The number of people Hubbard interacted
Speaker 1: with regularly wouldn't be enough to make up two full
Speaker 1: baseball teams or basketball teams, whichever one smaller. I think
Speaker 1: it's five people on basketball right. Well, this is on
Speaker 1: the court's on the court. There's more people in baseball team.
Speaker 1: There's more people in baseball teams. That's also way more
Speaker 1: people than I know. Yeah, exactly, curling team. I think
Speaker 1: the curling team. Now, this life of seclusion in hiding
Speaker 1: out from justice suited Ron well. According to bare Face
Speaker 1: Messiah quote, although he occasionally threw his food across the
Speaker 1: room when he believed the cook was trying to poison him,
Speaker 1: by and large, he was better timbered than he had been.
Speaker 1: When he was trying to make movies. He usually got
Speaker 1: up about midday, oudit, hit himself for an hour, and
Speaker 1: then dealt with whatever correspondence the messengers had decided he
Speaker 1: should see. In the afternoons, he devoted several hours to
Speaker 1: taping lectures in mixing suitable background music. In the evenings,
Speaker 1: he watched television and reminist to a small but always
Speaker 1: attentive audience. Did you say mixing? Yeah, so he spent
Speaker 1: all day making playlists and yeah, he probably would have
Speaker 1: edited his own podcast. That's a good, harmless old man.
Speaker 1: That's fine, better cute messiah. You know, it's better than
Speaker 1: torturing people in your prison when they don't act right.
Speaker 1: So filmmaking was the that's really really what cracked the chestnut. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really open him up to you know what, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna chill out. I also can't believe he doesn't have
Speaker 1: someone tasting his food ahead of time. At this point,
Speaker 1: I just assumed he'd have the whole royal like groom
Speaker 1: of the stool to wipe his ass, you know, royal
Speaker 1: food taster to keep the poison out. I want to
Speaker 1: know what tips him on. Yeah, but if he's got
Speaker 1: a royal food tasteres and get to throw his food
Speaker 1: across the room. I proved, like you have clean xboxes, Well,
Speaker 1: I do have toss and food. Yeah, you make a
Speaker 1: plate for yourself and a plate to toss. I throw
Speaker 1: food at Sophie when things aren't the way that I.
Speaker 1: Robert is filling a clean xbox with food. He's just
Speaker 1: shoving it full of food. That's going to be tough
Speaker 1: to clean up. When Sophie gets back, we only have
Speaker 1: three left. We'll leave it for her. We'll leave it
Speaker 1: for her. David Mayo was a member of Hubbard's small,
Speaker 1: attentive audience in the nights. He recalled many evenings with
Speaker 1: a commodore, playing hillbilly songs on his guitar and lying
Speaker 1: about the years he'd spent as a troubadour in Appalasia.
Speaker 1: I think he was making up the songs as he
Speaker 1: went along. Afterwards, everyone clapped, Yes, I desperately want to
Speaker 1: hear some of l Ron Hubbard's wanted. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: replacement that. There's nothing that could have as Yeah. Hubbard
Speaker 1: pretending to be a hillbilly singing random songs. Hey y'all,
Speaker 1: little nas X help me out was coming to get you.
Speaker 1: On the days when he went into town, Hubbard would
Speaker 1: wear a variety of absurd disguises, a baseball cap with
Speaker 1: fake hair sewn onto it, stage makeup to all through
Speaker 1: the shape of his face, false eyebrows, and sideburns. Hubbard
Speaker 1: was convinced he looked like a local. No one else
Speaker 1: thought this. Thankfully, the Internet did not exist, and so
Speaker 1: no one in him recognized him either. For six years,
Speaker 1: Hubbard's location was kept perfectly secret from the law, the government,
Speaker 1: and even his own wife and children. Gradually, he pared
Speaker 1: down the number of scientologists allowed to be around him.
Speaker 1: David Miskovich, his former messenger, and also at one point
Speaker 1: a cameraman, was often the only person in direct contact
Speaker 1: with l Ron Hubbard. Do you know if he worked
Speaker 1: on the movies? Oh yeah, yeah, that's what he was doing.
Speaker 1: He was, Yeah, okay, that's part of the way. The
Speaker 1: guy anything, Yes, I need cameraman. Hey, guy who used
Speaker 1: to be like a production messenger, you're a cameraman. Yeah, yeah, Later,
Speaker 1: if you could beat some other guys up in a room,
Speaker 1: I guess you can have this. That what happened with
Speaker 1: we'll talk about. Yeah, he needs episode, he needs his
Speaker 1: own three parter, probably to be honest. Now, Hubbard did
Speaker 1: continue sending letters to David Mayo, his beloved auditor. Mayo
Speaker 1: recalls these letters growing more and more unhinged as the
Speaker 1: months turned into years of isolation. Quote in the first
Speaker 1: paragraph of one letter, he said something like, you might
Speaker 1: think I've gone crazy, but I'm still okay. Just believe
Speaker 1: what I say is true. I remember thinking, God, whatever's
Speaker 1: coming must be pretty weird. The en it was real
Speaker 1: demented stuff, berating psychiatrists and claiming they were the root
Speaker 1: of all evil, not just on this planet, but since
Speaker 1: time immemorial. He had figured out that back at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the universe, psychiatrists created evil on a particular
Speaker 1: star system. When I read through it, I thought, my god,
Speaker 1: he is crazy. He can exhort me to think he's
Speaker 1: not crazy, but this letter belies it. I thought I
Speaker 1: had to say it is crazy, but I thought you
Speaker 1: were going to go it's like, yeah, this is kind
Speaker 1: of crazy, because like, who made the scientist a psychiatry
Speaker 1: or asiatrists invented evil in the beginning of time. I
Speaker 1: was always going to be It's always got to be
Speaker 1: the beginning of time. I wish we could know his
Speaker 1: that origin of that. I feel like he must at
Speaker 1: some point in his life had one therapy session where
Speaker 1: he went, yeah, I'm a little blue and they were like,
Speaker 1: you're a piece of shit, Like, well, I hate this,
Speaker 1: I hate psychiatry, Like who hurt you? Yeah, little Elrod.
Speaker 1: I will say that his hatred of psychiatrists is more
Speaker 1: proof that, like, as a man, even though he didn't
Speaker 1: spend that much time here, he was the living embodiment
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, like this city and a single man
Speaker 1: out of touch with all reality completely and very hungry
Speaker 1: for power. Yeah. Yeah, kind of a terrible place to live.
Speaker 1: It's so specific and consistent, like it rubbed off on
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise he did that appearance where he famously was
Speaker 1: psychiatry is evil that it's such a core tenant, and
Speaker 1: I don't know of any other religion that's like, also
Speaker 1: the Lord Saith screw chiropractice, but we hate them. It's
Speaker 1: so Buddhism's really anti chiropractice. It's that line the poem
Speaker 1: Ausi man Diaz were like, because Los Angeles itself is
Speaker 1: kind of attestament to that. They're like, let's make him
Speaker 1: metropolis where in the desert. Yeah, and let's where you
Speaker 1: don't make twenty million people there? Yeah, how do we
Speaker 1: how do we plan for this? Still plan? We'll make
Speaker 1: it up at Nope planning? Okay, but we should at
Speaker 1: least have a network of trams and trolleys and no,
Speaker 1: how do one car for every person? How do we
Speaker 1: get water? We just steal it from this other state?
Speaker 1: Now take it from north people. Now, everyone in the
Speaker 1: town's feeling alienated and isolated by the plight of modern man. Well,
Speaker 1: they should pay us, Yeah, because we can fix that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we cures what ails you. Yeah. Now. By nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: lafayet Run Hubbard's letters to David Mayo revealed to growing
Speaker 1: obsession with death. The Commodore was seventy one years old,
Speaker 1: in poor health, and as crazy as a bat on acid.
Speaker 1: Hubbard was still canny enough to know that he had
Speaker 1: exactly one great achievement left in him. Oh, Run, Hubbard
Speaker 1: was going to write the greatest science fiction series of
Speaker 1: all time. The first entry in the new Saga would
Speaker 1: be that field. Yeah, Saga of the year three thousand.
Speaker 1: Jake Peer got to him typing Firefly Pilot, what are
Speaker 1: you telling that's why there's only one Sason. Yeah, Hubbard
Speaker 1: did not publish a sci fi story in more than
Speaker 1: thirty years. At that point. Battlefield Earth was a sprawling,
Speaker 1: eight hundred page epic. He declared it the longest science
Speaker 1: fiction book ever written, which might actually have been true
Speaker 1: at the time. I really have no idres. That's not
Speaker 1: a determinate it. That is believable, though, because one thing
Speaker 1: all around Hubbard can do is write incredibly long books
Speaker 1: and never edit them, not for a second. This is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: as a sci fi short story buff. Just for the record,
Speaker 1: all of his short stories are mediocre. Yeah. He wasn't
Speaker 1: an amazing sci fi shorts. He was an adequate short story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: adequate an age in which you'd buy a book that
Speaker 1: had forty of them for a penny, and that's what
Speaker 1: entertainment was. He was like a mediocre Netflix series that
Speaker 1: you put like. That's what his science fiction was, because
Speaker 1: like those those little like magazines that would be full
Speaker 1: of stories were like Netflix. Some of them. You get
Speaker 1: some Arthur C. Clarks and it's like BoJack Horsemen or whatever,
Speaker 1: and it's brilliant, and a lot of them are l
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard, which is like a show or whatever were
Speaker 1: almost always like Flash Gordon like, he never had a
Speaker 1: grand sci fi concept. He put a cowboy in space
Speaker 1: and had do cool shit. Yeah, yeah, this is heresy.
Speaker 1: Yeah oh I've turned I looked at the window and
Speaker 1: I've gone clear. Don't say that about l Ron Hobby
Speaker 1: el Ron. So the plot of Battlefield Earth was as
Speaker 1: dumb as it was shitty. Johnny good Boy Tyler, the protagonist,
Speaker 1: was one of the last human beings on Earth after
Speaker 1: an alien invasion destroyed civilization. In the thousand years since,
Speaker 1: mankind regressed to a feral Stone Age level of development,
Speaker 1: while the evil aliens who now ruled the world minded
Speaker 1: for its resources. Hubbard's ego demanded the Battlefield Earth be
Speaker 1: an instant hit. Thankfully, he had the resources of one
Speaker 1: of the world's wealthiest cults at his beck and call.
Speaker 1: The Church of Scientology, bought fifty thousand copies of the
Speaker 1: book at launch, and also poured millions into a pr
Speaker 1: campaign aimed at making it go viral. Scientologists were ordered
Speaker 1: to buy two or three copies each had minimum. Battlefield
Speaker 1: Earth was just the prelude to Mission Earth, a one
Speaker 1: point two million word epic Hubbard intended to release in
Speaker 1: ten parts. Yeah, one point two million words and what
Speaker 1: has been written? Oh yeah, okay, because that or I
Speaker 1: was like, was he like pointing at the stands calling
Speaker 1: his shot? Yeah, the sequel, by the way, one million?
Speaker 1: He did that and then wrote it and then did it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it for some for some reference, I think Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings trilogy at the top, that has about
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand words total, something somewhere in that ballpark.
Speaker 1: So three Lord of the Rings trilogies. Yeah, yeah. We
Speaker 1: never think about how much goddamn time this guy's spent
Speaker 1: in front of a Typewright, that's one thing that is
Speaker 1: not right. He wrote like a fucking crazy At the end,
Speaker 1: it just says screw Flanders over. So Hubbard actually wrote
Speaker 1: this monstrosit, or at least dictated it to someone else.
Speaker 1: We don't really know, but tragically he did not live
Speaker 1: to see it released in its entirety. On January nineteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, el Ron Hubbard sent out his last
Speaker 1: command flag Order number three thousand, eight hundred and seventy nine,
Speaker 1: the Sea Org and its Future. In this order, the
Speaker 1: Commodore promoted himself to Admiral, published a glossy photo of
Speaker 1: himself in a new uniform, and about five days later died.
Speaker 1: He did not die alone, but he was not surrounded
Speaker 1: by his friends or family either. His doctor and lawyer
Speaker 1: were the only ones present. Everything about his death was
Speaker 1: handled with the utmost secrecy, but the Church could not
Speaker 1: stop the coroner from looking at the body. The inquest
Speaker 1: found a bandage on his right butt sheet covering ten
Speaker 1: fresh needle marks. It also found traces of hydroxene in
Speaker 1: his blood. The drug is most often prescribed as an
Speaker 1: anti anxiety and anti neurotic medication, in other words, a
Speaker 1: psychiatric medication. The Church steadfastedly rejected the idea that el
Speaker 1: Roon Hubbard had died with psychiatric medicine in his system.
Speaker 1: They claimed that he took the medication as an antihistamine,
Speaker 1: which sure, guys, yeah absolutely. His butt gets famously congest
Speaker 1: This bud gets through congested. Was having antieistamy, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: In a phone interview with the San Luis Obispo New Times,
Speaker 1: church spokesman Tommy Davis insisted he didn't take it as
Speaker 1: a psychiatric medication, that's all. It's one of those things
Speaker 1: that anti scientologists want to make an issue about and
Speaker 1: we're like, yeah, whatever, and emphasized the anger Tommy Davis experience,
Speaker 1: like express to the newspaper, I'm gonna throw another I'm
Speaker 1: gonna throw it. Yeah yeah, ooh that one. Because they
Speaker 1: were all going like he'd be as millions of people
Speaker 1: and we're like as if, yeah whatever whatever. The rank
Speaker 1: and file of Scientology were informed of their profit's death.
Speaker 1: Death three days later, on January twenty seventh, David Miskovich
Speaker 1: addressed eighteen hundred scientologists at the Hollywood Palladium Theater. He
Speaker 1: told them this. At two thousand hours Friday twenty fourth
Speaker 1: January nineteen eighty six, el Ron Hubbard discarded the body
Speaker 1: he had used in this lifetime for seventy four years,
Speaker 1: ten months, and eleven days. The body he had used
Speaker 1: to facilitate his existence in this universe had ceased to
Speaker 1: be useful, and in fact, had become an impediment to
Speaker 1: the work he now must do outside its confines. The
Speaker 1: being we knew was l Ron Hubbard still exists. Although
Speaker 1: you may feel grief, understand that he did not and
Speaker 1: does not now. He simply moved on to his next step.
Speaker 1: L RH in fact, used this lifetime and body. We
Speaker 1: knew to accomplish what no man has ever accomplished. He
Speaker 1: unlocked the mysteries of life and gave us the tools
Speaker 1: so we could free ourselves and our fellow men. Wow. Ps,
Speaker 1: he did himself auditing and he found out he's even
Speaker 1: better than he thought he was. So he's an admirals
Speaker 1: admiral now. So I could not think of the Hudsucker, right,
Speaker 1: you know the Hutsucker Praxy series. Yeah, at six four
Speaker 1: wearing Hutsucker merged with the infinite. That is a punch out.
Speaker 1: He should have merged with the Well. He did leave
Speaker 1: us with a little bit of a eulogy to himself,
Speaker 1: because of course I can't be finished with Yeah. L
Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard wasn't going to let someone else get the
Speaker 1: last one. He wrote all the things. There's nothing he
Speaker 1: couldn't have written that wasn't written. And the elegy he
Speaker 1: chose was a song called thank You for Listening from
Speaker 1: an album of Scientology songs titled The Road to Freedom.
Speaker 1: Are you to listen to it? Yeah, we are going
Speaker 1: to hear l Ron Hubbard himself sing a motherfucking song.
Speaker 1: Oh dude, he's gonna tell me he can fuck and
Speaker 1: has a voice like an angel. I hope this is
Speaker 1: a Bob Dude. I hope this is a Bob all right, Friends,
Speaker 1: without further ado, the voice of l Ron Hubbard, the
Speaker 1: Boss Music's original Nice Rich Bring said, oh goddamns. They
Speaker 1: would argue the voice so like a dinosaur and a
Speaker 1: children saying what I believe. I only give them fact
Speaker 1: if they believe quite a why it still will have
Speaker 1: him mine. Yeah, I love this song xcept did you
Speaker 1: listen to the lyrics and their passion. I'm gonna toss
Speaker 1: a cleanic, but it's the room. There are also no
Speaker 1: real instruments on this song. That's why I got away.
Speaker 1: Yeah karaoke. Imagine listening to this at a funeral. But
Speaker 1: truth is truth. And if they then it's I to
Speaker 1: live with lie. That's their concern, not mine, my friend.
Speaker 1: They're free to fantas loves them low line. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it's a full house theme about how you all
Speaker 1: believe me, You're all gonna suffer now this is He's
Speaker 1: hardly nuts to the full house. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: musicals in between the vocals. Yeah, he's breakdancing's surprisingly good
Speaker 1: at break dancing and fucking really way too much instrumentals
Speaker 1: so much. Okay, Now, so that we can't get in
Speaker 1: trouble with copyright concerns, let's discuss linguistically, lyrically, musically, because
Speaker 1: you're both musicians, right, Yeah, you're a rapist much less,
Speaker 1: that's true. Yeah, you're a rapist and you're you're part
Speaker 1: of Cody's band, right yeah, yeah, I consider it Cody's band,
Speaker 1: but I don't know that it is. It's more like
Speaker 1: guys just showing up and which which makes you is
Speaker 1: qualified as l Ron Hubbard to talk about exactly put
Speaker 1: this on the public record. I was kicked out of
Speaker 1: that band, no further comment. Okay, that's true. Yes, Cody's
Speaker 1: band he is. He is a prima donna. And we'll
Speaker 1: be listening to this episode and I want him to
Speaker 1: record my version of this song once I get a cold. Well.
Speaker 1: I was in charge of cover the song. Let's cover
Speaker 1: Let's cover this song. I was in charge of cleaning
Speaker 1: the rehearsal rooms, and the guys with the white gloves
Speaker 1: were not please. They kicked me out of it. So, Michael,
Speaker 1: your thoughts on thank you for listening, and on elroon
Speaker 1: Hubbard's voice let's start with your thoughts on his voice.
Speaker 1: Abe already stole the best, Like Abe gave me the
Speaker 1: image that's stuck in my mind, which yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: Barney the Dinosaur singing to kids, but instead of teaching
Speaker 1: them how to wash their hands, he's saying, you're all
Speaker 1: living in a deluded fantasy world. Children. Soon you will
Speaker 1: get sick from this, do you understand? But listen to
Speaker 1: my Sweet Candy the free two phone. It also sounds
Speaker 1: like the guy in a barbershop quartet who's only there
Speaker 1: to hit the loan out of hed to go oh baby,
Speaker 1: and they're like, the three other guys didn't show up.
Speaker 1: You got to sing the middle and high. There's not
Speaker 1: a shot of that guy who hits that loan out
Speaker 1: and then goes, ah, yeah that loan oue part of
Speaker 1: the song. God, Abe, your thoughts, uh yeah, mine went
Speaker 1: immediately through the instrumentation because it's it's just it's shouting
Speaker 1: something immediately, like from the get go. It's the horns,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, Michael, they're like clearly fake horns,
Speaker 1: like someone got like my brother's cassio and is doing
Speaker 1: like French horn on it. I bet they somehow fucked
Speaker 1: that up, though. I bet they actually recorded because he
Speaker 1: had money. He had so much money, so I've never
Speaker 1: heard a recording that probably was recorded on actual instruments.
Speaker 1: And because they're so bad at recording, like they're bad
Speaker 1: at filmmaking, they're very similar. It sounds like a Midi version.
Speaker 1: And you know how I like Middi's, Michael Middi's are
Speaker 1: my favorite? Your favorite? That's it's it's better than the
Speaker 1: original the Midi versions. But I wish I or maybe
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, if this was studio musicians he
Speaker 1: hired what I be on a Fly on the Wall
Speaker 1: flo he clearly could have afforded it. I feel like
Speaker 1: he didn't just because he was so scared that everyone
Speaker 1: was trying to murder him, as secretly the FBI, which
Speaker 1: is why he didn't just like hire a real production
Speaker 1: company to make this movie. It had to all be
Speaker 1: done in house by ar fifteen can fit in a
Speaker 1: guitar case. He's like, no musicians, no, yeah, exactly that
Speaker 1: every there's so many moments in this this journey that
Speaker 1: we've been taking where it's just I want to know
Speaker 1: what that guy who is just told all right, so
Speaker 1: you have to learn how Mike, He's like, ah, I
Speaker 1: my last job was I worked at McDonald's. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: like I into a lot of cases. I was a
Speaker 1: heart surgeon. Like this has shot at all my area, right,
Speaker 1: I have no clue how to do this. Well, it's
Speaker 1: gonna have to be perfect or what he'll beat you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll wind up in the torture prison as well. I
Speaker 1: guess I signed up and gave money for this. I
Speaker 1: do feel like killing myself after listening to it. That
Speaker 1: must mean it's the best song. It's version of Excalibur.
Speaker 1: It's it's so weird to me that a guy could
Speaker 1: who could manipulate the emotions of millions of people and
Speaker 1: strike at something core in us, which is just you know,
Speaker 1: like the hook to Scientology is, yeah, your life is
Speaker 1: a mess, and they offer enough that seems believable at
Speaker 1: the base level that it hooks millions of people in.
Speaker 1: And yet he doesn't understand tone at all, Like it's
Speaker 1: the bizarre. The lyrics are ominous, and the music is
Speaker 1: like Scientology is the soda that will finally refresh you,
Speaker 1: like all of his sodas, he doesn't like get how
Speaker 1: to manipulate people's emotions and yet he does it, and
Speaker 1: yet he obviously gets it. I will. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to point out that he was only like pitch. He
Speaker 1: was pitchy a lot less than I expected. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was pitching maybe one or once or twice he like
Speaker 1: flubbed a note. But I mean he's got mediocre pipes,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, the mediocre. The main thing
Speaker 1: that made it sound bad, I thought was that he
Speaker 1: cut everywhere. It sounds like the melody lines like it's
Speaker 1: falling down the stairs exactly what It's called the noise gate.
Speaker 1: And they probably had it to because they don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on, so they just anytime the microphone is like,
Speaker 1: oh there's no signal, it just got there's no tail.
Speaker 1: It's a bunch of lawyers and spies trying to work
Speaker 1: on it. Also, if the noise gate was off on
Speaker 1: this track, between every line, you'd hear him go he
Speaker 1: like breathes in as a seventy one year old trip keeper.
Speaker 1: Guess there any moment is the final one? Call me
Speaker 1: the commodore. Well, I think that's our legally mandated commentary
Speaker 1: over that song. You know what I have to say
Speaker 1: about fair use. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna chuck my
Speaker 1: last Cleenex box. That's number ten, babies. The floor is
Speaker 1: covered in throwing bagels and throwing boxes of Kleenex, a
Speaker 1: couple of torn up pieces of earlier scripts that I
Speaker 1: read earlier. What I dropped the top of my water
Speaker 1: bottle on the ground. I wanted to help out. Thank you.
Speaker 1: We always leave it a mess because I'm a problem
Speaker 1: like l Ron Hubbard, And once this show takes off enough,
Speaker 1: I will absolutely buy a compound in southern Californias and
Speaker 1: force people to make movies. Yeah yeah, movie maker. No no, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, you'll be boat Yeah. Bring into the cults.
Speaker 1: They'll be making the movies. I assume you started this
Speaker 1: show to have a big track record. Educate everyone on
Speaker 1: people way worse than stuff you plan to do later
Speaker 1: so they know it's not so bad. Or I might
Speaker 1: try to take it to the end level. I didn't
Speaker 1: finish Wild Wild Country, but I'm on board with creating
Speaker 1: a cult city in the middle of nowhere. I really
Speaker 1: want to see what your battlefield Earth is. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to know what you think happened right at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the universe. I wish how it relates
Speaker 1: to you. I'm a psychiatrist. I wish we could get
Speaker 1: cults to just assemble, make a movie based on their beliefs,
Speaker 1: and then disassemble. Yeah, I want to see all of them.
Speaker 1: I wish all movies were made by cults. Yes, they
Speaker 1: are in a way. It is propaganda, all of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or what would have said? It's true? Yeah? Including this?
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean this is absolutely propaganda aimed at
Speaker 1: getting me a compound, someone west and a religion get
Speaker 1: indoctrinated people. Yeah, with just a giant glowing dorito on
Speaker 1: the spindle that turns everyone at all and in turts
Speaker 1: of that's your colt. Would be nice because if you
Speaker 1: funk up the set or robber changes his mind. He
Speaker 1: wanted a blue, now he wants a green, he just
Speaker 1: throws a bagel at your heat like it could be worse. Also,
Speaker 1: I will throw bagels a lot. If you're hungry, just
Speaker 1: eat the compound because it's made of bagels and big
Speaker 1: real rat problems. Yeah, you got your five rat quota
Speaker 1: already rat within three sentence. They're huge carves. These bagel
Speaker 1: fed rats are becoming too strong. Roberts just threatening to
Speaker 1: overtake the compounds. Somebody has been feeding them away protein
Speaker 1: so working out as well. So they're like swollen, enormous rats.
Speaker 1: And well, we found a dead rat with a bunch
Speaker 1: of puncture needs in its butt. We think it's the rat.
Speaker 1: You we think they have all Also, the rat has
Speaker 1: a T shirt that says the Joe Rogan podcast, We're fucked.
Speaker 1: We're so fucked. Oh god, oh god. Okay, plugs pluggables. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we uh both he and I, Michael Swave and Abe Epperson.
Speaker 1: We have a little thing called small Beans, which you
Speaker 1: can see on Patreon. We do videos and podcasts ourselves
Speaker 1: and there's a bunch of other great podcasts on that network.
Speaker 1: You can access it from by going to patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash small Beans. And uh, yeah, we were doing
Speaker 1: another show. I don't know we said this last episode.
Speaker 1: I can't even remember. Oh yeah, it's the Double Down.
Speaker 1: In case you only wanted to hear about the last
Speaker 1: part of the last part of l Ron Hubbard's life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're launching a new show called Off Hours that is
Speaker 1: gonna be basically the whole production team are people who
Speaker 1: used to work at a psyche called cracked and what
Speaker 1: was what was? What was that? It was a napkin
Speaker 1: fulfillment site, you know, they like refill all the paper
Speaker 1: towels and soap dispensers. But they also ran a web series.
Speaker 1: And similarly a lot of people who worked on that
Speaker 1: show are now working on our new show called Off Hours,
Speaker 1: which will involve four friends sitting around talking about pop culture.
Speaker 1: Well that sound legally distinct, legally distinct and a good
Speaker 1: antidote for Behind the Bastard. Yes, it gets you down.
Speaker 1: Come listen to some mindless bullshit that we won't find
Speaker 1: out for twenty years was actually evil. Yeah, it's going exactly.
Speaker 1: Let's get that cultural dipsticks. Well, everybody build a cult,
Speaker 1: all right, for sure, we for sure shut us up.
Speaker 1: Were build a cult. Okay, I'm leaving. Well this has
Speaker 1: been Behind the Bastards. I've been Robert Evans my Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: at Bastards pod website, Find the Bastards dot com, t shirts,
Speaker 1: tea public, I have another pod cast. It could happen here.
Speaker 1: It's sad. Goodbye. M h m h m hm m
Speaker 1: hm hm