Ruthless (12 page)

I attended the event and was assigned the task of acting as a bodyguard for Hubbard's son Arthur. I drove him down to Los Angeles from the base and home afterward. On the way home, we stopped at a market and Arthur bought something to eat. We got back to the base and Arthur set his bag down outside the car while we chatted for a bit. We wandered a ways from the car and the bag. That turned out to be a mistake, because a dog came out of nowhere, grabbed the contents of the bag and began chowing down on a coffee cake, cellophane wrapper and all.

About my earlier reference to a “shore story”: this was something developed on the
Apollo
that people on the ship would tell the locals ashore about who they were and what they were doing. It was called “telling an acceptable truth,” which always boils down to a lie. If a Scientologist ever admits to using a shore story, it means he is lying, pure and simple.

For example, when the
Apollo
pulled into a new port, the shore story was that those aboard were either management consultants or trainees who were gaining experience before returning to their companies. Strictly speaking, that was true. The people onboard were
managers—they
were managing international Scientology. As well, students on board were learning Hubbard's latest developments in administrative technology, and some would eventually return to their organizations, though some also were recruited to join the Sea Org and so never made it home again.

When the Sea Org returned to land in Clearwater in 1975, Hubbard used a front group called Southern Land Developing and Leasing Corporation to buy the Fort Harrison Hotel for a tenant supposedly called United Churches of Florida. That was the shore story, in other words, a lie.

At any rate, a couple days after the funeral in Los Angeles, Ray Mithoff, then the most senior technically trained person in the church, came to me to give me “more information” about the event. He said that before Hubbard died, the two of them had been talking, and Hubbard had asked Ray if he thought people would miss him. Ray said probably so. Hubbard said they shouldn't, and at the end of their conversation he went into his room. A couple of hours later he was gone.

When someone tells you something that is true, it has the ring of truth to it. When something is only partially true, it has a different, somewhat hollow ring, and I knew even then that what Ray was telling me was bullshit. He had come to see me because Dave knew that I was gregarious and talked to a lot of people and that if I bought that story and passed it on, people would tend to accept it. I never bought
it—or
passed it on.

Another time I was up in David's office, which was located on the north side of the property overlooking the highway. We were discussing something or other, and while we were talking, the payroll person from David's organization, the Religious Technology Center, walked into the office and handed David his weekly pay in cash. Dave looked at it briefly, said, “Thanks,” and the guy walked out. Dave laid the money on the desk and we continued our conversation. I could see the cash
paper-clipped
to the invoice, and it was the same allowance all staffers were receiving at the time, I think $30. (Room and board were provided by the Sea Org, of course.) I will bet you dollars to doughnuts that David staged that little interlude to get me to think that he was making the same as every other Sea Org member on the base. Again, he knew that I was gregarious and would tell people, “You know, COB, poor guy, he works so hard but only makes the same pay as the rest of us.” I never did. (David holds the post of Chairman of the Board of the Religious Technology Center, and people refer to him as
C-O
-B
.)

That March, at L. Ron Hubbard's annual birthday celebration two months after his
death—a
day that Scientology continues to celebrate as a holiday each year around his
birthday—we
released an album called
Road to Freedom
performed by “L. Ron Hubbard and Friends.” We had 30 days to produce the entire album, which was impossible, as anybody in the music business would confirm. Yet, on day 30 at 8:30 in the morning, two guys drove off the base to LA to make masters. It was conceived, written, arranged, recorded and mixed in one month. We got no sleep for that month. David had demanded that the goal be met, and it was up to everyone else to do or die. We did but nearly died in the process.

Immediate arrangements were made with Scientology celebrities to contribute to the album. Since most were already in Los Angeles, it was only a matter of securing their agreement and then arranging for them to come to the base for their part of the production. These artists were there only when their parts were being recorded, of course. While they worked long hours when needed, they were spared the
round-the
-clock
work put in by Sea Org members.

Despite everything, I thoroughly enjoyed working with John Travolta; Julia McGinnis Johnson, the opera and cabaret singer; Chick Corea; David Campbell; Amanda Ambrose, the famed jazz singer; Michael Roberts; Frank Stallone and other Scientology artists who came up to contribute to the effort.

John was a wonderful person to work with. After we finished recording one of his songs for the album, I gave him a ride back to Los Angeles and we had a nice conversation about nothing in particular. He used to call me Pops, because I played trumpet, as did Louis Armstrong, and that was one of his nicknames.

Frank, of course, is the younger brother of Sylvester Stallone. Frank was not a Scientologist, nor was Sly, but Frank had come to Portland to help with the protest in 1985. He was willing to contribute to the album and so came on board.

Julia McGinnis Johnson was another fabulous artist. What a voice. As a kid she was in the Sea Org and was one of L. Ron Hubbard's stewards aboard the
Apollo,
but she decided she was going to become famous as a singer, and she left and did it. She has since had a long and successful career, mostly in Europe, as a
mezzo-soprano
in musical theater. In 1984, she starred in the film
Carmen.

The truth is that everyone on that project was great to work with. People pitched in because they wanted to honor L. Ron Hubbard. The album was wonderfully received by Scientologists when released that March, the first such event after Hubbard's death, which made it significant.

Working with great people and creating good products helped me overlook the living conditions at the base because we all were there to help make a better world. It wasn't horrible, but life in the Sea Org was no country club. I lived in a house on the property with some of the other single guys in the music department. Occasionally, every couple of weeks or so, I took a day of liberty, as it was called, and did whatever I wanted. In my early years, I took a vacation for a week or two each year. Christmas holidays were nice, with a few days off and a lot of group activities, great food, shows that we musicians put on, movies and just relaxing with everybody on the base. Conditions, in other words, were tolerable.

A tremendous number of diverse activities occurred on the base in those days. Golden Era Productions was charged with producing all the media for dissemination: training films; videos for PR purposes; Hubbard's lectures, not only in English but translated and recorded by voice talent in a variety of languages; occasional updates of Hubbard's books. In addition, the base facilities needed to be maintained and expanded, and the management units with offices there needed to be supplied with meals, housing and other services. This required a large and multifaceted organization with many specialized units. People trained for their specialty and spent their days contributing to the overall effort. Since I worked in the music department, I spent my days composing and arranging music that could be used in film or video productions.

By this time, my daughters, Denise and Lori, had married, and I was now a grandfather. Denise's husband was a Scientologist, but Lori's never became more involved than taking some introductory courses. That was never an issue one way or the other. I visited them while on leave when they all were living in New Hampshire, and I truly enjoyed my grandkids. I would take them out in the woods because that was something I enjoyed as a kid. I taught them basic camping skills, such as how to build a fire, even in the
rain—where
to find dry wood, how to light it, that kind of thing. I taught them how to throw potatoes in the fire, cook hotdogs, common things that a granddad can show the young 'uns.

In 1988, the church held the maiden voyage for its new cruise ship, the
Freewinds.
It was a huge event because, on that first voyage from its home port in Curaçao, they released the most advanced of the Scientology auditing levels, which is delivered only aboard the ship. From 1950 until the end of his life, Hubbard more or less continuously released new developments in Dianetics and Scientology. One of the last of these was an advanced auditing course that he said should be delivered off the crossroads of the world, in other words, in a
distraction-free
environment. The world had been out of his hair for most of the time he'd been at sea, and Scientology returned to sea with the
Freewinds.

Before we got to the launch, we musicians had been up for days preparing music for the videos that would be shown during the week of events. We arrived dog tired, but instead of sleeping we were put to work, along with others, building the event stage. That was only the beginning. On that maiden voyage, the passengers, who were mostly
high-roller
Scientologists and celebrities, went to heaven; the
rank-and
-file
Sea Org members went to hell. I had posh
berthing—a
deck chair in one of the offices. Other guys slept on the deck with a blanket.

For one gig we worked outdoors in the Caribbean heat until the moment we had to go to the venue for a sound check. We were sweating like pigs, went to the site, did the sound check and headed back to the ship with just enough time to change into our stage
outfits—no
time to
shower—and
do the show. It was BO City.

One thing to understand about the Sea Org: Hubbard and then David could sit in an office and think up groovy ideas to advance Scientology. Whether the resources to implement those ideas exist is another matter. Usually sufficient resources are not available to do things comfortably, so they get done uncomfortably. Often, because of rushed planning or slipshod execution, they have to be done over again a time or two or even more. Sea Org members become cynical after a few of these painful experiences and adopt the unwritten motto of the Sea Org: “There is never time to do it right but always time to do it twice.”

Every year after 1988 Scientology held another anniversary cruise, and every year it was the same thing: stay up night after night to get everything ready, fly down to the ship and stay up night after night doing shows during the cruise. Everything was done to impress influential Scientologists and to make David and management look good. (As the years went on, management faded from the equation; more on that later.)

Each year the ship sailed to different ports in the Caribbean, and one year it sailed to Mexico. The musicians and some other staff members were going through immigration as a group, and four Mexican police were acting as gatekeepers. They spoke no English and we spoke no Spanish. I tried to explain that we were coming to play music. They shook their heads no. They weren't going to let us into the country. This could have become a real disaster but I got an idea. “Guys, get out your horns,” I said to the others.

One guy took out his trombone, the next guy grabbed his clarinet and I took out my trumpet, and we played “Limehouse Blues.” If you know the song, it is very
up-tempo
and jazzy. A couple times I looked at the head guard and winked, and he winked back at me. They were smiling and tapping their feet to the tune, and when we finished they applauded and gave us a
thumbs-up
. We got through immigration by playing “Limehouse Blues.”

One of the most wonderful people I met during these yearly cruises was Isaac Hayes, who had become involved in Scientology in the
mid-1990s
. Beyond his iconic stature in the music world and popular culture, Isaac was a person of great courage. During the civil rights era, Isaac was the first African American to go into a Walgreen's in Memphis, Tennessee, in protest of the Jim Crow laws. Although he was a superstar when I met him, I found him to be a
down-to
-earth
person and extremely humble.

I remember sitting in his cabin sharing stories about our youth. Isaac came from a poor family, and when his high school class sold chocolate bars to raise money for their activities, Isaac lived on the chocolate bars for an entire month. Later, when he became famous and had money, he repaid the school for the bars. That is the kind of person he was.

I told him about buying the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course when I was a kid. I had enough money for the down payment but could not afford to keep up with the monthly installments. I began receiving letters from the Atlas Company demanding payment, and I was sure that any day I would be dragged off to jail. Finally, I hit on an idea to get them off my back. I wrote a letter directly to Charles Atlas himself saying that I should not have to pay for the course because my chest muscles were always sore from the exercises. Isaac could not stop laughing at that one.

I once heard Isaac express his reason for being involved in Scientology: he wanted to help make a better world because he knew he was going to come back to it one day and wanted it to be a good place. Truly, Isaac was one of the nicest people I have ever known.