The Beautiful Dungeon

The Scientology Celebrity Center, one of the most beautiful hotels in LA, was infested some time ago, like something out of Star Trek, maybe.

It was a mere two minutes down the street from where my friend, the ATL malcontent lived. I have fond memories of the flutter of attention from the Scientologist security force as you simply walked by. An event that annoyed me more and more each time, until the yell "Freaks!" came out of my inebriated mouth one night towards the end of my stay there.

By that time I had already met the innocent movie star hopefuls who had shipped in from the east or midwest. Their genuine sweetness and innocence eroding away by the second, often precipitated by "taking classes" at the Celebrity Center, seen as essential to getting a career of the ground. It was spread around like gossip, a secret.

One girl I knew, actually was trying to make it in comedy, a tough road I would think. She had to "take classes" just to stay at her aunts house for a few months while she got on her feet...I remember her being the first to tell me about the "E-Meter," a device consisting of two metal electrodes that measures your mental state, from which they incite you to confess your past to them. Another woman I knew was told that if she wanted this job she would have to convert. She declined, but I'm sure she has succumbed by now, if she is still there.

Then there were the catalogues that came to another friend's apartment building after one of LA's many Scientologists had moved out. It was filled with $11,000 books, $40,000 sets of several books, a 30 day sea cruise for your non-believing child, and lots of seemingly coded language. God knows what was done to them out in international waters, but maybe it is why the poor children walked around Hollywood staring at the ground, all dressed in blue. Sometimes I even got the feeling they were dying to be rescued, although I could never find out for sure. It seemed like they were forbidden to look at the outside world, the new Amish, spending all day dreaming of planetary clearing, when the aliens come pick them up.

Writer Harmon Leon posed as a German rockstar and spent the night at the Celebrity Center, among details of his comical stay,http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/scien410.html, was a tour of L. Ron Hubbard's office.

"And this is L. Ron Hubbard's office."
"The actual office used by L. Ron Hubbard?" This is like being in Jesus' room.
"No. Each Scientology center has an office for L. Ron Hubbard, decorated in a way he would like it."
"Oh, so the office was used when he was visiting, ya?"
"No. He died before this hotel was refurbished."

Now that I'm away, the sinister underbelly of LA (no not the Mafia) has faded from my mind, but on that night, the night of the yell, my body had soaked up too much of the atmosphere. I needed some fresh air, away from the creepy smiles and blank stares, and the Juliet Lewis making it as a star seminars held deep in one of the most guilded cages the world has ever known.

Then I move away only to find a family member falling into "the Landmark Forum," but that's a post for another day.