The paper is now defunct, but it was fun writing for them while it lasted. They did a special issue on religion & cults and guess who got to go after the Scientologists? Yup. Me.

 

They were supposed to use a pen name, but somehow my name wound up on the byline regardless. After receiving simply the finest letter to the editor (included below), there should be no doubt as to why I left Hollywood ... in a hurry!

 

Stressed?
Our intrepid reporter braves Hollywood Blvd.’s Scientology sales reps.
by Rob B. Dulhar [*Names have been changed to protect the universe.]

I’ve been known to roll the odd, invisible hand grenade through the open doors of the Scientology Personality Testing Center. You’ve seen them out there on Hollywood Boulevard., those front-line pawns of the Scientology machine, and if you’re anything like me, you usually just keep right on walking. They inquire if you want a “free stress test” and you mumble, “no thanks,” avoiding eye contact.

But, as a service to you, dear L.A. Alternative readers, the paper sent me out on a bright, crisp Saturday afternoon to subject myself to the stress test. Could I be convinced to join the flock? What exactly did this “test” involve?

I had to pass by the card tables set up on the south side of the Boulevard twice before a heavy-set girl in a folding chair inquired if I wanted a “free stress test.” She may have actually been speaking to the man walking behind me, but I don’t think he spoke any English. I leapt into the chair in front of the pimply-faced, 20-something Lindsay* and introduced myself.

The girl immediately hands me two short, coppery cylinders (one of them was labeled “Chris”-I guess she was borrowing someone else’s E-Meter). The metal tubes are attached to a small box with a needle, a few knobs and-the only element that seemed to be connected to “reality”-a digital clock. It almost has the correct time.

Lindsay tells me that this low-tech looking doohickey will register how much stress I am currently feeling (it’s really just a biofeedback machine-it measures the conductivity of your skin, which can sometimes be affected by your emotional state if you’re the perspiring type). I’m told that she’s going to ask me a few questions as I grip the handles and that I “can answer them in my head.” When I ask if I can answer them aloud, she says in my head will be fine.

Lindsay says the needle will move to the right indicating how much stress I am exhibiting in regards to the subjects she is going to bring up. She starts to ask me a series of rather open-ended questions about my romantic relationships, my family and my pet. I answer them aloud and she doesn’t stop me.

Now, I am sort of expecting Lindsay to be a bit devious, to trick me into believing that I’m stressed over something that Scientology could help me with. She asks me what is currently causing me stress; I mention something about my sex life and my financial situation. She doesn’t touch the latter and whispers with embarrassment in regards to the former.

By now, she has me talking about my job and my older brother in Brooklyn and my cat, and all the while I’m keeping my eye on the monitor-the needle is not even wiggling. Check me out! Stress-free!

When she starts asking me about children, I inform Lindsay that I don’t have any and that I don’t really want any. She asks if that’s all right with my family and I tell her, with 100 percent honesty, that my mother has dreams of me furnishing her with two grandchildren. Now, at this point I had taken my eyes off the needles; I was rather obviously checking out the gorgeous young woman dressed in a skimpy Tinkerbelle costume who was walking right toward me.

That might have factored into the needle finally leaping a bit.

Lindsay proudly informs me that I am stressed over this situation with my mother. I respond that maybe my Mom is stressed-but I am not. I tell her that if I should happen to call my Jewish mother back East and inform her that I just became a Scientologist in order to deal with the stress she was allegedly causing me with her desire for me to be fruitful and multiply, I would win the Jew-guilt stand-off hands down.

Lindsay then grabs a slip of paper and handwrites for me the “eight dynamics.” She has trouble differentiating between the “Individual” and “You.” I feel a moment of pity, and don’t press the issue further.

She asks me what I know about Scientology at this point. I reply that I’ve heard that they bought Hollywood from Space Aliens for about 24 bucks. Lindsay appears to ignore this.

She then grabs a paperback edition of L. Ron Hubbard’s most famous sci-fi tome and asks me if I’ve read it. I tell Lindsay that “I’ve never read Diuretics.” (Thank you, Alex Cox.) She does not correct me, but only flips it open to the first page and hands it to me. She instructs me to read a quote from noted big-headed thespian and famed Scientologist, Vinny Barbarino.

And now, for the low, low price of only eight dollars I can own my own copy. I understand why she didn’t wish to discuss my financial woes earlier. And then it hits me-this whole thing is probably just a protracted sales pitch for this book. No wonder it’s sold tens of millions of copies. They’ve got these poor kids out on the streets all over town, in a strange sort of grass roots promotion. (Hmm… I’m looking to publish a book this year. Maybe I’ll take a page out of Dianetics-I think it’s page 143-to promote myself.)

Sales pitch effectively rejected, I ask Lindsay how long she’s been doing this. She tells me with great pride that she’s been in the LRH fold since January 28. I can envision the date circled on her “cute kittens” calendar with pink magic marker. She had taken the same free stress test in her hometown of “beautiful, downtown Burbank” and tells me that “the rest is history.”

But she really can’t tell me why I should read and/or buy this book. Even the Christians will give you their Bible for free. If Lindsay is any indicator of who is on the front lines of selling this religion to the masses, I just don’t know what to think of this organization. The Taliban do a better job of selling the tenets of Islam than this girl does for Scientology.

I decide to let Lindsay off the hook, thank her, shake her hand and walk off down Hollywood Boulevard. feeling remarkably stress free-except maybe for the sex bit. LAA

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This is the amazing, suitable-for-framing letter to the Editor my piece garnered:

"Religious" Persecution

Having read your "article" on the Scientology stress test [vol. 5 no. 19 "Stressed?"] it is obvious you had already made up your mind what to write before you even allegedly took the test itself. Your perverted and degraded style of "writing" only is an indicator of most likely a miserable and dead-end life that you are probably living and are doomed to live for the remainder of this lifetime. The irony is that you have chosen to viciously attack the only thing that could possibly help lift you out of your miserable condition.

John G. Hawkins

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Aww shucks! Thanks, John...