The Apollo; Voyage of the Damned

Some time ago, I helped Dennis Erlich with his paper the InFormer[tm] and collected the story below. This may be repost (I'm kinda new around here).

There have been some recent queries about the infamous Apollo Stars and the story covers their creation and some of their activities.

Voyage of the Damned OR The Children of a (much) lesser God.

He was like a cock who thought that the sun had risen to hear him crow. - 'George Eliot'

To use the term enigmatic to describe Hubbard would be like using the term 'troublesome' to describe Lee Harvey Oswald, 'failed businessman' to describe Charles Keating or 'in love with the movies' to describe Pee Wee Herman. It just doesn't quite tell you everything.

Essentially, Hubbard's attitude towards everyone was, "F*** You, I'm god". His cowering subjects lived with the constant thought, "Is he happy, Oh Thank the Fates!" or "Oh s***, he's not happy? Who or What do I have to kiss (and in what way) to make him happy?". In another earlier time they would have been sacrificing virgins to try to keep him happy. Who knew what would set him off in one of his frequent, profane explosions? (Some speculate that the Scientology's exploding volcano we see ad nauseam is a metaphor for Hubbard's bubbly personality.) Sacrificing virgins? Oh were he that easy to appease! Actually, this man at best was a demigod or more accurately a hemisemidemigod*. (Well, his disciples do say that he is ascended and is carrying on his work elsewhere. I didn't make this god stuff up.)

As in all things Hubbard was involved with, he was convinced that he could understand the totality of the subject and once understanding that totality would be free to give the proper, no, superior, instructions. He would begin one of his famous explanations of how it is done by, "Why these chaps who think that they know . . .".

This unpublished doctrine of the mastery of things was referred to by Hubbard as "Permeation". He explained that in order to completely understand a subject, all you had to do is permeate it. (I did not make this up.)

This reminds me of a skit that Money Python once did where some very pert, well to-do-school children are hosting their own TV show:

(The characters are Alan, Noel and Jackie.)

Alan well, last week we showed you how to become a gynecologist. And this week on 'How to do it' we're going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here's Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.

Hello, Jackie.

Jackie Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvelous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any diseases ever again.

Alan Thanks, Jackie. Great idea. How to play the flute.(picks up flute). Well, here we are. You blow there and move your fingers up and down here.

Noel Great, great, Alan. Well, next week we'll be showing you how black and white people can live together in peace and harmony, and Alan will be over in Moscow, showing us how to reconcile the Russians and the Chinese. So, until next week, cheerio.

Once Hubbard ordered one of his assistants to obtain a sample of every tile made in Europe. Seems he was thinking of retiling his bathroom. No catalogs for our hemisemidemigod, no siree! He ordered one each of the real thing. Off she went on the grand tile tour of Europe and proceeded to lay hands on every tile she would come up with. Soon boxes and boxes of tiles were piled up on the ship. Finally when the big decision was made. He had the bathroom done in linoleum.

I Write the Songs That Make the Whole World Gag

The picture on the cover of the Apollo Stars album shows a peculiarly grim-faced L. Ron Hubbard sitting before the controls of the mixing board, surrounded by his retinue, technical people and musicians.

Hubbard had spent tens of thousands of dollars to obtain the very best recording equipment, yet the Apollo Stars music on this album is awful, technically and musically. (After reviewing this album, I put on a jazz album made in 1957 - a monaural recording. This recording made many years earlier was far superior in all ways to Hubbard's misguided attempt.)

The music on the Apollo Stars album was recorded over a period of days, 14 to 15 hours at a crack, directed by Hubbard. Hubbard had rented a movie theater in Portugal as the recording venue. As the Stars recorded, they were constantly badgered by Hubbard to fit their styles within the narrow confines of Hubbard's vision. He charged them 1 dollar for every wrong note they played (still, many wrong notes made it into the final recording). When it was over, the Stars owed Hubbard hundreds and hundreds of dollars for their wrong notes.

Apparently Hubbard did not understand the basics of mixing. The music on the album sounds as if he did the mix while listening through headphones with cotton in his ears, never bothering to listen to it through speakers. The sound, distorted and mixed in the wrong proportions, is bunched into the right and left channels, an amateur's gross mistake. The rhythm guitarist was mixed in just as loud as the soloists. This way one can clearly hear the same two chords over and over and over and over again (while the high voltage saxophone player plays the ten notes that he knew over and over and over again). The muses were battered and bruised.

Once they had finalized a song, the Stars were only allowed to play their songs one way, no variation in notes, tempi or feeling. Hubbard, satisfied with a rendition of one of their pieces of music would decree that that rendition was the LRH Approved Version. If Hubbard caught them changing the music as he listened to local radio broadcasts there would be hell to pay.

The Apollo Stars were a part of a public relations campaign organized by Hubbard to improve the image of the much beleaguered Apollo. Like all the elements of Hubbard's public relations campaign, it failed and failed dramatically.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what we have been makes us what we are. - 'George Eliot'

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - unkown

Let's get the f*** out of here. - L. Ron Hubbard

Afterwards on the Apollo they called the incident, "The Rock Festival". It had nothing to do with music, rather an incensed crowd on the Portuguese Island of Madiera had forced the Apollo to flee port. The Apollo had come into the Madiera port of Funchal to have the various Apollo musical groups participate in a hastily improvised public relations gimmick advertised as a "Rock Festival".

The crowd bombarded the Apollo with rocks and pushed the ships transportation - motorcycles and two small cars - into the ocean. As the chanting crowd continued their various prophylactic activities against the Apollo, Hubbard raced around the deck with a bullhorn and gave completely contradictory instructions to all and sundry and finally beat a retreat the innards of the Apollo. He sulked down there until the ship left port.

The crew that had been stuck on shore were pummeled a bit by the crowd as they climbed aboard. Others of the crew waited until Portuguese authorities helped them brave the crowd to get back on board. The Apollo moved to mid-harbour to regroup and then just quietly left the port bound for Bermuda.

Slinking out of ports was something that the Apollo had some practice in the recent years before the "Rock Festival", but it was to be a regular practice as the Apollo brought its special magic to the Caribbean. The rumors that had created the angry Madieran crowd followed the Apollo wherever they went.

The forced exodus from Madiera marked the end of the Apollo's conquest of Europe and then Africa engineered so remarkably by Hubbard. The Apollo had been kicked out of almost every possible (once) friendly country up and down the Atlantic coast of Europe and North Africa either by the people or government, and had long ago been banished from the Mediterranean.

Hubbard had concocted a fabulous, and patently untrue lie, called a "Shore Story" to explain the Apollo's presence in the various ports it visited. The Shore Story was that the Apollo was a management training vessel for the executives for "businesses throughout the world" and was very successful at it.

It was, in part, this shore story which got the Apollo into trouble time and time again. Soon the Apollo's very presence in a port would cause the rumors to surface quickly. By the time of the "Rock Festival", the Apollo was a pretty odd looking affair; people in grubby, oddly assorted uniforms working at all hours on the repair of the ship, other people in other odd looking uniforms running about, the ship itself with rust visible rust streaks and so on.

The most potent rumor was that it was a CIA ship attempting to overthrow the government. To be associated with the CIA was a cause of not inconsiderable problems. Portugal had recently had a revolution, then a military coup. The Communists were active on Madiera and emboldened by the feeling that the Apollo was a front for the CIA, had planned the "Rock Festival" reception when they heard the Apollo was coming to Madiera. Since Hubbard was not bound by reality, the failure of the Shore Story to explain the presence of the Apollo in the various ports did not faze him and so he doggedly insisted that everyone keep to it and into port they came.

Eventually Hubbard blamed a world-wide plot against him and the ship carried out by the CIA. (If there were a basis to the 'overt-motivator' nonsense of Hubbard's, *here* was proof! )

After the Apollo docked in Bermuda, Hubbard decided that the United States was where he wanted to be and so committed a monumental blunder that would have had him detained by US authorities. He decreed that they would do ck in the Charleston, South Carolina. This time, the rumors not only followed the Apollo, they preceded them into port.

An advance party from the Apollo had been indiscreet enough to allow US Government officials to know the Apollo was coming. The US Government officials formed a reception party in Charleston. That night, as the Apollo, out of radio contact, made its way closer to US territorial waters and an US Custom's escort, frantic efforts were made to contact the plodding Apollo. Finally a message on the radio came warning of the danger. Hubbard wanted to continue but Hubbard's wife, Mary Sue, convinced Hubbard to turn the Apollo around just before the Apollo entered the territorial waters of the United States.

This began a year of futile movements around the Caribbean. At each port, the Apollo eventually succumbed to local dissatisfaction with their Shore Story and so the Apollo would sail again for yet another destination.

Once while docked in a Caribbean port and certainly without Hubbard's permission, the Apollo Stars participated in an all-night jam session with local musicians. Away from the oppressiveness of their hemisemidemigod, reports one of the musicians involved, the music had, for one night away from Hubbard, become enjoyable.

The decline of the Apollo Stars is a metaphor for the final year of the Apollo. Advance men would arrange free concerts for the locals as part of the arrival of the Apollo into port. The official concerts deteriorated into lackluster affairs attended by bored locals. Finally the Stars were just abandoned as Hubbard reassigned the musicians to other duties.

Sometime before Hubbard was forced to abandon ship, he dispatched Sea Org(anization) members on "Source" missions to the churches around the world. Dewey eyed staff members (I know, I was one of them) listened in barely concealed wonder to the latest details of Hubbard's ("Source") life. Revelations of the most bizarre, clinically insane, behavior were greeted with slack jawed approval. If there was any proof of brainwashing this was it.

The Source missions actually reported, amongst other things, Hubbard's fetish about having to have his clothes rinsed seven times before he would wear them. (A group of normal people would have looked at one another and said, "He's wacko, bonkers, a raving loony!", and the room would have emptied out with people going to find more normal occupations and to quit bothering their fellow man with this Scientology crap.)

As things got more and more desperate, Hubbard sent a message to the US Guardian's Office head (DGUS), ordering that a land base be established as there were no places left for the Apollo to go. Hubbard said he was running out of time. The DGUS dispatched an assistant from his office in California to Florida and under the business name of Southern Land Development Corporation arranged the transfer of the Sea Org to a "Land Base".

The 'Voyage of the Damned' was over, but the on-shore migration ushered in another chapter in the sorry history of the Sea Org, for Hubbard had created another disastrous "Shore Story" which was not believed by the locals.

The Sea Org established itself as "The United Churches" and pretended to be an ecumenical organization until their cover was blown sky high by Hubbard's indiscreet appearances around their operations. The locals also could not figure out why uniformed, armed guards were protecting a church. The repercussions from these Hubbardian blunders are still being dealt with by the organization in Florida. For a long time Hubbard ordered that the patently false Shore Story be adhered to. Eventually they had to change the shore story.

*In Roman times a demigod was a lesser god. In music, an 8th note is known as a quaver. A hemisemidemiquaver is a 64th note. It stands to reason that a hemisemidemigod isn't really a god after all. It seems possible that a hemisemidemigod might just fall below the standard of human.