ARC-Break Hotel

Make a mournful noise unto the Lord. If the kingdom of heaven lies within us, the kingdom of Hell lies without. Without what? Without Woody, without Vera, without Milne, without Elvis. Hard to lie without 'em. They're the pros.

'Cept Elvis, of course. He's got troubles enough of his own. Elvis has been off-loaded -- overboarded from the Dennis Erlich bus as it passed through Florida. Oh Lord, stuck in spiritual Lodi again -- marooned in downtown Clearwater where the only vacancy is at the Quality Inn. No wonder he's singin' th' blues. While we all wait for the June 23d hearing, we might as well just hum along with The King and survey the sad state of affairs on alt.religion.scientology.

RAGGEDY ANDY

Andy Milne, that slim young Scottish executive to the Saint Hill OSA Manor born, has gone way downstat. Probably been consulting with HK on how they're gonna spin-doctor buying Dennis off. Whatever the problem, he's gotten sloppy of late. I'm sure he'll get back up to speed, soon as Aum Shinrikyo finds those subs for him. Professional courtesy, and all that.

Could be he's been hitting the niacin too hard in an attempt to recapture that rundown feeling. Just in time, Mike Phillips <Mike@mphillip.demon.co.uk>, the UK OSA rep extraordinaire according to Koos (Koos?), steps in for Andy. Narcanon works! Mike says so, and he's got the anonymous anecdotes to prove it. Nice to see a guy go to bat for a pal. Welcome Mikey. I can tell that you and Andy ARC acceptable troth. What's fidelity to the truth compared with fidelity to a bud?

Hey, Andy! Hey Mike! I've been checking the ethics manuals here in Hell, and you know what? They've got "acceptable truth" listed as a lie. Can you believe it? There it is right by "quibble" and "modified limited hang-out." What a cock-up, huh?

Boy, do we need some of you OSA management types down here. The Marcabs coming soon? The Scientologists will take some casualties, right? I hope so. We need the help. Wouldn't be hell without Hubbard-style managers. The last coup d'etat was bad enough. Hate to be bought out by Allstate.

VERA FLYING

Take off your hats. Show some respect. Vera Wallace, much beloved Scientology spokesperson, is evidently deceased in cyberspace. I'm worried about her. She never showed up at the implant station here on Pluto, yet records show she's scheduled for a "Wall of Methane" refresher (restimulated by beans 'n rice) and some gratuitous spinning and pulverizing. Was gonna do the honors myself.

Hope she didn't get shunted to the implant station on Mars. I like a good joke as much as anybody else, but those guys are too easily sucked in by the "don't throw me in the briar patch" caper. Likely she'll be reincarnated as a gay Marine DI, with a tiny ass. What kind of punishment would that be? We're not in the wish-granting business.

Clever Vera. Could it be she hasn't ended cycle at all, but still managed to get that sex-change? Rumor had it that she is Gene Ingram in drag (started it myself), but now she's backslid in gender to become "Chris Miller," a self-described "working mother..." (and could anyone who reads her postings dispute that?). Chris evidently is employed by the CoS Department of Redundancy Department -- thus we find her hilariously trying to dead-agent a law firm. In her spare time she gilds lilies and beats dead horses.

I'd do the standard doggy service for primates and sniff out "Chris Miller"for contraband pheromones, but I don't want to beat Tony Sidaway's time. Besides, Tony is trained not to be alarmed no matter _what_ he finds in Vera's panties. OTOH, "The Crying Game" gave me the vapors for a month afterward.

HOW MUCH SPAM WOULD A WOODYBOT SPAM, IF A WOODYBOT WOULD SPAM...

...spam, spam, spam, spam... "Lovely spam! wonderful spam!"

Every time you say "spam" three times in a row, those bloody Vikings start singing. So inappropriate on such a solemn occasion. Poor Woody.

Well, lucky Woody. Poor us. The Genius of Marcabian pentameter was apparently given a well-deserved R&R a few weeks ago. No more strenuous sessions trying to respond to insane wog ravings full of rationality and correct syntax. In his place, we have one anonymous pseudo-Woody who doesn't realize that, in the same way a photon is its own anti-particle, Woody is his own satire.

Worse yet, the CoS brass sent in Woody II, a Khomeini School of Broadcasting dropout, who, though he had not mentioned that he hails from South Africa, proclaimed himself to be a huge Boer. I dunno. In the doggy world, you're only big if your urine smells big. For all that Woody II described himself as a buff guy, he pissed pretty small.

Now the real Woody is back, but no longer are we treated to Woody's literary masterpieces of non sequitur. In fact, Woody has been relieved of the duty to sequitur at all -- all that the OSA brass requires of Woody now is that he write something in caps, then wonder why nobody wants to talk about it, even him. Not too tough, and the stats never did take content into account.

What's he doing with all his spare time? I like to think he's been put out to stud, working a few hours a day and spending the rest of his time romping with nubile Scientologettes to make more little Woodies. So Woody, have I evaluated the data properly? You don't think so? Hey, it's true for me.

I don't like these ersatz Woodies popping up every time the real Woody has to take a potty break. I say to OSA give us the real Woody or retire his number, OK? Send Woody II back to writing lugubriously gleeful prose about bankruptcy for the KSW newsletter. He'll fit in there. Haven't read anything like that KSW stuff since my subscription to Voelkischer Beobachter expired under mysterious circumstances.

AOL RULES!

Woody's p.o.'ed at snobs, and who can blame him? But read 'em 'n weep, cyberpunkies, the two most interesting folks on a.r.s. lately are homeboys with Cerberus on AOL. First there's WonderfulRussel Shaw extolling the tech and nevermind the damned Marcabs. Then DW (Wolf) Tripp says much the same thing while treating us all to details about David Miscavige's personal habits in language that would do henry proud.

So where do you all get off putting down our internet provider? (I'm talkin' to YOU, Sidaway!) We love Steve Case. We think AOL is a brilliant service provider created by a brilliant mind. We do everything Steve tells us, and we think anyone who criticizes him is either psychotic or a criminal. How can you claim your tech works better than our tech? Does your ISP offer chat rooms like HryMn4xDrssingGIs? Not likely. Do you know any AOLers, or do you just rely on what others tell you? How will you ever know if it works for you unless you try it yourself? As for the cost... as Wolf says, it costs what it costs. It works for us, and that's our reality. So there.

Anyway, Wolf's been carrying on like a lucid Homer Wilson Smith or Ken Long about the benefits he's derived from the souped-up soup cans, and who can say him nay? Experiments with bio-feedback show that even if you prevent your conscious mind from controlling "involuntary" body functions such as palm sweat, your subconscious mind will step in. And can it be bad to have a conversation with your own subconscious every few days? It's your personal private theater, and the wardrobe is optional -- some prefer space aliens and past lives, some saints, devils, and the trinity. Doesn't matter, so long as the drama works on your trauma. When you're lancing boils, who cares if you use a scalpel or a Buck knife?

WonderfulRuss is more reluctant to abandon LRH's space opera, but he makes the same point. It is the application of Scientology that is valuable, not the theology. Wolf and WonderfulRuss seem to admire the sanity auditing offers. Let the Sea Org and OSA play silly-bugger games with the Freezone, squirrels and critics, so long as my AOL brothers can hold the cans and sort themselves out using the tech.

Um, I suppose so. Lotta piano players in this here bordello. Nobody cares what's going on upstairs? Must have a pretty fine piano.

IMHO sanity ain't all it's cracked up to be, but it ain't bad either. Wolf... Well Wolf and Ken Long remind me of a guy I knew who was so proud of bringing down the biggest bull elk I had ever seen that he mounted the head and horns above his fireplace. I mean, you walk in the door, stomp around the mudroom a bit, enter the living room and catch hold of a tumbler of Jack Daniels -- just in time, too, 'cause there it is, by God. It's a big'un. Dead as a doornail, but so warmly adored in its setting that I wonder if the bull really minded the apotheosis. Couldn't really argue the merits of the thing under the circumstances. Would be rude, don't you think?

Wolf 'n Ken 'n the Freezoners have bagged a form of sanity, and it's a big'un. They seem happy with it. I'll drink to that. Ditto for WonderfulRuss. I think he agrees with Wolf on most things, but he'll be damned before he gives some of you the satisfaction of admitting it.

Good for him. Makes an old dog proud. Do you see stuff like Wolf's and WonderfulRuss' coming from Prodigy or Compuserve? I think not. Witness the inadequately censored Robert Marcus <102020.1551@CompuServe.COM> who can't tell his Peter from his henry. My guess is that Robert, lacking a functional equivalent, must find such abstract distinctions theoretical, and tough to boot. Yet, like a spayed mutt, he keeps humping away with whatever's left. Gotta admire that.

Don't even expect an effort even matching Robert's from Prodigy users. Poor Prodigy has to monitor posts to a.r.s. and elsewhere. Why? Because they did. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have to. Don't you just love the law?

[Everyone who understood the preceding paragraph must immediately report for duty among those assisting Jeffrey S. Harrison <Jeffrey.harrison@m.cc.utah.edu> with his law review article. Ixnay on rope, tar and feathers, as Jeff is already acting pretty hinky.

Jeff, I didn't make law review or nothin', but I would like to indicate that "Relax, I'm on your side" loses efficacy after the fourth repetition. Just a suggestion to help you get your needle floating again.

Oh, and while we're on the subject, it's not fair to count henry's posts as examples of the rabidity of anti-CoS posters. henry's execrations are a kind of Mapplethorpean art form. They're meant to be savored, not parsed. Enjoy them. You'll be the envy of your grandchildren when they come home from their "History of the Internet" classes, and you can comment knowledgeably on their homework. "Ah yes, a henry original. From his early skull-fucking period, I believe."]

ARC-BREAK HOTEL

All in all, not a bad fortnight for Woody and AOL, but otherwise grim. "The rooms are always crowded..."

Amidst all the brouhaha (Brouhaha? Ha, ha, ha...), nobody seems to regard poor Jonathan the Idiot drowning so quietly that even he doesn't seem to notice. People are still handing him stones even as he goes down for the third time. Tough love? Could be. Seems cold, though. Hope you guys know what you're doing.

Makes me a little melancholy, y'know. Hate to drink alone. Let me encourage you to join me. Stand back while Cerberus upstats his "despair and die" statistics (nothin' up m'sleeves).

Since Scientologists seem to be preternaturally preoccupied with the motives of critics, as opposed to what they actually say (cuts down on the cognitive dissonance, don't you know), I'd better come clean first. I may have mentioned that my position here in Hades is grandfathered in from the previous administration, so while I am _de_jure_ a foot soldier in the campaign to spread despondency among the living, _de_facto_ is that I don't have a quota of evil to disseminate. IOW, I don't have to do this. I'm doin' it just fer fun. Ready?

Consider that if Scientology survives this crisis (and I think it will), and if you have the foresight to obtain the best, most sophisticated education for your children, one of them will eventually conduct a raid upon the parental goat by inserting something similar to this conversational stiletto under your fifth rib, "You know, Dad. Holy books. Books like the Vedas, Enuma Elish, the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Dianetics..."

In that brief moment your cruel child will pry open your third eye to give you an irrefutable glimpse of the inevitable future that you are powerless to change. Cassandra's vision must have been wide indeed, spanning past and future. You will descry a time when your child's catalogue of wisdom will be uttered without a snicker (not one!) -- but you observe that future time from a vantage point 1600 years in the past when a rabbi first noticed that his son (also a rabbi) had a copy of the New Testament in his library.

Bummer, huh? Thank you.

Now that I've finished Hell's version of book 'n bottle drills (thank you), let's chat. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but there is hope. In fact, hope has been piling up around the gates of Tartarus -- abandoned, I suppose, per regulations. I'd snarf it up, but such things give me gas. Besides, no one, including cadre, is allowed to bring hope on the premises, even partially digested. You think Scientology has a wicked purification rundown? You should see ours. God. I don't even want to think about it.

So if you don't mind, I'll just leave it here for anyone who feels peckish after that last workout. If DW Tripp and Ken Long (and maybe even WonderfulRuss) have their way, it may be that your innocently-sadistic son or daughter will taunt you only with, "You know, Mom. Things like alchemy, astrology, Christian Science, phrenology, dianetics...."

Ah. Now some of you feel better, some worse. Those of you who feel better don't feel as good as you did. Who says the old dog's lost his touch? "Let fall thy edgeless sword..." Have a brew.

Cerberus ___________________

Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.


                                           Richard III, Act I, Scene 2
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