CZM Rewind: Part Two: The Last Days of L. Ron Hubbard

Robert is joined again by Michael Swaim and Abe Epperson to continue to discuss the end of L. Ron Hubbard's life. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey everyone, Robert Evans here. It has been quite a summer.
We've had two political conventions and I am just drained.
So again, we are taking a week off and running
a rerun this week. We do that occasionally because everyone
deserves time off, including every now and then me. I

(00:24):
did want to note this is an old episode on
the Latter Days of l Ron Hubbard, one of our
beloved podcast subjects, with Michael Swain and Abe Eperson, two
of my old friends from Cracked dot com. They both
have a podcast network called small Beans, which you can
back on Patreon and you can find whoever podcasts are.

(00:45):
And I also wanted to note and plug my friend
Michael's novel The Climb. It's an epic fantasy memoir with
some you know, magic realism elements to it. You can
google The Climb Michael Swain Patreon. You can also look
up The Climb wherever books are sold. I'm seeing it
right now on the Barnes and Noble website. There's a

(01:06):
bunch of other places that you can find The Climb,
So check out The Climb. Michael Swain just typed that
into Google. And here's the end of l Ron Hubbard
what again, l ronning my Hubbard's It's part two Hubbard's

(01:28):
Death episode, my guests, as with last time, Abe Epperson,
Michael Swain, none of you will have noticed the joke
in that, but I pointed to the wrong person. It
did not translate visually hilarious. Another thing that's not going
to translate visually is me getting ready the next product
I'm going to throw during this episode, and tired of
the bagels.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
So Robert took out his big knife and I'm stabbing
a plastic of a many many Kleenex boxes.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
He pulled on off.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I'm going to be throwing clean X boxes. I'm gonna
throw the first one.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
I went to the window right between.

Speaker 5 (01:59):
Us, right between the windows and to the walls. Yeah,
and if you know the rest of that song, you
know why we need so much clean ax. Yeah, we
got a ten pack. Is a ten pack of throwing.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
It is a lot of clean That is a lot
of clean Ex.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
We'll throw all of them by the end of this episode.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
I thought you were gonna pop open one of those
bad boys and throw individual Kleenex. But that's not as impact.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
That does not have the impact of throwing a whole
box of clean.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
Is it important to you that the box be filled
with Kleenex? There could have just be a box with
a similar weight.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
I think I'm just gonna throw a lot of stuff
over the course of the rest of my career.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
Understood.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
I like I like tossing.

Speaker 6 (02:32):
I like throwing.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
M hmm, both good things, both fun.

Speaker 5 (02:35):
Get some salads in here for you, I would love
to toss them.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Hello everyone on their early morning comute.

Speaker 5 (02:43):
Welcome the Robert and the pig and the other pig.
It's your drive times.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
You know what I hate? Drive times?

Speaker 6 (02:50):
You?

Speaker 3 (02:52):
Yeah, that was a good one. Sophie.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Who cleans up in here?

Speaker 5 (02:57):
Is it me?

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Oh? It's you, it's Sophie. Well, just got a said.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
We've already established the joke. So this is going to
keep happening, and there's no way to stop it.

Speaker 6 (03:07):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
I can't over exaggerate your lack of enthusiasms.

Speaker 5 (03:11):
So far, you pick pretty easy things to clean up.
When it evolves to throwing confetti, I'm just.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Gonna throw ornaments, shatter them against the walls.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Just pushlas everything, push pins everywhere, push pins like a
home alone that you.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Bullets, just whatever, Just bullets.

Speaker 5 (03:31):
It's just I think someone who's barefoot so much of
the time wouldn't want to scatter pointy things around the ground.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
But okay, no, let's gout those councils.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
It's fine, it's fine. You know what else is fine?

Speaker 6 (03:43):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Ron Hubbard's career.

Speaker 5 (03:44):
I disagree.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
I can't wait, it's just fine.

Speaker 5 (03:48):
I might agree with that by the end. Oh, of
course it's fine.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I mean, now, a, you do quite a lot of
directing on your own, so I think you might pick
up some tips and.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
I'm gonna learn my next set. Oh, it's going to
be bad, because this is a master class.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
This is a master class. Right now, Everyone who listens
to this episode will be qualified to direct a Hollywood production. Yes,
it just takes this much on film scene on Hubbard
Poe school by behind the Vest.

Speaker 5 (04:13):
It really does only take that much if you also
have millions, literally infinite money. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
Now, life on the run is not good for anyone's health.
Despite his vast wealth and the opulent surroundings of the
Lakita Ranch where he hid out in southern California, by
early nineteen seventy seven, Hubbard's lifestyle was catching up with
him again. Anne Rosenbloom, who trained to be a messenger
during this period, was horrified by his appearance when she
first met him. Quote the first night I was there,
I didn't talk to LRH since he was busy, but
I saw him. He had long, reddish gray hair down

(04:42):
past his shoulders, rotting teeth, and a really fat gut.
He didn't look anything like his pictures. The next day
I met him, he was doing exercises in his courtyard
and called me over. I was nervous meeting him. I
was really surprised that I didn't feel this electric something
or other that I was told happens when you are
around him. So these were in the last days before
the FBI dragonet close down around Mary Sue Hubbard and
all of el Ron's people with the Guardian's Office, and

(05:04):
Mary Sue became extra protective of her husband during this period.
Her dogs, which were said to be clear, guarded him
at all times. If they barked at you, it was
a sign that you were secretly committing crimes against the Hubbards,
or had done so in a past line.

Speaker 5 (05:15):
Oh, that's not going to stoke his paranoia. Anytime the
dog barks, that mailman is an agent who opposes the church.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
What happens when the dog barks at him?

Speaker 5 (05:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Or oh shit, I don't think the dogs stare around
if they bark at him.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, they just have new dogs on deck.

Speaker 5 (05:33):
That dog toy is a suppressive person who knew now.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Elron continued to innovate his tech during this period. His
main interest was the purification run down, which he viewed
as a cure for drug addiction. This was an evolution
of Hubbard's GUK vitamin treatment, which we talked about during
the first three parter. Today, the purification rundown is a
popular scientology treatment that involves massive doses of vitamins and
a sweat lodge. In Oklahoma, it killed four people over
the course of three years. Hubbard developed this treatment based

(05:59):
on what he believed with the effects of LSD on
the body. According to Jim Kalki, one of Helberd's longtime helpers, quote,
all the information came from one person who had taken
LSD once. That was how he did his research.

Speaker 5 (06:12):
It's pretty chill, dude, all right, it's going on.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
This is my ship right here.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
Honestly, it was good.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Now, Hulbard became convinced that the purification Rundown was going
to cure all of the world's drug addictions. He decided
this achievement had clearly earned him a Nobel Prize, and
he wrote it an order to his pr officer, authorizing
the expenditure of unlimited funds to win him the Nobel Prize.
He so clearly deserved this. He didn't. He didn't get
a Nobel Oh. Really, it turns out it's kind of
hard to bribe this guys.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
I can't say that it's canon.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
I do think, you know, if the listeners of this
podcast want to get me a Nobel Prize, I will
do drugs off of it.

Speaker 5 (06:51):
That's what I would you rather get a Nobel Prize
for stopping all drug use you personally, or just have
listeners send you some drugs?

Speaker 7 (07:00):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (07:00):
I would I would rather get the Nobel Prize. I've
got a blacksmith, So I'd take the Noble Price to
my blacksmith and have it forged into a crack pipe
and begin smoking pipe.

Speaker 5 (07:10):
Yeah, you know that, except if.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
You want to see me throwing some stuff, you'd give
me some crack and a Nobel Peace pipe as well.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
I think the Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
And you know where that cash prize is all going
to be spent, Yeah, under a bridge, filling up that pipe.

Speaker 5 (07:27):
Then you're going to get shived for your golden pipe.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
So that's gone. Yeah, that's what happens under bridges.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
It's not going to be great now. Hubbard transferred from
Lakinta to hide out in Sparks, Nevada. After the FBI
crashed down on operations snow White. All contact with the
Guardian's Office and the Hubbard family was suspended, and l
RH relied on his child messengers to deliver his words
to and from church leadership. On May nineteen seventy seven,

(07:56):
Star Wars launched to a world of unsuspecting moviegoers.

Speaker 5 (07:59):
Here.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
It made conservatively all the money and changed both Hollywood
and the world forever.

Speaker 7 (08:05):
Now.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
I don't know if l Ron Hubbard ever actually saw
Star Wars. I kind of doubt it because he was
a horrible narcissist who probably never read or watched anyone
else's science fiction. But it's possible.

Speaker 5 (08:16):
I know he read a lot of Harlan Ellison, who's
my favorite sci fi. He definitely yeah, like personal friends,
and I guess you know, you feel the guilt or
like you have to.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
But you imagine the one person who could get along
with l Ron Hubbard. Of course, it's Harlan Ellison.

Speaker 5 (08:29):
It's just weird that if you he seems to really
like sci fi.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, he resist, it's hard to like. I don't know
if he ever saw it, but he definitely paid attention
to its financial success. From July to December of nineteen
seventy seven, while hiding out in Sparks, Nevada, he worked
feverishly on the screenplay for a feature film, Revolt in
the Stars. This was a dramatization of one.

Speaker 5 (08:53):
Of those star wars.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah it's a war that does occur in the stars, Yeah,
star wars. Yeah, it's star war, if you will. This
was a dramatization of one of the highest level scientology
training courses, the O T three Information or Operating Thetans.

Speaker 5 (09:06):
I'm gonna give that away. You have to pay one
hundred grand for that.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
There's actually some weird stuff regarding that, which we'll get
to here. So the rough plot was that an evil
space dictator Xenu, murdered seventy six planets worth of aliens
sucked in their frozen ghasts to Earth and blew them
up with nuclear bombs, strapped a volcanoes.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Ghosts.

Speaker 5 (09:24):
Ghosts are water vapor, and they all have swords.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
You can freeze a ghost lodged. Oh my god, I
just figured out how we can solve global warming. All right.
People least likely to believe in global warming are also
probably going to be the most superstitious people in the country.
So I'm gonna guess global warming deniers also have a
high tendency to believe the magical thinking to convince them
that if the ice caps melt, all of the ghosts

(09:53):
will be freed. I think we have a plan here.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Then we got a problem, and then we got a plan,
and we.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Got a probably got to cool down the world to
keep the ghost a ghost.

Speaker 5 (10:01):
Dictators need to never stop doing whatever drug they did
as a child, right, And there are ghosts in the
North Pole, the coasts.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
In the North Pole, and they will kill us if
we don't freeze them.

Speaker 5 (10:11):
These are the myths of our time that we need
to embrace that will help us.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
It's like that I saw a post where someone, some
anti vaxxer was talking about how you can actually make
vaccine safe if you rub a potato on the vaccine
injection site, and it's like, yeah, okay, just tell them that, yeah,
vaccinate your kids and rub him with the potato.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
Just release all of Dan Ackroyd's books. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
Ten years later, the Potato flew decimates the population of
North America.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Hot Potatoes.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
That will be the last Fox News chyn before everyone dies.

Speaker 5 (10:46):
Potatoes are too hot potato and the round is over.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Oh boy, potatos ghost.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Now, if you paid attention to anything I've said about
Alon Hubbard over the last five hours or so of
podcasts about the fucker, you know that he's literally in
able of giving up on any single idea he ever had. Now,
y'all remember Excalibur, the book Hubbard claimed to have written
in nineteen thirty eight that he said was so profound
it caused people to commit suicide. And after reading it, yeah,
locked away.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
From how I know the words his caliber from is that.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
Well, yeah, it's like the Moni python, the funniest joke
that you can't see.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
But with psychology, Yeah, yeah, philosophy the second.

Speaker 5 (11:22):
You go mad right as you love? Would that be good?
That's not a feather in your cap. You're like, this
guy read my book and committed suicide. Right after. I
think that means it's super good.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
I kind of want that comic Con panel we have today,
George RR. Martin and the guy who wrote the book
that makes everyone.

Speaker 5 (11:39):
Kill themselves, My name is l.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Forty years after his claims about Excalibur started, Hubbard made
the same claims about the OT three course materials. Scientologists
weren't exposed to the Xenu story until they were several
years and thousands of dollars into the religion already. That's because,
according to Hubbard, learning the story of zene it would
cause death in a matter of days. According to Tony Ortega,
a former scientologist who's now an activist against the church, quote,

(12:06):
if we follow his logic, his intention in writing it
was to produce a film that, if shown to the world,
would kill off all the non OT three part of
the population.

Speaker 8 (12:14):
Oh man, the biblical flood. Yeah, for everyone who's not
hasn't paid me enough money to be at this level.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
He's gonna make a movie to kill everybody.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
He's gonna make a fucking passion of the wrong.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
I'm firmly convinced, and of course there's no way to
prove that. At every step, a large chunk of him
knows that, and it's probably the thing's most proud of.
Ye look at how I built a billion dollar empire
on nothing.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
I'm not proud of that.

Speaker 5 (12:42):
So I don't think he wrote it thinking this will
kill everything. But it's still every detail of his life
is better if you assume he believed his own it is.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
I think he started to at a certain point.

Speaker 5 (12:54):
You don't know how you don't mix it up.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah, you don't make the kids search for gold for
months on on, like cramped sailing vessels, if you don't
really believe they might find some some.

Speaker 5 (13:05):
Of the paranoid shit he did, You're like, well, that's
not fabricated. He's really grappling with paranoia.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, he's definitely paranoid.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
I imagine like little l Ron, Little Ron, Yeah, like
going to the ice cream truck and like say, saying
to the guys selling the ice cream, like you know
that popsicles are ghosts, and he goes really, yeah, he's like,
oh my god, that worked.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
I know what my life is.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Oh god. I do like to think about, like what
would happen if this movie was made and did what
Hubbard said it would do, and like everyone who watched
it killed themselves because I have conversations with your friends
would be like, you know, there's that new movie that
makes everybody kill themselves. You want to go see? Well, yeah,
I kind of do you kind of like I love life.

Speaker 5 (13:48):
But also I have the AMC movie past I got
to use it on something, use it on something, and
I am dying to know the details anymore.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
And yeah, watch them.

Speaker 5 (13:59):
Also, what a weird experience if you came into the
room late and everyone is dead, but there's one person
and you're like, ew, you're a ot three in scientology.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
I did not know that, And they're like, I know. So.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Another thing that Ortega notes in his article about Revolt
in the Stars is that John Travolta is still to
this day expressing a desire to make the movie into
a major Hollywood production, which may mean that John Travolta
secretly wants to commit mass planetary genocide.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yes, at the very least he knows that thing.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, the idea that John Travolta is trying to wipe
out all life on Earth that's not scientology is now
my favorite conspiracy theory.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
Right. Yeah, I also believe that now, probably thanks to
the popularity of this podcast. Some group of nerds who
I will love forever forever will find this and shoot
it on their phones and send it to us.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Shoot Bastard's pants. Yeah, please make the movie that kills.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Everything, which is basically he just thought of The Ring. Yeah,
the Ring, but for everyone, for everyone.

Speaker 5 (15:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
And just as as sort of future payment to whoever
does shoot Revolt in the Stars, I'm gonna throw another
box of cleaners, right yeah, mazzle.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
To number three.

Speaker 5 (15:11):
That's a scientology thing, right yep?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
I think so? Uh or take it. Apparently read through
the script for a Volt among the Stars, which I
think you can find if you really look for it,
and he summed up its plot this way. Quote and
the script Hubbard wrote for the movie. The character rawl,
clearly based on Hubbard himself, takes on the might of
various two dimensional characters with single syllable names Chi and
men who have wandered out of an episode of Flash Gordon.
The screenplay apparently ends on these lines, as the evil

(15:36):
Zenu is strapped into a prison inside of one of
the volcanoes he previously bombed to murder space ghosts, wetting
his dry cracked lips Xenu looked up at the doctor,
some terror showing in his glazed eyes. These devices keep
one alive forever. Don't talk, snapped the doctor. A guard
stepped forward. Don't talk to the prisoner. Despairing, Xenu rolled
his eyes. How long is forever? No one answered? No

(15:58):
one knew.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Well, yeah, what what?

Speaker 5 (16:03):
What the fuck you talking about?

Speaker 1 (16:06):
I mean, it sounds like I've been to film school,
and there's quite a bit of scripts that are suspicious
of this type of varriety.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
By the way, when your movie Revolts among the Stars
comes out, everyone's going to refer to it as rats.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
So good luck with that now. Hubbard's dream was to
make the movie himself and add George Lucas to his
list of accomplishments, alongside aviation pioneer, treasure hunter, profit and
surprisingly good at sex. This gradually expanded into a desire
to add a whole film production wing to the Church
of Scientology. The Sena Org, a ten acre ranch around Lakina,

(16:41):
was purchased, code named Monroe, and turned into housing for
the production staff for l Ron Hubbard's new film company,
Slash Cult. The studio was built on a one hundred
and forty acre grapefruit farm that the church also purchased.

Speaker 5 (16:53):
How do you give notes when you're in a cl
like if everyone acting in it and producing it is
on set.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
There are no notes. Yeah, you do what he tells you.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
This.

Speaker 5 (17:02):
I usually think the set's a little, uh, a little
gaudy right now. That's suppressive, dude, that's suppressive.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
Moody kills everyone though, Like does the screenplay just like
paralyze them or is it the like what stage does
the magic like kill yourself?

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Well, all of these people are OT three so they
can hear it, so they can.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Do whatever there.

Speaker 5 (17:21):
I bet his plan was to do the opposite, let
the movie come out, no one dies, and then say see,
you're all scientologists.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
You don't even know it, and you got to pay
forty I see.

Speaker 7 (17:33):
Now.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, so they buy several different giant ranches to add
to the already giant ranch and turn into a film
production studio. Now, according to the book, Bear Face, Messiah, quote, lights,
Dolly's cameras, and a vast range of technical equipment were
all moved into the new studio. Hubbard took to wearing
a cowboy hat, suspenders in a bandana, which he imagined
gave him an artistic me in appropriate to a film director.

(17:56):
The sene Org was to cut its teeth, making simple
promotional films illustratingvarious situations in which Scientology could be used beneficially.
Hubbard wrote all the scripts and knew exactly what he wanted.

Speaker 5 (18:05):
Constantly biting into a raw grapefruit, he just care, is
it all that.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Thompson right now?

Speaker 2 (18:14):
He is Hunter would be shooting at people, would have
a people, Yeah, but he's he's using cameras. So Hubbard
knew what he wanted, but found out that it was
it's really hard to make movies like this is kind
of a difficult thing to do, and so uh, his
first productions did not all go well. Now, some of
this had to do with the fact that the random
assortment of people who'd found the Church of Scientology compelling

(18:36):
did not all possess the incredibly specific technical know how
necessary to make films. Now, I want to note that
this had been true of l Ron Hubbard's Navy too,
and they'd sort of faked it until they'd made it.
But it turns out that the same strategy does not
work with movie making. Thus, answering forever the age old question,
is it harder to captain a boat or man of
boom mic? Harder to man of boom mic? Apparently easier

(18:59):
to get random people to be part of a navy.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
Well, there's no because you can drop depth charges and
say you hit something, and that's fine. When you're shooting
a movie, if you don't get the scene, it's not
it's just.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Listen to it and say, uh, this is shitty sound.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
So the church put out a call to any members
of the faith who had even vaguely relevant experience in
the film industry. The best they could do was Adele
and Ernie Hartwell, championship ballroom dancers who had taken a
few courses and were told that the Senate Org would
be their path into the scientology elite. They were not
impressed upon their arrival to the Cina Org. Ernie later recalled,
I was absolutely shocked to see everyone running around in shorts,

(19:37):
ragged clothes, dirty and unkempt. They put us in a
little three room shack on the edge of the ranch.
We go inside and what a mess. The place was
overrun with bugs and insects. Adele said, quote. The main
thing I disliked was that When we first got there,
we were programmed on the lies we had to tell.
If we ran into one of our friends, we had
to tell a lie to them and say that we
were just there for a vacation. We were schooled on
how to get away from process servers, FBI agents, and

(19:58):
any government officials or any police, anyone anything to do
with Ubbard. Welcome to our production company. Here's what you
say to the FBI.

Speaker 5 (20:05):
I bet just that being in California, there's a fair
chance some of these people probably would have gone to
film school if they weren't broke from spending all their
money on the Church of Scientology.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
And they came from everywhere though. Sure he just moved
them to like you just had to go wherever you be.

Speaker 5 (20:22):
But they have all the money. Send some people to
film school if.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, what great voices were squashed out by al Ron
Hubbard's movie making an interprese?

Speaker 5 (20:31):
Hey, I want to see these cult people's movie.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
I do desperately want to see these cult people's movies.
You know what else I want to see or at
least listen to the fine products and services that have
advertised on our show and or program.

Speaker 5 (20:43):
Oh I love those I want to see them.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
But kind of fingers crossed.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
I'll just close my eyes and imagine.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, our ads are randomly generated a lot of the time,
so it is possible the Church of Scientology will advertise.
If so, I'm actually fine with that if they advertise
on this episode totally now I'm not.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
I'm okay with it.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
I don't know if listening through all this an ad
for the Church of Scientology makes you decide you know what, Yes.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
This is true of me.

Speaker 5 (21:11):
You clicked on this and you're like, but the ad
really resonated.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, all right, products we're back and Sophie is actually
leaving the room. She's about to open the door, which
is bad for sound quality but good for what I
like to call cinema verite, a term I invented for podcasts.

Speaker 5 (21:33):
Being true, we're really peeling back the podcasting curtain.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, because that term I didn't the term loosely affiliated
with podcasts.

Speaker 5 (21:43):
Yeah, hence the word cinema and the curtain. Well, you know,
the main goal when you make a podcast is to
uh just broadcast to everyone else that yes, you should
also have a podcast.

Speaker 2 (21:55):
You should have a podcast.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
I'll rest till every there's as many podcasts as there
are people.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
I want there to be twice as many podcasts as people,
and until there are, I will continue to throw.

Speaker 5 (22:03):
Clean I laughed, but it hit me in the throat.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
Well, you know what they say about throats, Michael Products
and Services, it's the laziest part of the body.

Speaker 5 (22:15):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
All right, we're back.

Speaker 5 (22:18):
Well there's parastalsis, But.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
So l Ron Hubbard, a tour director, was still desperately
afraid of being brought in by a surprise police rate.
A souped up dodged dart with a full tank of
gas was kept on stand by twenty four to seven
outside of his production facility.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
He just fucking run car.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
The director has a like, I feel like everything you
said so far is applicable only to l Ron Hubbard
or Roman Polanski.

Speaker 5 (22:42):
Every day put a Philly cheese steak on the dashboard
and replace it the next day. I might have to go.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Said, He's like, it occurs to me that we should
just have a table of disguises.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
They literally did. All right, all right now, I don't
know if any of y'all are aware of this, but
AU tour directors are not known to be mentally healthy people.
At the best of times, oh Ron Hubbard might have
given a guy like Stanley Kubrick a run for his
money in the crazy pants category.

Speaker 5 (23:10):
Dalley Kubrick finished movies.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
He did finish movies.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Adele first met Hubbard when she was working in the
wardrobe department and heard him start to scream in a
group of his underlings. Quote this is a quote Hubbard directings,
Oh Hea, you dirty, goddamn sons of bitches. You're so
goddamn stupid. Fuck you, you cocksuckers. It seemed to go on
for several minutes. I had something in my hand and
it fell to the floor. I said, who in the
world is that? They said it was the Boss. We
weren't allowed to use the name Hubbard for security reasons.

(23:35):
You mean the leader of the church speaks like that,
I asked, Oh, yes, was the reply. He doesn't believe
in keeping anything back.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, this is straight out of the book of a
usc School cinematic Arts.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Actually, goddamn sons of bitches. Adele's first big job was
makeup assistant on a Hubbard flip called The Unfathomable Man.
It was a modest project covering the entire history of
the human race from the beginning of time to the
modern era through the eyes of al Ron Hubbard.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
I'm sorry, this is a great you can't even think
of it. What's the first thing you think? Well, he's
a man.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Well I can think of a man, not this guy.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Adele's recollections make it sound rather surprisingly like a Sam
Raimi flick quote. Did he ever like those films to
be bloody? It was enough to make you sick. We'd
be shooting a scene and all of a sudden he'd yell, stop,
make it more gory. We'd go running out on the
set and with all this carrow syrup and food coloring,
and we'd just dump it all over the actors. Then
we'd folm some more and he'd stop, stop it again
and say it's still not gory enough. Then we'd throw

(24:34):
more blood on them.

Speaker 5 (24:35):
Well, he's competing with the Bible, so he's kind of matches.
Every religion needs to match a certain level of gore
just to keep our interest.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Just imagine men at him at monitor and when they
nail like how much blood.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
He's just yes, this will bring scientology to the masses.

Speaker 5 (24:52):
Okay, now pour some blood on me. Okay, now we
can continue get the disguises.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
The movie included a scene where an FBI office was bombed.
This was understandably al Ron Hubbard's favorite part.

Speaker 5 (25:04):
He jerked off scene, and I imagine he grew a
little over enthusiastic and had so much blood dumped on
his actors that their clothing stuck to their bodies and
had to be cut off by the wardrobe people.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Hubbard made up for his general lack of knowledge of
how to make movies by being an incredibly persnickety asshole.
According to bare Face Messiah quote, when the sene Org
was shooting in the studio, all the sets had to
be cleaned and scrubbed with special soap every morning before
Hubbard arrived, and the messengers would go round with white
gloves to assure it had been done properly. Hubbard had
a director's chair that no one else was allowed to
sit in, and as he was walking around the set,

(25:35):
a messenger would follow close behind him, ready to put
the chair underneath him if he chose to sit down.
One unfortunate girl got the positioning wrong by a few
min inches, and as the commodore sat down.

Speaker 6 (25:45):
Chair.

Speaker 5 (25:47):
Slapstick comedy until you learn that like she was swiftly beaten.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, she was put in scientology's prison. Yeah horse, Yeah,
it's real. She was tortured.

Speaker 6 (25:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
You know, well it's worth it if the work stands
up to the test. That's why we have an Academy
Award for cleanest set. That's very key to filmmak Wait
is it really now? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (26:11):
And all the specs is a Nobel Peace Prize material.

Speaker 5 (26:15):
But I love that he's like, you know, directing a movie.
You keep the set clean, you place the chairs correctly.
You have a lot of blood movies now.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
The numerous stories that Hubbard tried to film all had
grand narratives, usually starting at the very beginning of galactic history.
One film, The Problems of Life, was about a young
couple who felt their existence lacked meaning. They asked for
advice from a psychiatrist who was played as a violently
insane person. The next asked help from a scientist who
is also violently insane. Then they found a scientologist who
was a perfect being of pure contentment. Cama Douglas, an

(26:48):
artist and scientologist who spent time with Hubbard during this period,
noted quote. The trouble was that he wanted to make
movies that would take over Hollywood, but they were terrible,
really terrible. The crew would have to do scenes over
and over again before he was satisfied. Occasionally the day
would end up with a fine well done everyone, but
more often there were tantrums and he'd storm off the
set screaming that it had better be right tomorrow, Hubbard.

Speaker 1 (27:10):
Fix it, fix it for more beatings for you all.

Speaker 5 (27:15):
I've got to go have sex, surprising. It's better be
a movie when I get back.

Speaker 2 (27:23):
All the while, as all Ron Hubbard painstakingly acquired roughly
the amount of expertise one would receive in the first
semester of film school, he was raising money to make
Revolt in the Stars a reality.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
He succeeded in.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Putting together millions of dollars to make the film and
funneled it through a production company called a Brilliant Film Company. Tragically,
Hubbard was as bad at running a production company as
he was at everything that wasn't infiltrating the federal government.
A Brilliant Film Company went bankrupt, and Revolt in the
Stars was never more than a few costumes in an
unbelievably bad screenplay.

Speaker 5 (27:51):
I'd still pay a lot to see those I would.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Costumes. Someone's got those costumes.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Someone's got They are like religious art, like article facts.

Speaker 5 (28:00):
Now, right, there's a church of scientology where there's a
case like you'd see a dark light. Yeah, like it's
that thing we never made.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
There's and they all still have the blood on him,
and it's still unsure of whether or not it's the
fake blood or the real blood from the beatings.

Speaker 5 (28:14):
From and when they cut them out of the clothes, yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
Ib them.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, you know, there were some scissors accidents that In
late nineteen seventy eight, a few days after Mary Sue
Hubbard and ten other top scientologists were indicted for their
rampant crimes, I'll Run, Hubbard collapsed while filming a very
stupid movie in one hundred and twenty degree heat. He recovered,
but it had become abundantly clear to everyone that the
ranch in southern California and the strenuous life of an
autour film director were not suited for the ailing old man.

Speaker 5 (28:39):
Now.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
During this time, I'll Run, Hubbard continued to receive regular
auditing sessions. His auditor was a fellow named Mayo, and
Mayo grew increasingly unsettled about the revelations he received from
the great profit of Scientology as he recovered from heatstroke.
Quote from Mayo. He revealed things about himself in his
past which absolutely contradicted what we'd been told about him.
He wasn't taking any great risk because I was a loyal,
entrusted subject and had a duty to keep such things confidential.

(29:01):
It wasn't just what I discovered about his past. I
didn't care where he was born or what he had
done in the war. It didn't mean a thing to me.
I wasn't a loyal Scientologist because he had an illustrious
war record. What worried me is that when I saw
things he did and heard statements he made that showed
his intentions were different from what they appeared to be
When I was with him. Messengers often arrived with suitcases
full of money wadds of one hundred dollar bills, Yet
he had always said and written that he never received

(29:22):
a penny from Scientology, who had asked to see it.
The messenger had opened the case, and he'd gloat over
it for a bit before it was put away in
a safe in his bedroom. He didn't really spend much.
I guess it was getaway money. I didn't mind the
idea of him having money or being rich. I thought
he had done tremendous wonders and should be well paid
for it. But why did he have to lie about it?
I slowly began to realize that he wasn't acting for
the public good or for the benefit of mankind. It

(29:43):
might have started out like that, but it was no longer.
So one day we were all talking about the price
of gold or something like that, and he said to me,
very emphatically that he was obsessed by an insatiable lust
for money and power. I'll never forget it. Those were
his exact words, an insatiable lust for money and power.

Speaker 5 (29:59):
I love Jesus.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (30:04):
Also, because if you're at that level where you're hit
the boss's auditor, you must have already been exposed repeatedly
to the fact that the purpose of auditing is not
to keep it confidential. The purpose of auditing is to
have dirt on people. I don't know how this guy
didn't walk away with a portion of the gold, is
what I'm getting.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, he may.

Speaker 5 (30:24):
Hey, guess what, Boss, I have a recording now, you idiot,
you're dying the old idiot.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
I think the guy you put in that job. Is
the guy you know is never going to betray you?

Speaker 7 (30:35):
Right?

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yeah, he didn't while Hubbard was alive. Eventually it seems
like he came clear.

Speaker 5 (30:40):
I'm sure it was a process so all the pieces
didn't align. But hearing this quote now, you're like, if
you felt this way, then you could have walked away
with a chunk of that gold, probably one of.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Those suitcases of dirty hundred dollar bills.

Speaker 5 (30:53):
Because if there's anything Hubbard's going to respond to, it's blackmail.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
Yeah. Yeah. After a couple months of convalescence, Hubbard was
healthy enough to get back to directing movies. Naturally, he
made his auditor an actor quote he walked around with
an electric bullhorn, yelling orders through it, even if the
person was only a few feet away. The crew were
in a constant state of fear. He'd say he wanted
a certain set built and describe it. Everyone would work
in a frenzied state to get it done, often through

(31:17):
the night, not stopping from meals and praying it would
be right and that they would not get into trouble.
When he arrived to begin shooting the he invariably decided
he didn't like it. It had been altered. He wanted
it blue, not green. Some of the crew would be
sent to RPF Scientology prison and others would be sent
running around trying to find some blue paint. Then he'd
want to know why it was blue and not yellow.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
Have you seen the Star Wars documentary, Yes, Empire Dreams
where he can't pronounce his own gungans, gungans, gungans. George,
you wrote this, Yeah, I like poetry rhymes.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
There's a weird synergy in the fact. Did you hear
about the plot? Lucas released details of the plot he
was gonna do if he had done seven, eight and nine,
and it involved tiny creatures that live in your blood
called the Wills.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
He loves tiny creatures living in your books.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
It's THETNS.

Speaker 5 (32:10):
Dude, you were like, they are the same Lucas Now
that he is officially I guess traded Star Wars to
quote white slavers.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Not totally inaccurate.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
It doesn't mean that one of them is on the
right side.

Speaker 5 (32:26):
Yeah, think for the good of everyone, he may as
well buckle down and make a revolt among the stars. Oh,
I think Lucas is the man to do it.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
He is, He's the only man to do it. He's
the only man to finally make Revolt among the Stars reality.
I'm holding Chekhov's Kleenox box and illustrate another point about filmmaking,
which is that you should always throw Kleenex at the walls.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, it's like, uh yeah, it's like a bullhorn.

Speaker 5 (32:52):
As Chekhov's tools go. That one didn't like stretch the
tension out.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
But sure it did not. It did not. I didn't
go to film school.

Speaker 5 (32:58):
Yeah, don't let that stop you.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah, I tell you exactly.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
I just we got five more of these Kleenexes that
I got a toss, and I'm starting to realize I
may not have that much anger. So some of some
of these tosses are going to be less impactful than Sorry,
just where we are right now, can't not toss them.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
They can be sad Kleenics.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Tossing boxes, sad Kleenex. All right, let's get back to
the thing. Here's Mayo again, talking about Elon Hubbard is
a director and being an actor under him. Quote. When
I was tiring to be an actor, I'd have to
do the same line over and over again. It was
never right. It was too loud, too quiet, too intense,
not intense enough. Then he'd scream, why aren't you doing
it enthusiastically. He'd end up stamping off, screaming that it

(33:38):
was all impossible and that no one would do what
he said. One of the main reasons why he got sick,
I think was that he had so many failures and
so much frustration and upset over the movies. Everyone was
tiptoeing around waiting for explosions.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
So yeah, because this man is someone who just tells
people how he wants the world to be and it
just happens. And in filmmaking they have to like create
it for themselves.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
They have to act.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
It's the one thing like he gets through his whole
life doing that basically right, and it works with his
private navy, but it can't work with filmmaking.

Speaker 5 (34:07):
You just can't force the audience to think the movie's entertaining.
You have to make an entertaining movie.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, yeah, Nor can you get the thing that's in
your head absolutely perfect every time.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Like by every performer.

Speaker 5 (34:20):
So so, but also as an actor, I mean, come
off in Mayo, I had to say the line a
bunch of times. That's that's the process of acting for films.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
You get the feeling though that it was like literally
for days at a time sometimes and it was like
he would just say more enthusiastically, lesson, like he doesn't
know how to direct you, Like he's not sitting down,
like like only walk you through your motivation here. You
have to understand why it's wrong. He was just shouting no,
it's not right.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
For well all example, a very basic rule of directing
is it's widely frowned upon to just say do this emotion. Yeah,
that's the most basic directory.

Speaker 6 (34:54):
Right right.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I also love that notes.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
His notes are basically go in a direction, go in
the opposite director, like these ambiguous definitions of what he wants.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
That sounds real clear to me. That sounds like a
guy with vision.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
If only he had been a YouTube personality and just
said fuck it, I will be all the parts and
I will shoot this if.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
He would be a huge hit on YouTube. If he
were alive and younger today, for sure that that would
be he would own that place.

Speaker 5 (35:22):
He would be one of those channels you end up
on one you're three clicks away from a decent, good.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
God sharing video, and he would be convincing. Watch I'm
just gonna guess here, convincing millions that the Holocaust didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, you see that kind of cultism and tribalism and
like twitch streamers and stuff.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
It's pretty Oh, he would be so good at twitch,
he would be incredible. Now, I do want to note
as we as we get to this point, that I
think the story, like the fact that el Ron Hubbard
finally failed when he tried to stumble into filmmaking, is
proof of something important, which is that the US Navy
and all navies are a bunch of pansy ways, little

(36:00):
little little woos factories. Okay, okay, Hollywood is where sh
it really gets done, So suck on it. Fucking aircraft
carrier whimps.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
We got our prop goes.

Speaker 5 (36:10):
We're pretty we're pretty close to the ocean right now.
So I'm a little nervous.

Speaker 2 (36:15):
What do you What are they gonna do? They can't
make a movie, that's what this proves.

Speaker 5 (36:18):
Well, we've also coast Guard much like.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah, take it, Coastguard. Fucking movies is what's hard. That's
the real that's the message here.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Not these not these people have their cushy wars.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
They're easy jobs on submarines. What's hard is movies.

Speaker 5 (36:38):
Yeah, well, that's what we can all agree is what
we do is the most important.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Best, the most important, and the most difficult job. I
would like to see anyone in the goddamn Navy tossing
clean xbox.

Speaker 5 (36:49):
See I expected you to grab that clean Xbox, and
you grab that one, so now you have to go
to jail.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Fun fact, all of Hollywood's like doll industry, the things
that move cameras in space kind of thing that was
all adopted from navy. Uh technology for putting bombs into
places We've.

Speaker 5 (37:09):
Been reverse infiltrated by some navy.

Speaker 7 (37:13):
Navy.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
You're in the pocket of big Navy, aren't you.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
I am a big Navy.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Crucially different from old navy. V Sorry, Navy, I'm not
really that sorry.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
It's fun.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
You got boats. You're fine now. Eventually, the stress of
running the Center organ, dealing with the brutal California desert climate,
as well as his growing fear that the FBI was
closing in on him, forced l Ron Hoverd to make
what would become his very last move to a tiny
farming town called Himmet, California.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
Oh boy, lots of time, Yeah, a nice little camping,
camping well around Himmett area.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
I love camping and you know what else I love?
No products, oh services, just those two things. No other
room for love in my life, just product service median.

Speaker 5 (38:00):
The rule of three is not being fulfilled is going
to just kill me. This whole brand, Well, yeah, too bad.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
I could not help condiments.

Speaker 5 (38:11):
I hope, I really, I hope.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
I hope it's a condiment.

Speaker 5 (38:16):
Goobers that for Goober's peanut butter and jelly and condaments.
We're back.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
So l Ron Hubbard moved to him at California in secret.
His location was known only to a handful of people
within the church for the next six years. The number
of people Hubbard interacted with regularly wouldn't be enough to
make up to full baseball teams or basketball teams, whichever
one smaller. I think it's five people on basketball right.

Speaker 5 (38:42):
Well, this is on the court.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
On the court.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
There's more people in baseball teams.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
There's more people in baseball teams.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
That's also way more people than I know. Yeah, exactly,
curling team, I think team.

Speaker 7 (38:54):
Now.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
This life of seclusion and hiding out from justice suited
Ron well. According to Bare Face Messiah, quote, Although he
occasionally threw his food across the room when he believed
the cook was trying to poison him, by and large,
he was better timbered than he had been when he
was trying to make movies. He usually got up about
midday audit, hit himself for an hour, and then dealt
with whatever correspondence the messengers had decided he should see.
In the afternoons, he devoted several hours to taping lectures

(39:15):
and mixing suitable background music. In the evenings, he watched
television and reminisced to a small but always attentive audience.

Speaker 5 (39:22):
Did you say mixing. Yeah, so he spent all day
making playlists and mixtah.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, he probably would have edited his own podcast.

Speaker 5 (39:29):
That's a good harmless old man, dude.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
That's fine, cute Messiah.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
You know, it's better than torturing people in your prison
when they don't act right.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
So filmmaking was the That's really what cracked the chestnut. Yeah,
really open them up to you know what, I'm just
gonna chill out.

Speaker 5 (39:47):
I also can't believe he doesn't have someone tasting his
food ahead of time. At this point, I just assumed
he'd have the whole royal like groom of the stool
to wipe his ass, you know, the royal food taster
to keep the poison out. I want to know what
tips him one.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
But if he's got a royal food tastes and get
to throw his food across the room, I've proved like
you have clean xboxes, Well I do have toss and food.

Speaker 4 (40:10):
Yeah, you make a plate for yourself and a plate
to toss.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
I throw food at Sophie when things aren't the way
that I.

Speaker 5 (40:15):
Robert is filling a clean xbox with food. He's just
shove full of food that's going to be tough to
clean up. When Sophie gets.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Back, we only have three left.

Speaker 5 (40:24):
We'll leave it for her.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
We'll leave it for her. She loves David Mayo was
a member of Hubbard's small, attentive audience. In the nights.
He recalled many evenings with a commodore playing hillbilly songs
on his guitar and lying about the years he'd spent
as a troubadour in Appalachia. I think he was making
up the songs as he went along. Afterwards, everyone clapped.

(40:47):
I desperately want to hear some of l Ron Hubbard's.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
Wanted to see that live.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
There's no replacement that.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
There's nothing that could have come across the Yeah, pretending
to be a hillbilly singing random songs.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
Hey, y'all, little Nasax helped me out.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
Was coming to get you.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
On the days when he went into town, Hubbard would
wear a variety of absurd disguises, a baseball cap with
fake hair sewn onto it, stage makeup to alter the
shape of his face, false eyebrows, and sideburns. Hubbard was
convinced he looked like a local. No one else thought this. Thankfully,
the Internet did not exist, and so no one in
him recognized him either. For six years, Hubbard's location was
kept perfectly secret from the law, the government, and even

(41:34):
his own wife and children. Gradually, he pared down the
number of scientologists allowed to be around him. David Mskovich,
his former messenger and also at one point a cameraman,
was often the only person in direct contact with l
Ron Hubbard.

Speaker 5 (41:46):
Do you know if he worked on the movies?

Speaker 7 (41:47):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah, yeah, that's what he was doing. He was, Yeah, okay,
that's part of the way. The guy anything, Yes, I
need cameraman. Hey, guy who used to be like a
production messenger camera man.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (42:01):
Later, if you could beat some other guys up in
a room, I guess you can have this. That what
happened with Yeah, he needs his own episode.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
He needs his own three parter, probably to be honest. Now,
Hubbard did continue sending letters to David Mayo, his beloved auditor.
Mayo recalls these letters growing more and more unhinged as
the months turned into years of isolation. Quote in the
first paragraph of one letter, he said something like you
might think I've gone crazy, but I'm still okay. Just
believe what I say is true. I remember thinking, God,
whatever's coming must be pretty weirdside of the enveloped. It

(42:38):
was real, demented stuff, berating psychiatrists and claiming they were
the root of all evil, not just on this planet,
but since time immemorial. He had figured out that back
at the beginning of the universe, psychiatrist screened evil on
a particular star system. When I read through it, I thought,
my god, he is crazy. He can exhort me to
think he's not crazy, but this letter belies it.

Speaker 5 (42:58):
I thought.

Speaker 9 (43:00):
That shit is crazy that you're going to go with, Like, yeah,
this is kind of crazy, because like who made the
scientist a psychiatry or a Psiatrists invented evil at the
beginning of time.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
I was always going to be. It's always gotta be
the beginning of time.

Speaker 5 (43:15):
I wish we could know his that origin of that.
I feel like he must have, at some point in
his life had one therapy session where he went, yeah,
I'm a little blue and they were like, you're a
piece of shit. He was like, well, I hate this.
I hate psychiatry, Like, who hurt you? Yeah, little Elrod.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
I will say that his hatred of psychiatrists is more
proof that, like, as a man, even though he didn't
spend that much time here, he was the living embodiment
of Los Angeles, like this city and a single man.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
Out of touch with all reality completely and very hungry
for power.

Speaker 6 (43:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah, kind of a terrible place to live.

Speaker 5 (43:54):
It's so specific and consistent, like it rubbed off on
Tom Cruise he did that appearance, or he famous psychiatry
is evil that it's such a core tenant. And I
don't know of any other religion that's like also the
Lord Saith, screw chiropractice, we hate them.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
It's so no.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Buddhism's really anti chiropractice.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
It's like that line the poem Ausi Man Diaz. We're like,
because Los Angeles itself is kind of attestament to that.
They're like, let's make them metropolis where in the desert? Yeah,
and that's where you don't make twenty million people there?

Speaker 6 (44:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
How do we how do we plan for this? Don't
plan We'll make it up as no planning.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Okay, but we should at least have a network of
trams and trolleys and no, how do one car for
every person?

Speaker 7 (44:40):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (44:40):
How do we get water?

Speaker 3 (44:41):
We just steal it from this other state.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Now take it from north people.

Speaker 5 (44:45):
Now, everyone in the town's feeling alienated and isolated by
the plight of modern man. Well they should pay us, yeah,
because we can fix that.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, we cures what ails you.

Speaker 6 (44:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (44:58):
Now.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
By nineteen eighty two, at Run Hubbard's letters to David
Mayo are be able to growing obsession with death. The
Commodore was seventy one years old, in poor health, and
as crazy as a bat on acid. Hubbard was still
canny enough to know that he had exactly one great
achievement left in him. Al Ron Hubbard was going to
write the greatest science fiction series of all time. The
first entry in the new saga would be Battlefield Earth. Hell, yeah,

(45:21):
Saga of the year three thousand.

Speaker 5 (45:24):
Go to him typing Firefly Pilot.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
What are you telling me? That's why there's only one sason.

Speaker 7 (45:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Hubbard had not published a sci fi story in more
than thirty years at that point. Battlefield Earth was a sprawling,
eight hundred page epic. He declared it the longest science
fiction book ever written, which might actually have been true.

Speaker 6 (45:42):
At the time.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
I really have no I cares what. Yes, that's not
a determined it. That is believableough, because one thing all
Roun Hubbard can do is write incredibly long books and
never edit them, not for a second.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
This isans wake Yeah.

Speaker 5 (45:57):
Yeah, as a sci fi short story buff. Just for
the record, all of his short stories are mediocre.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (46:03):
He wasn't an amazing sci fi shorts.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
He was an adequate short story. Yeah, adequate an age
in which you'd buy a book that had forty of
them for a penny, and that's what entertainment was.

Speaker 7 (46:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:14):
He was like a mediocre Netflix series that you put like.
That's what his science fiction was. Because like those those
little like magazines that would be full of stories were
like Netflix. Some of them you get some Arthur C.
Clark's and it's like bo Jaff Horsemen or whatever, and
it's brilliant. And a lot of them are l Ron Hubbard,
which is like a show or whatever.

Speaker 5 (46:30):
They were almost always like Flash Gordon, like he never
had a grand sci fi concept. He put a cowboy
in space and had do cool shit.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, yeah, this is heresy.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Yeah I've tarned.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
I looked at the window and I've gone clear. Don't
say that about l Ron Hobby.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
El Ron so uh. The plot of Battlefield Earth was
as dumb as it was shitty. Johnny good Boy Tyler,
the protagonist, was one of the last human beings on
Earth after an alien invasion destroyed civilization the thousand years since,
mankind regressed to a feral Stone Age level of development.
While the evil aliens who now ruled the world minded
for its resources, Hubbard's ego demanded the Battlefield Earth be

(47:09):
an instant hit. Thankfully, he had the resources of one
of the world's wealthiest cults at his beck and call.
The Church of Scientology, bought fifty thousand copies of the
book at launch, and also poured millions into a pr
campaign aimed at making it go viral. Scientologists were ordered
to buy two or three copies each at minimum. Battlefield
Earth was just the prelude to Mission Earth, a one
point two million word epic Hubbard intended to release in

(47:30):
ten parts. Yeah, one point two million words.

Speaker 5 (47:33):
And what has been written? Oh yeah, okay, because that
or I was like, was he like pointing at the
stands calling his shot? Yeah, the sequel, by the way,
one point two million.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
He did that and then wrote it and then did it. Yeah,
like for some for some reference, I think Lord of
the Rings trilogy at the top, that has about four
hundred thousand words total, something somewhere in that ballpark.

Speaker 5 (47:54):
Rings. So three Lord of the Rings trilogies.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:58):
We never think about how much goddamn time this guy
spent in front of a typewriter.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
That's one thing that is not a lot, right, he
wrote like a fucking crazy.

Speaker 5 (48:08):
At the end, it just says screw Flanders over and over.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
So Hubbard actually wrote this monstrosit, or at least dictated
it to someone else. We don't really know, But tragically
he did not live to see it released in its entirety.
On January nineteenth, nineteen eighty six, l Ron Hubbard sent
out his last command flag order number three THY eight
hundred and seventy nine, the Sea org in its future.
In this order, the Commodore promoted himself to admiral, published

(48:34):
a glossy photo of himself in a new uniform, and
about five days later died. He did not die alone,
but he was not surrounded by his friends or family either.
His doctor and lawyer were the only ones present. Everything
about his death was handled with the utmost secrecy, but
the Church could not stop the coroner from looking at
the body. The inquest found a bandage on his right
butt sheet covering ten fresh needle marks. It also found

(48:55):
traces of hydroxene in his blood. The drug is most
often prescribed as an anti anxiety an anti neurotic medication,
in other words, a psychiatric medication. The Church steadfastedly rejected
the idea that el Ron Hubbard had died with psychiatric
medicine in the system. They claimed that he took the
medication as an antihistamine, which sure, guys, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5 (49:15):
His butt gets famously congest but gets.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
El Ron Hubbard was having anti histamy yeah, yeah, exactly.
In a phone interview with the San Luis Obispo New Times,
church spokesman Tommy Davis insisted he didn't take it as
a psychiatric medication, that's all. It's one of those things
that anti scientologists want to make an issue about, and
we're like, yeah, whatever, and emphasize the anger Tommy Davis
experience like express to the newspaper, I'm gonna throw another

(49:39):
I'm gonna throw it.

Speaker 5 (49:40):
Yeah yeah, oh, because they were all going like he'd
be as millions of people and were like as if, yeah,
whatever whatever.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
The rank and file of Scientology were informed of their
profit's death. Death three days later, on January twenty seventh,
David Miskovich addressed eighteen hundred Scientology at the Hollywood Palladium Theater.
He told them this. At two thousand hours Friday twenty
fourth January nineteen eighty six, l Ron Hubbard discarded the
body he had used in this lifetime for seventy four years,
ten months, and eleven days. The body he had used

(50:13):
to facilitate his existence in this universe had ceased to
be useful, and in fact, had become an impediment to
the work he now must do outside its confines. The
being we knew is l Ron Hubbard still exists. Although
you may feel grief, understand that he did not and
does not now. He simply moved on to his next step.
LRH in fact, used this lifetime and body we knew
to accomplish what no man has ever accomplished. He unlocked

(50:33):
the mysteries of life and gave us the tools so
we could free ourselves and our fellow men.

Speaker 6 (50:38):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (50:38):
Ps, he did himself auditing and he found out he's
even better than he thought he was. So he's an
admirals and admiral now. So I could not think of
the Hudsucker. Yeah right, you know the Hutsucker Praxy series. Yeah,
at six oh four wearing Hutsucker merged with the Infinite.
That is a punch out. He should have said, merged

(50:59):
with the Energon.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Well, he did leave us with a little bit of
a eulogy to himself, because of course I can't be
finished with Yeah. L Ron Hubbard wasn't gonna let someone
else get the last one he wrote.

Speaker 5 (51:10):
There's nothing he couldn't have written that wasn't written.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
And the elegy he chose was a song called thank
You for listening from an album of Scientology songs titled
The Road to Freedom.

Speaker 4 (51:21):
Are you gonna listen to it?

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Yeah, we are going to hear l Ron Hubbard himself
sing a motherfucking song.

Speaker 5 (51:27):
Oh dude, he's gonna tell me he can fuck and
has a voice like an angel. I hope this is
a dude.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
I hope this is a bob.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
All right, friends, without further ado, the voice of l
Ron Hubbard.

Speaker 5 (51:44):
The boss Yeah music's original.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Nice Rich Bring said, oh goddamn, listen.

Speaker 6 (52:01):
Yes, but others hearing this things they would argue.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
The voice of like a dinosaur?

Speaker 6 (52:19):
Do have to sing what I believe?

Speaker 7 (52:23):
I only give them fact If they believe quite.

Speaker 6 (52:30):
It still will have him.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, I love this song.

Speaker 5 (52:41):
To listen the lyrics they're bashi there.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
I'm gonna toss a cleanic.

Speaker 6 (52:49):
It's the room.

Speaker 5 (52:50):
There are also no real inflements on the song.

Speaker 7 (52:53):
That's why.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Karaoke man, imagine listening to this at a funeral.

Speaker 7 (53:02):
But true is true, and if they didn't, it's hard
to live with line. That's their concern, not mine, my friend.
They're free to fantus.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Loves them low lines.

Speaker 5 (53:24):
It sounds like it's a full house thing.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
About how you all should have believe me.

Speaker 5 (53:30):
You're all gonna suffer.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Now he's here the Nuts.

Speaker 7 (53:34):
To the Health.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
I have the musical interviews in between the voices.

Speaker 5 (53:43):
He's break dancing during the dancing.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Hard He's to the Solar, and it's surprisingly good at
break dancing and fucking.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Really way too much.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Instrumentals so much okay, now, so that we can't get
in trouble with copyright concerns, let's discuss linguistically, lyrically musically,
because you're both musicians, right, yeah, you're a rapist much,
that's yeah, you're a rapist and you're you're part of
Cody's band, right yeah, yeah, I consider it Cody's band,

(54:16):
but I don't know that it is.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
It's more like guys just showing up and.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Which made which makes yous qualified as l Ron Hubbard
to talk about exactly put this.

Speaker 5 (54:29):
On the public record. I was kicked out of that band,
no further true.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
Yes, Cody's band, he is.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
He is a prima donna. And we'll be listening to
this episode and I want him to record my version
of this song once I get a cold well.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
I was in charge of the song.

Speaker 5 (54:51):
Let's cover.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Let's cover this song.

Speaker 5 (54:54):
I was in charge of cleaning the rehearsal rooms and
the guys with the white gloves were not please. They
kicked me out of there.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
So, Michael, your thoughts on thank you for listening, and
on Elon Hubbard's voice. Let's start with your thoughts on
his voice.

Speaker 5 (55:06):
Uh, Abe already stole the best, Like Abe gave me
the image that's stuck in my mind, which yeah, it's
like Barney the Dinosaur singing to kids, but instead of
teaching them how to wash their hands, he's saying, you're
all living in a diluted fantasy world. Children. Soon you
will get sick from this, do you understand?

Speaker 3 (55:25):
But listen to my sleep.

Speaker 6 (55:31):
The free two phone TUSA.

Speaker 5 (55:34):
It also sounds like the guy in a barbershop quartet
who's only there to hit the loan note. He had
to go oh baby, and they're like, the three other
guys didn't show up. You got to sing the middle
a hard part best.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
There's not a shot of that guy who hits that
loan O. Then we goes, ah, yeah, that lone note
part of the song.

Speaker 7 (55:55):
God.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Abe, your thoughts, uh yeah, Mine went immediately through the
instrumentation because it's it's just it's shouting something immediately, like
from the get go. It's the horns, like you were saying, Michael,
they're like clearly fake horns, like someone got like my
brother's cassio and is doing like French horn on it.

(56:15):
I bet they somehow fucked that up, though, I bet
they actually recorded because.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
He had money, right, he had so much money, So
I've never heard.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
A recording that probably was recorded on actual instruments. And
because they're so bad at recording, like they're bad at filmmaking,
they're very similar.

Speaker 3 (56:31):
It sounds like a Midi version. And you know how
I like Middi's, Michael Middi's are my favorite?

Speaker 5 (56:36):
Boy is your favorite? That's it's it's better.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Than the original the Midi versions.

Speaker 5 (56:42):
But I wish I or maybe it was. I mean,
if this was studio musicians he hired, what a great
thing to be on a fly on the wall floor.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
He clearly could have afforded it. I feel like he
didn't just because he was so scared that everyone was
trying to murder him or secretly the FBI, which is
why he didn't just like hire a real production company
to make this movie. It had to all be done
in house by.

Speaker 5 (57:03):
An ar fifteen can fit in a guitar case. He's like,
no musicians, no.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Yeah, exactly that every there's so many moments in this
this journey that we've been taking where it's just I
want to know what that guy who is just told
all right, so you have to learn how microphones work.
He's like, ah, I my last job was I worked
at McDonald's. Yeah, you know, like iola cases. I was
a heart surgeon. Like its shot at all my area.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Right, I have no clue how to do this.

Speaker 2 (57:32):
Well, it's gonna have to be perfect, or what he'll
beat you, you'll wind up in the torture prison.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
Well, I guess I signed up and gave money for this.

Speaker 5 (57:43):
I do feel like killing myself after listening to it.
That must mean it's the best songs.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Song version of Excalibur.

Speaker 5 (57:51):
It's it's so weird to me that a guy could
who could manipulate the emotions of millions of people and
strike at something core in us, which is just you know,
like the hook to scientology is yeah, your life is
a mess. And they offer enough that seems believable at
the base level that it hooks millions of people in
and yet he doesn't understand tone.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
At all, Like it's the bizarre.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
The lyrics are ominous, and the music is like scientology
is the soda that will finally refresh you like all
other sodas. He doesn't like get how to manipulate people's emotions,
and yet he does it, and yet.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
He obviously gets it.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
I will. I didn't want to point out that he
was only like pitch. He was pitchy a lot less
than I expected. Yeah, he was pitching maybe one or
once or twice, he like flubbed a note, But I
mean he's got.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
Mediocre pipes, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
The main thing.

Speaker 5 (58:49):
That made us sound bad, I thought was that he
cut everywhere it sounds like the melody lines like falling
down the stairs. Exactly what that is.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
It's called a noise gate, and they probably had it.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
Just because they don't know what's going on, so they
just anytime the microphone is like, oh there's no signal, just.

Speaker 5 (59:09):
There's no tail.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
It's a bunch of lawyers and spies trying to work
audio equipment.

Speaker 5 (59:14):
Also, if the noise gate was off on this track,
between every line, you'd hear him go when he like
breathes in as a seventy one year old cript keeper.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Gad the bear, because any moment is the final one,
call me the commodore.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Well, I think that's our legally mandated commentary over that song.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
Fair use.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
You know what I have to say about fair use? Yeah,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna chuck my last Cleenex box.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
That's number ten, babies.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
The floor is covered in throwing bagels and throwing boxes
of Kleenex, a couple of torn up pieces of earlier
scripts that I read earlier.

Speaker 5 (59:56):
What I dropped the top of my water bottle on
the ground, wanted to help out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Thank you. We always leave it a mess because I'm
a problem like l Ron Hubbard. And once the show
takes off enough, I will absolutely buy a compound in
southern Californias and force people to make movies. Yeah, yeah,
I lead movie maker. No no, no, no no no,
you'll be a pilot boats. Yeah, bring into the culture.

(01:00:23):
They'll be making the movies.

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
I assume you.

Speaker 5 (01:00:25):
Started this show to have a big track record. Educate
everyone on people way worse than stuff you plan to
do later so they know it's not so bad.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Or I might try to take it to the level. Sure,
I didn't finish Wild Wild Country, but I'm on board
with creating a cult city in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
I really want to see what your battlefield eers is.
Oh yeah, I want to know what you think happened
right at the beginning of the universe.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
I wish how it relates to you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
I'm a psychiatrist.

Speaker 5 (01:00:51):
Yes, I wish we could get cults to just assemble,
make a movie based on their leave beliefs, and then disassemble. Yeah,
I want to see all of them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
All movies were made by Colts.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
Yes, they are a way. It is propaganda, all of it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Yeah, or what would have said?

Speaker 5 (01:01:08):
It's true?

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Yeah, including this well yeah, I mean this is absolutely
propaganda aimed at getting me a compound, someone west and
a religion get indoctrinated people.

Speaker 5 (01:01:19):
Yeah, with just a giant glowing dorito on the spindle
that turns glowing everyone at all.

Speaker 3 (01:01:26):
In Turts of.

Speaker 5 (01:01:32):
That's your Colt would be nice because if you fuck
up the set, a robber changes his mind. He wanted
it blue, now he wants a green. He just throws
a bagel at your head like it could be worse.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Also, I will throw bagels a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Also, if you're hungry, just eat the compound because it's
made of bagels.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
And big real rat problems.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
Yeah, you got your five rat quota already red within
three sentence.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
They're huge, so many carbs.

Speaker 5 (01:02:02):
These bagel fed rats are becoming too strong, Robert just
threatening to overtake.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
Somebody's been feeding them way protein, so they've been working
out as well, so they're like swollen, enormous rats.

Speaker 5 (01:02:17):
Well, we found a dead rat with a bunch of
puncture needles in its butt. We think it's the rat
you We think they have all Also.

Speaker 3 (01:02:25):
The rat has a T shirt that says the Joe
Rogan podcast.

Speaker 6 (01:02:29):
We're fucked.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
We're so fucked.

Speaker 7 (01:02:32):
Oh god, oh god.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Okay, plugs buggables.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Yeah, we uh both he and I, Michael Swave and
Abe Epperson. We have a little thing called small Beans,
which you can see on Patreon. We do videos and
podcasts are ourselves and there's a bunch of other great
podcasts on that network. You can access it from by
going to patreon dot com slash small and Yeah, we

(01:03:01):
were doing another show.

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
I don't know we said this last episode.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
I can't even remember.

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
Oh yeah, it's the double down. In case you only
wanted to hear about the last part of the last
part of l Ron Hubbard's life. Yeah, we're launching a
new show called Off Hours that is gonna be basically
the whole production team are people who used to work
at a site called Cracked and what was what was
it U? It was a napkin fulfillment site. You know,

(01:03:27):
they like would refill all the paper towels and soap dispensers.
But they also ran a web series and similarly a
lot of people who worked on that show are now
working on our new show called Off Hours, which will
involve four friends sitting around talking about pop culture.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Well that's sound legally distinct.

Speaker 5 (01:03:45):
Legally distinct and a good antidote for Behind the Bastard. Yes,
it gets you down. Come listen to some mindless bullshit
that we won't find out for twenty years was actually evil.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Yeah movie, your's going exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Let's get that cultural dipstick.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
Everybody build a cult, all right, we.

Speaker 5 (01:04:03):
For sure for sure shut us up.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Yeah, we're like, everybody build a cult.

Speaker 5 (01:04:08):
Okay, I'm leaving.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Well this has been Behind the Bastards. I've been Robert
Evans my Twitter, Instagram, at Bastards pod website, find the
Bastards dot com, t shirts, tea public I have another podcast.
It could happen here. It's sad Goodbye.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.