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 (00:03):
What again, l ronning my hubbards. It's part two Hubbard's
death episodes. 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, tired of the bagels,

(00:26):
so Robert took out his big knife and I was
stabbing a plastic of a many many Kleenex boxes. He
pulled one off. I'm gonna be throwing clean X boxes.
I'm gonna throw the first one to the window right
between us, right between to 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

(00:46):
got a ten pack is packing. It is a lot
of clean ax. That is a lot of CLEANX. He
will throw all of them by the end of this episode.
I thought you were going to pop open one of
those bad boys and throw individual kleen Ax. But that's
not as impact. That does not have the impact active
throwing a whole box of clean is it? Important to
you that the box be filled with clean X. There
could have just be a box with a similar weight.
I think I'm just gonna throw a lot of stuff

(01:07):
over the course of the rest of my career. Understood.
I like I like tossing. I like throwing both good things,
both fun. Get some salads in here for you. I
would love to toss themself. Hello everyone on their early
morning commute. Welcome the Robert and the pig and the
other pig. It's your drive times. You know what I hate?

(01:30):
Drive times? Yeah, that was a good one. Sophie, who
cleans up in here? Is it me? Oh? It's you,
it's Sophie. Well, we've already established the joke. So this
is going to keep happening, and there's no way to
stop it. I can't. I can't over exaggerate your lack
of enthusiasts. So far, you pick pretty easy things to

(01:53):
clean out. When it evolves to throwing confetti, I'm just
gonna throw ornaments, yeatter them against the walls. Just push
class everything, Push pins everywhere, Push pins like a home
alone that you Bullets, just whatever, just bullets. It's just awesome.
I'd think someone who's barefoot so much of the time,

(02:14):
wouldn't want to scatter pointy things around the ground. But okay, no,
let's got those councils. It's fine, it's fine. You know
what else is fine? Ron Hubbard's career. I disagree. I
can't wait, it's just fine. I might agree with that
by the end. Oh, of course it's fine. I mean, now, a,
you do quite a lot of directing on your own,
so I think you might pick up some tips and oh,

(02:35):
I'm gonna learn from the master my next set. Oh
it's gonna be bad, because this is a master class.
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 school by behind the best.
It really does only take that much if you also

(02:55):
have millions, literally infinite money. 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

(03:17):
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 past his shoulders, rotting teeth,
and a really fat gut. He didn't look anything like
his pictures. When 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

(03:38):
in the last days before the FBI dragnet closed down
around Mary Sue Hubbard and all of l Ron's people
with the Guardian's office, and 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. Oh, that's not going to
stoke his paranoia. Anytime the dog barks that mailman is

(04:00):
an agent who opposes the church. What happens when the
dog barks at him? Yeah, or Oh, I don't think
the dogs stare around if they bark at him. Yeah, yeah,
they just have new dogs on deck. That dog toy
is a suppressive person who knew now. Elron continued to
innovate his tech during this period. His main interest was

(04:21):
the purification rundown, 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 on what he believed with
the effects of LSD on the body. According to Jim Kalki,

(04:44):
one of Hubbard's longtime helpers, quote, all the information came
from one person who had taken LSD once. That was
how he did his research. It's pretty chill, dude, all right,
it's this is my shit right here. Honestly, it was good.
Now Hubbard became convinced that the purification rundown was going
to cure all of the world's drug addictions. He decided

(05:06):
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 guy. I can't say that it's cannon.
I do think. You know, if the listeners of this

(05:26):
podcast want to get me a Nobel Prize, I will
do drugs off of it. 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? Oh?
I would I would rather get the Nobel Prize. I've
got a blacksmith, So I take the Nobel prize to
my blacksmith and have it forged into a crack pipe

(05:49):
smoking Except if you want to see me throwing some stuff,
you give me some crack and a Nobel Peace pipe
as well. I think the Nobel Peace Prize and you
know where that cash prize is all going to be spent? Yeah,
under a bridge filling up that pipe. Then you're gonna
get shived for your golden pipe. So that's gone. Yeah,

(06:14):
that's what happens under bridges. 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 LRH relied on his child messengers to deliver his
words to and from church leadership. On May twenty fifth,

(06:35):
nineteen seventy seven, Star Wars launched to a world of
unsuspecting moviegoers. Here we go. It made conservatively all the
money and changed both Hollywood and the world forever. Now.
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. I know he read

(06:56):
a lot of Harlan Ellison, who is my favorite side fi.
He definitely Yeah, Well, like personal friends, and I guess,
you know, you feel the guilt or like you have to,
but you imagine the one person who could get along
with l Ron Hubbard. Of course, it's hard Elison. It's
just weird that if you he seems to really like
sci fi. Yeah, he resist, it's hard to like. I

(07:19):
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
of the Star Wars. Yeah, it's a war that does
occur the stars. Yeah, a star wars. Yeah, a star war,
if you will. This was a dramatization of one of

(07:41):
the highest level scientology training courses, the OT three Information
or Operating Thetans. I'm gonna give that shit away. Yeah,
you had to pay one hundred grand for that. 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 goats to Earth and blew them up with nuclear bombs.
Strapped a volcanoes. Ghosts are water vapor and they all

(08:09):
have swords you can freeze aghast. 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 gonna be the most superstitious people in the country.
So I'm gonna guess global warming deniers also have a
high tendency to believe them magical thinking. You convince them

(08:30):
that if the ice caps melt, all of the ghosts
will be freed. I think we have a plan. Then
we got a problem, and we gotta put We gotta
cool down the world to keep the ghost frozen. Ghost
dictators need to never stop doing whatever drug they did.
It's a child, right, And there are ghosts in the
North Pole, there are coasts in the North poland they
will kill us if we don't freeze them. These are

(08:52):
the myths of our time that we need to embrace
that will help us. 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 him that, Yeah, vaccinate your kids and rub
him with the potato. Just release all of Dan Aykroyd's books. Yeah,

(09:13):
ten years later, the Potato Flew decimates the population of
North America. Hot Potatoes. That will be the last Fox
News Chiron before everyone dies. Potatoes are too hot, the
hot potato and the round is over. Oh boy, Potato
verse ghost. Now, if you paid attention to anything I've

(09:35):
said about Alon Hubbard over the last five hours or
so of podcasts about the fucker, you know that he's
literally incapable 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, it locked away from how I
know the words caliber from? Is that? Well? Yeah, it's

(09:56):
like the MANI Python, the funniest joke that you can't see.
But with psychology, Yeah, yeah, philosophy the second 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. That comic Con panel we
have today George R. Martin and the guy who wrote

(10:18):
the book that makes everyone kill themselves, My name is
l 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 Xenu

(10:40):
would cause death in a matter of days. According to
Tony Ortega, a former scientologist who's now an activist against
the church, quote, 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. Oh manicide, the biblical flood. Yeah, forever.
Everyone who's not hasn't paid me enough money to be

(11:03):
at this level. He's gonna make a movie to kill everybody.
He's gonna make a fucking passion of the wrong. 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.
I'm proud of that. So I don't think he wrote

(11:24):
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. Yeah, I think he started
to at a certain point. You don't know how you
don't mix it up. 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. And

(11:45):
some of the paranoid shit he did, you're like, well,
that's not fabricated. He's really grappling with paranoia. Yeah, he's
definitely paranoid. I imagine like little l Ron, Little Ron, Yeah,
like going to the ice cream truck and like say
saying to the guys sell the ice cream, like you
know that popsicles are ghosts, and he goes really he's like,
oh my god, that worked. I know what my life is.

(12:09):
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.
But also I have the AMC movie past I got

(12:31):
to use it on something, use it on something, and
I am dying to know the details anymore. And watch
the murder movie. 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. I did not know that, and they're like,

(12:53):
I know. So. Another thing that Ortega notes in his
article about Revolting 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. At
the very least he knows that thing. Yeah, the idea
that John Travolta is trying to wipe out all life

(13:15):
on Earth that's not scientology is now my favorite conspiracy theory. 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 shooting bastards. Yeah,
please make the movie that kills everything, which is basically

(13:38):
he just thought of the Ring. Yeah, the Ring, but
for everyone, for everyone. Yeah, and just as as sort
of future payment to whoever does shoot Revolt in the Stars,
I'm gonna throw another box of clean us, right, yea
Mazzle number three. That's a scientology thing, right, yep? I
think so, or take it. Apparently read through the script
for a Volt among the Stars, which I think you

(13:58):
can find if you really look for it, and he
summed up its plot this way. Quote in the script
Hubbard wrote for the movie. The character rawl, clearly based
on Hubbard himself, takes on the mit 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 Xenu
is strapped into a prison inside of one of the

(14:18):
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 one knew, Well, yeah,

(14:42):
what what? What? What fuck you can talking about? 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 arriety. By the way, when your movie Revolt
among the Stars comes out, everyone's going to refer to
it as rats. He is so good, Look with that now.

(15:04):
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, was purchased, code named Monroe,
and turned into housing for the production staff for l

(15:25):
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. How do you give notes
when you're in a call? Like if everyone acting in
a hand producing it is on set, there are no notes. Yeah,
you do what he tells you. This. I uctually think
the set's a little a little goudy, right now. That's suppressive, dude,

(15:47):
that's suppressive mood. He kills everyone though, like does the
screenplay just like paralyze them or is it the like
what stage does the magic like kill yourself? Well, all
of these people are OT three, so they can so
they can do whatever there. 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. You

(16:08):
don't even know it. And I see now. 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, beaar Face, Messiah, quote, lights, Dolly's, cameras,
and a vast range of technical equipment were all moved

(16:28):
into the new studio. Hubbard took to wearing a cowboy hat, suspenders,
and a bandana, which he imagined gave him an artistic
me in appropriate to a director. The sene Org was
to cut its teeth, making simple promotional films illustrating various
situations in which Scientology could be used beneficially. Hubbard wrote
all the scripts and knew exactly what he wanted, constantly
biting into a raw grapefruit. He just care. Isn't all

(16:49):
that Thompson right now? He is? Hunter would be shooting
at people. Hunter would have a shot at 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 his first productions did not all

(17:11):
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 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 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

(17:34):
a boat or man a boom mic? Harder to man
of boom mic? Apparently easier to get random people to
be part of a navy. Well, there's no because you
can drop depth charges and say you hit something. That's fine.
When you're shooting a movie. If you don't get the scene,
it's not listen to it and say this is shitty sound.

(17:56):
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 sina 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,

(18:17):
ragged clothes, dirty and unkemped. 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 who were schooled on
how to get away from process servers, FBI agents, and

(18:38):
any government officials or any policemen who wanted anything to
do with Ubbert. Welcome to our production company. Here's what
you say to the SBI. E I bet just it.
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. And they came from everywhere though. Sure he

(18:59):
just moved them to like you just had to go
wherever you be. But they have all the money. Send
some people to film school if Yeah, what great voices
were squashed out by al Ron Hubbard's movie making an interprese? Hey,
I want to see these cult people's movie. 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

(19:22):
our show and or program. Oh, I love those. I
want to see them, but kind of fingers crossed, I'll
just close my eyes and imagine. 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 if they advertise on
this episode, totally doubt I'm not. I'm okay with it.

(19:44):
I don't know if listening through all this an ad
for the Church of Scientology makes you decide, you know what, Yes,
that is true. Me. You clicked on this and you're like,
but the ad really resonated. Yeah, all right, products we're

(20:04):
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. Being true, we're really
peeling back the podcasting curtain. Yeah, because I didn't the
term loosely affiliated with podcasts. Yeah, that's the word cinema

(20:26):
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.
You should have a podcast all rest till every there's
as many podcasts as there are people. I want there
to be twice as many podcasts as people, and until
there are I will continue to throw I laughed, but

(20:47):
it hit me in the throat. Well, you know what
they say about throats, Michael Products and Services. It's the
laziest part of the body, that's true. All right, we're back.
Well there's parstalsis so l Ron Hubbard aw Tour director
was still desperately afraid of being brought in by a
surprise police rate. A souped up, dodged dart with a

(21:08):
full tank of gas was kept on stand by twenty
four to seven outside of his production facility. He just
fuckinging run car. The director has a like, I feel
like everything you said so far is applicable only to
l Ron Hubbard or Roman Polanski. Every day put a
Philly cheese steak on the dashboard and replaced it the
next day he might have to go. And it occurs

(21:30):
to me that we should just have a table of disguises.
They literally did 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. Ol Ron Hubbard might have given
a guy like Stanley Kubrick a run for his money
in the crazy pants category. Stanley Kubrick finished movies. He

(21:52):
did finish movies. Adele first met Hubbard when she was
working in the wardrobe department and heard him start to
scream at a group of his underlings. This is a
quote of Hubbard directings, Oh hey, 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

(22:12):
it was the Boss. We weren't allowed to use the
name Hubbard for security reasons. 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. Yeah,
this is straight out of the book of a usc
School Cinematic Arts. Actually, goddamn sons of bitches. Adele's first
big job was makeup assistant on a Hubbard flick called
The Unfathomable Man. It was a modest project, covering the

(22:35):
entire history of the human race from the beginning of
time to the modern era through the eyes of el
Run Hubbard. I'm sorry that this is a great time.
You can't even think of it. What's the first thing
you think? Well, he's a man. Well, I can think
of a man. You can't not this guy. Adele's recollections
make it sound rather surprisingly like a Sam Raimi flick quote.

(22:58):
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
foam some more, and he'd stop it again and say
it's still not gory enough. Then we'd throw more blood
on them. Well, he's competing with the Bible, so he's

(23:18):
kind of matches. Every religion needs to match a certain
level of gore just to keep our interest. I just
imagine him at monitor and when they nail like how
much blood, He's just yes, this will bring scientology to
the masses. Okay, now pour some blood on me. Okay,
now we can continue. Get the disguises. The movie included

(23:40):
a scene where an FBI office was bombed. This was
understandably al Ron Hubbard's favorite part. He jerked off well
at that scene 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. Hubbard made up
for his general lack of knowledge of how to make
movies by being an incredibly persnickety asshole. According to bare

(24:00):
Face Messiah quote, when the Sena 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 a
shear 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, a messenger
would follow close behind him, ready to put the chair
underneath him if he chose to sit down. One unfortunate

(24:21):
girl got the positioning wrong by a few minutes inches,
and it's the commodore sat down chair. It's slapstick comedy
until you learn they're like, she was swiftly beaten the yea.
She was put in Scientology's prison. Yeah, of course, yeah,
it's real. She was tortured, Yeah, and you know, well,

(24:41):
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 and
all the specs is a Nobel Peace Prize material? And
he's like, you know, directing a movie, you keep the
set clean, you place the chair as correctly. You have
a lot of blood. Now. The numerous stories that Hubbard

(25:08):
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 lack meaning. They asked for advice from a psychiatrist
who was played as a violently insane person. The next
asked help from a scientist who was also violently insane.
Then they found a scientologist who was a perfect being
of pure contentment. Keema Douglas, an artist and scientologist who

(25:29):
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. On Hubbard, fix it,

(25:50):
fix it for more beatings for you all. I've got
to go have sex, surprising. It's better be a movie
when I get back. All the while as all run,
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.

(26:12):
He succeeded in 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. I'd still pay
a lot to see those pay a lot costumes. Someone's

(26:36):
got those costumes, someone's got They are like religious art,
like artifacts. 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. 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 from and when they
cut them out of the clothes. Yeah, you know, there

(26:58):
were some scissors accidents. In late nineteen seventy eight, a
few days after Mary Sue Hubbard and ten other top
scientologists were indicted for their rampant crimes, l Ron 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 auteur film director were
not suited for the ailing old man now. During this time,

(27:20):
el Ron 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 Mayol,
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 and trusted
subject and had a duty to keep such things confidential.

(27:41):
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 one hundred dollar bills, Yet he
had always said and written that he never received a

(28:02):
penny from Scientology who had asked to see it. The
messenger would 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 might

(28:23):
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.
I love yeah, pleesus. Yeah. Also, because if you're at

(28:46):
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. Don't
know how this guy didn't walk away with a portion
of the gold, is what I'm getting. Yeah, he may have. Hey,
guess what, Boss, Yeah, I have a recording. Now, you idiot,

(29:09):
you're dying, the old idiot. I think the guy you
put in that job is the guy you know is
never going to betray you, right, yeah, Yeah, And he
didn't while Hubbard was alive. Eventually, it seems like he
came clear. 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 away with

(29:31):
one of those suitcases of dirty hundred dollars bills. Because
if there's anything Hubbard's going to respond to, it's blackmail. 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

(29:51):
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 the night, not
stopping for meals and praying it would be right and
that they would not get into trouble. When he arrived
to begin shooting me and 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 running around trying

(30:13):
to find some blue paint. Then he'd want to know
white it was blue and not yellow. Have you seen
the Star Wars documentary, Yes, Empire Dreams where he can't
pronounce his own gungans, gungansungans. George, you wrote this, Yeah,
all poetry, right, there's a weird synergy in the fact.

(30:34):
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 then involved tiny creatures that live
in your blood called the will. He loves tiny creatures
living in your books. It's thetans. Dude, you were like,
they are the same Lucas Now that he is officially

(30:55):
I guess traded Star Wars to quote white Slavers not
totally inaccurate. Disc It doesn't mean that one of them
is on the right side. Yeah, think for the good
of everyone, he may as well buckle down and make
a revolt among the stars. I think Lucas is the
man to do it. He is He's the only man
to do it. He's the only man to finally make

(31:18):
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. Yeah, it's like,
uh yeah, it's like a bullhorn. Yeah, as Chekhov's tools go.
That one didn't like stretch the tension out. But sure
it did not. It did not. I didn't go to
film school. Yeah, don't let that stop you. I just

(31:44):
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. They
can be sad Kleenex tossing boxes, sad Kleenex. All right,
let's get back to the thing. Here's Mayo again, talking
about eln hubbrid is a director and being an actor

(32:05):
under him. Quote, when I was trying 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 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.

(32:26):
Everyone was tiptoeing around waiting for explosions. 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,
they have to act. 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

(32:46):
with filmmaking, which can't ask force the audience to think
the movie's entertaining. Yeah, you have to make an entertaining movie, yeah, yeah,
nor can you get the thing that's in your head
absolutely perfect every time, like by every performer so so,
but also as an actor, I mean, come off in Mail,
I had to say the line a bunch of times.

(33:06):
That's that's the process of acting for films. 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. For well example, a very basic rule of
directing is it's widely frowned upon to just say do

(33:31):
this emotion like, that's the most basic director right right.
I also love that notes. His notes are basically go
in a direction, go in the opposite director, like these
ambiguous definitions of what he wants. That sounds real clear
to me. That sounds like a guy with vision. If
only he had been a YouTube personality and just said
fuck it, I will be all the parts and I

(33:53):
will shoot this advira, he would be a huge hit
on YouTube if he were alive and younger today, for sure,
that would that would be he would own that place.
He would be one of those channels you end up
on one you're three clicks away from a decent good
God Year video, and he would be convincing I'm just
gonna guess you're convincing millions that the Holocaust didn't happen. Yeah,

(34:15):
you see that kind of cultism and tribalism and like
twitch streamers and stuff, 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 that I think the story, like the
fact that l Ron Hubbard finally failed when he tried
to stumble into filmmaking, is proof of something important, which

(34:36):
is that the US Navy and all navies are a
bunch of pansy waste, little little little woost factories. Okay, okay,
Hollywood is where shit really gets done. So suck on it,
fucking aircraft carrier whimps. We got our prop goods. We're
pretty we're pretty close to the ocean right now. So
I'm a little nervous. What are they going to do?

(34:56):
They can't make a movie, That's what this proves. Well,
we've also such a navy coast guard much like yeah,
take it, coastguard. Fucking movies is what's hard. Yeah, that's
the real that's the message here, not these not these
people have their cushy wars. They're easy jobs on submarines.
What's hard as movies. Yeah, Well, that's what we can

(35:19):
all agree is what we do is the most important, best,
the most important, and the most difficult job. I would
like to see anyone in the goddamn Navy tossa clean xbox.
See I expected you to grab that clean xbox, and
you grab that one, so now you have to go
to jail. Fun fact, all of Hollywood's like Dolly industry,

(35:40):
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 been reverse infiltrated by some navy.
Navy you're in the pocket of big Navy, aren't you.
I am a big Navy rucually different from old Navy. Sorry, Navy,

(36:03):
I'm not really that Sorry. It's fun. 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. Oh boy, lots of time and yeah,
a nice little camping camping well around Himmet area. I

(36:28):
love camping and you know what else, I love products,
oh services, Just those two things. No other room for
love in my life. Boy, just product service. The rule
of three is not being fulfilled. Is going to just
kill me? This whole break well, yea, too bad. I
could not condiments. I hope, I really, I hope. I

(36:55):
hope it's a condoment for Gooper's peanut butter and jelly
and one condiment once we're back. So l Ron Hubbard
moved to Hemmett, 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

(37:15):
with regularly wouldn't be enough to make up two full
baseball teams or basketball teams, whichever one smaller. I think
it's five people on basketball right. Well, this is on
the court's on the court. There's more people in baseball team.
There's more people in baseball teams. That's also way more
people than I know. Yeah, exactly, curling team. I think
the curling team. Now, this life of seclusion in hiding

(37:36):
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, oudit, 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 in mixing suitable background music. In the evenings,

(37:58):
he watched television and reminist to a small but always
attentive audience. Did you say mixing? Yeah, so he spent
all day making playlists and yeah, he probably would have
edited his own podcast. That's a good, harmless old man.
That's fine, better cute messiah. You know, it's better than
torturing people in your prison when they don't act right.

(38:19):
So filmmaking was the that's really really what cracked the chestnut. Yeah,
really open him up to you know what, I'm just
gonna chill out. 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, royal
food taster to keep the poison out. I want to

(38:41):
know what tips him on. Yeah, but if he's got
a royal food tasteres and get to throw his food
across the room. I proved, like you have clean xboxes, Well,
I do have toss and food. Yeah, you make a
plate for yourself and a plate to toss. I throw
food at Sophie when things aren't the way that I.
Robert is filling a clean xbox with food. He's just
shoving it full of food. That's going to be tough

(39:01):
to clean up. When Sophie gets back, we only have
three left. We'll leave it for her. We'll leave it
for her. 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 Appalasia.
I think he was making up the songs as he

(39:23):
went along. Afterwards, everyone clapped, Yes, I desperately want to
hear some of l Ron Hubbard's wanted. Yeah, there's no
replacement that. There's nothing that could have as Yeah. Hubbard
pretending to be a hillbilly singing random songs. Hey y'all,

(39:47):
little nas X help me out was coming to get you.
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 all through
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

(40:08):
no one in him recognized him either. For six years,
Hubbard's location was kept perfectly secret from the law, the government,
and even his own wife and children. Gradually, he pared
down the number of scientologists allowed to be around him.
David Miskovich, his former messenger, and also at one point
a cameraman, was often the only person in direct contact
with l Ron Hubbard. Do you know if he worked
on the movies? Oh yeah, yeah, that's what he was doing.

(40:29):
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, you're a cameraman. Yeah, yeah, Later,
if you could beat some other guys up in a room,
I guess you can have this. That what happened with
we'll talk about. Yeah, he needs episode, he needs his

(40:52):
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 weird. The en it was real

(41:19):
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, psychiatrists created 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. I thought I

(41:39):
had to say it is crazy, but I thought you
were going to go it's like, yeah, this is kind
of crazy, because like, who made the scientist a psychiatry
or asiatrists invented evil in the beginning of time. I
was always going to be It's always got to be
the beginning of time. I wish we could know his
that origin of that. I feel like he must at

(42:00):
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, Like, well, I hate this,
I hate psychiatry, Like who hurt you? Yeah, little Elrod.
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

(42:22):
of Los Angeles, like this city and a single man
out of touch with all reality completely and very hungry
for power. Yeah. Yeah, kind of a terrible place to live.
It's so specific and consistent, like it rubbed off on
Tom Cruise he did that appearance where he famously was
psychiatry is evil that it's such a core tenant, and

(42:44):
I don't know of any other religion that's like, also
the Lord Saith screw chiropractice, but we hate them. It's
so Buddhism's really anti chiropractice. It's that line the poem
Ausi man Diaz were like, because Los Angeles itself is
kind of attestament to that. They're like, let's make him
metropolis where in the desert. Yeah, and let's where you

(43:05):
don't make twenty million people there? Yeah, how do we
how do we plan for this? Still plan? We'll make
it up at Nope planning? Okay, but we should at
least have a network of trams and trolleys and no,
how do one car for every person? How do we
get water? We just steal it from this other state?
Now take it from north people. Now, everyone in the

(43:26):
town's feeling alienated and isolated by the plight of modern man. Well,
they should pay us, Yeah, because we can fix that. Yeah,
we cures what ails you. Yeah. Now. By nineteen eighty two,
lafayet Run Hubbard's letters to David Mayo revealed to growing
obsession with death. The Commodore was seventy one years old,
in poor health, and as crazy as a bat on acid.

(43:49):
Hubbard was still canny enough to know that he had
exactly one great achievement left in him. Oh, Run, Hubbard
was going to write the greatest science fiction series of
all time. The first entry in the new Saga would
be that field. Yeah, Saga of the year three thousand.
Jake Peer got to him typing Firefly Pilot, what are

(44:09):
you telling that's why there's only one Sason. Yeah, Hubbard
did not publish 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
at the time. I really have no idres. That's not
a determinate it. That is believable, though, because one thing
all around Hubbard can do is write incredibly long books

(44:32):
and never edit them, not for a second. This is yeah, yeah,
as a sci fi short story buff. Just for the record,
all of his short stories are mediocre. Yeah. He wasn't
an amazing sci fi shorts. 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

(44:53):
entertainment was. 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. Clarks and it's like BoJack Horsemen or whatever,
and it's brilliant, and a lot of them are l
Ron Hubbard, which is like a show or whatever were
almost always like Flash Gordon like, he never had a
grand sci fi concept. He put a cowboy in space

(45:16):
and had do cool shit. Yeah, yeah, this is heresy.
Yeah oh I've turned I looked at the window and
I've gone clear. Don't say that about l Ron Hobby
el Ron. So 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

(45:37):
an alien invasion destroyed civilization. In 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
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

(45:58):
campaign aimed at making it go viral. Scientologists were ordered
to buy two or three copies each had minimum. Battlefield
Earth was just the prelude to Mission Earth, a one
point two million word epic Hubbard intended to release in
ten parts. Yeah, one point two million words and what
has been written? Oh yeah, okay, because that or I
was like, was he like pointing at the stands calling

(46:19):
his shot? Yeah, the sequel, by the way, one million?
He did that and then wrote it and then did it. Yeah,
like it 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.
So three Lord of the Rings trilogies. Yeah, yeah. We
never think about how much goddamn time this guy's spent

(46:41):
in front of a Typewright, that's one thing that is
not right. He wrote like a fucking crazy At the end,
it just says screw Flanders over. 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,

(47:02):
nineteen eighty six, el Ron Hubbard sent out his last
command flag Order number three thousand, eight hundred and seventy nine,
the Sea Org and its Future. In this order, the
Commodore promoted himself to Admiral, published 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

(47:24):
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 traces of hydroxene in
his blood. The drug is most often prescribed as an
anti anxiety and anti neurotic medication, in other words, a
psychiatric medication. The Church steadfastedly rejected the idea that el

(47:47):
Roon Hubbard had died with psychiatric medicine in his system.
They claimed that he took the medication as an antihistamine,
which sure, guys, yeah absolutely. His butt gets famously congest
This bud gets through congested. Was having antieistamy, 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

(48:09):
that anti scientologists want to make an issue about and
we're like, yeah, whatever, and emphasized the anger Tommy Davis experience,
like express to the newspaper, I'm gonna throw another I'm
gonna throw it. Yeah yeah, ooh that one. Because they
were all going like he'd be as millions of people
and we're like as if, yeah whatever whatever. The rank

(48:32):
and file of Scientology were informed of their profit's death.
Death three days later, on January twenty seventh, David Miskovich
addressed eighteen hundred scientologists at the Hollywood Palladium Theater. He
told them this. At two thousand hours Friday twenty fourth
January nineteen eighty six, el 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

(48:53):
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 was 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.
L RH in fact, used this lifetime and body. We
knew to accomplish what no man has ever accomplished. He
unlocked the mysteries of life and gave us the tools

(49:15):
so we could free ourselves and our fellow men. Wow. Ps,
he did himself auditing and he found out he's even
better than he thought he was. So he's an admirals
admiral now. So I could not think of the Hudsucker, right,
you know the Hutsucker Praxy series. Yeah, at six four
wearing Hutsucker merged with the infinite. That is a punch out.

(49:38):
He should have merged with the 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 going to let someone else get the
last one. He wrote all the things. There's nothing he
couldn't have written that wasn't written. And the elegy he
chose was a song called thank You for Listening from

(49:58):
an album of Scientology songs titled The Road to Freedom.
Are you to listen to it? Yeah, we are going
to hear l Ron Hubbard himself sing a motherfucking song.
Oh dude, he's gonna tell me he can fuck and
has a voice like an angel. I hope this is
a Bob Dude. I hope this is a Bob all right, Friends,
without further ado, the voice of l Ron Hubbard, the

(50:24):
Boss Music's original Nice Rich Bring said, oh goddamns. They

(50:51):
would argue the voice so like a dinosaur and a
children saying what I believe. I only give them fact
if they believe quite a why it still will have

(51:12):
him mine. Yeah, I love this song xcept did you
listen to the lyrics and their passion. I'm gonna toss
a cleanic, but it's the room. There are also no
real instruments on this song. That's why I got away.

(51:34):
Yeah karaoke. Imagine listening to this at a funeral. But
truth is truth. And if they then it's I to
live with lie. That's their concern, not mine, my friend.

(51:54):
They're free to fantas loves them low line. It sounds
like it's a full house theme about how you all
believe me, You're all gonna suffer now this is He's
hardly nuts to the full house. Yeah, a lot of

(52:20):
musicals in between the vocals. Yeah, he's breakdancing's surprisingly good
at break dancing and fucking really way too much instrumentals
so much. Okay, Now, so that we can't get in

(52:43):
trouble with copyright concerns, let's discuss linguistically, lyrically, musically, because
you're both musicians, right, Yeah, you're a rapist much less,
that's true. Yeah, you're a rapist and you're you're part
of Cody's band, right yeah, yeah, I consider it Cody's band,
but I don't know that it is. It's more like
guys just showing up and which which makes you is

(53:05):
qualified as l Ron Hubbard to talk about exactly put
this on the public record. I was kicked out of
that band, no further comment. Okay, that's true. Yes, Cody's
band he is. He is a prima donna. And we'll
be listening to this episode and I want him to

(53:25):
record my version of this song once I get a cold. Well.
I was in charge of cover the song. Let's cover
Let's cover this song. I was in charge of cleaning
the rehearsal rooms, and the guys with the white gloves
were not please. They kicked me out of it. So, Michael,
your thoughts on thank you for listening, and on elroon
Hubbard's voice let's start with your thoughts on his voice.

(53:47):
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 deluded fantasy world. Children. Soon you will
get sick from this, do you understand? But listen to

(54:07):
my Sweet Candy the free two phone. It also sounds
like the guy in a barbershop quartet who's only there
to hit the loan out of hed to go oh baby,
and they're like, the three other guys didn't show up.
You got to sing the middle and high. There's not

(54:28):
a shot of that guy who hits that loan out
and then goes, ah, yeah that loan oue part of
the song. God, 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,

(54:50):
like someone got like my brother's cassio and is doing
like French horn on it. I bet they somehow fucked
that up, though. I bet they actually recorded because he
had money. He had so much money, so I've never
heard 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. It sounds like a Midi version.

(55:14):
And you know how I like Middi's, Michael Middi's are
my favorite? Your favorite? That's it's it's better than the
original the Midi versions. But I wish I or maybe
it was. I mean, if this was studio musicians he
hired what I be on a Fly on the Wall
flo he clearly could have afforded it. I feel like
he didn't just because he was so scared that everyone

(55:35):
was trying to murder him, as 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 ar fifteen can fit in a
guitar case. He's like, no musicians, no, 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

(55:55):
what that guy who is just told all right, so
you have to learn how Mike, He's like, ah, I
my last job was I worked at McDonald's. Yeah, you know,
like I into a lot of cases. I was a
heart surgeon. Like this has shot at all my area, right,
I have no clue how to do this. Well, it's
gonna have to be perfect or what he'll beat you. Yeah,

(56:15):
he'll wind up in the torture prison as well. I
guess I signed up and gave money for this. I
do feel like killing myself after listening to it. That
must mean it's the best song. It's version of Excalibur.
It's it's so weird to me that a guy could
who could manipulate the emotions of millions of people and

(56:38):
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 at all, Like it's
the bizarre. The lyrics are ominous, and the music is

(57:00):
like Scientology is the soda that will finally refresh you,
like all of his sodas, he doesn't like get how
to manipulate people's emotions and yet he does it, and
yet he obviously gets it. 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

(57:21):
flubbed a note. But I mean he's got mediocre pipes,
you know what I'm saying, the mediocre. The main thing
that made it sound bad, I thought was that he
cut everywhere. It sounds like the melody lines like it's
falling down the stairs exactly what It's called the noise gate.
And they probably had it to because they don't know

(57:45):
what's going on, so they just anytime the microphone is like,
oh there's no signal, it just got there's no tail.
It's a bunch of lawyers and spies trying to work
on it. Also, if the noise gate was off on
this track, between every line, you'd hear him go he
like breathes in as a seventy one year old trip keeper.

(58:05):
Guess there any moment is the final one? Call me
the commodore. Well, I think that's our legally mandated commentary
over that song. You know what I have to say
about fair use. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna chuck my
last Cleenex box. That's number ten, babies. The floor is

(58:29):
covered in throwing bagels and throwing boxes of Kleenex, a
couple of torn up pieces of earlier scripts that I
read earlier. What I dropped the top of my water
bottle on the ground. I wanted to help out. Thank you.
We always leave it a mess because I'm a problem
like l Ron Hubbard, And once this show takes off enough,
I will absolutely buy a compound in southern Californias and

(58:52):
force people to make movies. Yeah yeah, movie maker. No no, no,
no, no no, no, you'll be boat Yeah. Bring into the cults.
They'll be making the movies. I assume you 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. Or I might

(59:14):
try to take it to the end level. I didn't
finish Wild Wild Country, but I'm on board with creating
a cult city in the middle of nowhere. I really
want to see what your battlefield Earth is. Oh yeah,
I want to know what you think happened right at
the beginning of the universe. I wish how it relates
to you. I'm a psychiatrist. I wish we could get
cults to just assemble, make a movie based on their beliefs,

(59:37):
and then disassemble. Yeah, I want to see all of them.
I wish all movies were made by cults. Yes, they
are in a way. It is propaganda, all of it. Yeah,
or what would have said? It's true? Yeah? Including this?
Well yeah, I mean this is absolutely propaganda aimed at
getting me a compound, someone west and a religion get

(59:58):
indoctrinated people. Yeah, with just a giant glowing dorito on
the spindle that turns everyone at all and in turts
of that's your colt. Would be nice because if you
funk up the set or robber changes his mind. He
wanted a blue, now he wants a green, he just

(01:00:20):
throws a bagel at your heat like it could be worse. Also,
I will throw bagels a lot. If you're hungry, just
eat the compound because it's made of bagels and big
real rat problems. Yeah, you got your five rat quota
already rat within three sentence. They're huge carves. These bagel

(01:00:43):
fed rats are becoming too strong. Roberts just threatening to
overtake the compounds. Somebody has been feeding them away protein
so working out as well. So they're like swollen, enormous rats.
And well, we found a dead rat with a bunch
of puncture needs in its butt. We think it's the rat.
You we think they have all Also, the rat has

(01:01:05):
a T shirt that says the Joe Rogan podcast, We're fucked.
We're so fucked. Oh god, oh god. Okay, plugs pluggables. Yeah,
we uh both he and I, Michael Swave and Abe Epperson.
We have a little thing called small Beans, which you

(01:01:26):
can see on Patreon. We do videos and podcasts 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 Beans. And uh, yeah, we were doing
another show. I don't know we said this last episode.
I can't even remember. Oh yeah, it's the Double Down.

(01:01:47):
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 psyche called cracked and what
was what was? What was that? It was a napkin
fulfillment site, you know, they like refill all the paper

(01:02:09):
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.
Well that sound legally distinct, legally distinct and a good
antidote for Behind the Bastard. Yes, it gets you down.

(01:02:30):
Come listen to some mindless bullshit that we won't find
out for twenty years was actually evil. Yeah, it's going exactly.
Let's get that cultural dipsticks. Well, everybody build a cult,
all right, for sure, we for sure shut us up.
Were build a cult. Okay, I'm leaving. Well this has

(01:02:51):
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 pod cast. It could happen here.
It's sad. Goodbye. M h m h m hm m

(01:03:11):
hm hm