From lapsed Catholic Metro, who will doubtless burn in eternal hellfire for it or at least have to release an album of traditional Irish ballads before his reputation will be rehabilitated.
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How to drive Scientologists crazy for fun and profit. And that’s AFTER L.Ron and his minions have already warmed them up for you; they’re halfway there already!
“Your problem is that you are easily led.”
I thought about this for a moment. I didn’t actually feel particularly easy to lead, I decided, but perhaps she would have something to tell me I didn’t know.
Having allowed her point to sink in, she continued, “Do you want to be activator or activated?”
This was a bit cryptic, and I quite honestly didn’t get her drift, so I asked her politely to explain exactly what she meant.
“Do you want people to activate you, or do you want to activate them?”
“Well.” I hesitated, considering this rather either-or view of things. “Does one have to go around activating people to avoid being activated by them?”
“Yes.” She was very decisive about this. I had to admit that she had in fact just told me something I had never known before.
“I’m not certain that I agree. As far as I know I activate myself and other people do the same for themselves.”
“It isn’t that simple!” Again she was extremely decisive. This was interesting since it had always seemed that way to me.
“Do I have the right to activate people? Isn’t it their job and their right to activate themselves? You’d be taking a hell of a responsibility if you went around activating people, wouldn’t you?”
“Only for their own good!”
Now she was really beginning to interest me. Her logic was fascinating: To avoid being activated by people, which would be bad for me, I had to activate them, which would be good for them. (Quite apart from the fact that statements like “for their own good” have a tendency to stimulate my anti-authority neurosis and trigger off the little alarm bells.) This was becoming interestinger and interestinger, and I was becoming curiouser and curiouser about exactly who these people were. I was just about to find out.
“Now.” She fixed me with her gaze. “What you need is this book!” She held it up.
I leant forward and examined it. Large, cheerfully coloured letters on the front identified it: DIANETICS, by L. RON HUBBARD…
This continues for some time, escalating entertainingly, after which…
I leant back and waited expectantly.
She blinked, looked at me somewhat blankly, then blinked again. I waited expectantly.
She looked at her desktop and blinked at that. This didn’t look partcularly encouraging, but I waited expectantly.
Her next move was to place her elbows on the desktop, fold her hands together and start rocking her body backwards and forwards. She finally stopped rocking and started staring at me intensely. What she hoped to achieve by this was unclear.
I felt it was time to give her som encouragement and guidance.
“Dear Lady.” My tone was extremely patient and sympathetic. “You have to give me a sales pitch, you know. You aren’t going to sell me anything by just looking at me and clamming up.”
She frowned, and kept frowning for a while. Then, to my astonishment, she blew herself up like a frog, pointed at the door and screamed hysterically, “UD FOR FAEN!!! UD!!!” (This translates roughly as “Get the fuck out of here! Get out!”)
I rose politely while she glared at me balefully, quivering and looking very apoplectic. Having opened the door preparatory to leaving, I addressed her again.
“But Dear Lady.” My tone was full of fatherly concern. “You aren’t going to activate me into buying anything by throwing me out of your office. Have you paid money for these courses? Are you sure you haven’t been ripped off?”
That really did it! She shot to her feet like a champagne cork, hunched her shoulders, withdrew her head like a turtle, stamped on the floor and, gesticulating hysterically in the direction of the door with her index finger, her whole arm and her whole body, emitted an even more ear-splitting “UD FOR FAEN!!! UD!!! U-U-U-D!!!”
Out of concern for her observably imminent heart attack I withdrew.
Don’t miss the scientific conclusions and wrap-up on the site.
But you have to wonder if it hadn’t, or, if it had, who it was who got to make that call.
This song has haunted not my dreams but my waking for nearly ten years, ever since Mister Natural played it for me.
The story is this:
Gavin Bryars, an interesting fellow if ever there was one, was working on a film about the homeless people who populated the neighborhoods of Elephant & Castle and Waterloo Station, a very Hogarthian scene even if gin is not as cheap as it used to be. Not being used to starring in films, the populace enjoyed the attention and in some cases hammed it up for the cameras with appropriate ruffles and flourishes and not a few belts of song or even something stronger.
One of those singers, a teetotaller in fact, came out with this.
I’ve heard it in both the unadorned and orchestral versions, and I must say I prefer the starker one. Adding Tom Waits to the mix is gilding the lily: surely Tom Waits is nothing but an haut-Boho imitation of something the old man was a true original of.
With nothing but this creaky old voice rattling out a single-line message of faith and hope for twenty solid minutes, one can’t help but meditate on it.
This man’s whole life is there, in the tension between his circumstances and his message. He, at least, believes he has never been failed by Jesus (and who are we to say he HAS?) and yet there he is; why, he wouldn’t have been recorded at all if he had not been the very embodiment of society’s lowest castoffs. And so, his cruel circumstances are themselves what enable his inspiring voice to be heard in the first place, yet his moving faith seems so wildly unjustified.
Somewhere between the impossibility of the truth and the impossibility of anything else lies the human condition.
When I copied the loop onto the continuous reel in Leicester, I left the door of the recording studio open (it opened onto one of the large painting studios) while I went downstairs to get a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual, and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping. I was puzzled until I realized that the tape was still playing and that they had been overcome by the old man’s unaccompanied singing.
This demonstrated to me the emotional power of the music, but also alerted me to the need to approach very carefully anything I did to the tape. I had already thought about a gradually added orchestral accompaniment and I realized that this needed to be simple, to gradually evolve, yet at the same time respect the tramp’s humanity and simple faith.
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What will you get me for Christmas?
| Which God or Goddess are you like?
Your Result: Jesus You are God’s lovechild. You love all and most love you. You help those who need it, and those too. The girls all chase you, and some boys too. You love to have fun, but you keep a serious life of working as well.Congratulations!! You are Christ!! |
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| Goddess Bast |
65% |
| The Christian God |
65% |
| You are your own God or Goddess |
55% |
| Budha |
55% |
| God Zeus |
50% |
| Goddess Sekhemet |
45% |
| Satan |
30% |
| Which God or Goddess are you like? Make Your Own Quiz |
|
Jeez, I’da thought I’d have scored higher on the Satan-O-Meter, but oh well. I’m off to fuck with more minds online…
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raincoaster 