Zapanaz 2: Scientologists 0
Zapanaz
There was a big parade in Seattle last night, the Seafair parade. I
hadn't really meant to go to it, I asked a lady out, but I did it by
email and just before the time i planned to meet her, so I knew it was
50/50 if I would hear back from her.
Anyway so I went downtown so I would be there in time in case it did
work out, and didn't hear from her until later. But then I looked up
and all the streets were blocked off and there's this parade going
down the street. So what the hell, I decided to walk along the parade
route and bar hop. I like crazy crowds.
So I am walking through this crowd and enjoying myself, when this guy
approaches me with an arm load of pamphlets. Immediately I wonder
what he's selling.
He is a clean-cut, good-looking bright young guy. But with a bizarre
element, he has this absolutely hideous glittery gold necktie on. It
isn't just bad, it's bizarre. More clownish than like something a
country-western singer would wear.
So he starts giving me his spiel, I see his pamphlets, SCIENTOLOGY in
big friendly letters on the cover. Oh dear, one of them.
So first I give him a Church of the SubGenius spiel. I don't remember
exactly where I took it, but I was on a roll, telling him about how
J.R. "Bob" Dobbs has come to bring us back the slack which THEY have
taken away, and all that kind of thing. I remember at some point I
pulled out a picture of "Bob" from my wallet and showed him and said
"DON'T YOU FEEL IT? THAT'S "BOB"!"
Anyway so he laughs and says "but that's all a joke, right?"
So I say "SO IS YOURS, MAN"
"Wake up, cult-boy. Don't you know L. Ron Hubbard just made all that
stuff up to rook the gullible? There's nothing there."
He is non-plussed. "I can only speak from my own experience, but my
own experience is it works. You can't knock it until you now what
it's about."
"Sure", I say, "but the parts that work aren't original. Like take
auditing for example ..."
He seems a little surprised that I know what auditing is. "You know
about auditing?"
"It's really just a rewarmed form of meditation."
"I've done meditation," he says.
"And auditing is basically the same thing, isn't it? You know, you
learn progressively to reduce your automatic reaction to stimuli and
external circumstances."
He rephrases this in some minor way which doesn't really matter, I say
"sure".
Then he says something about The Tech, the Scientology "technology".
I say "they just made some science-fiction-looking toys to make you
feel like you have some super-advanced technology but what you're
actually DOING is the same as what people have been doing for
thousands of years."
He is really on no firm footing now. He says "but, the Organization
..."
And see, at that point, I know I got him. Because he isn't
disagreeing with any of what I'm saying. He's just trying to come up
with something else, some other tack to salvage his religion.
"The organization is a cult, dude", I say, then walk away. He is
standing there looking after me.
I think from the internet, I have gotten good at this kind of debate.
Then, just a half a block later on, I run into another one.
Same bizarre hideous gold tie, same armload of pamphlets.
This guy is older, and kind of bitter-looking, compared to the young
bright clean-cut lad from earlier.
He does the usual street-hawker thing of trying to make eye contact.
He approaches every single person who passes him, except me. (In fact
that was the case with the younger guy too ... I have pretty good
"leave me the fuck alone/GFY" vibes when strangers approach me. I
actually kind of sought them both out, because I was in the mood to
fuck with them.)
I start in on "Oh, Scientology? C'mon, you know that's a scam,
right?"
He is different from the young guy. He turns away, turns his back,
does everything to avoid continuing the conversation. But he doesn't
seem to want to leave his stretch of sidewalk. Probably, they have
assigned areas and don't have the freedom to just wander down the
street and pander somewhere else.
"Oh c'mon, you want to sell me on your beliefs, but you won't talk
about them? Don't you believe it yourself?"
He is getting visibly angry and continuing to ignore me.
"Deep down, you kind of know it's a scam, don't you?"
His shoulders hunch, but he continues to ignore me. He walks further
away.
I give up on him.
So I call that one win, one surrender.
Or maybe I was just being a drunk belligerent asshole.
But I think I really got to the young guy. Maybe early enough to help
him. The older guy is probably past saving. But I hope I planted
some kind of little bug in his brain.
As I walked away from them, this stretch of sidewalk where the two of
them were patrolling to save people from their thetans or become
thetans or however that works. I saw one of the Scientology pamphlets
discarded on the sidewalk.
Then another.
Then two or three together.
Then five or six, then dozens. There must have been fifty of these
pamphlets discarded, most of them just out of sight of the two
Scientologists with their hideous gold neckties.
So the Scientologists are hard-selling their pamphlets into the arms
of these people wandering out of the parade, and fifty feet along they
are chucking them.
Fucking Seattleites; too polite and kind-hearted to just chuck the
unwanted pamphlets in sight of the Scientologists. That's poignant.
I've gotten to enjoy debating in the streets like that, which is
undoubtedly because of the Church of the SubGenius.
But I'm going to get my lights punched out doing that one of these
days.
And anyway it makes a nicer story than the three underage black girls
who decided to rub all over me later.
--
Zapanaz
International Satanic Conspiracy
Customer Support Specialist
http://joecosby.com/
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
- Kurt Vonnegut
:: Currently listening to Immortal Memory, 2004, by Lisa Gerrard/Patrick Cassidy, from "Immortal Memory"
Tater Gumfries
wrote:
You are the man, JC!
TAter
Toilet Pepper
wrote:
>
> He seems a little surprised that I know what auditing is. "You know
> about auditing?"
>
> "It's really just a rewarmed form of meditation."
>
> "I've done meditation," he says.
>
> "And auditing is basically the same thing, isn't it? You know, you
> learn progressively to reduce your automatic reaction to stimuli and
> external circumstances."
>
That's a good one, JC.
What's really sad about these religious fanatics is that a large
portion of their followers don't have any idea what they've put
themselves into. My usual argument with them would usually be their
words and beliefs that they don't follow.
Another fun thing to do is astound them with information about their
religion that they themselves don't know. That usually shocks them.
nikolai kingsley
> And anyway it makes a nicer story than the three underage black girls
> who decided to rub all over me later.
prove they were underage! go on, i DARE you.
"Rev" Norle Enturbulata DDT, OD, THC
"Zapanaz" <http://joecosby.com/code/mai...@foo.com> wrote in message
news:c4ec56t1amomdleav...@4ax.com...
just john
Take the rest of the day off. You've earned it.
Jonathan Schattke
> Well done!
>
>
> Take the rest of the day off. You've earned it.
He's a subgenius. Taking the rest of the day off was a given. Now, if
you'd told him to take the rest of the week off, he'd be close to my
summer. Well, OK, I haven't had to do anything important in, um, oh,
yeah, there was on day in June.
So, one day in 3 months is cool. I can deal with that amount of stress.
Modemac
http://offdainnertube.blogspot.com/2010/08/bob-needles-scientoloigists-in-seattle.html
--
The High Weirdness Project
http://www.modemac.com
Zapanaz
wrote:
>This guy likes what you wrote:
>
>http://offdainnertube.blogspot.com/2010/08/bob-needles-scientoloigists-in-seattle.html
cool
I like his sci-fi girl. I think that was his way of illustrating
"science-fiction-looking toys to make you feel like you have some
super-advanced technology"
--
Zapanaz
International Satanic Conspiracy
Customer Support Specialist
http://joecosby.com/
The change of color is likely and a difference a very little difference is prepared. Sugar is not a vegetable.
- Gertrude Stein
:: Currently listening to Sorceress, 1976, by Lenny White/Return to Forever, from "Romantic Warrior"
Prophet
>
> There was a big parade in Seattle last night, the Seafair parade. I
> hadn't really meant to go to it, I asked a lady out, but I did it by
> email and just before the time i planned to meet her, so I knew it was
> 50/50 if I would hear back from her.
>
> Anyway so I went downtown so I would be there in time in case it did
> work out, and didn't hear from her until later. But then I looked up
> and all the streets were blocked off and there's this parade going
> down the street. So what the hell, I decided to walk along the parade
> route and bar hop. I like crazy crowds.
>
> So I am walking through this crowd and enjoying myself, when this guy
> approaches me with an arm load of pamphlets. Immediately I wonder
> what he's selling.
>
> He is a clean-cut, good-looking bright young guy. But with a bizarre
> element, he has this absolutely hideous glittery gold necktie on. It
> isn't just bad, it's bizarre. More clownish than like something a
> country-western singer would wear.
>
> So he starts giving me his spiel, I see his pamphlets, SCIENTOLOGY in
> big friendly letters on the cover. Oh dear, one of them.
>
> So first I give him a Church of the SubGenius spiel. I don't remember
> exactly where I took it, but I was on a roll, telling him about how
Go steal some candy from babies, dumbass.
GLOATING over your bravery and intelligence for confronting SCIEN-FUCKING-
TOLOGISTS??
LOL!!
Pathetic.
Zapanaz
yeah posting random posts at SubGeniuses on alt.slack is much more
impressive.
--
Zapanaz
International Satanic Conspiracy
Customer Support Specialist
http://joecosby.com/
History consists of truths which in the end turn into lies, while myth consists of lies which finally turn into truths.
- Jean Cocteau
:: Currently listening to We Are the Music Makers, 1993, by Aphex Twin, from "Selected Ambient Works 85-92"
Prophet
Zapanaz
>How did you escape my killfile?
is that a trick question?
--
Zapanaz
International Satanic Conspiracy
Customer Support Specialist
http://joecosby.com/
I can take a lot but a mailbox full of dead babies with "YOU COULD
WIN!" magic markered on their foreheads would be a little much for me.
:: Currently listening to Motherfucker=Redeemer (Part One), 2002, by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, from "Yanqui U.X.O."
Stealth Tuba
news:4c58b92c$0$9976$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
> How did you escape my killfile?
Lots of lube.
Bend over.
Gerbil Rocket
>
> "Prophet" wrote
>
>> How did you escape my killfile?
>
> Lots of lube.
>
> Bend over.
I like the idea of trying to convert 'em to the Church of the SubGenius.
It's so totally uncool on every level. Congratulations, Zapanaz.
We can all "prophet" from slack.
--
"Kafka and Samuel Beckett are two of my most important novelists"
- Joseph Heller
http://armagost.blogspot.com/2010/08/no-pain-no-gain.html
"Rev" Norle Enturbulata DDT, OD, THC
"Prophet" <3@2.1> wrote in message
news:4c5892a3$0$16682$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
So tell us about YOUR experiences with the Scientology cult, O dickhead?