Blown for Good Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology (24 page)

Anyway, Dave Miscavige had been buried in some major legal proceedings and we didn’t see him much. We liked it that way. If he was occupied, then the base staff could get on with their work. It was a pure nightmare when he was around. People would blow, would get sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force and would exist in a constant state of terror. When Miscavige was at the base, it was like the place had frozen over and nothing would get done. It was weird because when he was there, the big push was always to get MORE done. It never worked out that way. So it was fine with us that he was off in Washington D.C. and Florida dealing with legal situations.

I was bored as hell being in tapes and any chance I got, I would help in the Audio Visual Systems department. They had these two old crusty technicians who worked in there and needed help badly. I loved making cassette decks and projection systems so they let me help whenever it was slow in tapes. Systems was another department in Manufacturing so the Manufacturing Secretary would pressure my senior to let me help. It worked out really good for me; my division head would go to bat for me to work in another area! I had gotten so good that I had even gone out to some organizations to install audio visual systems. One of the systems included two cameras and microphones that were installed in every single auditing room. All the cameras were fed to central locations where auditing sessions were watched and recorded.

Anyway, one day the guy who was over all quality control in Gold came to see me. I held one of three quality control posts in Gold. Well this guy was responsible for quality control of everything produced at Gold. He could walk into any area of the organization and do a spot check inspection of a product and if it was low quality or had any fault with it, he could shut down the entire area until it was sorted out to his satisfaction. He was a god. Even though he was quality control for Gold, Dave Miscavige had to approve all film rushes, videos and final film prints.

Well, this quality control guy, Randall, really wanted to be a mixer and had been in training for that before he was assigned the quality control position. He still wanted to be a mixer and if he could get himself replaced, he could become a mixer. He wanted me to replace him.

I liked the idea. In fact, I loved the idea. I could finally get out of tapes and I would be posted in the Executive division of Gold! My senior however hated the idea. My senior was Lynnea Baker. Before working in tapes, Lynnea had been in Religious Technology Center. She worked for Greg Wilhere and had been dismissed from Religious Technology Center by Dave Miscavige. After the Gauss line was cleaned out of all people and needed more, she was posted in tapes. This girl had risen all the way to the top and now she was as low as you could go. And here I was getting promoted out of there. There was no question that she was the better staff member, that she was more dedicated than I was, that she was more in-ethics most of the time. None of these weighed in on the decision. It was purely the fact that I had experience with systems which made me more qualified to do the job! So because I was bored with my assigned job and loved messing around in another area, I was more qualified! I loved that. She was pissed she ever let me do that systems work.

After all kinds of kicking and screaming from Lynnea, I got the job. I was now over all quality control. I would walk all over the base and check different tapes, films, videos and systems. I would spot check some items, and others, like systems, required that I check each and every one before they were sent out to Scientology organizations.

My wife was very proud of me. She was a real strait-laced Sea Org member compared to the wild unconformity I was known for. Now that I had a respectable position, I am sure she was happier. She no longer had to tell people her husband’s post was the Pancake quality control. I remember that when I told her family that I was the pancake quality control they thought that Gold had so many people they needed a dedicated post to check the pancakes being served for breakfast!

From my new position, I had a tiny bit more freedom. I was posted in the executive division of Gold. My direct senior was Claudia Olander. She had been promoted up the ranks from the security clearance office and was now an executive in Gold. Claudia had no idea what I was doing because my post was technical and hers was administrative, so I did whatever I did and she left me alone.

We had a big event coming up in October at Saint Hill, the big old organization in England where Hubbard had lived for many years, and that meant we would have cassette releases and films and some other items as well. I would be busy quality control checking all of the products that would be released before the event as well as the videos of the event that would be distributed.

About two weeks before the event, a big meeting was called. The event was not going to be in the Great Hall at Saint Hill after all. It was not even going to be in Europe or England at all. It was not only going to be in the United States, but would be held at the LA Sports Arena! This was a huge deal. Every year there was an event at the Shrine Auditorium in LA and it was a nightmare trying to fill the venue, which held around 6,300 people. If we squeezed 4,000 people into the lower seats and blocked off the balconies, we were lucky and that was with all LA staff in attendance as well!

Well, the Sports Arena held well over 15,000 people. I am sure that everyone in the meeting was thinking the same thing, why are we doing this? We were not told why. We were told that a very big announcement would be happening and that this would be the biggest event Scientology had ever had. Well in Gold there was a saying: The bigger the event, the more chances we have to screw it up!

The event preparations were crazy. We had all the Rehabilitation Project Force members in Los Angeles building the huge sets that would be loaded into the Sports Arena. All the event crew were barely able to pull off a decent event at the Shrine. This place was easily five times bigger than the Shrine and the acoustics were much worse than the Shrine. The Sports Arena sounded like a giant bathroom. It had so much echo that the sound guys were totally baffled (no pun intended) on how to deal with it.

Tons of lights were brought in. Tons of cameras were brought in. We even had a flying camera that was on a huge high wire that would fly back and forth throughout the event. They called it a “sky cam” or “cable cam”. There were enough speakers to fill the Shrine auditorium and have no room for people. The speakers barely made a dent in the Sports Arena. The budget for the event was inevitably going to be in the million dollar range. It was like there was a money hydrant turned on to put on this event, and money was pouring out for anything and everything that was needed.

The stage being built for the event had a giant gold background with huge pillars. There were two teleprompters built into the stage that would allow Dave Miscavige to look out at the audience and read his speech reflected on these two mirror devices while being scrolled on a TV beneath the stage. This was standard for any type of event where a speech was prepared ahead of time.

People were being brought in to attend the event from all over the United States. They had people flying in from all over the world. All the rich Scientologists were being told, “It does not matter where you live, you have to come to this event and be there live.” And of course, in true Scientology style, this was all being done at the last possible minute with the least amount of warning possible.

The event would take place on October 8th, 1993. As the date approached, more and more staff members were staying up all night to complete the preparations. Everything had to be perfect. We still did not know what the hell was even going to happen. A few people in the editing bay knew something was up. They were putting together graphics for the event but they were completely random. It looked like things from the past 40 years of Scientology’s history.

A week before the event rumors were flying around the base. Documents were being brought in to be photographed and made ready for the event.

We had one week left before the biggest event in Scientology’s history. This was either going to be the best thing to happen or the worst. Most of us at Gold had our money on the latter.

All the cameras at the event were TV style cameras. They had at least seven cameras throughout the Sports Arena plus the cable cam flying overhead. All these cameras were fed to the large production truck that was controlling all of the audio and video recordings of the event. There was a huge control station inside the truck and banks and banks of video recorders.

The audio and lighting inside the Sports Arena was being controlled from a large platform in the back of the arena facing the stage. There was a huge audio mixing board with a few people at it and a huge lighting board with a few more guys at it. The guy controlling the cable cam was also situated there and he had a TV showing the cable cam feed.

The night of the event came. The Sports Arena was about two thirds full. In addition to the public Scientologists, all West Coast organization staff and Sea Organization staff were in attendance which made up at least 2000 people.

The event opened with a laser light show and a flag twirling honor guard procession. Then Dave Miscavige talked for two hours. Most of us couldn’t understand a word he said. The audio in the Sports Arena was horrible once you got up past the floor seats. So a thousand people heard what he said and the rest of us just clapped when we saw the people in the floor sections clapping. I knew that the audio staff would be losing at least one or two people to the Rehabilitation Project Force after this event. But that would be a small portion of the fun we had in store for us.

At the end of the event, Dave Miscavige announced that the war with the IRS was finally over. There was a big fanfare, falling confetti and standing ovations which continued for at least fifteen minutes. Dave then handed out some Waterford crystal awards to the tax attorneys.

Then Marc Yager, Guillaume Lesevre, and Ray Mithoff each gave a short five-minute speech and the event ended with David Pomerantz singing a new song called “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” Cheddar had less cheese in it than this. From our perspective, besides the horrible audio, it was anyone’s guess what would happen next.

The next day back at the base trouble was already brewing. There were unseen problems that had gone on throughout the event and Dave Miscavige was furious.

It seemed like anything that could go wrong did.

We all knew the audio was horrible in the arena, was it was also horrible on stage? Supposedly Dave was losing his voice because he was fighting to even be able to hear himself throughout the entire event.

When Dave got up to start talking on stage, the teleprompters were not properly aligned. So instead of having two teleprompters for him to read his speech from, he had one third of one teleprompter and the other was completely unreadable throughout the entire event. Also, the lighting was screwed up and a spotlight was trained directly on Dave the entire time making him sweat like a pig and barely able to see.

The staff editing the event had cut away from Dave before he could utter the words “The War is Over!” Dave had a big deal with this and had wanted to have the cameras focused on him when he said this. He was adamant that this was the most important moment of the entire event and he wanted the event re-edited so that the cameras stayed on him while he said, “The War is Over!” Simple enough request. Well, the video deck recording the camera that was on Dave when he said that line had a problem with it. Apparently it did not properly record that part. It recorded the rest of the event fine, but during that one single phrase, the deck was faulty and did not properly record. This meant they did not have Dave Miscavige saying the most important part of the entire million dollar event.

In addition to cutting away from his big line, the lights had moved off him when he said it. This meant that even if the footage was in some way salvageable, it was too dark and would have to be fixed at an expensive visual effects post production house in LA.

People were being security checked all over the place. Dave was going to get to the bottom of all of the problems with the event. He wanted answers. A list of people that would be receiving a Committee of Evidence was drawn up. It had five people on it so far and as more and more people were security checked, the list grew.

And as people were sec checked, rumors started to fly about what had caused the problems.

The teleprompter story was the first to hit the base rumor mill. The teleprompters were poles with one-way glass mirrors that were raised and lowered by hand, which was done by two staff positioned under the stage. Those staff had to live under the stage throughout the rehearsals and during the entire event. These two guys had to maneuver their way to the front portion under the stage and sit there for several hours and then raise or lower the teleprompter poles on specific cues. Well the poles didn’t only move up and down, but if the person raising them wasn’t careful, they could rotate the pole in its shaft which threw the angle off and made it unreadable to the person on stage. This was the basic problem. Also, the glass on these devices would be cleaned with special cloths for at least 20 minutes before each event. If the glass had so much as the slightest blemish, it would make the text very hard to read. These glass panels were highly sensitive and had to be handled with the utmost of care. You could only clean the glass above the stage because there was no available light below the stage.

Turns out that right before the event, Dave Miscavige had come out on stage for a make-up check. When he stood at the podium, Shelly Miscavige stood in front of the podium to make sure that his make-up looked good. Shelly was wearing a long flowing dress. She stood right above one of the holes in the stage where one of the teleprompter guys was camped out. Now I can’t speak for every guy out there, but if you have a girl that is half way pretty standing above you and she is wearing a dress, chances are you are going to sneak a peek. Now we have a stagehand that is a bit excited, works up an appetite and proceeds to eat a big, juicy green apple. Eating an apple is not the best thing to do when you are sitting inches away from a piece of glass that despises even the slightest hint of bad breath. Well the guy ate the entire apple. A few minutes before the event was to begin, he noticed that he had sprayed apple juice all over his teleprompter glass and in three minutes he would be raising it above the stage. He took off his shirt and tried to wipe the juice off. This made matters even worse and the juice covered the entire glass with smudges which no amount of spit and last minute cleaning was going to save.