========
Subject: Barb's Millenial Clam Adventure
From: zinjifar@i.am (Zinj)
Date: 30 Dec 1999 17:29:39 -0500
Message-ID: <386bdcd3.0@news2.lightlink.com>

Barb's having some problems getting her posts in, sooooo:

Enjoy

-- 
Barb Graham
Banned By Boston
Xenu

Scientology Reality:
"We are actually the first people that do
know a great deal about death. It is one
of the larger successes of Scientology." 
--L. Ron Hubbard

Universal Actuality:
"We are actually the first people that do 
know a great deal about death.It is one
of the large successes of Scientology. . . 
We cause an awful lot of it."
--Retcap



IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

December 28 in southern California; it doesn't get much
better! We're under a high pressure cell right now, blue skies and
sunshine, and temperatures in the '70s.
It was a wonderful day for a picket! Conner gave me a 
ride up to L.A. in the early afternoon, and we made good
time, arriving at the Sports Arena a little after 3:00pm. There were
still plenty of parking spaces available, so we parked and he called
Jeff Jacobson, who
happened to be across the lot, so we joined him. Bruce Pettycrew and
his wife Kathy were there as well, so we extricated our signs from the
car to begin our picket.

Our target site was on King Street, near the west entrance to the
parking lot. Gathered in a side lot, we were amazed to see several
hundred scientologists gathered behind the steel barred fence,
practising their drills for the stage extravaganza!

IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL

It was quite the spectacle! The scienos were all in costumes! Some were
kitted out in costumes from many lands. There were two flavors of Sea
Ogres present, some all in white, others in Navy blue. There were also
cadres of younger ones fitted out in uniforms that bore the scientology
double-cross emblem in gold, some in burgundy shirts, some in blue.
Scattered about in the lot were standards bearing the name of the org
they were from, others were carrying large flags from different
countries. Germany and Greece were conspicuous by their absence! There
was a sign that read 'ODD ORG;' is there truth in advertising there?
Some of them were lined up in groups, while others milled about
smartly. Suffice it to say, they weren't going anywhere, so we took the
opportunity to picket this captive audience. I mentioned to Kathy that
it reminded me of the Small World ride at Disneyland, and she said it
reminded her of the Jr. United Nations Club she had joined in high
school! 

THE ENTHETA THICKENS

We were presently joined by Keith Henson, who flew down for the
occasion, and Ahmad, who plastered himself and his sign up against the
bars. We were joined later by Thad and Scott Mayer. At the height of
the picket, we had a total of nine critics!

WHAT'S YOUR SIGN?

My sign said "Casavisu Tabayoyon Call Home, Your Family Loves You." I
was informed that the proper spelling is Casavius, thanks a lot,
Tilman! With a last name like Tabayoyon, how was I to know? You got
your proxy picket though, I got the last name right!
Conner's sign said, "Scientology; Clear Mind, Clear Wallet." Jeff hung
a sign around his neck, "UFO Cult."
Kathy's said, "Scientology Hurts People." Keith was carrying two signs,
and kept alternating them, and Bruce had a sign with a picture of Lisa
McPherson and her birth and death dates.

ONE-ADAM-12, SEE THE CLAM

We weren't fifteen minutes into our picket when we were approached by
LAPD. The officers wanted our assurance that there would be no problems
during the event. We assured them that we had no intention of causing a
ruckus. They said they weren't interested in enforcing the picket sign
stick regs, as we were a peaceful, law abiding bunch. Bruce told the
officers the story of Lisa McPherson, and gave one a three page flyer,
which he took away with him.
"Well, if you have any problems, call us right away," he told us.
"We'll be here immediately!" Nice guys, good to know we had them
watching our backs. I saw them cruise by several times during the
afternoon and evening.

SCIENTOLOGISTS...FALL IN!

Gradually the sloppy milling about behind the bars came to some
semblance of order. Commands were barked over a PA system, and the
participants hoisted their flags and gaggled into line. Keith and Bruce
were exhorting the costumed kiddies to remember the URL, Xenu.net.
Since the Blue Tarp Tech was absent, I saw many scienos, young and old,
sneaking peeks at our signs. Copies of the Xenu flyer were offered
through the bars, but nobody took them, not even when I started making
chicken noises! But, you know how kids are...some of them are going to
look up the site, if only because they've been told not to by their
parents!

The drills went on, over and over. It seemed to me that not a lot of
planning had gone into the spectacle, in fact, it appeared pretty
spur-of-the-moment. The disorganised 'marching' was pretty
unimpressive; you'd think the faux Navy Sea Org would at least be able
to march in cadence. Finally, these STRAC troopies began a gaggling
procession out the gate, but the traffic was beginning to arrive.

TR0-FLUNK!

Our second captive audience of the afternoon was beginning to pour into
the parking lot. Due to the traffic lights, those arriving were forced
to sit in traffic in the right hand lane, only feet away from our
picket signs, to make the right turn into the lot. I decided to play a
little game; after reading about the expensive staring contest these
people are subjected to, I wondered if it really did them any good in
real life. I started making eye contact with the occupants of the
vehicles. Curiously, most of them would look away first! Hmmm. One guy
was caught by my gaze and didn't look away, but didn't know what to do,
so he said hi. I said hi, told him to tell Tabayoyon to call his mom,
and wished him a pleasant time. For the most part though, they all
broke eye contact first. I didn't get one single death glare, which was
disappointing. I guess that tech doesn't work in the wog world, just
across a table!

THUMBS UP...WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?

It was astonishing that we received very few middle fingers, and a lot
of thumbs up from the people going into the parking lot! I cannot
imagine scientologists giving us positive acknowledgement; either those
individuals weren't culties or they were using reverse psychology.
Puzzling. We did get a few honks and waves from traffic as well. One
little old Italian lady caught in traffic stuck her head out the window
and yelled in a delightful accent, 
"I have been in the scientology for twenty years! Don't listen to them
or you are stupid!" Uhhh...perche? Was she referring to listening to
the critics, or to the scientologists she had been involved with? We
shall never know.

A GATHERING OF PENGUINS

I had an excellent opportunity to observe the fashion trends of
scientologists in their native habitat. Boiled shirts and bow ties
seemed to be the costume of choice for the males. The majority of women
tended towards outfits of glittery fabric, pretty formal attire for a
sports arena. There were many, many thetans in small bodies being
dragged to this event, they often gawked, wide-eyed, at the evil and
degraded SPs. They, too, were dressed to the nines.

READ MY LIPS

I had expected that the majority of scientologists would simply sit in
their cars, staring straight ahead, to avoid being tainted by our
entheta. Surprisingly, most of them read my sign! Even more surprising,
a large number move their lips when reading! This is not a slam, it's
merely an observation. Keith Henson pointed it out too.

DOWN ON THE CORNER...OUT IN THE STREET

Keith was having too much fun! He and Jeff stayed on the corner,
pointing out that there were no OTs here, or they'd have postulated us
gone; he was also reminding people to look up XENU.NET for the truth
about OTIII.
"Space cooties! John Travolta thinks he's covered in dead space
cooties! Go to XENU.NET! Remember the URL, that's XENU.NET!" 

I stayed a ways down from the corner, picket sign lowered for ease of
reading, playing my eye contact game, while free-range critics wandered
up and down the sidewalk. We had no handlers at all, although once some
fellow in full Sea Org regalia came out, walked a short way down the
block, turned around and left. His costume was fairly dripping with
gold braid; as he passed me I barked out, "Hey, sailor! Where's your
lid? You're out of uniform!" You would not go out in public without
your hat in the real Navy!

The only conflict I heard about was somebody throwing something at
Keith. Ice? A rock? Whatever, they missed him.

I heard somebody yell, "Hey Jeff!" from behind the bars. I sneaked a
peek, it was ARS's own Russell Shaw! I did not go over and introduce
myself, but he and Jeff seemed to be having a nice chat.

A call came in from our mole on the inside. It seems that they had
strict security precautions in place, restricting access down to one
door with a metal detector. Thus, at 7:30, when the program was to
begin, there was a line of about a thousand people waiting to get in! I
bet a lot of women were regretting their high heels by the end of the
evening!

Quite late in the picket, as traffic was dwindling, we were joined by a
couple of scientologists carrying large signs with the double-cross
emblem and the word EVENT with an arrow. One of them was schmoozing
with me; he started out by telling a long joke complete with dialect.
He was very personable, and tells a joke well. We chatted idly for a
bit, I asked him if he knew Tabayoyon and he said, "No." I suggested he
ask Miscavige for the microphone so he could make a public service
announcement. "Yeah," he said, "Mr. Miscavige, can I borrow your mic
for a second?"
"Heh," said I, "You'd be running around a pole for a year if you did
that!"
Then he said a curious thing, "I don't understand you punk rocker
types," and turned to talk to someone else.

It was a curious thing to say, as I'd left my mohawk on my other head,
and the chains, leather, and safety pins at home! I was actually
dressed fairly well, RPF black pants, grey turtleneck, and a fleece
jacket. The tattoos on my arm were covered by my jacket. My hair is
normal in appearance, if a tad shorter than I like. It is of a color
found in nature.

He must have known who I am. He must have seen the picture of me on the
ARSCC Photo Gallery web page, a picture taken in 1984, with full mohawk
and all the trimmin's. There is no other explanation.

Ahmad had a ticket and was planning to go in. He left us, and a bit
later Jeff heard on the radio that some homeless guy with two tickets
was trying to enter the event. It could not have been Ahmad, though. He
was too well dressed and clean to be mistaken for a bum. He rejoined us
later, not wanting to deal with the line at the door. He reported
numerous limos at the celebrity entrance.

When we were ready to leave, we were informed that we would not be
allowed back into the parking lot with our signs! So, Kathy and Bruce
left their signs with us and retrieved their car. We put our signs in
that car, and went in to recover our vehicles. We were going to meet at
a Pizza Hut, but discovered upon arrival that it was take-out only, so
we repaired to the Sizzler instead. Scott decided to go home instead,
but we met a guy at the Pizza Hut who joined us under the pseudonym A.
Lurker. Keith, too, had to go in order to catch the last plane out.
I heard the word 'scientology' from a group at an adjacent table; it
was a posse of limo drivers! I was wondering who they had driven to the
event, but A. Lurker pointed out that anybody with $80 could get one
for the evening!
Finally, we all went our seperate ways.

All in all, I think it was an effective picket. The scientology public
were not protected from us by Tarp Tech, and most of them read our
signs.
I'd like to thank the administration for providing us with such a large
captive audience. Let's do it again real soon!

Humbly submitted,

Barb