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Subject: Literary Fleas Part 2: Enturbulation at the B&N in Salt Lake City
From: mirele@newsguy.com (Deana Marie Holmes)
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 04:04:54 GMT
Message-ID: <379146bb.17868814@enews.newsguy.com>

BenWog, this one's for you.

I ended up my last post by saying that I was on my way out the door to
visit the Barnes & Noble on 4th South and 6th East in lovely downtown
Salt Lake City, and that's exactly what I did.

I got my picket signs together.  One side said, "Today's signing
brought to you by Bridge Publications, a tentacle of Scientology" and
the other side read, "The Dave Wolverton booksigning is a PR event for
the Church of $cientology".  Both signs had the canonical URL of
www.xenu.net on them.  Despite what Charlotte Kates had said about
these sorts of things being a Scieno recruiting session, I had my
doubts, but I decided to go with this because, well, at the very
least, people needed to know that if they bought Wolverton's book,
then they were funding Scn through Bridge Publications.

Then I made a stop by the grocery store to get some refreshment and a
cheapie throw-away camera.

I was wearing my "Xenu wants me for a sunbeam" t-shirt and pink shorts
and sneakers.  It was a bit warm (in the mid-80s) but somewhat
overcast and it had the look of possible rain.  I prayed that if it
rained, it'd hold off until after the signing.  Xenu favoured me in
that.  The clouds kept off the sun, but it didn't rain.

I had previously tried to round up observers to watch me picket, but
wouldn't you know it, my ex-boyfriend was giving a paper at Sunstone
on Saturday afternoon so he and a whole bunch of people who might have
come down to observe were off listening to him give a paper.  So I was
glad that Keith contacted a friend of his, named K, who lives in SLC
and gave him the particulars of the event.  

I got to the B&N about 2:40.  I started casing the joint, looking for
Scienos, and seeing if K had showed up.  He finally came up and
introduced himself to me...apparently the Xenu t-shirt was a huge tip
off for him.  We talked for a few moments over by the cafe portion of
the B&N, then I noticed a guy in the parking lot leafleting the cars
with thin strips of paper.  He wasn't putting them on the windshields,
but slipping them into the windows on the driver's side.  I pointed
this out to K, and said, "I'm going out to have a look."  

Well, it turned out to be Dianetics tickets. Printed on dark green
paper, the tickets were 8 1/2 inches long by about 2 or so inches
wide.  On it was printed:

The unconscious,
subconscious
or reactive mind
underlies 
and enslaves man.

It's the _source_ of your
nightmares,
unreasonable fears,
upsets and any 
insecurity.

GET RID OF 
YOUR 
REACTIVE 
MIND

The rest was a plug for Dianetics and a Dn seminar.  

The guy sticking these in the car windows was wearing a cap with a
green Dn triangle on it.  I made a beeline for the B&N and told K that
the cult was leafleting in the lot and that I was going for my picket
sign.  Which is what I did.  This was about 10 minutes before the
author signing was supposed to begin.

For the next thirty minutes or so, there was almost a comic
atmosphere, as the community affairs employee tried to tell the
Scienos they could not leaflet in the parking lot or accost people,
but she apparently felt powerless to stop them when they veered over
into the Staples portion of the parking lot. I talked to her briefly,
I believe she was nonplused that I would be out there picketing, but
she said she'd booked Dave Wolverton (however, it is my opinion only
that he was booked at the request of Bridge, not the other way
around).  But she made no effort to get rid of me, and I pointedly
stayed on public property.

This is not, however, what the Scienos did.  Despite being told by the
community affairs employee not to leaflet in the lot, whenever her
back was turned they were out there hitting people up.  K got pictures
of them, as I would spot them talking to people in the lot. He had my
cheapie camera and would point it their direction.  Any thought that I
might have had that my sign about this being a Scn PR event were taken
away by the fact that (a) there was leafleting going on, and (b) the
leafleters wore the emblems of the Co$.  One guy, as I mentioned, wore
a cap with the Dn triangle on it.  Another older guy wore a dark green
t-shirt with "Freewinds" across the chest. 

I walked back and forth with my sign, pointing out to K whenever one
of the Scienos tried to take advantage of the situation.  I was told
that the B&N had called the cops, but I never did see the cops show up
for *that*.

There was a cop in the area, and he seemed to have a bit of a problem
with me picketing without a permit.  I noted in speaking to him that I
have a law degree and that the Supreme Court had allowed people to
picket, subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.
This guy seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake, not realising that Of
Course the U.S. Supreme Court overrules any Utah court.  At that
moment, a young man came up to complain that his car had gotten hit in
the parking lot and so he went off.  A few minutes after that, two
squad cars, one with four cops and one with two cops, went by, and I
waved at them.  

By this time, it's just past 3:30 pm, and the author still hasn't
shown up.  I finally notice a guy going into the B&N like a black
thundercloud.  This was Dave Wolverton.  I made a sharp gesture with
my hand and K followed him into the B&N.  There, K gave him a copy of
my Lisa McPherson flyer (downloadable at
http://www.xmission.com/~mirele/sworn-affidavit-flyer.doc) and asked
him to read it.  Apparently Wolverton was a bit upset about my picket
signs!  I'll let K share later what Wolverton said.

K did share that the booksigning scene looked like a Scieno Family
Reunion.  Everyone there knew everyone else.  According to K, there
were about 18 Scientologists and about 3 "raw meat" there.  The
community affairs employee was hovering around too, and not a very
happy camper, according to K.  I of course was still outside with my
sign, walking back and forth.

I did give out a second flyer, to the guy with the Dianetics cap.  I
told him he ought to read that, and also got in a few things about how
Mary Sue Hubbard had gone to prison, and noted that certain people
such as Arte Maren and unindicted co-conspirator Kendrick Moxon were
still in Scn.  He tried to bring up Mormonism and how early church
leaders were arrested for practicing polygamy and the like, but I cut
him off. "I'm not here to talk about that."

Mrs. Phil was there with one of her children in tow. That was another
clue that this was an Org event. Surprisingly enough, she actually
brought him over with her when she came to talk to me.  She and Dn Cap
tried to handle me, but I was not in the mood to be handled. I did
give her a brief explanation of how I could make the assertion that
any books purchased at the booksigning went to fund Bridge.  I noted
that maybe B&N got them for 50% discount.  Out of the other 50%, Dave
Wolverton got his royalty, then Bridge had to pay for the costs of
printing the book and the rest went to Bridge's coffers.  I pointed
out that Bridge had staff labour, which was poorly paid (as compared
to Random House, for example) and could make more money on a book.  I
don't think she liked to hear that.

Cell phone woman and another woman who had picketed my house last year
were also there.  I saw Cell phone woman tote out three copies two
separate times to her car.  I am not sure if those were the same three
copies or if she actually purchased six copies.  When the other woman
(grey hair, white blouse with coloured stripes) left in her car, I
said, cheerfully, as her window was rolled down, "See you at the Org."

Anyway, at about 4 pm I decided to call it quits.  I wanted to wander
in and check the scene.  So I stowed my picket sign in the trunk of my
car (I now have four picket signs in my trunk and one in my back seat)
and went inside.  K came with me.  I noticed the manager of the B&N
was hovering around the front, straightening stacks of books, while
occasionally casting an eye off to the difficult author signing. K
decided to hang out by the lobby while I went over towards the far
side of the building where the signing was actually being held.

As I walked up, either the community affairs (CA) employee or Dave
Wolverton was saying (I believe it was the CA) that this was the first
time that Dave had been picketed.  Of course I wasn't going to let
THAT pass. I said, "That's not true.  I know someone who tried to
picket Dave's signing on LRH Way on July 3 [ok, I got the day wrong]
and was roughed up by an off duty LAPD cop."  Well, of course, that
didn't set well with these people.  The CA said that she was talking
to him about the signing, and I said, that was fine, I just wanted
Wolverton to know what kind of people he was working for.  

I noticed a youngish fellow in a grey polo type shirt with _A Very
Strange Trip_ on it off to Wolverton's right.  He had the flyer that K
had handed Wolverton earlier.  He was folding it up and I think trying
to get it out of Wolverton's hands. I noticed that and said directly
to Wolverton, "You need to read that flyer.  It's very important. It
has information about the group you're working for." The CA woman said
that Wolverton wasn't a Scn.  I said, "That's fine, he just needs to
read about the group he's working for."  I told Wolverton bluntly that
he needed to read that flyer, he needed to read www.xenu.net and learn
the truth.  It was like talking to a wall.  One woman, who I believe
was a Scn asked me if she'd find truth on the Net, and I said,
sarcastically, "More truth than Scientology is willing to give you."
The CA woman then said that she was trying to talk to Dave about the
signing, and I said fine, I was leaving, but I thanked her for not
giving me any grief about picketing.  

K and I went outside and he gave me back my camera.  He had to run off
to a memorial service at that point, but he said that he'd be willing
to do other things in the future.  I was very grateful for his
presence there.

I am sorry that Dave Wolverton was apparently a brick wall, however.
I guess the lure of money is just too much for the guy.  But he needs
to understand who he is taking money from, and he needs to be morally
culpable.  If, after that, he decides that he has no moral problems
with it, then it's on his head.  But I think I did my part.  And I
hopefully straightened him out, because I was annoyed about him not
knowing about BenWog.  

Now I am waiting to see if the cult spreads hate flyers around the
neighborhood.  If that happens, I'll make sure that Dave Wolverton
gets a copy, along with a pointed note asking if he really thinks that
this is an appropriate thing for a church to do.  

ARSCC confession time:  I picketed on June 19th (one hour) and July
10th at the Org, but didn't feel like writing up picket reports
because they were so boring.  I hope I can now get some sort of credit
for my picketing stats.


mirele                         ARS Fish-Monger Award Winner ><_'> <_"
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