Ten years ago, my good friend died. He did me many good turns as an older musician when I was fresh to bigger city life. Out of my depth, wishing I had a way to a music career. He wrote wild magniloquent reviews of my music performances, as if I was significant. With letraset I repackaged it to look like major journals published it. This was before home computers and photoshop. I sent packages to acquire gigs at folk festivals but all turned me down. However, I remained undeterred and forever grateful my friend tried to help me reach my dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When he died he was seventy, penniless, living in a rooming house. I had no idea. I thought he was at least semi-secure, maybe owned a house. Being secretive about himself was a character trait, more specifically about where he lived, what he did for a living, where he came from etc. but talk of music, relationships and politics he did not mind. His health deteriorated. I think he fainted and was taken by ambulance to hospital and they placed him in intensive care. Later, he grasped more clearly what happened and how weak he was. He wanted out but they would not let him go. The law instructed those nurses and doctors to keep him. He had a lot of experience with truculence, he cursed them. I bet in the emerg. they hear a lot of shocking things but I also bet they never heard anyone like him. When he turned on the venom he took it to another level. I knew him over 35 years and saw him do this twice. Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde. He became disconnected from the intelligence I otherwise found abundant being around him. He wasn\u2019t the first eccentric artist I knew. I chalked it up to that plus he used to be a Scientologist. It is part of what they learn, how to take being antagonistic to another level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After he died, people gathered as people do. Details were shared. He swore by Scientology. Explained that it got him off drugs. I knew another guy who had more or less the same story. He was in a secret Ouspensky group and he also bragged that through studying Ouspensky he got off drugs. Neither of these men knew each other but the way they framed L. Ron Hubbard or P.T. Ouspensky didn\u2019t mean much, I didn\u2019t have drug problem. My friend kept trying to persuade me to check it out and one time I looked at one of his books, I only yawned. But because I knew him and loved him, I refrained from being critical. I thought I know one guy in the world who swears by this, and he\u2019s my friend, I\u2019ll leave it be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After he died I started viewing Youtube channels by former Scientologists. It explained so much. So much loss and damage. No wonder he was broke and in a rooming house. Many the same age as him, hippies from the 60s, scooped up in their twenties. It added a whole other level of tragedy when I think about my friend. I wonder whether it would have been cathartic for him to see these other internet hosts or not. I wonder if it is true the way they predict a great reckoning coming this year to Scientology’s tax free religious status and history of yuck factor like lifetime contracts for children or every film with Tom Cruise. My friend wrote some songs that are masterpieces. Sometimes it seems easy to chalk things up to a choice between two, right or wrong, Zappa or Beefheart, Gould or Richter? But sometimes the complexity short circuits everything and if knowledge is out there it can\u2019t be understood until your know you don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"