Oh those horrible teeth
of L. Ron Hubbard. That huge fucking mouth that looks like it's about to
swallow his flock. And not just his flock, now that you know that Leonard Cohen
visited this goblin back in early 60s. Scary, fascinating stuff.
I can't even tell what is more fascinating about Going
Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, the film or the cult itself.
The former has to count as one of the greatest documentaries I've ever seen, and the latter is, well, in case you thought
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s portrayal was too exaggerated… Fictionalising
Hubbard seems fittingly ironic, considering that he built his whole church (Dianetics
included) on his trashy penny-a-word sci-fi novels of late 20’s.
And all those people who got themselves into this mess; not your ordinary sheep, as this documentary so brilliantly reveals. Come to think of it, you
have to be too weak to join the church. Or too strong.
In order to start
one, though, you would probably have to have bad teeth.
P.S. Percy Sledge died today. Years ago, in England, I made a mixtape using a friend's vinyl collection of singles. "When A Man Loves A Woman" may be ridiculously overplayed, but I've loved it ever since.
