An End to Begin Again and Again and Again.

My Post at INCOMM

INCOMM was a little known “nerd'' run org within Sea Org of Scientology. It was our job, as I understood it, to collect and manage data gathered from all the other organizations.

Personally, I was the INT CLASS 4 CREW IC. I collected all the resource data from Class 4 organizations throughout the world. Class 4 Orgs were better known as Scientology book stores and personality test centers. At the time I was involved there were some 300+ of them, selling Dianetics, advancing bankruptcy through OT (Operating Thetan) courses and imagining a day when the world would be Purified and Clear of all common sense.

BTW, the stated goal of Scientology and Sea Org when I was a member, was the “Planet going Clear”. This meant that everyone on the planet would have basically gone through the “intro” Scientology course. L.Ron Hubbard, the founder (dead for quite a few years already, but still writing books somehow) had so far released 8 levels of OT courses, with 12 total to be released once certain milestones were reached. The 9th OT level would have been the reward for the entire population of planet Earth going Clear. I always wondered, what the hell needed to happen for the other 3 levels? Ok, so after the whole planet is clear, do we need to recruit aliens or start converting whales?

Anywho, I digress...

I showed up for work every day with a badge to pass numerous security checkpoints and codes for several different keypad doors. (I still have the keypad card) The more codes you had, the more important your post or higher rank in the Org Chart. Even within INCOMM there were many doors which I could not access.

What I remember most of my post was that Sade seemed to always be playing in the background and everyone I worked with was completely in awe of the technology that Scientology had in use. My own workstation wrote me up one day for a minor task and the server room was an impressive array of computers I had never seen before.

A Raid Day

On one specific day, I was asked to attend a door and ensure no one made entry. It was a rather uneventful station. I wasn’t even on the outside of the door, I was inside just standing there.

I would find out later that police had come with warrants looking for a wanted person. That person was “Downline”.

“Downline” you ask? It was a secret place where certain “Sea Org” members went to join Watchdog or some other oversight group within the Sea Org but also apparently not within the Sea Org.

Yep the crazy just kept getting crazier.

A friend, just 17 years old was in the country on a tourist visa with his parents. They disappeared and left him alone to be deported --- alone. Apparently Scientology also promotes the idea of disconnecting from your children and procreation as a means to an end. After all, we are all just “thetans” from another planet, prisoners in our Earth bound bodies. Why love your kids when they are just some other prisoner in the cell of a body? Cmon now. And who needs kids when we have our own secret fort to play in with passwords and everything? Thick undulating sarcasm anyone?

My time had finally come to exit SeaOrg. Unfortunately I had apparently signed a lifetime contract of servitude. Here is where I met a middle aged Scientologist selling Rainbow Vacuum cleaners who rented a small apartment behind the main church building. Her main distributor was none other than the brother of a guy who had married Lisa Marie Presley. Yep, it’s true. I went to a backyard picnic at a fairly unassuming house (I believe in Glendale) with Lisa Marie and her Scientology husband in tow. In fact, I had no idea who she was. She was very friendly and very casual, wearing some basic jeans and a shirt. It wasn’t till later on that I was updated as to her full name. I am grateful for that because I am still a huge Elvis fan and may have acted a bit star struck.

Back to the very nice lady who took me in out of the goodness of her heart. I honestly do not remember her name or how it happened, but I moved in for a short time. At first I was still with INCOMM and then somehow I was given a few weeks off to repent or find something to swallow the crazy and make it all better.

The next thing I remember is waking up from a nap in the living room, this lady leering over me and a hand adjusting my special prizes (ahem). As I packed up my ruck and got back into my Army fatigues, I can remember this lady lecturing me about being a responsible SeaOrg member and not wanting to be labelled a Suppressive Person or SP by the church if I left in a hurry. Are you kidding, lady? I can’t pack fast enough. It's time for me to begin again.

In my Army fatigues and ruck in tow, I walk over to Sunset Blvd. and head west down to Orange and Hollywood, just a few blocks from (what was then) Mann's Chinese theater. There I knocked on the door of a new friend I had met at the Arcade just a few weeks ago. He's a guitarist going to the GIT Institute in Hollywood and he has a couch I can use for a week.

Boy was I lucky. New friend, new digs, what a great new start.

Just about a week later I moved with him to an apartment in Tustin, Orange County just off Red Hill Ave. There I got a job as a waiter at a local diner. 2 months later, and only a few days after paying out all my money in rent and a few basic pieces of furniture, I found a note on the door.

“Good Luck David. I had to leave town to start a new job. I took your rent money because you still owed me for the time on my couch and towards utility deposits.”

With his note was an eviction notice from the landlord. Apparently none of the rent was ever paid, or the utilities for that matter. All my furniture and tv was also gone. All that was left was a bag of potatoes, 2 cans of corn and 2 cans of peas.

I was a waiter at a dive diner with few options. I also had the next 2 days off so I couldn’t even make some tips to buy food. I was completely screwed.

Luckily for me the stovetop was electric because the gas had been shut off. So no hot water.

For the next few days I finished off that bag of potatoes. Sometimes I had them whole with Pea toppings, other times smashed with the corn. My final meal was potato skins ala corn with a delicate blend of hand agitated pea distilled sauce.

It was time to begin again. I called the Covenant House in Hollywood and made an appointment.

To be continued…

When they opened the Covenant House Shelter on Sunset Boulevard I was the guy who gave the tour to Mayor Bradley and Lily Tomlin. That was me featured in the LA Times and to this day I still have the California DL from that address on Sunset.

The next chapter may be the hardest for me to write and perhaps the most fulfilling. After that I am on to Kansas, Modeling, Movies and finally broke in Las Vegas with a new son.