Nine Million Scientologists in Beijing

About the same number of Scientologists exist in the world as Jews.  We are quite sure there are not nine million Jews in Beijing but we also doubt the Scientologists are there either.  In fact, we doubt the Scientologists have anywhere near that many anyplace in the world although if they do exist then Beijing would be a good place for them (i.e. anywhere but here).

Tom Cruise and John Travolta look too, too cute on the TV screen but tell me you would get onboard an aircraft when they're flying it.  Like bloody hell.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the pilot will be busy for a minute while he checks his e-meter."

Like bloody hell.  I'll fly Germanwings before I fly with those loonies.

One way to tell Scientologists from Jews is to find if they're funny.  Scientologists have never been funny whereas Jews almost always are.  I doubt Jews worry about Scientologists as they know the cult will merge with the Mormons at some point and they will all be flown off the planet in an alien spaceship.  Have a nice day and thanks for Orrin Hatch and the brine shrimp.


Which, naturally, leads us to Henry Fonda.

(Ed:  wtf?)

He was brought up in a Christian Scientist cult.  He shook it off relatively young but a much more important formative part of his education came when his father took him to a lynching of a young black man accused of rape.  Fonda was enraged by it and this created a lifelong antagonism toward racism.


And that, naturally, leads to Brigitte Bardot.

(Ed:  wtf???)

Racist to the bone, homeboy.  She's living like a rich bitch in St Tropez and she's anti-immigration, viva Marine Le Pen, etc, etc.  Oxygen is wasted on fascists.


That, of course, takes us back to Jane Fonda.

(Ed:  of course)

It does do that as she regrets her activist, Hanoi Jane incarnation in the same way as Joan Baez said 'she regrets the sixties,' presumably because that time made them what they are but we don't care as they're lost now.  Fonda didn't fall as far as Bardot but her antiseptic reality is a joke next to Barbarella.


Something that Jane Fonda never got with her father was that he had an 'effortless ability' as she would ask him what he did to act but he would only say he didn't know.  It pissed her off as she worked and studied acting but neither she nor her brother had the same stuff as their father.

As an example of effortless work, review Henry Fonda playing the U.S. President in "Fail-Safe" as it's the most under-acted role you may ever see.  Larry Hagman later went on to become a hambone Texan in "Dallas" but he was young at the time of "Fail-Safe" and he wisely followed Fonda's lead in underplaying the role.

(Ed:  what's the effortless part?)

He made no effort to prepare for playing that part beyond learning the lines for it and yet he turned in a magnificent performance and so did Hagman.

Inevitably that leads us to the CIA.

(Ed:  inevitably)

Yes, the CIA is thought to have 'fail-safe' operation, isn't it.  No-one has ever told you what fail-safe mechanism exists so you are expected to assume the CIA uses them ... but ... they got away with killing Kennedy so any idea of a fail-safe is a cartoon fantasy ... but there are many fantasies in the modern, easily-deluded world.

People assume there are many fail-safe mechanisms in the world.  They say nuke regulation is safe but a B-52 dropped two of them on North Carolina.  One of the bombs had five out of six arming switches activated when they found it.  It was only dumb luck that it didn't complete the sequence and explode.  Another time they dropped about half a dozen nukes off the coast of Spain.  I'm not sure they ever did recover all of them.  It's anyone's guess how many similar Soviet fuck-ups exist.


Obviously that takes us back to Scientology.

(Ed:  obviously)

The common thread is blazing narcissism as Hank Fonda was married five times and was catting around all over the place.  He seemed so pure on-screen but he was a total Hollywood cockhound.

The narcissism in Scientology is it's a Home Shopping Network of spirituality since you pay for your play while you develop toward your righteous Scientological goal.  Anyone paying that much to be obsessive about himself is probably paying more than his self is worth.


That leaves us with the Resounding Artistic Question of the Day:  do you have to be an asshole to achieve greatness.

Example:  Jackson Pollock (do your own reading on this one but I tell you he was a prick)


Note:  the objective isn't to slam Henry Fonda.  He said he 'does not want to play a fake war in the movies' and he joined the Navy about (I think) the time of Pearl Harbor.  The Great Patriots, John Wayne and Ronald Reagan, never did anything.


This, indubitably, leads us to Jimmy Stewart.

(Ed: indubitably)

Yes, of course.  Jimmy Stewart served with great honor in WWII as a B-17 pilot flying bombing runs over Germany.  He also had a style of underplaying a role so this is where we get to the algebra part.

There are significant resemblances between the two men so does it follow that Jimmy Stewart's underplayed role came with the same 'effortless ability' as Henry Fonda.  If that is true then does it further follow that anyone possessed of that 'effortless ability' is also likely to be a self-absorbed fuckhead.

(Ed:  you're saying Jimmy Stewart was a self-absorbed fuckhead?)

No way.  That would be like killing a cricket.  You go straight to Hell for that.

Never, ever kill a cricket.  Very bad juju, mon.


Note:  I know quite well people who were personally involved on the receiving end of those bombing runs and this grants me a perspective I never had previously, particularly that the bombs fall on women because the men are away fighting.  If the women are lucky they will get killed as otherwise they are likely to starve anyway.  As with any war, they had nothing to do with starting it.


(Ed:  was there some point to all this?)

The song.

Something juniors may want to notice is that she only uses chords from the first page of the Mel Bay chord book.  It's very cool if you know as many chords as Guitar George but it's not required.