Dear Ron...

Chuck J.

"Austere Religious Scholar"
Back in the day when I used to buy and sell 'collectible vinyl records' on the Internet, I came across a copy of 'Battlefield Earth' LP in excellent condition for 50p in a charity shop.

I snapped it up for the above reason, plus the late great Nicky Hopkins played on a track or two which enhanced its appeal a hundredfold. I've still got it. There was absolutely no interest in it.
I'm sure you've seen then in the stacks, vanity records by average people who want to make a record. A housewife or businessman or whoever. It never occurred to me to compare Hubbard's foray into records to those people. But that's exactly what it is, some person with zero musical talent who has enough money to inflict a record on the public.
 

stratty

Inveterate gnashnab & snoutband
I'm sure you've seen then in the stacks, vanity records by average people who want to make a record. A housewife or businessman or whoever. It never occurred to me to compare Hubbard's foray into records to those people. But that's exactly what it is, some person with zero musical talent who has enough money to inflict a record on the public.
Hubbard touted himself as a saviour of the world, a film producer/director and a musician and failed dismally on all three counts.
 

Harold#1

A VERY STABLE SUPER GENIUS!!
What in the hell did Sara Northrup, who I thought was kinda cute, see in that loser??
Unlike his other two wives, once she learned that he was a manipulative, sadistic and abusive asshole, she dumped him. This gave LRH the idea of taking their baby from her, then taking the baby to Cuba, phoning Sara and telling her he cut their baby in to pieces and then threw the pieces of baby Alexis into a river. This all happened shortly after he wrote "the modern science of mental health".

 
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Karakorum

Ron is the source that will lead you to grief
What in the hell did Sara Northrup, who I thought was kinda cute, see in that loser??
Sex magick. I suspect they also did drugs, but can't prove that last point.

Hubbard touted himself as a saviour of the world, a film producer/director and a musician and failed dismally on all three counts.
What do you mean he failed as savior? We are still here and the world did not die in a nuclear holocaust. Ain't this the best proof that he succeeded?! He wouldn't leave us and go for T2 if we were still in danger, right? :D
 
Back in the day when I used to buy and sell 'collectible vinyl records' on the Internet, I came across a copy of 'Battlefield Earth' LP in excellent condition for 50p in a charity shop.

I snapped it up for the above reason, plus the late great Nicky Hopkins played on a track or two which enhanced its appeal a hundredfold. I've still got it. There was absolutely no interest in it.
I collected all the BattleField Earth stuff. I have never actually seen the LP.
 

Harold#1

A VERY STABLE SUPER GENIUS!!
Frazetta Endangered Species Bronze Statue L.Ron Hubbard Battlefield Earth 25/50 US $995.00

1586219335869.png



BATTLEFIELD EARTH L. Ron Hubbard COSMIC SPACE JAZZ LP Chick Corea SHRINK Rare
Condition: Used
$24.99+ $5.00 Shipping




And finally, the GREATEST bargain of all, BATTLEFIELD EARTH (Upper Deck/2000) JOHN TRAVOLTA Autograph Card #JT1 (#87/200)

US $450.00
Approximately EUR 416.72

 

stratty

Inveterate gnashnab & snoutband
After my exit in 1982 along with some of the best, I heard that Harvey Jacques, was at Flag selling "signed" copies of LRH books at a premium price. Knowing Mr Jacques I could well imagine him discovering new sigend copies under his desk every time stocks sold out!
Good luck to him I say. If some idiots are falling for it they deserve all they're getting.
 

Alex P. Keaton

Never-in
...hope you are doing ok in the Amazon warehouse.
Amazon's letting me do 60 hours per week due to coronavirus, and overtime is now DOUBLE PAY. I don't even have time to work in the garden or replace the timing chain on my spare car !

(Although when the market fell recently, my losses were, let's just say, substantial.)

Yeah, I'll play with that meter some more and laugh my head off, when I get the time.
 
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I-amPneuma8

Member
I remember someone walking in to London Org, asking how many copies of that dreadful LP record he could buy as they were a limited issue and therefore worth money, he knew they were not worth listening to. It was the Apollo Stars, god it was a terrible.

I had an SO1 letter for years, it had a really unconvincing rubber stamp 'signature' in bright green. I know some letters were written by Hubbard, but I don't think I ever saw one.
What most people do not know about The Apollo Stars and the POS album:

1. How we came to be: We were in docked in Madiera, Portugal, one of our most favorite ports of call to be in at Christmas time. The local townsfolk were planning a Christmas musical festival in the townsquare and somebody (I think it was the town Mayor or some such) asked our PR person if we had any musicians on board, to which she replied "Yes". So an invitation was extended to the Apollo "musicians" to partake and perform. So LRH immediately gets wind of this and ordered any musicians on board to report immediately to the PR lounge. Now mind you there was no band on the ship. Just some individuals who just miraculously happened to have their instruments on board. Billy (William) Potter (saxophonist - and a damn good one) ran down to where all the Mimeo File cabinets were (containing all the Policies and Bulletins and Flag orders etc...) I was Mimeo files I/C. He told me to hurry up to the PR lounge. I asked "What for? I don't have an instrument" He replied "Man, I hear you 'drumming" on top of the file cabinets all the time and there is a pair of bongos in the PR lounge. I went with him to the lounge where 7 other guys had gathered. LRH ordered us to get some tunes together RIGHT NOW! And when LRH orders you to do something RIGHT NOW...you DO IT! So we started by asking each other what songs do you know and we came up with 4. The "show" was the very next evening" Man did we SUCK! (According to our own analysis) but the townsfolk LOVED US! Go figure. We were invited to come back and perform again 5 days later for the New Years celebration. LRH granted us rehearsal time. We learned a couple of more tunes plus we polished up on the other 4 and we performed again. This time we sounded much better. NOT by any means great...but it didn't suck The PR person reports to LRH about how wonderful we were received with such rave response and applause and there was a nice article in the next mornings local paper about The Apollo and it's band of musicians! The proverbial "light bulb" goes off above LRH's head and he orders us to rehearse longer and longer each day and eventually appoints us as full time musicians now having seen our worthiness to improving PR for the ship everywhere we went. At first many crew members resented us for having such full time FUN posts while they had to do their not so fun posts., but eventually after Captain Bill Robertson (who was appointed our Musical Director) stepped down, LRH personally took over. LRH did NOT make many personal appearances on board. He was always in his office. But now the crew got to see him all the time, every day working with us. Now the crew started to really like us and our music and we got better and better. There you have it!

2. Shortly thereafter, the "notorious" POS album was recorded by LRH on a mediocre sound board of poor quality, in a theatre with lousy acoustics, assisted by Dan Auerbach. This took place only after we had been together as a band less than two months.
I cannot fathom why LRH, who supposedly held such high standards in everything he was involved in, would record us so prematurely, let alone allow the album to be produced and distributed to such mixed reviews Worldwide. And that horrendous cover album to boot! Yuk, puke.
Also FYI I wish to dispense the "myth' that band members were fined $1 for each wrongly played music note. Irrefutably NOT true, period.

3. When we were allowed to rehearse full time and began playing gigs in every port of call that we went to, we had become a very tight knit band - each musician had truly developed great chops and skill. we performed for free in town squares, hospitals, theatres, parades and with local bands such as the police band in Kingston, Jamaica. Local artisans came aboard and performed for the crew as part of a cultural exchange program. We recorded a lot of songs consisting of originals (like "Hombre" a Spaghetti Western type Clint Eastwood movie sound track composed by myself which audiences loved everywhere) and many well known popular songs, like some of The Beatles, in a proper studio with upscale recording equipment, but it was never produced nor distributed...so you all never got to hear how great we had evolved into. With our horn section, I would compare us to the band "Chicago" - and I mean just as good and tight when it comes to musicianship. (This is my personal opinion of course...and I was THERE...I was in The Apollo Stars. You were NOT a witness to what we had become and earned many awards such as plaques, keys to the City, honors. We were even on the radio.

4. It is unfortunate that a cassette tape that I had recorded of one of our full time rehearsals, which clearly represented the great band we had become was lent by me to a friend and I never got it back. I regret this to this day as being one of the stupidest mistakes I have ever made. Had I still owned that tape, I would have uploaded it to YouTube years ago for all of you folks to compare THAT to the POS album. If you listen closely to the POS album, putting aside the musical errors and critical comments you would actually hear a band whose beginnings and eventual development was very promising. NO band on this Earth started day one being totally professional and flawless. It takes months and months to smoothen out the roughness and work together like cogs in a gear.
3. So while there are many disparaging comments about the POS and us musicians...I just wanted to present the true facts.

Sincerely yours,
TR (percussionist, guitar, keyboard, composer of The Apollo Stars (1973-1975) Now age 70
 

I-amPneuma8

Member
I'm sure you already know, but almost 100% of those responses were not written by LRH.
As a former SO member, aboard The Flag Ship Apollo, I can attest to and confirm that almost ALL of those letters allegedly written by LRH were factually composed by staff appointed specifically to answer those letters on LRH's behalf. On the ship the crew were privileged to write a Daily Report to LRH. Personally, I actually DID get some replies from LRH , written by him personally by his own hand. I know this for a fact becuase i worked in the Mimeo department where his handwritten policies and bulletins and other documents came down to be typed by and proof read before being printed and distributed. I was Mimeo Files I/C and every one of LRH's handwritten directives were kept right above the filing cabinets where the particular document belonged categorically. There is no way that any one human being can possibly read the many many thousands of cards and letters and petitions that were sent to LRH on a daily basis, let along reply to each one personally. Nonetheless many people believed that the letters from Ron were actually replies from LRH personally. If you were to read the many thousands of letters supposedly replied to by RON himself you would see a commonality of words that were just copied one after the other - generally worded responses designed to make the person feel good, validate their accomplishments, keep up the good work, "I am very proud of you". "I am so glad to hear that you (whatever) Anything that was sent to LRH of a truly concerning nature would be carefully scrutinized by one of the Commodores messengers who might deem it necessary for LRH to actually read it and reply to it personally. In such very extremely rare cases a person might have received a personal response from LRH but it would NOT be in his own handwriting (except if you were on board the ship) Sorry if I burst any bubbles, but it's the truth.
 

stratty

Inveterate gnashnab & snoutband
As a former SO member, aboard The Flag Ship Apollo, I can attest to and confirm that almost ALL of those letters allegedly written by LRH were factually composed by staff appointed specifically to answer those letters on LRH's behalf. On the ship the crew were privileged to write a Daily Report to LRH. Personally, I actually DID get some replies from LRH , written by him personally by his own hand. I know this for a fact becuase i worked in the Mimeo department where his handwritten policies and bulletins and other documents came down to be typed by and proof read before being printed and distributed. I was Mimeo Files I/C and every one of LRH's handwritten directives were kept right above the filing cabinets where the particular document belonged categorically. There is no way that any one human being can possibly read the many many thousands of cards and letters and petitions that were sent to LRH on a daily basis, let along reply to each one personally. Nonetheless many people believed that the letters from Ron were actually replies from LRH personally. If you were to read the many thousands of letters supposedly replied to by RON himself you would see a commonality of words that were just copied one after the other - generally worded responses designed to make the person feel good, validate their accomplishments, keep up the good work, "I am very proud of you". "I am so glad to hear that you (whatever) Anything that was sent to LRH of a truly concerning nature would be carefully scrutinized by one of the Commodores messengers who might deem it necessary for LRH to actually read it and reply to it personally. In such very extremely rare cases a person might have received a personal response from LRH but it would NOT be in his own handwriting (except if you were on board the ship) Sorry if I burst any bubbles, but it's the truth.
While most of what you have written is probably true, to say that no letters in Hubbard's own handwriting in response to a SO#1 line 'Letter to Ron' were sent except if you were on the ship is pure nonsense.

I'm sure there are many posters on this board apart from me who have received genuine hand-written letters from him.
 

I-amPneuma8

Member
While most of what you have written is probably true, to say that no letters in Hubbard's own handwriting in response to a SO#1 line 'Letter to Ron' were sent except if you were on the ship is pure nonsense.

I'm sure there are many posters on this board apart from me who have received genuine hand-written letters from him.
I humbly stand corrected and apologize for my error. You are absolutely right. My point being that almost all other replies from LRH were NOT originated by him personally.
 

pineapple

能说的名字不真的名字
'ere ya go @I-amPneuma8

I did have a scan of the whole thing which I can't find right now, but here's a quick snapshot of one of my letters from the fat dead bastard.

View attachment 4549
Wow, cool.

Says, "The only ones who don't get great results from it have been found to have huge overts that then later get revealed."

Found by whom, Mr. Hubbard? By whom? :hmm:
 
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