Well we cruised fairly effortlessly into Los Angeles and headed right to my brothers place in Venice Beach. It was so nice to see him again and we had a fantastic visit on his patio catching him up with the last 6 weeks of our trip and hearing about news with him. He and Maryam had been super sweet and arranged for us to have her place for our 5 day stay which was located a stones throw from the beach in ever so cool Santa Monica. My brother had to prep for work so we made ourselves busy easily and after settling into Maryam's place which was absolutely charming we headed down to Santa Monica beach.
It was Nikis first time in LA so I tried to be a bit of a tour guide though I wasn't overly informative just able to tell her antidotes you could likely find in any LA tourism brochure! :)
That night my brother and Maryam came by and we spent the evening chatting and telling them what our plans were for the week which was pretty much just hanging around Venice and Santa Monica getting a feel for the cities. It was nice seeing Jon on his home turf and hanging out with him and Maryam really made me wish we lived in the same city.
The next day we rollerbladed down to Venice Beach so Niki could see the wacky and creative bliss they call Venice Boardwalk. We were there fairly early in the morning so the usual suspects were still recovering from a night of entertaining but we enjoyed ourselves and reflected on how well Santa Monica in particular had done a fine job of developing tastefully it's beach.
That afternoon we walked over to the Santa Monica promenade and wandered the shops and checked out Santa Monica Pier. However, it was more window shopping as I can say with certainty we are shopped out!
One thing we enjoyed was our evenings, not having had a home for 6 months just sitting and reading a good book on the sofa was heavenly, and Maryam had a great array of literature including a fascinating book called Urban Iran which I highly recommend. We have decided our next trip would be to the middle east including Iran so the book kept me glued throughout our stay.
The next day we hopped in the car and headed out on the town. Though driving in LA is not particularly desirable(LA seriously needs a proper Metro system, its an anomaly that a city it's size has a metro with only one line!) we wanted to boot around West Hollywood and Beverly Hills.
We stopped at a little haunt on Robertson Avenue called the Newsroom which we read was a nice location to people watch. I'm not going to lie we thought we might see a star or 2 but regrettably saw none. However if your dead set on being starstruck The Ivy on Robertson just on the block before the Newsroom apparently promises a star or two.(at $100 a plate!)
The food was mediocre at best but the location was pleasant and the people watching was indeed good. We joked that quite likely some celebrity flesh did pass our gaze but you would never know with everyone wearing sunglasses.
We made our way down Rodeo Drive which I had never seen before either. It was shockingly unremarkable with no cafes or leisurely benches, just minimalist storefronts baring fancy names all crammed together. It was rather barren too, but as my brother so cleverly pointed out, having a location on Rodeo is more about advertising your ON Rodeo than actually making money by being there.
We gave Hollywood Blvd a quick drive as anyone who has been knows there is not much there but the Hollywood walk of fame.
However, then came the star of our day. We have discovered that check mark tourist sites aren't really our thing and it has been the quirky and eccentric that really has got our engines going on this trip sooooo off to the LA Church of Scientology we go! The church (the one on Franklin Avenue)was in fact quite a nice building, an old hotel from the early 30's that was doomed to be tore down in the 70's. L. Ronald Hubbard( the inventor of Scientology) purchased it and now it is a Scientology church with the top 4 floors a hotel for creepy Scientology members.
We walked up to the building and snapped a few photos of the sign in case we were abducted by cult members(hehe) but before we could say Tom Cruise, up biked a rent a cop Scientology security gaurd who ever so swiftly introduced himself as "forest". He asked us if we wanted a tour of the church so naturally we thought yeah why not. We had toured so many churches over the past 6 months including Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and B'hai so this one seemed like a fun and wacky way to end our religious education.
Wow! Firstly, it was not a "tour" but rather a recruitment. We were brought to a tiny office where another unsuspecting couple was waiting an made to watch a quack video introducing us to the pillars of Scientology which from my line of work I can tell you with certainty is all paraphrased from Freudian and Neo- Freudian theories on the self. It completely steals its concepts from Psychoanalytic theory and Behaviorism. They had taken good science and wrapped it in a mystical religious blanket and marketed it to poor desperate souls for a hefty price. It was actually quite a loathsome video and so were the next 2 that followed. As a whole the tour consisted of 3 videos, a look at Hubbards office and a chance to play with Scientology's biggest toy to tote around: the E Meter!
It looks more like a machine that belongs on the original 1970's television series of Star Trek(come on Mr. Cruise give the church some more funds for better looking toys!)
It was supposed to pinpoint painful memories from your past that could be talked out of you by a church counsellor. My lovely wife when told to think of a painful memory thought of a pleasant one to prove the machines bogus properties and indeed she was right. Our guide boasted how the needle had swung severely to the right and she indeed needed to resolve issues. We snickered over that bogus claim.
This post would be outrageously long if I got into every detail but despite how ridiculous the tour was it was for his reason why we actually found it bizarrely entertaining. We challenged our ill equipped guide endlessly to the point where I am pretty sure he started to make things up. The most outrageous was when he declared that all mental health problems could be fixed by a Scientology Auditor(their term for counsellor) and that medication was the enemy invented profit and mind control. When we asked if that included even conditions such as schizophrenia or Dissociative Identity Disorder he said yes and if their e meter and auditor didn't work they would send them to a Scientology ranch(?) for the insane. The fact that he used the word insane for people suffering from mental illness was disturbing enough. And to boot, when I asked him if presented with a person who suffered from a mental illness that was being successfully treated by
medication if the church would encourage them to go off it, he said absolutely. It was just mind boggling to hear such barbaric perceptions on serious issues.
It was pretty evident in the end he was tired of our questions and I think suspicious we were from the press. He pressured us endlessly to sign up for $100 introductory courses and when we declined politely he then pressured us to buy reading material at a whopping $50 a book!!! But I guess Tom needs money for his expensive divorce from Katy! The whole thing felt more like a time share presentation than anything else.
Quite an eye opener as a whole, very interesting and yet alarming. We have learned since that Ron Hubbard was convicted of fraud and theft and later diagnosed with Schizophrenia characterized by delusions of grandeur. Too bad he wasn't still around to utilize his "insane ranch" lol!!
It is sad that there are people out there that take advantage of the lost,lonely and suffering. No institution gives such a power to these abusers than religion.
One thing I have learned from my short time on this earth is there are no quick fixes to the pain in our lives. We must work tirelessly on ourselves through agents of science and strong healthy relationships to make it through the challenging waves in our lives. The man who tells you he has the cure for everything wrong in your life has nothing right in his life because nothing good comes without tireless commitment.
Peace:)
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