A Little Bit Obsessive

I just got back from hanging out with a visiting Sheila O'Malley and her good friend Alexandra Billings. If you haven't been reading Sheila's posts about her adventures while in L.A., you're really missing out. Most of you are familiar with her, and as you know, the woman can write so bloody well she can make taking a crap while vomiting into a plastic bag with a chihuahua chewing on your ankles and a cockroach eating your ear sound moving and poignant. It was really terrific finally getting to meet Alex in person, too. I'm just going to have to share my love for this woman in an entirely special post.

Although, after our few afternoon hours together, I'm quite concerned about the state of our collective mental health. All three of us have this strange, morbid obsession with cults. We share this passion on the same level and to stumble upon not one but TWO people who have this in common is kind of scary. And a whole lot of fun.

Since I've worked across the street from Hollywood Park for five years now and had not once yet stepped foot inside, I suggested we meet up at my office and have some lunch there. If you've never seen the place, it's hard to describe how enormous it is. If you're ever in a window seat flying into LAX and you glance at the ever-growing globe below shortly before landing and see the huge words "CASINO" hovering slightly above ground, that's Hollywood Park.

We got disorientated and confused in the bloody parking lot. But we did finally park (or, I should say, Alex parked. Like the second shittiest parking job I've ever seen. I was very impressed) and made our way inside. So there we were. I'd finally checked the place out. I have to explain something to you first - the view from my office is the Park itself and I have to say, having this little window into the freakazoids and gamble-heads that frequent this place is more entertaining than having a television in the office. The most bizarre and random things happen in broad daylight constantly. Imagine what it's like when you actually go inside.

Alex, who is a very fetching lady, got solicited almost immediately. I've written about the rampant prostitution in this neighborhood here before and the tendency of awful, rude men to assume any woman they see is for sale in the Biblical sense, regardless of her dress or demeanor. There's a woman! She must be a prostitute. Fuckers. Anyway, we aimlessly wandered, totally lost, looking for a place to eat. People that I work with had told me there was a restaurant in the place, so we set about searching for it and after having no luck, asked the concierge where it was. Well, there's no bloody restaurant, but there is a deli and food court "over there." No food court, but we found the deli and ordered food.

We then proceeded to have a two hour conversation almost entirely about Couchy McBrainwashed and his pathetic "church" of Shitology, which believe me, if you aren't aware of it on your own, is nothing but an international fucking crime syndicate under the guise of a religious movement. See the link in the top right corner of the sidebar of this blog and spend some time there. If half of the stuff you discover doesn't make you sick to your stomach, even shocked that this sort of business can actually occur in Western civilization and go unpunished, you have a serious deficit in the decent human being department. The fact that I'm too terrified to used the actual words directly linking the "church" and even the aforementioned site should give you a clue. If I was public in my criticism, this "church," which constantly claims to contribute good through supposed "human rights" organizations and literacy projects would send minions to tell my landlord I sold drugs to children that were students at the school next door. They would approach my neighbors and tell them I have herpes and have been arrested for molesting little girls. They would write my bosses letters telling them I spend my weekends working for the Nazi movement. With the presence they have in this city, they could destroy my life in under a day. All with lies.

By the way, I've prepared myself for this, in case any of the shitheads are tuning in. It won't work.

We reveled in the fact that we could all sit and share in our mutual obsession. We even talked about it. It's hard to explain how something can engage you so much if you've never been consumed by such an interest. And all three of us were.

Sheila and Alex had hit the Shitology Museum on Hollywood Boulevard a day or two before. Both of them are actresses and if you've never hung out with people that are really gifted the acting department, you cannot possibly understand how lively and fun they are when they tell stories. They can hit every accent. They can immitate a person they've met with balls-on accuracy so well that you feel like an entirely different character has just taken their place. They nearly drove me to tears with their stories and re-enactments of what they'd encountered. I'm still giggling to myself like a madwoman as I type this.

Then, we'd finished our food and decided we should move on. Cult obsessives and all, I suggested we drive by the old Western Surplus, less than a year gone now and renovated into some tee-shirt-slash-uniform warehouse, much to my chagrin, where the Manson family once famously had a shootout with the Hawthorne police while attempting to steal guns in order to carry out a crazy airline hostage scenario that involved killing one passenger per hour until Manson and his psycho hippie minions were released from prison. Alex pulled over the car. We sat, parked, with the engine running, outside of the store, for like twenty minutes. Just looking at the place. It was a bit underwhelming for me, since I live right around the corner, but it was a genuine experience for them, which was enough to make it rewarding. Alex even wanted to go inside and ask the staff if they knew what had happened here and inaudably said to a fellow leaving the place "do you know where you just bought your tee-shirt from? I hope it fits!" We talked about Susan Atkins. We talked about them all. We talked about how completely disconnected Sandra Good, one of only two of the original Manson "girls" that remains devoted to him, is from reality. This is a woman who decorates her website with swastikas and takes a major beef with media reports that Charles Manson was only 5'2". As if declaring "Charles Manson is short" is the worst thing you could say about the man. Sandra Good was a sickly child in her youth. She only has one lung and was once declared clinically dead as a child. In some interview somewhere - I wish I could hunt it down, if only for credibility's sake - her mother said "Why did she have to pull through?" Her. OWN. MOTHER.

It was stupid. It was weird. It was overly-obsessive. And it was fun as hell.

Continuing the tour, we drove past Hawthorne High School, my alma mater, as it was that of the Beach Boys, one of whom - Dennis Wilson, god rest his hot-ass soul - had the great misfortune of briefly associating with the Manson family, even having them crashing at his house and refusing to leave, trashing the place so bad he had to have his manager sell the house and move to another address. Then we pushed on a few blocks away, where I showed these awesome ladies the house where I grew up since I was twelve. Being an Air Force brat, I'd never known a house longer and I still feel twinges of sadness when I drive by and know that some strangers are now occupying it. Mostly because my parents no longer live five minutes away, but also because we were the first family to live there and I feel like it's a death of memories in a bizarre way to have someone else residing there, making themselves comfortable.

It was a fun afternoon. It was great to see Sheila. It was wonderful to meet Alex. It was beyond amazing to share in this mutual obsession.

Cults suck. Some more than others, but they all fucking suck. Personally, I don't feel a bit ashamed at being offended enough to learn about how these fucktards manipulate people, ruin lives, break hearts and destroy dreams in the hopes that I might spread the word and spare other people of their deliberately destructive intentions.

Thanks Sheila. Thanks Alex. It was a pleasure. A BIG one.

Posted by Emily at January 27, 2006 07:29 PM | TrackBack (1) |