Confession
July 16, 2010 · 21 Comments
Against the advice of several close friends and in agreement with the advice of several other close friends, and with the blessings of all of them, I have decided to go to public confession.
After Independents’ weekend, a beautiful wedding, another wonderful wedding in New York for family, Mosey and I stole off for some private time at our favorite steam-release venue, the Big Easy.
I tend to work hard, fight hard, and will most likely die hard. Problem is, I tend also to play hard.
For the past several months I’ve created quite a bit of pressure for myself. The past two months have been particularly intense. I have not been able to schedule a day for delivery since the day in April when JB arrived at the shack. The church’s response was well chronicled at the outset. We have been busy since along a justice line of endevour; while batting away DM’s agents like an unending swarm of mosquitoes.
The pressure came to a head in my universe last weekend. I had been working on a declaration in the Headley case. I knew once I signed it and it was filed, the game would take on a whole new dimension. I would be subjected to a new array of harassment techniques, right at the time I need to be settling down and producing a living. I was wrestling with ideas of how to gracefully bow out of entering the legal arena.
Last Friday, the night before I put my name in ink on the declarations, was our last night in New Orleans. I decided to go for broke in releasing steam. I knew it would be my last chance for many months to come.
We found ourselves the perfect r&b venue deep down Bourbon Street. We knocked back Hurricanes till we had the whole place doing the Electric Slide and Cupid’s Shuffle. Then the shots came. I did not know they were 180 proof till the next day when I tracked down the waitress to ask what it was that blindsided me.
At one point I bolted for the door for some air and space; unfortunately without informing the love of my life, who never would have allowed the following to happen. A kid was dribbling a basketball down the crowded street. You may have heard the racist joke about what happens when you roll a basketball down the street in certain neighborhoods. Well, I am the living proof it is not a race thing. I was raised on hoops and instinctively went and checked the kid. We both put on ball handling displays while checking one another, and of course talking a lot of trash.
Some horseback cops showed up and told me it was time to go home. I told them I had to fetch my wife first and headed back for the club. The doorman wouldn’t let me in with no shirt (which I stripped for the hoopless basketball contest). The cops didn’t appreciate my pit stop and pinned me against the wall with their horses. I didn’t tamely submit, though I never laid a hand on anyone.
I spent the next fourteen hours in the Hole at the Orleans Parish Prison. Ultimately, I learned quite a lot in the OPP Hole.
I had approximately 50 cell mates. Most were in for far more serious raps than the drunk and disorderly misdemeanors I was booked on.
I annoyed and entertained for the first few hours while I was still high as a kite. When it sunk in that I didn’t know where Mosey was and she didn’t know where I was I snapped into sobriety and anxiety.
And this lead to the lessons. First, the OPP Hole was a far more humane environment than the DM Hole at Int. In OPP, the First Amendment right to freedom of expression was not suppressed, not by the authorities nor by the prisoners. Even when my speech offended some no one resorted to nor even threatened violence.
When I was quietly lamenting about having no means to find Mosey, a particularly scary looking twenty-something kid with dreds approached me. He was up on his third drug charge (guaranteeing hard time in Angola and guaranteeing disqualification for any meaningful employment for the rest of his life). He gently took me aside and two-way commed me into some rationality. I then took interest in his story and those of others similarly situated. I returned the favor that had been done for me to several others. There wasn’t a single criminal in that cell whom I did not get along with and find something to like about. Every conversation I had was deeper and more meaningful and more caring than any conversation that was ever permitted in DM’s Hole.
Other Hole comparisons:
There were no attempted, let alone coerced, confessions in the OPP.
There was air conditioning in the OPP, something sometimes cut off as punishment in DM’s Hole.
There were some tough guards in the OPP, but never were they cruel or abusive as is required in DM’s Hole. And even one of them took interest in my personal dilemna.
There was no requirement to salute anyone, much less dogs.
There were no humiliating games like “musical chairs.”
There was no talk about people’s mothers – in fact, I got the distinct impression that was the one thing that would permit unbridled violence in OPP. I compared that to DM’s obsession to slander my mother who passed away nearly fifty years ago.
By mid afternoon on Saturday, Mosey and Jason Beghe had arranged my release. As I walked through the ghetto shirtless, and after receiving a couple other small acts of kindness from perfect down-and-out strangers, and then contemplating the OPP vs DM’s Hole, any doubts about what I would do with the Headley declaration dissolved.
Mosey and I returned to Bourbon Street, located some eye witnesses, debriefed them, and hired an inexpensive attorney. When the attorney briefed the City Attorney on what my witnesses had to say they dropped the charges as long as I forfeited my $300 bond which I did.
I have a motion pending to expunge the record in the case. It was done for the SOLE purpose of preventing the church from using it in court in its inimitable, sleazy style to divert attention from more serious matters at hand. Having publicly exposed the matter myself, I might well have wasted several hundred dollars on that motion. But, I felt compelled to speak now for two reasons:
First, because of recent developments, I am about to be disclosing some information about the dictator and his organization that is going to cause an incredible urge on his part to speed the arrival of my demise. I need a clean heart to withstand what I anticipate will be coming.
Second, recently there have been many what I consider to be over-the-top comments on this blog praising my character. If I’ve put forth my good side that much, you are entitled to know about the other side of me too. I have said it before that I am no angel and this movement is not about following some leader. I do not seek to be a leader. I have drawn inspiration from a wide variety of sources. One of them is social activist and rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy. He very effectively used the rap genre to help African-Americans raise their consciousness so as to erase slavery and colonialism mindsets that had been carefully cultivated over generations.
Chuck D said early in his career that he did not seek to be a leader, but instead his aim was to help create 5,000 black leaders. That has been, and remains a goal of mine: to help create 5,000 independent Scientologist leaders.
I went down for a spell, but I am not out by any means.
Thank you all for listening.
Special thanks to my brothers and sisters Ann, Karen, Mike, Christie, Tiziano, Jamie, JB, and Michael to whom this is not news and who pushed me back in the ring after Mosey and Jason pulled my sorry ass off the canvas.
I think of all ya’ll every time I hear this song, which is a lot lately.
