It’s become my regular hangout, but none of the time I spend here is routine.
There’s something about finding a niche at a place you’ve invested time into. Getting to know the shifts of baristas to avoid and favor. Getting to know other patrons who come to do work the same time you do. The cool ones, anyway.
Describing it as “work” doesn’t do it justice.
Screenwriters, composers, math teachers, video editors. You’re reading this, but I’m somewhere between blogger and internet surfer. The latter is something to do while I’m being inspired by my surroundings. Besides, it’s not like I don’t have internet at home. No espresso machine, though.
There’s something beyond inspiring, though, about joking about Xenu in a coffeehouse across the street from a main Scientology centerpiece. Chances are, your jokes will graze the ears of an actual Scientologist. You’ve been forewarned.
Thank god it wasn’t me – doing the joking.
It was like being a fly on the wall, and realizing that maybe the wall was instead a venus fly trap. Yeah, get me out of here.
Oh god, here it comes. Please don’t engage her.
He did.
“Don’t talk about something you know nothing about.”
“It’s about leadership.”
“Do I look like an idiot who would invest my time and money in something which didn’t improve me?” Uh.
And the classic, “It’s not about aliens.”
Look, I may think – but not necessarily argue – one viewpoint over the other on the matter. You can save the arguing for other people. Hopefully far away. I have a hard time expending time or breath on someone else who has clearly already had his or her mind made up. (I’ll admit it: Mine is.)
“What an integral part in this community they play,” I’m thinking. That’s it.
I’m just an observer … caught in headlights.
Please don’t come get me. I’m broke.
“Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.”
-L. Ron Hubbard
4 Comments
you are exaggerating about brushing the ears of actual scientologists, right? maybe it depends what ‘hood you’re in. i found Barnes and Nobel starbucks on 3rd st promenade, unexpectedly, is where people from divers walks of live and socioeconomic classes converge. from old men trying bait college women with invites to Kevin Costner’s house, to rasta hippies, and my favorite, and the seemingly itinerant friend I made who worked there, didn’t really appear driven to finish college and had just upped and left from Hawaii to go to japan sleeping in the subways of tokyo.. in the subways of tokyo…foreign musicians, transients, and matt leblanc. that starbucks really ran the gamut back in the late 90’s. spend a lot of time pretending to myself to study…but i never heard no scientologists…Id love to go in for a “free personality test” with a friend and see what it’s about. I think they offer them for free periodically.
next time i’m in la, I’ll make it a point to have a venti there. maybe i’ll get lucky.
i mean across from their home-base. yeah i missed that part where you said it was across the street from the church. okay, that kind of changes things :-s
…and by “see what {Scientology]’s about” I actually mean “for kicks and giggles”. no, i’ve read Andrew Morton’s bio on Tommy boy and it’s half a biography and half an anti-scientology tome.