THE MASTER ... OF DECEPTION?

"BLUE" JIMMY:  HOAX INVESTIGATOR

BLIND DOG OZZY:  NEUROTIC CHIHUAHUA

"BLUE" JIMMY:  I just saw the DVD release of the 2012 film "The Master" starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams and it was a mesmerizing film worthy of all its various accolades and awards but I couldn't help thinking how the film was imperfect and missed a great opportunity to tell the life story of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating and colorful characters in L. Ron Hubbard.

BD OZZY:  According to the film's producers, the movie is simply the story of a drifter in post WWII America who happens to cross paths with a character who is unmistakably, Hubbard under a fictitious name and his movement (known in the film as "The Cause") is every bit the Church of Scientology.  Interviews with the the film's director, Paul Thomas Anderson show that he studied Scientology and the life of Hubbard and intended the film to be about the life of the Hubbard-like character (Lancaster Dodd) before changing the focus to the life of the young drifter, Freddie Quell, whereby the philosophical movement and its charismatic leader became almost incidental to the story.

"BLUE" JIMMY:   The real Hubbard, although astute, well-read and a man of much experience, was a master con man who took a witches' brew of various philosophies, religious beliefs and modern psychoanalysis and created his own religion apparently, to make a whole lot of money.

BD OZZY:  And it worked!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Damn Straight!  Hubbard claimed to be everything from poet to artist to nuclear physicist to world explorer and every kind of expert you could name.  He once claimed to have banished Satanism from the city of Pasadena, California when he had a run in with JPL scientist, occultist and associate of Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons who was living there at the time.  According to his estranged eldest son L. Ron Hubbard Jr. who in later years, changed his name to Ronald DeWolf,  Hubbard's bulls**t knew no boundries.  In the tell-all book that DeWolf co-authored entitled, "L. Ron Hubbard:  Messiah or Madman?" DeWolf pretty much says his dad was just making it up as he went along like a dude blowing sax in the subway.

BD OZZY:  And some of his jive was just impossible to prove or disprove like the time he claimed to hold a land speed record -- in a different lifetime on another planet.

"BLUE" JIMMY:  And there's where Hubbard really excelled -- making things up.  That's probably what made him such a creative and prolific science fiction writer which was where he made most of his money before the Church of Scientology and was probably the only honest work he did.  In a twisted way, you got to tip your hat to a guy who took his bizarre fantasies added some self-help philosophy and started a church that to this day, has enough money and clout (and lawyers) to deflect any criticism from itself and its founder.

BD OZZY:  Let's start our own church!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  The Blues is my religion and the front porch is my church.  Healings every Saturday night!

BD OZZY:  Send us your money!

"BLUE" JIMMY:  Sake's Alive!

BD OZZY:  Wow!  Wow!