Scientology Spokesman Tommy Davis: The Movieline Intervention
Usually, when an established international institution encounters the threat of public scandal, it rallies the troops behind crisis PR and modest, protracted silence. Not the Church of Scientology, however, which, for all its megastar clientele proselytizers, doesn't appear to have a single power-flack among its ranks. And even if it does, that authority has left Scientology's image to the hands of Tommy Davis, the 37-year-old spokesman who has spent the last week walking out of network-TV interviews, fielding resignation letters from boldface church names, and now salvaging what he can of his reputation in an interview with The Daily Beast.
This isn't necessarily the guy we'd entrust our billion-dollar religion to, but he's a guy we'd hate to see pulled any more helplessly into the pop-culture meat grinder than he has to be. For that reason, Tommy Davis, this is your Movieline Intervention.
Tommy (do you mind if I call you Tommy?), by now it's pretty clear that you've got a problem. Your profile this morning is just the latest in a multi-year run of bad press, ridiculous decisions and otherworldly public gaffes that have proven your incapacity to represent an organization of any kind -- let alone one of the world's most moneyed, fraught pseudo-religions. Furthermore, your ineptitude is just making things worse for everybody. You need to know by now that when Hollywood/Scientology beat writer Kim Masters comes calling in one of your biggest times of crisis, you don't have to pick up the phone. Let it go to voicemail. Even if she calls 10, 20 times. Because now, as you see, the alternative goes like this:
The Headleys [a married pair of ex-Scientologists] say they believe that Davis may be in somewhat over his head. With the departure of [Mike] Rinder as spokesman and other key Scientology personnel, Marc Headley says Davis has been thrust into the spotlight without necessarily having undergone sufficient training. "There's a whole series of courses you have to do," he says. "It's very unlikely that he did all that... [But] he's rich so he can afford to buy himself thousand-dollar suits and he rolls up in his 7 Series BMW--and he doesn't have any reason not to be there." (Headley says other low-paid Scientology staff members "could barely afford gas for that BMW.")
Davis says it's "crap" that the former church members are attacking him. As for Marc Headley, Davis says, "It's no mystery why he's vicious about the church and the church spokesman when he's somebody who sells stories to the media and is currently suing the church."
Whoa, Tommy, hold it right there. Wrong answer. This is where you either take the high road -- declining to comment on Mr. Headley's personal attacks -- or, if you must go on the defensive when the entire culture is waiting for you to self-destruct, you credit Scientology with helping its constituents seek their own truths and take the initiative to improve their lives as they see fit. You allow them a choice, an alternative, an option, and you wish your former members the best in the pursuits of their new faiths.
Of course you don't mean it, but say it anyway. And make it more convincing than your visit last year to CNN, a performance we both know would have cost any other corporate or institutional spokesman his job:
This is the "disconnection" commentary -- the outright lie that Scientologists don't order church members to break away from skeptical relatives -- that Paul Haggis referred to in his farewell letter to you last weekend. It's also the one that former Scientologist Jason Beghe invoked in what amounted to your previous intervention, in which he extolled your virtues while appealing to you directly:
What really saddened me, this was one of the most handsome, beautiful kids I'd seen in my life. And he's starting to look like a hardcore Scientologist. He's no longer beautiful. You see the eyes, the lying that he's doing. Anybody can see that this guy is not clean. It's clear as day. [...] I felt sorry for Tommy. If he's reading this, I want to tell him: you're losing your soul. Look in the mirror. You look like a liar.
Moreover, you look like a jackass. I thought that when you and Rinder "blew" (i.e. went underground) in 2005 after your hilarious confrontation with the BBC's John Sweeney, this would be the start of a more reticent, cutthroat and stealthy Tommy Davis -- a kind of Karl Rove to Tom Cruise's George W. Bush, a puppetmaster who would manipulate the faithful with a canny, high-voltage bit of video for private broadcast overseas. But you couldn't even do that right, and the video leaked into infamy as you scrambled once more into ineffectual damage control.
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Hey, you missed one of Tommy Davis's greatest hits!
Here is Tommy Davis playing the role of asshole stalker.
Check it out (6:20-8:10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5PB_dEIwLM
Oh another piece from the clip
:30-1:20 Tommy shows up late and says "hi!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5PB_dEIwLM
One of the creeds of scientology IS "always attack, never defend" to be fair. Tommy IS doing his job. Which IS what makes it so damn funny. lol
You know why Scientology doesn't use Kirstie? The cult KNOWS she gets too much attention for being a ditz, and in addition, they wouldn't be able to control her. She would get ticked off if they tried to give her direction in what to say and what not to say. The cult would sink faster than the Titanic if Kirstie were to replace Tommy. So, yes, bring Kirstie on! She'd be my top choice.
Tommy is nice looking. He dresses well. If you don't pay any attention to what he's saying, or no one cares because they don't know who he is anyway, then it doesn't hurt cult operations as much. I agree though, that it shows the cult's paucity of good sense, that they can't find SOMEONE better than him. However, celebrities like Kirstie, are already rallying around Tommy and the cult -- in her twitters -- and against Haggis. Which is what brainwashed dupes of this cult do. They demonize anyone who leaves and speaks out about abuses.
The reason the internet is destroying Scientology, is that their scam's secrets, including high level "sacred" Xenu comic books scriptures, abuses and duplicity are being let out of the bag. They thrived on secrecy. Scientology was NEVER going to be major religion. It was designed to suck just enough vulnerable and uneducated people in, to make L. Ron Hubbard rich and it did. They targeted celebrities (PROJECT CELEBRITY) and give celebrities very special treatment so they have some fun, and they use them for free advertising, that Scientology "is a blast." And Xenu too!
From its inception, every aspect of Scientology was designed to suck money, in the most efficient manner.
As far as perpetuating itself, they are sunk. They promote their education method, STUDY TECH, yet their tiny power-craven leader David "Slappy" Miscavige is not only violent, he didn't use STUDY TECH to make it through high school, and they regularly encourage young people to join the cult and put off education. They did this with Astra Woodcraft, a brilliant young woman, daughter of an architect who worked for the cult, and eventually had to help his daughters escape.
Kirstie, John Travolta and Tom Cruise's experience with Scientology is not all that matters, it is just all that matters to them. There are literally thousands of former members who were outraged at being drawn into this scam, and the internet gives them a voice, whereas before the cult would bury criticism in an avalanche of law suits, blackmail or harassment, just as they did with Paulette Cooper.
David Miscavige should speak. He's better at not answering questions, and "misdirecting" than Tommy. But he won't, because his tiny stature gets noticed, and worse, he is violent. He is guilty of beating many people, and he is simply too much of a coward, and has to stay in hiding.
Oh, David Miscavige will squeak, err, speak. When Claire Headley's case gets to trial, little Slappy Miscavige will have his day to be heard.
Of course the cult doesn't want Kirstie Alley as a representative! She's up there in the hierarchy, having shoveled enough money at them to become an Operating Thetan, one of the Masters of Mass, Energy, Space and Time.
But she's also a whiny, self-absorbed twit, whose Twitters sometimes go on for days about the eeevils of psychiatry, or her new weight loss program.
In a way, she'd be the perfect OT for the job. Her mass ranges up around 300 lbs, she has the energy to Twitter all day long, she takes up a lot of space, and she sure squanders a lot of time.
But that's not the image Scientology wishes to portray. Old, silver-haired Heber Jentzsche was, physically, a good image. He looks like a kindly silverhaired pastor until he opens his mouth. "You love drugs! You're on drugs right now!" he yawped at an astonished newscaster during a live interview. Well, old Heber's being held in The Hole at the Scientology secret base in Riverside these days. They should dust him off and trot him out. They should probably duct tape his mouth shut first, though.
Hilarious piece. I loved it.
Tommy! Blow the cult! Save yourself!
But Scientology also does many beneficial things. No, That's not me the next poster-boy for that bunch. I quit the group practically three decades ago. What Scientology does do is help improve awareness, particularly spiritual awareness. For me, that benefit helped me in class, immensely. For an artist friend, it helped him make paintings in hours for what might have taken weeks. Before Scientology, conceptually I had always thought of myself being a spiritual being in a temporary body. With Scientology counseling, that reality became vividly clear. Exterior with full perception. Performing miracles in the magnitude of those performed by Moses. And most interestingly, I found I understood Christianity far additional entirely than I ever had.
Wow, Lady Gaga got eight VMA awards Sunday night! I am really proud of her achievements and I enjoyed that Born This Way tune GaGa sung too!
Make damn sure the finance has been cleared. I cannot see any reason why the quality of the vehicle would be affected by it being a repo vehicle.