I enjoyed reading these immensely! Thanks, Barry.
--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 4/12/14, TurquoiseBee <turquoi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
Subject: [FairfieldLife] The Clint / Charlie stories (was Re: Are the
TM-Sidhis nothing but Placebo Effect?)
To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Saturday, April 12, 2014, 2:50 PM
Ah, the Beverly Wilshire stories
TurquoiseBee <turquoi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Personally, I think that Nabby is just still
jealous
> > that Heretic Turk got to spend one night as the
"door
> > guard" at Maharishi's door, and he never
got closer
> > to the man than the cheap seats in an auditorium.
He
> > shouldn't bother...it was a boring gig, except
that it
>
> provided fodder for a couple of good Clint Eastwood
and
> > Charlie Lutes stories. :-) :-)
Michael Jackson <mjackso...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Oh please tell, tell 'em - I ain't never heard
those stories!
That's right...you're still a bit of a newb
here at FFL. "Regulars" are groaning into their
hot chocolate right now, going, "Oh no...not
again." Unkind Net-elitists are going,
"Couldn't you just Google this, or try to see if
the Yahoo Groups search engine was working properly yet, and
find one of the previous tellings of these tales?"
Me, I'm going, "Hmmmmm. That sounds like fun. I
mean, here I am in a comfortable cafe on a comfortable day,
sitting here waiting for "writing inspiration,"
and Michael asks me to retell two of my favorite TM-era
stories. Is this an omen, or what?"
:-)
THE BACKGROUND
It was at the time of one of the Merv Griffin TV shows
featuring Maharishi. At the time I was working at the
Western Regional Office at 1015 Gayley, also home of the TM
National center at the time, a workspace occupied by its
then leader, Jerry Jarvis. Jerry had been my TM teacher, and
we worked together a lot, and I guess he'd heard OK
things about me 'round town, because he kept asking me
to do a few "prime time" intro lectures and
appearances for him, like the one for NBC News. Anyway,
whether he'd heard good things about me or the opposite,
I'd gotten picked to be "on staff" during
Maharishi's visit. This involved meeting a few people at
the airport and being "door guard" at
Maharishi's door at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel while he
was staying there, the night before the taping.
If this sounds like a "good deal?" it wasn't.
The airport thing was fun, but try to imagine standing in
front of a hotel room door and
having as your job description keeping out all the hordes
who showed up wanting to see Maharishi. As my gig had been
explained to me, I was supposed to stand there and ask
everyone who came to the door what their name was, put those
names on a list, and give it to the person inside the door,
whose job description was to take the list directly to
Maharishi. MMY then decided who was to be allowed to enter,
and who wasn't. The other person would then come to the
door and tell me who to let in and who to tell to have a
seat on the corridor floor and wait. Suffice it to say that
Maharishi didn't necessarily want to see all of the
people waiting, and that at times the corridor was full of a
couple of dozen squatting devotees.
THE CLINT STORY
So I'm standing there, doin' my thing, getting
bad-vibed by all of the people squatting there in the hall,
and up walks Clint Fucking Eastwood. I'd met him briefly
at the airport, but here he was right in
front of me, wanting to go into Maharishi's room, where
his friend and the host of the TV show Merv Griffin already
were. Well, I didn't have to "take his name"
because he was one of the entries on a "short
list" I'd been given about who to let in
immediately. So I just said, "Hi Clint."
But then Clint noticed the pile of shoes by the door.
He looked at me, standing there in my stocking feet, and at
the pile of shoes, and then back to me. He was not smiling.
I don't think I can adequately convey what it's like
to be "not smiled at" by Clint Fucking Eastwood,
so I shall not even try.
He said, "Are we supposed to take our shoes off?"
I said, "Well, it's traditional, Clint."
He gave me another Dirty Harry look, like, "Do you KNOW
who you're asking to take off his boots?" This was,
after all, the #1 Box Office Star in the world at that point
in time. But then he smiled and shrugged and pulled off his
cowboy boots.
That's when I figured out what his hesitation had been
about.
The #1 Box Office Star In The World had holes in his socks.
I clearly remember that one big toe was sticking out, and
the two little piggies on each foot were definitely trying
to make a break for it and head to the nearest market.
He looked down at his
not-quite-appropriately-clad-for-meeting-a-spiritual-teacher
feet, grinned amiably, and walked in.
I really LOVE this Clint Eastwood moment. Probably better
than any of the moments in his movies.
THE CHARLIE LUTES STORY
Still standing in the hall. Merv and Clint are inside with
Maharishi, people are still coming up to me asking to see
Maharishi and I am still trying to be polite and write down
their names and their stories on the pieces of paper I pass
through the door. A couple of dozen people are still
squatting on the floor, bad-vibing me Big Time because I
haven't called their name yet.
And up
walks Charlie Lutes.
I tell him the procedure, write his name on a piece of
paper, and ask him to wait while I go inside and give this
information to Maharishi. I do just that, stepping inside
and giving the piece of paper to the paper guy, who
immediately walks it up to Maharishi, where someone reads it
to him. Maharishi turns to paper guy and obviously tells him
something, because he comes back to me and says,
"Maharishi says to tell Charlie to wait."
I exit from the room and do just that. Suffice it to say
that Charlie's glare is right up there with Clint's.
But he backed away and stood in the hall with all the other
devotees. And stood there. And stood there, and stood there,
and stood there. For all of 15 minutes, as I remember. His
face was getting redder with every minute, and finally he
just stalked off, saying loudly and angrily, "I
wouldn't wait an hour to see GOD!" It had been
fifteen minutes.
So that's the end of the
story. Or so I thought.
As it turns out, Charlie managed to get face time with
Maharishi at the airport as he was leaving, and asked why he
hadn't been admitted the night before. Maharishi looked
him straight in the face (this part I have from Jerry, who
was standing right there), and said, "No one ever told
me you were there."
Maharishi left, but Charlie couldn't let it lie. He
started going around saying that Jerry's "SIMS
guys" had prevented him from seeing Maharishi. I heard
that he had even found out my name and had gone to people at
TM National trying to get me fired. It didn't work.
So those are the two stories. Thanks for asking, because
it's given me something interesting to type for a few
minutes. Time for another beer...
