A few of the details in Barry's account didn't quite sound right to me, so I decided to check on the earlier versions Barry has related on FFL and alt.m.t.
Compare and contrast; here's Barry's latest FFL version: --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Is when I got stuck being "door guy" at Maharishi's > door the night before the second Merv taping. Charlie > arrived, I went inside and told one of the guys inside > that he was there, watched him walk up to Maharishi > and tell him that Charlie was there, and then come > back to me and say, "Maharishi said to have him wait." > > Charlie waited, fuming. He stood there for a while, > among all the dozen or so other people waiting outside > the door, and then he started to pace. Finally, after > about half an hour, he announced in a large voice, > "It's been over an hour! I wouldn't wait an hour to > see Jesus Christ. I'm leaving." And he did. > > *That* is Charlie Lutes. > > He wanted what he had at the very beginning of the > TM movement, to be "special." He was kept out of the > room because some important network people were in > there and Maharishi was afraid he'd embarrass him. > > And, rather than wait outside with all the other > peons, Charlie stalked off in a snit, and then made > up a grand paranoid tale about "Jerry's minions" > keeping him out of the room. > > *Maharishi* kept him out of the room, and kept him > waiting in the hallway with all the other peons. > > And Charlie was too "special" to wait with all the > others. Half an hour among the Great Unwashed was > as far as his "devotion" went. > > Yeah, Charlie was "special" all right. In the same > place that *his* minions were -- and seemingly are > still -- "special." In their minds. And here's an earlier version from FFL, a year ago: ======== > LOL, didn't Charlie say something to M like "Maharishi, an > hour and a half? I wouldn't wait an hour and a half for > Jesus Christ!" Yup, almost word for word. I was the "door guy" at the hotel room door that night. I told the folks inside that Charlie was there, and watched them tell Maharishi. Charlie waited for an hour or so, and then stormed off, shouting those words. Later, because I was the door guy, I was the one who Maharishi told Charlie was to blame for keeping him out: "They never told me." They told him. ======== In the current account, it was Charlie *making up* a "grand paranoid tale" about "Jerry's minions" keeping him out of the room. But last year, it was MMY himself who told Charlie that. Note also that a year ago, Charlie hung around for an hour or so, not just 30 minutes. Now from alt.m.t: ======== There *were* a great number of roaring assholes in the SIMS org at that time, many of them carried away with their own self importance and the mistaken belief that it was up to them to "protect the purity of the teaching." And many of them felt that Charlie was a challenge to that "purity," because of his tendency to not attribute the things he taught to their proper source. ======== Here again, Barry was willing to acknowledge that Charlie's "paranoia" actually had a basis. ======== I was once or twice the target of some of Charlie's pettiness. Do you remember the story I related here recently of being stuck on "door duty" the night Merv and Clint were there and Maharishi kept Charlie waiting in the hall for several hours? Well, after that particular incident, because I was the asshole at the door, Charlie decided that *I* was the one who had "kept him away from MMY." The fact that I often attended his Friday night meetings and had been on very friendly terms with him up to that point didn't seem to factor into his thinking -- I was at the door, I was to blame. So he launched a campaign to get me fired from my plush :-) $500-a-month job at the Regional Office, calling Maharishi in Switzerland several times to accomplish this. (Somehow I survived.) ======== Oops. In this version, Barry seems to have "forgotten" that it was MMY who told Charlie Barry was the one to have kept him out of the room. We're back to Charlie's "paranoia" again. But here we do see Barry's motivation for sneaking a tape recorder into one of Charlie's lectures, in revenge for Charlie having tried to get him fired. Or, did Charlie try to get Barry fired *because* Barry had surreptitiously taped his lecture to make him look bad, and because MMY had told him Barry and Jerry's other "minions" were responsible for his not being able to see MMY? Only Barry knows what the time sequence was here. But one way or another, it appears that Charlie had plenty of reason to dislike and distrust Barry. ======== I was in a position several times to see how Maharishi treated Charlie. He often kept him waiting in hallways for *hours*, knowing full well that he was there, knowing he was impatient and would sooner or later throw a tantrum and stalk off, and then, just when Charlie was about to storm off in a snit, Maharishi would call him into the room and then say, "Oh, they (meaning Jerry and/or whoever was on 'door duty' that night) never told me you were there." ======== And now we're back to the alternate story again, that MMY regularly blamed Jerry and "his minions" for keeping Charlie out of the room. ======== As for the situation at hand, I'll let you decide. I was the poor schmuck stuck with "door duty" one night in L.A. when the people waiting in the hall were Merv Griffin, Clint Eastwood, Charlie, and about a dozen Just Meditators. I had dutifully announced everyone as they arrived to Maharishi, so he knew they were there. Merv and Clint got in first. Their TV show was the next day; it was an etiquette no-brainer. :-) Then a couple of the Just Meditators got let in. One of them was a young woman I had announced several times, because I'd talked with her a little about why she was there. Then, after a few hours, Maharishi called Charlie in. Anyway, I guess my point is, "How do you think I *should* have acted?" I, as a mid-level flunky so far down on the Power Chain that I was stuck outside the door while all the action was going down in the room, guess I could have done more to get the Important people in. Merv and Clint only waited a few minutes, but I guess I could have announced Charlie twice. Or maybe three times, since he was so Important. ========= This one's really interesting. It appears to be the same *occasion*, the night before the Merv taping. But in this version, Charlie waits for hours and finally *is* let in. And Barry acknowledges this time that he *did* have a hand in keeping Charlie out, by choosing to announce him only once, when Charlie might have gotten in if MMY had been reminded that he was still waiting. Bottom line: Barry's oft-told tales have a tendency to, shall we say, "evolve," depending on whose ox he's attempting to gore at the time. Of course, we never know what convenient variations from reality may have affected the tales he tells only once...
