L.A. Weekly-12-27: 'Story' about Co$ (Darby Cash)
28 Dec 2000
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/06/cover-mullen.shtml
Annihilation Man
How Darby Crash lost control. Of the Germs. Of Circle One. Everything.
While attending University High School in West L.A., Paul became interested in Scientology, the pseudo-religious cult founded by pulp science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. At the time, he and Germ-to-be George Ruthenberg were enrolled in the IPS (Innovative Program School), an experimental program for high school underachievers directed by Fred Holtby, who used Scientology methods as pedagogical tools. (Paul had met George, a socially estranged mulatto kid from the Pico-Bundy area of West L.A., in the seventh grade when they patronized the same speed dealer.)
Spinning off Hubbard's "applied religious philosophy," IPS emphasized a screwy gumbo of est, Scientology and applied rhetoric, while students were asked to devise their own curricula, stage their own exams and grade themselves. It was around this time that Paul, with lots of encouragement from his friend George, began experimenting with the mind-control techniques he'd cobbled together from these and other sources to try to get other Uni High kids to do his bidding.
Truth be told, Paul had always seemed more fascinated by Hubbard himself than by the militia he founded. Here was a darkly charismatic figure so persuasive that he could, as Paul saw it, order his followers around like so many sheep. At one point in his career, Paul heard, Hubbard had refused to speak to anyone except through messengers, mostly regimental girls kitted out in hot pants and halter tops, sexy androids who were trained to relay his orders in exactly his tone of voice. To Paul Beahm's skewed sense of humor, manipulating people to do things for you like that was a hoot. How far could you go with that shit? "People are really stupid," he noted.
Paul would eventually claim that he had abandoned Scientology, having come to regard it as fatally "flawed." However, as late as fall '77, speaking as the Germs' Bobby Pyn in an interview in Flipside fanzine, he said that "[Scientology's] philosophy is unbelievable. Everything they say works. The government's been suppressing them. If I had ã $10,000, I'd go back and do it [i.e., undergo 'advanced training']. It does work. It's gonna save the world."
Lemme get control I've got your minds now I want your souls, lemme get control I've got your minds
Now I want control, I need control . . .
--The Germs,
"Shut Down (Annihilation Man)"
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