It’s funny how Fridays work out sometimes. Last Friday, a few of us went out after work, and ended up at Maddy’s in Dupont Circle, on the west side of Connecticut Avenue between R and S streets. All in all, it wasn’t a bad time. We had a couple of beers, and some other bar food. They actually had a baked potato on the menu, which I had. Not too shabby if you ask me.
Then afterwards, some of us were heading back to the Metro and others back towards the office, and our path took us past the Fraser Mansion, which, as you know, is the old Founding Church of Scientology before they moved right next door to my office (someone should consider a cult moving in next door as creating a hostile work environment). So we got a photo while we were there, especially when one considers that one of my coworkers ended up briefly visiting the last Anon raid (after I left).
Photo: Sarah Alexander
You can tell that we were having a good time (and maybe still feeling the beer) when I said, for the photo, “Everyone say, ‘Xenu’!” And believe it or not, everyone did.
Meanwhile, in researching the building for the Fraser Mansion article on Wikipedia, I start to wonder what could have been. Would a seven-story condo have prevented the building from becoming a Scientology org? If only the zoning battle hadn’t been so fierce. Maybe Scientology might have kind of fizzled out in DC, and all of these wacko Scientologists would be back on their medications. And we’d still have a nice restaurant in the Fraser Mansion, too.
Then today, just for fun, I researched the property assessments for Scientology’s two main buildings in DC: the (abandoned) Fraser Mansion, and the Embassy Building. The assessment for the Fraser Mansion lists the property as having an assessment of $6,920,620. Not bad, I suppose. But then you look at the assessment for the Embassy Building, and you see why you don’t have to be very bright to be a Scientologist. The price that they bought the building for in 2005 was listed as $17,350,000. Then they sank $18 million into the building for renovations. And for all their work, turning the building from what I’m told was a somewhat decrepit office building into a modern “Class V” brainwashing camp, the property is assessed for only $14,527,000. Seems a little small, no? Scientology looked at the property, and $35 million later, they have a building that’s only worth $14 million. Not a good return on their investment, if you ask me.
Then I’ve also noticed that the foot traffic in and out of their new “Ideal Org”, based on my own personal observations and Sparrow’s videos, consists mostly of staff members (recognizable by their bellhop-style uniforms). Very few public going in and out of that joint. No wonder Sylvia Stanard and Vici Turrisi are such crabs. I’d be crabby, too, if I had nothing to do and had to answer to David “Slappy” Miscavige for my building’s poor performance. After all, in order to be able to send “increasing monies to management reserves“, one must first be actually taking in money to be able to pass it up the chain to Slappy. No public paying for brainwashing, no gold cufflinks for Slappy.
Oh, wait – this wasn’t supposed to be an anti-Scientology rant. Oops. It’s funny, though, how we ended up at the old Org. We originally went out for what we thought was a beer tasting at a different place in Dupont. Turns out we misread the sign. Of course, that’s not before I mis-typed “beer tasting” in a text message as “beet tasting”. The recipient said that a beet tasting would probably be healthier than a beer tasting, but oh, well. So that’s how we ended up at Maddy’s, where we tasted some beer, and then drank it. I would like to note that Maddy’s house amber is quite good, and only $3.00. I dig it. Beer is good. Maybe next time we’ll find a way to make beet-flavored beer. That would be an interesting taste, to say the least. After all, I had a cappuccino beer at the staff Christmas party in 2008, and it was quite good. If done right, coffee and beer go together quite well, believe it or not. Maybe the folks on The Drew Carey Show were onto something with Buzz Beer. And my coworkers said I seemed peppier than usual after that beer. I think the caffeine more than counteracted the alcohol.
So there you go. Meanwhile, if I ever decide to take one of those stress tests again, I’m going to talk about the Xenu story and say that’s causing me stress. Could be fun.