September 8, 1997 - Artemis

Again Gregg & Myself started alone, and this time we remained alone. We had the same banner, and Gregg held one end up again. I leafleted, handing out Xemu's and Court decision leaflet. I had 100 court decision leaflets, and as I was handing out one of each to everyone, I know I handed out 100 Xemu's too.

After an hour or so, they turned on the TV showing the "Man is an Annimallll!" loop. At this time the volume was reasonable, normal conversation was possible even where I was standing about 6 feet from the speaker.

We started at 2pm, and by 3:20 I'd handed out my 100 court decision leaflets, and we decided to take a break. We'd not had a chance to take a drink before our picket, and picketing does dehydrate you.

After our drinks (coffee for Gregg, Diet Coca Cola for me), we headed back to the org, without our banner this time and within a few moments of our return, the volume on the TV increased dramatically. I was standing about 4 feet from Gregg, he had his bullhorn at #4 on the scale, double the #2 he normally uses, and I could only hear him on odd occasions, when their soundtrack dipped. I, being unaided by electronics, couldn't talk to anyone at all, but this volume was attracting people's attention. I was giving out Xenu leaflets like they were going out of fashion.

Gregg called the police to complain about the volume. If they can complain about our megaphone on #2 on Saturday, we can complain about their greater than #4 volume on Monday. I continuted to give out leaflets. 10, 20, 40, 100! It's now 5pm. We have reached the end of our picket notice. However this notice is just to advise the police. There is no legal requirement to stop at 5pm, and the police haven't arrived. We decide to wait for a few moments to see if they will. I continue to give out leaflets. 10, 20, 50. I break into our last packet of leaflets, but the crowds are trickling off. People leaving work have left, and it's too early for evening crowds. At 6pm we call it a night. We head back to the car, walking south past the main reception area for the non-public part of the org. I think a small diagram might help this, to explain this next confrontation

|         |
|         |<reception area
|         |
|----p----|<door 2
|         |
|---------|<door 1
|   x  y  |
|         |
  street

As we walked past, we noticed a poster on the inner door, at approximatly point 'p' in the diagram above. We stepped into the alcove, to take a closer look. I was standing at approx 'y' above, while Gregg was at point 'x'. Notice that we did NOT go through any doors, we merely took one step closer to the poster.

Now from this point on, things happened very fast, and I might have minor details about timing wrong, especially from Gregg's point of view, but the gist of the story is right. In fact, I don't want to put down anything that Gregg said/did etc as I was too busy to take notes.

Almost immediatly we were surrounded. The ex-'nazi' sea-orger tried to tackle me, while Buttnor tackled Gregg. Mr Wimpy Sea-Orger demanded we got off org property, and since I'm a nice guy I obliged. I took one step back onto public property, and continued to do what I was doing, namely jotting down the details from the poster. He didn't like this, and tried to stare me out. Well, he's not having much luck on those stare outs. I got him within about 10 seconds. FLUNK! I can tone 40 just as well as Gregg can. He runs away, and Buttnor, Gregg and myself 'discuss' picketing. Buttnor claims that he likes it when we picket, as they get more raw meat in. Well, if that is the case, why does he look so distressed every time? Buttnor tells us to go, but we're now standing very definatly on public property, and quite frankly, his attitude is pissing me off. Calling stepping into an alcove tresspassing, and threatening to call the cops over it, is to my mind an obvious attempt to harrass.

Eventually he gives up, wanders off back into the public section, so we head home. Before we do though, one guy who stood and watched this whole spectacle held his hand out for a leaflet and I gave him the last Xenu of the day. About 310 of them given out today, almost all by me as Gregg was busy with the megaphone.