"The planet is ours is ours is ours is ours this planet We’re moving in we’re moving in we’re moving in we’re moving in we’re moving in"

These are lyrics repeated on the Power of Source Apollo Stars album put out by

L. Ron Hubbard in 1974. I played it often back then and absolutely believed that we were moving in. I felt excited to be a part of a winning team and believed that we would take over the planet. At that time John Brodie, the quarterback from the San Francisco 49ers, was beating up on my Rams and Karen Black was one of the hottest actresses in the biz after having done Five Easy Pieces, The Day of the Locust, and The Great Gatsby, and the top Jazz band according to the Playboy magazine poll was the Return to Forever band with Chick Corea and Stanley Clark, and these people and a lot more that I looked up to and admired were all Scientologists. So, I believed Ron -- the planet was ours for the taking.

In 1973 on the chart of top 100 songs Edward Bear had the # 67 spot for The Last Song. It was sandwiched in between Superfly by Curtis Mayfield and Reelin’ In the Years by Steely Dan. I was living with my blind grandma then. She didn’t know that on the entire ceiling of my bedroom there was a peace flag drawn in pencil. I hadn’t gotten around to painting it yet. I was on my bed one night staring up at it when on the radio the Edward Bear song played, followed by a commercial about Scientology. Just like that, I was hooked.  

A year or so later, being a good Scientologist, I bought my copy of the Power of Source album from the church bookstore.

Some of the text on the back of the album reads: 

“Radio, TV and stage people have uniformly decreed the Apollo Starts ARE a new and exciting sound in music. It is often repeated that the Stars are playing the music of the future.” Even though 2 out of the five songs on the album are oldies like Johnny Comes Marching Home and Summertime.

It goes on to read:  

“His movie experience and his early days as a professional singer come again publicly to light in the brilliant presentation of the Stars.”

I played that record a lot back then. I was only 20.  I was sharing a house in the Hollywood Hills with four other Scientologists and put the album on the turntable in our living room one night. I sat on the shag carpeted floor and listened. LRH was onto something and I was there to hear it. At the time I believed that if LRH was making music and calling it the sound of the future, he was Source after all, then it must be. At the time I even thought this music was kinda cool. One of my housemates gave me a look and laughed. He was older than me and far more cool and a Scientologist as well yet he didn’t have the Power of Source album in his collection. And when he told me to, “take that shit off !” I questioned his commitment to all things Scientology.

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