Larry's Coffee Date – 10/28

@chelsea Pulls me back to Brad handing me the “Never Silent.” Despite what he claimed was his reasoning, Brad has to know the implications of him handing that message to me of all people, who’d received it from an OSDM mouthpiece before. So which side is he playing on, if indeed sides even exist anymore?

It feels like the purpose of this meeting was for Mike to be someone’s eyes and ears and record an actual emotional response. He facilitated a meeting between two people that had “personal social issues” with one another, mediated the beginning, took notes, and then left. He didn’t seem to want to be there for the conversation so much as just record the initial emotional response. This is pure gold, readings wise. Not staged, not a set up situation for us to respond to, pure real social and emotional interaction.

Why.

Who is Mike reporting to? Mason? Mason’s leash holder?

It brings up so many questions, I feel like I should be shouting on a street corner with hair wild and briefcase overflowing with graphs and sketches.

If Briarberg isn’t real, as Russell has suggested (are we *actually* to believe that just because Russell said so? Because he “has it on good authority”? Sure, Ok. Let’s go with that.) then what does that mean in terms of Mason’s “killings”. Sabrina’s supplying of information? Morgan’s initial business dealings?
Is Briarberg an illusion created to throw OSDM off track? Does OSDM think Briarberg is real, which is why Sabrina was sent to supply names, OSDM thinking that Briarberg would take care of their little issue? Or is Sabrina in on the gag the whole time and working with whatever Briarberg is just to continue creating REAL emotional reactions and not fabricated ones like the OSDM made?
Oh god, is Briarberg just a subsect of the OSDM? Like their “reality tv” dept?

*smashes face into desk*
fuck.

Last time we saw @mike, he was on stage at the System Seminar… is there any possibility that what he’s done so far is just for show, and in reality Noah has something cooking in the back? On Slack, it was mentioned that “never silent” has so far been used only by OSDM members or people close to Noah Sinclair (as the two were one in the same at one point). When @nothenrygale met @wanda102, he gave her the infamous “never silent”… now of the two, who would brad rather help? OSDM, or someone who is also working against the OSDM?

I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a return from the one and only Noah Sinclair one of these days.

Thanks to @Chelsea for the recap. The kids are off at dance so I can add some additional thoughts, and direct you to watch the Periscope if you haven’t seen it.

https://www.pscp.tv/w/1eaJbqMWzEeGX

IG stuff:

1) @Mike was all business. He shook my hand and called me “Mr. Meyers”. While not the Mike we all know, it’s possible that he was told not to interfere with emotional data collection, and thus his robotic demeanor. But as we know, the scientist himself interferes with the experiment under The Observer Effect. Still, I was taken out of my head, and present and aware because of his oddball behavior.

2) Mike said, “When you found out Briarberg was a lie…”. That’s meant to push the narrative that it is, as @Russell said, a lie. Is it? Everything is smoke and mirrors to me now.

3) The inference seems to be that Mike is now Andy Who Fucks, and graduated The System at the seminar this summer; @nothenrygale is the newest protégé. If true, and if Mike “got the job” with Mr. Silver, the conclusion is that Mr. Silver is working with Sinclair Industries, and if Mr. Silver is working with @JoyceCarlberg, who is OSDM’s PR arm, that all roads leads back to OSDM. I don’t quite follow why Psychopath Mike tormenting Russell would lead to his job as a robotic employee for The System, though.

4) It wouldn’t surprise me if all this was engineered by Noah. Just from an OOG storytelling perspective, all the pieces were in place and he vanished. Now The System storyline has begun its payoff.

5) Brad tells me, and I believe him, that he has told me all he knows, and originally asked that I keep the meeting private until the meeting was over. Now I understand why.

OOG/meta stuff:

There is no right or wrong here. As mentioned, we’ve all signed up for this, it’s experimental, let’s play and see what happens.

1) “Emotional data collection” is just a fancy term to accomplish what all dramatists lust after – emotional responses to their material. What works? What doesn’t? Why?

2) After considerable thought, one can make an argument to support any position regarding its success. For me, the takeaway was during my Periscope, where my epiphany occurred – that being out of my head and in a place to feel and experience genuine in-the-moment emotional responses is what I lust after.

3) My beef, so to speak, is with execution. There’s two pieces to this: The Experiences and Brad.

A) The Experiences

Some might say, “Well, they got to you! They made you present! Mission Accomplished!”. Yeah, I suppose. However, given that the Experiences have provided dramatic situations that straddle the line between reality and fiction, and have provoked honest emotional reactions that were a zillion times more effective than what was allegedly “collected” today, this was like feeding someone Wagyu Rib Eye, watching their eyes roll into the back of their heads….and then swapping it out and trying to sell the same thing using Vegemite.

(And don’t tell me you like Vegemite. Even Aussies lie about that.)

That is to say, are you fucking kidding me? This is the best you could do?

Well, maybe “you” isn’t quite right here.

The truth is, the Experiences can’t really take much credit or blame, because “they” were so far removed from it, but just gently wrapped it up in ARG to sell it as part of the whole thing.

Whomever directed the action had no idea what, if any, reaction the meet would provoke. Nor that it would be made public. Nor that the core element and intent of the meeting would turn out to be effectively irrelevant to my primary emotional response, which had to do with execution and not the matter presented.

A directive was handed down to Mike, who handed it to Brad, who executed on it. That’s about the worst workflow to collect emotional data I can imagine.

[Which is thus to say, IG, I’d think by now OSDM should know I’m open and receptive to criticism. I worked in fucking Hollywood for 12 years. I had scripts thrown at me. On this, they collected poor quality data. They can do better. They have done better.]

b) Brad.

It’s to Brad’s credit, and The System, that he found the courage to take on what can be a difficult task. And I appreciate the compliment – very much – that he felt I would be most skilled at handling the matter. And everything said in the meeting was genuine. When presented with such a matter, listen. Empathize. Talk it out. Brad did an exceptional job presenting his feelings, and I hope everyone can take a lesson from how he did this.

However….

Wrap up your personal grievance in an ARG, have me drive across town, to tell me something you could have shared over the phone? Or via Skype? You could’ve at least come over to MY house if it was that important and been considerate of my situation. Leveraging an ARG in the name of handling an emotional matter with someone else?

Dude, have some more forethought. If the issue is, “Larry may not realize that when he does X, it makes me feel like Y,” then be sure to create a scenario where that message doesn’t risk being buried. (Which it wasn’t. I’m able to keep the two issues compartmentalized. But you get the idea.) But if you want someone to be considerate of your feelings, best to make sure the encounter is considerate of theirs.

Which is say, don’t waste my fucking time. I have precious little of it.

Rant over. Thank you for listening and being receptive.

Two last points.

First, I did not have to share any of this. It could’ve been utterly private and never revealed. However, I thank @bcbishop for encouraging me to act in the moment of experiencing emotion and Periscope it. It’s a gift to feel anything in these times, and I decided to share it because it serves the Realm. Uh, the game. Uh, the Whatever This Is.

We exist to take risks. As you know, I’m muddling about as an occasional actor these days. I also realized that if I cannot tap into that honest emotional state and put them on display in real life, how could I when on stage?

Second, as all this good or right or bad or wrong? None of the above. It just is. We are all experimenting. We are finding boundaries and setting parameters. There will be missteps along the way. There will also be great successes. There is no reward without risk.

Just try to use the time more efficiently.