7.26 Noah meeting at Seven Grand

First things first: @mkarrett and I Periscoped after tonight’s meeting. You can watch that here.

Quick backstory: I’ve had long-standing issues with Noah Sinclair’s lack of follow through, and declined to buy a ticket to his seminar as a result. Over the weekend @addisonborn was told to find somebody that hated Noah, and convince them to go. Addison hit me up, I agreed, and then Noah acted like Noah and I peaced out. Noah then reached out to meet in person, so he could convince me if The System might have something I’d be interested in. It happened tonight, 10pm, at Seven Grand in downtown LA.

When I walked into the bar it was LOUD, with a live band playing. Noah was sitting on a stool, three gift bags on the ground beside him, an empty glass in hand. I came up, said it was good to finally meet him, and tried to shake his hand. He’s Noah, so he didn’t respond. I then said I’d get us some drinks, and asked what he’d like. “Whatever you think it is a man would drink.”

I’ve never found Noah particularly funny, but for whatever reason his sense of humor was clicking with me tonight. You know how sometimes the way somebody talks or acts reminds you of somebody else you know, and that brings a little instant comfort to the dynamic? It was a little like that.

I got two glasses of bourbon — the bartender was very excited to tell me about how great it was — and brought the glasses back. I raised my glass, and Noah and I drank — and with eyes locked right at me he kept drinking… and drinking… until it’s all gone. It’s a dominance game, as most things are with Noah, so I matched him and we set down our empty glasses. (A few minutes later the bartender walked up to us, horrified, saying, “I didn’t know you were going to shoot it!” It was a funny night.)

So Noah launched into some brief rhetoric about me being a pain in his ass, and then appeared to get a phone call. He rolled his eyes — I swear there were times were I could’ve sworn he and @joycecarlberg were related; their senses of humor and outlooks feel almost identical — and then he left. After a while I was wondering if he just ghosted (it’s a thing Noah’s done to me several times), so I walked downstairs. I’m about to leave the bar when he comes back in, all pissed off that I didn’t do as he instructed, and then we head back up to bar.

A guy had taken his stool, and Noah told him to get the fuck out of the chair. Did I mention it was a funny evening?

We sat back down, and I noticed Noah only had two gift bags now. He told me to take out my phone and dial a number. I punched in the digits and my phone pulled up @mkarrett’s name. “Why do you want me to call Melissa, Noah?”

“Do I look like a guy who answers fucking questions?”

We called Melissa, and I relayed Noah’s question: could she meet with him this coming weekend? Melissa said she couldn’t unless she has a specific time or date. Noah didn’t like this, informed her that she WILL meeting with him, and then had me hang up.

Noah then started asking about how things were with me and my wife. (She’s the one he threatened with the blackmail incident.) I believe the quote was “Is everything good in Miranda Bishop world?” I said we’re good. We chatted about where we live, whether we rent or own our home, whether we have insurance.

Then it was time for another phone call. I typed in the numbers… and discovered it was @111error’s phone. Morgan picked up, and could barely hear anything. Noah asked me to relay that Morgan will be available to meet with him next weekend. Noah was not asking. I couldn’t tell whether he was giving an order to Morgan because he had some sort of authority over Morgan, or simply because he was doing the domineering Noah schtick. Normally I’d say the latter, but we live in interesting times.

Frankly, it was really good to hear Morgan’s voice, no matter what sides anybody has taking with regard to BOS, OSDM, The System, or anything else. I tried to tell him I hoped we’d get a chance to talk soon, but I’m not sure he heard me. It was seriously loud in that joint.

Then it came time for Noah and I to have some real talk. I asked him about OSDM, The System, his dad. I tried to bait him to get some info; he didn’t give up anything. But he continued to return to this idea of insurance. What insurance did I have to know that things wouldn’t go sideways in my life? The System, he told me me, could help provide that kind of insurance. A way to know I would be good no matter what went down.

Then we get existential: no matter who is in our lives, who can we really – truly – rely on and trust? I admitted that when the chips are down, we’re all ultimately on our own. “You’re selling it for me!” he said.

Then Noah grabbed the back of my neck, and pulled me in close. The cologne was indeed strong as hell. And then he made the same pitch he did to me on the phone the other day: He didn’t buy that I was a nice guy. “I think you’re petty, and vindictive as the rest of us,” he said. And Noah wanted to help me embrace that.

Now here’s the interesting part. I don’t really think of myself as a “nice guy,” and it’s definitely not something I front. Like many of us, I’m sure, I have a tendency to only see the worst parts of myself. So the whole ‘nice guy’ thing is weird to me, outside of just (hopefully) not being a huge asshole most of the time.

But this entire time I’ve been supporting The OSDM, it’s because I have found The Experience to be something enlightening. Something that can let us explore different facets of our personalities that we wouldn’t in our normal lives. It’s a path towards self-realization.

The blackmail incident revealed anger in me I didn’t know I had, and a protectiveness I didn’t comprehend. It is something I’m glad I know about. And I have no doubt that there are other aspects of my personality — other aspects of my shadow, to borrow @larry’s take — that exist, and I recognize that embracing and understanding them will lead to further enlightenment.

Essentially, Noah was describing The System as something that served the same purpose as The OSDM and The Experience. I’ve always sided with The Experience because of what it can give us, the participants – and in that sense, becoming open to The System seemed like a logical next step.

With that in mind, I told Noah I was down. Let’s dive deep. I went to grab another round.

While at the bar, I turned around to see… @mkarrett. At this point I was really wondering what the fuck was going on — was she in on the whole thing? What the hell?

She told me she was here to get a package – and I told her to turn around. There was Noah, with the final gift bag resting on the table he was siting at. He told her to give me the bag.

Melissa grabbed it, passed it over to me. Then Noah grabbed it roughly, and looked right at me. “Bryan,” he says. “I always follow through.”

With that he violently shook the bag downward, and it exploded across the floor. Inside was a can of LaCroix that busted the whole thing open… and DOZENS of flyers with the photo from the blackmail incident, warning people with a “Nice Guy” alert of a “sex worker enthusiast”.

And like that… Noah was gone.

I’ve obviously had my differences with Noah, but as I said at the top, the sense of humor was clicking with me tonight, and the flyers were just straight-up hilarious. I also found the fact that he made them intriguing: apparently Noah was so bothered by my calling him out that he felt the need to respond by lashing out.

But I will totally admit that he gave me a lot to think about. I didn’t get any answers from him about The System or its connection to anything else — he only said he works for himself, and does what the fuck he wants when he gets up in the morning. But when we were talking about the blackmail incident he did say one thing that has been sticking with me: “You had fun, didn’t you?”

That’s an odd thing to come from a guy like Noah, given how we’ve tended to view him. In fact, it’s the kind of thing that @joycecarlberg has posted on the forums before about The Experience, and it really does make me wonder if Noah is either aligned with Joyce/OSDM, or if they both serve similar roles: both OSDM and The System as instruments under Horace’s control, and both responsible for experiences that push and prod us participants emotionally.

But if Noah’s intent was to sell me on The System enough to come to his seminar… well, mission accomplished. I’ll see everyone there on the 13th.

Let’s get weird.

• This topic was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Bryan Bishop. Reason: updated with written account