Is it a coincidence? A deliberate reorganization? A quiet rebellion? Recent days have seen a spate of high-level firings, resignations, and even a strike taking place in the often insular world of the Burning Man organization.
Palmer ‘Gameshow‘ Parker, DPW’s Dispatch Manager for many years, was invited to attend Burning Man for free again in 2013, but his contract was not renewed. Gameshow has now been replaced by another long-time Dispatch worker. Those in the know were tight-lipped about it at the subsequent manager’s meeting, and simply cited “a Human Resources issue,” while other sources cited an alleged dissatisfaction with Gameshow’s ability and/or willingness to integrate DPW Dispatch with EMS personnel and their system. Gameshow himself has declined to make any official comment on the Org’s decision.
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Quinn Yarbrough, sometimes known as “Ghost Dancer,” was asked to resign less than a week ago after some ten years as the DPW Ranch Manager, according to sources close to him. Of course, in the corporate HR world of professional candy-coating and face-saving, “asked to resign” is just a euphemism for being fired without having to tell your next employer that you were fired.
Quinn was reportedly escorted around the ranch – his only home for the last ten years – as he gathered his belongings, like some kind of suspected thief. This is not to say that Quinn is suspected of being a thief; it’s a not-uncommon feature of big-boy corporate culture that fired employees are shepherded around by security guards and formally shown the door. What this says about the Org, about their goals, and about how very far they’ve strayed from a Cacophony Society Zone Trip is much more interesting than anything it might imply about Quinn Yarbrough, who is unfortunately unavailable for comment at this time. His Facebook page, however, gives us a public statement notable for its civilized tone; Quinn is often said to be rather a deep person, and his serene stance in the face of what must be a massive life change would seem to support that opinion of him:
“Where as word spreads like wildfire let me just say this much for now. I love you all and have nothing ill to say about anyone, it’s simply time and appropriate for our collective evolution for me to step onto a new path. Much love and gratitude for the many many memories – blessings to the Burning Man Community.”
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In contrast, Otto von Danger, whose calamitously controversial leadership on Burn Wall Street our very own Burnersxxx wrote about back in September 2012, posted the following comment on his Facebook page just today (presented here unedited):
“After 6 years of Militey service the government discarded me as they do many others and now after 13 years Burning Man has done the same.They invented some bullshit and fired me last night.So I’m trying to fix it but as it stands I will not be going to Burning Man anymore and Shwing is canceled.FrogBat will go on of course.”
In response to queries, Otto gave the following explanation (also unedited):
“it’s true…they said I pulled a knife on one of the Burn Wall street crew…which is obviously not true.I think that would have got me arrested.Again I’m trying to fix this but as it stands Burning Man is done with me.”
When asked why the Org would do something like that, Otto’s response was that the recently-released film SPARK: A BURNING MAN STORYportrayed him in too flattering a light, and that the Org hates successful people like himself:
“probably because I looked good in Spark is my guess…they don’t like success unless it’s thiers.”
People who have drunk a little too deeply of the Org’s kool-aid frequently chide us here at Burners.me for being too critical of their sacred icons, but in this case we have to speak up in defense of dear Uncle Larry and the other false gods of the Org-worshippers for a change: the idea that they get rid of people for being successful and appearing in films in a good light is even more absurd than the idea that Otto von Danger is successful by any objective definition of the word. Otto is clearly selling a flavor of kool-aid all his own, and his stated reasons for being dismissed are very possibly not a clear or accurate reflection of reality. Given the personality clashes and accusations of rank incompetence, volunteer abuse, mishandling of funds, and even sexual assault that were leveled at him (and his right-hand man, Jonathan ‘Fester’ Cooksey) in the weak aftermath of the Burn Wall Street project, the Org very likely had more than one excellent reason to give Otto the old heave-ho, regardless of any overarching plan to purge their ranks.
Meanwhile, during a Q and A with one of the directors after a screening of SPARK: A BURNING MAN STORY in Reno, a woman in the audience asked ”why was Burn Wall Street romanticized?”
Apparently, the director’s goal was to show projects from beginning to end. . . but the darker aspects of Burn Wall Street depicted in earlier edits of SPARK: A BURNING MAN STORY were deemed much too negative in comparison with the other elements of the film, and thus a great deal of ugliness connected with the project and with Otto personally was simply left on the cutting room floor in the interests of a more upbeat end product.
Otto made another interesting and not entirely accurate or true comment:
“they also fired alot of other good people this year including the entire Man base crew.”
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Which brings us to the Man Base crew.
As nearly as we can gather, Otto’s assertion that the entire Man Base crew is being replaced is still just speculation, although certainly a possibility. The meat of the story so far seems to be that a dispute between the Org and Travis Ludy, who has been managing the crew that builds the Man Base for years, has escalated into a strike that may very well result in the entire Man Base crew being replaced, and the size of the 2013 Man Base scaled down dramatically to make up for lost time and the lack of an experienced crew.
Ludy was paid $8000 to build the Man Base in 2012. The Org reportedly tried to cut his pay in half for 2013, and Ludy declined in favor of holding out for the whole nut. When they tried to give his job to someone on his crew instead, that person turned the job down. . . and news of the attempt to cut Ludy out over money – possibly exacerbated by other crew members being let go recently – led to the entire crew rebelling and going on strike.
We’re told that a meeting was held just today to try to settle the dispute. . . so let’s see how the balloon goes up, or how the cookie crumbles. Will the Org really scuttle the entire Man Base crew, and is it really all over a paltry four thousand dollars, or is there a welter and web of politics and personal agenda and independent problems between the Org and individuals, all coming to a head at once?
More importantly, is there some kind of a deliberate reorganization going on, and if so, what are the intentions driving it?
The Cacophony Society is a venerable but obscure institution that can lay claim to being the very origins of Burning Man, art cars, Santacon/Santarchy, the Billboard Liberation Front, urban exploration, culture jamming, and more, with strong ties to organizations, traditions, and phenomena like St. Stupid’s Day, zombie flashmobs, Survival Research Labs, the Church of the SubGenius, Fight Club, etc. The Society can also legitimately take some serious credit for the resurgence of circus/freak show/burlesque troupes across the nation and around the world.
The San Francisco Institute of Possibility, led by Chicken John Rinaldi, presented an “unauthorized book release party” at the Castro Theater in San Francisco last weekend for the release of TALES OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CACOPHONY SOCIETY. Whatsblem the Pro attended.
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100% Genuine Santa — Photo: Panda
When I first heard that the Cacophony Society was having a book release party in San Francisco, I imagined a modest get-together of perhaps forty or fifty people at a place like City Lights Bookstore. Apparently, that’s what the book release party at Ferlinghetti’s Folly was supposed to be like: tweed, elbow patches, plastic cups of Cab-Merlot, little squares of fontina cheese with toothpicks in them, something light and unobtrusive on the stereo, and a lot of polite reminiscence about how much fun everything used to be.
Chicken John had a different vision; a bigger, bolder vision. . . so he shamelessly hijacked the event. At Chicken’s behest, approximately a thousand walking anomalies, professional raconteurs, semi-human chimerae, stump preachers, miscreants, miscreations, amateur inventors, bons vivants, characters, loners, part-time zombies, sports, morlocks, kooks, crackpots, anti-human racists, beatniks, geeks, Overmen, neodadaists, giant ants, screwballs, underground celebrities, common deeves, Situationists, Groucho Marxists, burlesque mutants, renegade federal agents, sign-wielding protestitutes, and other assorted weirdos invaded the Castro Theater and filled that hallowed hall (and the sidewalk out front) with a veritable bacchanal of conceptual and sartorial mayhem, in celebration of their tribe and people.
And of course, they shilled the book. Hard. Chicken John is, after all, nothing if not a consummate showman, and well-endowed with the appropriately hucksterish skills and instincts that go with that.
Al Ridenour’s Art of Bleeding troupe makes it all better
If you’ve never heard of the Cacophony Society before, or only have a rough idea of its history and purposes and accomplishments, then you’re quite mistaken if you think you know much of anything about Burning Man. For instance: perhaps you are under the impression that dictums like ‘Leave No Trace’ and ‘No Spectators’ are a Burning Man thing; of course they are, but we got them directly from the Cacophonists who first introduced Larry Harvey and his Man to the Black Rock Desert. John Law, one of the triumvirate that originally founded the Burning Man Org, is a very prominent Cacophonist. . . and he is a co-compiler and editor of TALES OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CACOPHONY SOCIETY. Without Cacophony, there would be no Burning Man, plain and simple. Cacophony is nothing less than the root of the many-branched tree of weirdness that makes life tolerable for those of us who realize that the Apocalypse has already happened.
Once I had a firm grasp on the scope of the event, I knew I had to be there come Hell or high water. An appearance by THE YES MEN was promised, as were performances by the likes of Al Ridenour and his brilliant ART OF BLEEDING troupe. POLLY SUPERSTAR was on the bill, and the Reverend IVAN STANG, spiritual leader of THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS, was rumored to be hosting, accompanied by Church luminaries PHILO DRUMMOND and the formidably erudite DR. HAL ROBINS.
Chicken John — Photo: Chris Stewart/Chronicle
Chicken John – whose sole failing as a carny is his unflinching generosity – graciously offered me a free ticket, and this bit of largesse cemented my resolve to make it to the show in spite of the fact that I was determined not to use that ticket under any circumstances. No; I was dead set on infiltrating instead and being a part of the show, a performer without portfolio, as unauthorized as the event itself.
To this end, I arrived early, and simply walked in amid the hustle and bustle of staff and crew getting ready, as though I knew what I was doing and was supposed to be there. Having located a coatroom backstage where I could stow my gear with that of the other performers, I changed into my favorite evening wear: a fully-accessorized Santa suit, paid for with the Burners.me credit card – still uncomfortably hot to the touch – that nestled in my Santa hat with the rest of my valuables. I wore my costume with the confidence that can only come from having True Santa Nature, an epic beard, and the assurances of the staff at the costume shop that my outfit had indeed been laundered since the last Santa threw up in it.
I spent the next two hours hobnobbing, palavering, flirting, exploring the Castro Theater, and joining the other performers in entertaining, confusing, and harassing both passerby and people waiting in the long line out front that snaked around the corner onto Market Street. . . and then, suddenly, the doors were flung wide, the line began to inch forward, the theater seats were filled. The show began in earnest.
After that, I can’t remember much. There was some sort of film playing, I recall, with a spinning hypnomat filling the screen as a man’s voice droned on and on from the surround-sound speakers. A strange odor filled the air as some kind of gas began to quietly hiss its way out of the ventilation system in smoky tendrils. Strong men first pounded upon, and then hurled themselves at, the oversized theater doors that led back to the lobby and safety, but to no avail; the Castro is an old theater, built well and well cared-for. The doors held; my head reeled.
Yes Man assaulted by Hell Yes Women — Photo: John Curley
Glimpses of half-remembered scenes that swim up from the darkness that followed are all that is left to me now: Andie Grace tucking a dollar into my Santa belt as I performed a wholly involuntary St. Vitus’ tarantella; Andy Bichlbaum, surrounded by a bevy of adoring painted harlots, tearing his own face off to reveal the face of Jacques Servin beneath it; Ivan Stang and Philo Drummond gently extracting an “ordination fee” from my nerveless fingers; a bizarre but tender assignation backstage with a honey badger (call me, honey!). A man covered from head to toe in bandages and wielding a keyboard and joystick seemed to be controlling all my movements.
When I awoke, I was in an alley in downtown Reno, soiled and disoriented. A hardbound copy of TALES OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CACOPHONY SOCIETY lay open before me in my lap, silently exhorting me to “DO YOUR DISHES.”
There seem to be some recordings on my phone, with time/date stamps that indicate they were made that terrible evening as I languished in some kind of nightmarish state of induced fugue. Stay tuned; once I’ve had a chance to listen to them I’ll let you know if they reveal anything of importance.
Our recent piece stirring the horny nest hot-button issue of kids at the Burn prompted an amusing comment from Burner St Addis of Paul.
Leave it to burnersxxx to get to the real issue here — are babes spoiling the “true meaning of burning man”? (i.e. DJs and the people who love them) You’ll just have to think of kids as living, breathing little Freebirds-at-Temple-burn, and I’m sure Mr the Pro would counsel you that that’s the kind of thing you just have to suck up and deal with in the name of freedom. Personally, St Addis finds it a little troublesome that there’s limited medical care in the event that a kid gets hurt, and thinks that anyone who sticks a kid in a car seat for an 8 hour exodus needs their head examined (i.e. I hope all those kids come in RVs, anything else seems cruel) but there were kids around burner culture long before there were international DJs with dusty cocks in need of sucking, and anything that forces people to realize that burning man is something other than “the world’s largest rave” is probably a good thing.
True. And it’s nice to know people are reading this blog enough to get the point. I’ve got no problem with other things going on at Burning Man beyond the hundreds, if not thousands, of raves. Indeed, I enjoy many other aspects too. But anyone who tries to deny it’s the world’s largest rave is crazy. Maybe Coachella, EDC, Ultra, TomorrowLand get way more numbers, $100 million+ just on tickets in some cases, $1 million+ for artists…but Burning Man is a CITY. We live in this rave. We ride bikes from stage to stage, or get a ride on a stage itself. We can turn our own camp into a stage if we want, anyone of our friends can get up and DJ, if the music is good people will come over and dance. Burning Man has it all over every other party in terms of its physical dimensions, number of DJs, and number of stages – especially when you consider that pretty much every art car is a mobile stage too. That’s about 500 stages right there. Music is everywhere! Unknown DJs mix with local heroes who mix with international superstars, who are often playing for free and incognito. This has become a fundamental part of the party, and explains most of the increase in numbers from 15,000 in 1998 to 68,000 now. They can get away with $400 ticket prices, because that’s about right for what people would pay to see these artists at a festival. A festival that is paying for the artists, of course. Look, I’ll grant you, it doesn’t all have to be dubstep, that’s for fucken sure. More psy-trance, more trance! But that’s an aside. Raves have always incorporated the art and lighting elements, as well as loud music and packed dance floors.
Now these days in 2013 we have “EDM”, this week there was a fantastic article by DJ Pangburn in Death and Taxes about the building EDM “bubble” in the United States. It seems doof has been a slow burner (if you pardon the pun) in this country, but right now it is on fire.
St Paul’s comment triggered a certain curiosity in me. Which did come first, the “pollo fuego” or the Eggstasy?
Which came first: raves or Burning Man?
Burning Man was a bit smaller in 1998
It seems that the first events the Burning Man founders had on the Playa did not feature electronic music. I do remember losing my Burginity in 1998 and rave was there, but maybe 2 or 3 camps that you had to find by listening for the bass. Anyone with more information, please let us know.
Wikipedia has slightly conflicting information on when Burning Man started, between the official Burning Man entry and the Cacophony Society. The movie Dust and Illusions goes into this in some detail. The first Burning Man was held on Baker Beach in 1986, a fire ceremony. Burning Man claims this as the start of their party, but in fact it was the Cacophony Society in 1986 and they claim it became Burning Man in 1988.
The first raves were held in the 1980′s, and the first description in the media of “Acid House Parties” as “raves” is claimed as 1989 – by Genesis P.Orridge, an occultist from the band Psychic TV . By 1991, the rave scene was no longer undeground and they were throwing legal parties in the UK for upwards of 30,000 people. That’s right, 20 years ago, they were throwing official, permitted raves – with electronic music – a comparable size to Burning Man.
What about the US? Wikipedia again:
American ravers, following their early UK & European counterparts, have been compared to both the hippies of the 1960s and the new wavers of the 1980s, due to their interest in non-violence and music.
In the 1990s, one of the most influential Rave organisers / promoters in America was San Diego’s G.U.N., Global Underworld Network known as Nicholas Luckinbill and Branden Powers. They were made famous for organising and throwing the internationally known OPIUM and NARNIA raves that reached in size of 60,000 plus people in attendance, a feat unheard of at that time. Narnia which would become famous for a morning hand holding circle of unity was featured on Mtv and twice in LIFE magazine being honored with Event of the Year in 1995. Narnia quickly became known as the “Woodstock of Generation X”. These festivals were mostly held on Indian Reservations and Ski Resorts during the Summer months and were headlined by well known DJs such as Doc Martin,Dimitri of Dee-lite,Afrika Islam and the Hardkiss brothers from San Francisco
So we have San Francisco DJs and San Diego promoters throwing parties for 60,000 people in the early 90′s. The Woodstock of Generation X. I think it’s safe to say that rave was well on the scene in California before Burning Man was anything more than some loosely affiliated people camping together in the desert for free. If you read the story of the first Burning Man on the Playa, it seems like it was viewed more as a Cacophony Society event back then. For about 80 people. According to the respected source Dr Dre Started Burning Man, they applied for their first permit in 1991 and Dr Dre took it over in 1995.
Just kidding. That video sure stands the test of time though. And raises more questions than it answers. But let’s go with Wikipedia instead of Dr Dre:
1996 was the first year a formal partnership was created to own the name “Burning Man” and was also the last year that the event was held in the middle of the Black Rock Desert with no fence around it.
Thus it seems we should call the official start of Burning Man 1996, when they built the fence, created the company, and called the thing “Burning Man”…and get back to my rant about raves. First, we should define “rave”. Wikipedia is good enough for me:
Juno Reactor – ultimate live rave band
According to Gibson (1999) rave is a spatial practice, which is done through the harmonization of dance, music and lighting. A part of a growing global subculture, and a powerful entertainment industry, the rave party is an event through which individuals can experience trances, religious rapture, deal with personal issues and of course have a really good time.[3]
St. John (2003) claims that raves pride themselves on their friendly atmosphere and welcoming attitude, by both the employees of the event and the guests. With a specific code of conduct, and a developing spiritual philosophy, rave culture can, according to St John, be viewed as part of new religious movement, as well as a re-invention of shamanistic or paganspiritual practices.[4]
Shamanistic? Pagan? You mean, as old as time then. Going all the way back to the Dreamtime. Reading this definition, you could argue that Burning Man already was a rave, as soon as it started.
A rave is an all night event, where people go to dance, socialise, get high and generally have fun in an uninhibited way with other likeminded people. Some say it’s about the creation of a community and re-connecting with something perceived as lost. Others just say it’s about necking loads of pills and getting wasted with your mates in a field.
They have some informaton on the origin of the term:
The term rave first came into use in Britain in the late 50′s referring to the wild bohemian parties of the time. It was then briefly revived by the mods, but didn’t come back into fashion until the illegal London warehouse party scene in the mid eighties. However it is likely that the term ‘rave’ came from Jamaican usage rather than a revival of any previous usage in Britain.
Wikipedia provides further clarification:
In 1958 Buddy Holly recorded the hit “Rave On,” citing the madness and frenzy of a feeling and the desire for it to never end
So, Buddy Holly was the first American raver. Right on, Rave On.
TomorrowLand in Belgium, the world’s biggest rave since Love Parade 2000 in Berlin
In the late 1950s in London the term “Rave” was used to describe the “wild bohemian parties” of the Sohobeatnik set.[5] In 1958 Buddy Holly recorded the hit “Rave On,” citing the madness and frenzy of a feeling and the desire for it to never end.[6] The word “rave” was later used in the burgeoning mod youth culture of the early 1960s as the way to describe any wild party in general. People who were gregarious party animals were described as “ravers”. Pop musicians such as Steve Marriott of The Small Faces and Keith Moon of The Who were self-described “ravers”.
Presaging the word’s subsequent 1980s association with electronic music, the word “rave” was a common term used regarding the music of mid-1960s garage rock and psychedelia bands (most notably The Yardbirds, who released an album in the US called Having a Rave Up). Along with being an alternative term for partying at such garage events in general, the “rave-up” referred to a specific crescendo moment near the end of a song where the music was played faster, heavier and with intense soloing or elements of controlled feedback. It was later part of the title of an electronic music performance event held on 28 January 1967 at London’s Roundhouse titled the “Million Volt Light and Sound Rave”. The event featured the only known public airing of an experimental sound collage created for the occasion by Paul McCartney of The Beatles – the legendary Carnival of Light recording
Burning Man can trace roots prior to 1996 all the way back to the Cacophony Society, I’ll give you that. But the first raves started out of the Factory in Manchester, even earlier than that. Wikipedia accredits this to the Stone Roses in 1985:
The first warehouse parties in Manchester were organized by the group The Stone Roses back in 1985, when to get around the licensing laws they would play a gig and book a line up of DJs under the disused arches of Piccadilly train station. These parties were then advertised as an all night video shoot, and the kids who bought tickets for £5 would have a 1p piece sellotaped to the back as their fee for being extras in a video shoot, thus for several months the forces of law were kept at bay
…but that completely overlooks the role of Tony Wilson, Factory and the Hacienda in Manchester in shaping the career and sound of the Stone Roses, and New Order in the Factory prior to that. I highly recommend the movie 24 Hour Party People, starring Steve Coogan, which is the story of Factory Records. I have friends who were there and they assure me the movie is pretty close to the true story. New Order were the absolute pioneers of electronic dance music, of course they were not the only ones, but their 1982 track “Blue Monday” is the biggest selling 12 inch of all time. And I’m not talking dildoes. It used to be in every DJ’s vinyl collection.
“Blue Monday” was described by the BBC Radio 2 “Sold On Song” feature thus: “The track is widely regarded as a crucial link between Seventies disco and the Dance/House boom that took off at the end of the Eighties.”[12]Synthpop had been a major force in British popular music for several years, but “Blue Monday”, by encouragement of the band’s manager, Rob Gretton, was dance record that also exhibited influences from the New York club scene,[12] particularly the work of producers like Arthur Baker (who collaborated on New Order’s follow-up single “Confusion”).
Earthcore Australia, 2007. A proper Bush Doof. The lineup for their 20th anniversary in December is outstanding – click image for details
And then, we go back to the New York club scene. Possibly all the way to the synthesized disco beats of the 1970′s. Detroit and Chicago have strong arguments for creating the house sound, Derrick May in particular is viewed by many as the main creator of techno in 1987. Before that we had Kraftwerk from Germany. Jean-Michel Jarré from France – in 1986 he was doing shows with 1200 projectors, for 1.5 million people. Pink Floyd. Techno sound. Electronic sound. David Bowie, Brian Eno. All ravers. You follow the rabbit hole far enough, and you get to Lucy. Not Lucy, our common ancestor, the genetic originator of humans. The first one dancing to the beat of the drum, at the original rave in a cave. No, I’m talking about Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. LS ‘n wonder lanD. The preferred trip of the trippers. Acid. The founding DNA of Burning Man, the Rave Scene, and 50 years of culture and creativity emanating from San Francisco, bringing peace and love to the world through art and music and invention.
You wanna argue that Burning Man can claim hippy purity by tracing its San Francisco roots to the 60′s acid freak scene of Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, and the Grateful Dead? I’ll argue back that the electric guitar is electronic music. So Hendrix is one of ours, the Doors. Obviously we claim the synthesizer, meaning Transhumanist leader Ray Kurzweil is a raver. This Founding Father of the Singularity is now Director of Engineering at Google, BTW. He’s building a mind there. Actually it’s an Artilect, a Godlike Massively Intelligent Machine – an Artificial Intelligence Hive mind that will be plugged into all our emails, appointments, movements, and everything we see and hear and do through our phones, cars, homes and glasses. And, given that Google makes $3.5 billion profit per quarter and has $50 billion in cash, it’s probably fair to say his budget has no limits. So ravers got robots. It’s a mistake to classify all of us as drugged up and obsessed only with hotpants, glowsticks and deep bass.
Yep, he’s a raver. A hard core one – he pops 200 pills a day. No idea if we can claim him as a Burner – but I would be astounded if that guy had not been to Burning Man. Especially to get a job like that at Google, who seem to have already fast-forwarded the Singularity timeline about 20 years. The Age of Spiritual Machines was an amazing book, and most ravers I’ve met are very spiritual people – though not necessarily religious.
Anyway, do I need to get medieval on your ass? We come from the old skool:
Here we have electronic music even before acid. But let’s go back even further. Ecstasy was invented by Merck in 1912. Where were all the hippies then? Thomas Edison was inventing electric cars and the phonograph – AKA vinyl. The wheels of steel. This was back in the days before USB sticks son, before the DJ had to put a mirror ball on his head and hop around to his laptop. This was when music was first
Art Car – in 1912. And it was electric.
being electrified. The National Parks Service was created in 1916; Silent Spring wasn’t written until 1962.
Yes, that’s right. You heard it here first – Burners.Me BREAKING NEWS. Thomas Edison was a raver. Quite possibly the first one (other than Lucy, mentioned above). Think about it – he had the turntables, he was recording beats in 1878. Then he needed to develop the low-emissions, off grid art car and system so he could get to the doof, set up the sound system and the blinky lights, he was all about the blinky lights. 10,000 failures to get his light bulb going, that’s persistent. I bet he would have loved the Burner blinky light geniuses of today. He had electric cars, like Burner Elon Musk – whose car is named after Edison’s rival, genius Nikolai Tesla. Put them both together you get AC/DC, true fact. Sounds very Burning Man.
So, perhaps predicatably, I’m gonna have to call this one for the ravers. We were on the scene first, we were dropping phat beats and cruising in electric art cars before anyone even invented ecstasy or acid. Before the environmental movement began. Since there’s been electricity, since there’s been electronic music and blinky lights, there’s been ravers, and ravers invented art cars. We didn’t take over Burning Man, Burning Man came out of an existing scene of raves that had been happening for some time. We were there first, and as soon as our rave scouts found a place for a good doof, we showed up with the boom box. And we’ve been showing up ever since. We live in the 21st century now, sorry old-timers. We’re well into it. Hippies are still welcome, you can still bring your sitars and drop acid, it’s cool. But it’s not the 60′s any more, or the 70′s,80′s, 90′s, or Naughties. We’re in the teenies, and raves ain’t going nowhere. Burning Man is the world’s biggest rave and there’s no point fighting against it – especially given that “radical inclusion” is one of the core principles of the party.
The rave element is not only there, it is the greatest party in the world for lovers of that scene, many of whom bring extreme amounts of resources to the Playa which contributes to everyone’s enjoyment. There are more shiny happy people dressed up in sexy costumes there to dance, than are there for free booze, workshops and TED talks, or anything else. Those major lasers aren’t there for the kids! And neither are those giant, world class sound systems and video screens. This stuff doesn’t get provided by Burning Man, it gets brought by the ravers. It draws almost all of the crowd to the party, and everyone gets to enjoy for free. Without amplified music, it would not be a party, it would be people camping. A rainbow gathering, perhaps. Acoustic Burning Man. Some friends around a campfire at Baker Beach.
There’s only one rave like this we can go to. Most of us agree, there should be more. One of the major differences is the Art Cars. You can take your kids to the Houston Art Car parade, but we can’t throw a rave there. The same with pretty much any park in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are plenty of places you can go with your kids or for silence.
We welcome you to come with us, join us at our party, there will be music and dancing, wine women and song! And we’ll give it all to you for free! All we ask is, please don’t complain when you get there. Don’t try to turn it off, or make us turn it down. That’s what we get everywhere else in the world. In San Francisco, if we throw a rave, the cops can seize the sound system and the DJ’s laptop. Burning Man is one of the rare places in the whole world where we can come to turn it up. That’s why we travel for so many hours in the desert to go to it: so we’re not disturbing anyone. I know we make a great spectacle, and it’s cool and you want your kids to see it. We’re not stopping you, so don’t try to stop us. Accept and celebrate us: loud music is part of Burning Man, just like flashing lights are. Just like generators are. Bring some ear plugs. Camp on the outer perimeter. If you don’t like it, don’t go – we don’t like haters anyway, so that’s perfect. If you want to have your own party, by all means do. Get as much as you can out of Burning Man, express yourself, do whatever feels good. Go into the Deep Playa and enjoy the silence and sense of isolation out there, then get yourself into the middle of a packed dance floor and feel the Funktion1 15 hz bass so loud and deep that it makes your skull ache. Appreciate that you can easily do both, for free, without criticizing another human being or asking them to adjust their sense of wellbeing to benefit your own. Enjoy your Burn and the freedom of “We Do What We Want“, what a privilege it is for all of us to be there. In this giant, 24/7, thumping bass and blinky lights ultimate rave city.
We’ve written about children at Burning Man before, and asked our readers to vote in a poll at the end of that article. The debate and discussion continues, and the poll numbers are running heavily in favor of people who think Burning Man is “a wonderful environment” for children, but there may yet be more to think and talk about on the subject.
Regular contributor Elias Has Wanderlust provoked a lively discussion in the Burning Man group on Facebook recently, by flatly asserting that Burning Man should be for adults only. Thus spake Elias:
“Burning Man should clearly be an 18+ event — the city is not safe for children.”
Elias’ declamatory salvo brought forth a lot of frank anecdotes about kids on the playa, and some really good points on both sides of the debate. Interspersed with a modest dose of snark and some fairly irrelevant emotional appeals like “there is nothing more beautiful than a playa covered burner baby,” people actually started saying some interesting, illuminating things about bringing children to the playa.
It really is a thorny problem that people butt heads over readily. That should tell us that there are some contradictions in play, depending on the angle from which we approach the question of children at Burning Man; doesn’t radical inclusion make room for children? What about the inhibitory effect that children can have on adults at play? Isn’t Burning Man dangerous, particularly for children. . . but don’t we want our children to be raised in our culture, even if it is dangerous?
Some pros and cons to bringing children to the playa:
The real problem is that only two very partisan solutions have been proposed, and they’re both completely unacceptable to large swathes of burners. If we ban children, we ban a huge number of burner parents by association, and deny them the opportunity to transmit burner culture to their children early in the most meaningful way they know of. If we continue to allow children, they will continue to inhibit us when they show their faces outside of the Kidsville age-ghetto, and let’s face it: it’s only a matter of time before something ugly happens and someone’s child disappears and/or falls victim to one of the many, many hazards.
Your bundle of joy can’t drink to forget his bundle of joy
People who think the answer is simple and obvious are merely displaying their bias and perpetuating the conflict. It’s disingenuous to say, for instance, that Black Rock City is a city like any other, and needs to have children in it. Burning Man’s municipal analogy is often usefully apt and sometimes beautiful, but it breaks down completely and easily in a dozen different ways when you start testing it. It’s a bit blinkered to say that Burning Man is just a big adult party, too; it’s also an arts festival, and a DIY theme park, and a great deal of it is very kid-friendly. . . or would be, anyway, if there weren’t so many heavily-intoxicated people around, and if it wasn’t all set in a context of overt sexuality that often goes way, way beyond mere nudity and into some territory that might actually disturb the minds of the innocent to witness.
We need an innovative solution that includes everyone, without putting limitations on anyone.
Maybe there should be separate events, geared for younger age groups? Burning Teen, Burning Tot? If we want to spread the culture, then spawning a few new events might be killing several birds with one stone.
We’d like to hear your ideas. How can we safely include the underage set and their parents in Burning Man, without muting the bacchanal for the adults?
Are ageist ghettos really the best we can do?
What we don’t want to hear: more anecdotes or opinions about how it’s fine for kids to be out there, or about how it’s unacceptable for kids to come to Burning Man. We’ve already heard those positions, again and again, and they’re both too simplistic to lead to anything but disagreement and a standoff. We’re asking you to think outside the box and find a solution that everyone can live with.
Keep in mind that not all parents behave responsibly, but some do. . . so please don’t bother sharing anecdotes about the children of attentive, sensible parents having a great time on the playa, or anecdotes about dull-witted earth mamas walking around in dust storms cradling tiny infants. Both of these things happen, and much more, and that’s why we need a better solution than just banning or allowing children.
We have a lot of subscribers here at burners.me, and a lot of people come here via links at Facebook, BoingBoing, and other prominent places on the Web. . . but our traffic-monitoring data also shows rather a lot of folks getting here by searching Google for terms like “dirty naked burning man sluts,” “burning man awesome buttsecks,” or “sparkle pony fuckfest jubilee.”
There’s no sense in getting huffy about it; it’s no secret that Burning Man has a sexy reputation, and we have to expect a certain amount of voyeuristic interest from the general public as a result. In addition, we know that people preparing to visit Black Rock City for the very first time often have urgent, pressing questions regarding the way certain things are done out there on the playa.
Naturally, we want to serve our readers. . . so for all of you who have asked the question, rhetorical or not, we now present the top ten answers to “how do you get laid at Burning Man?”
1. Show up. Be awesome. Smile. Someone will figure the rest out for you.
2. Ask. If you don’t get a ‘yes,’ take ‘no’ for an answer and ask someone else. If you’ve already asked everyone else in Black Rock City with no luck, take the sure thing: go to First Camp and ask for anyone from the Board.
3. Bathe.
4. Be the only person within fifty feet who happens to have coke, K, molly, X, weed, cold beer, drinking water, shower access, and/or an air-conditioned RV to share.
5. Hang around outside of ATTOL looking wistful until some couple or group invites you to join them in the Orgy Dome.
6. Those entire neighborhoods behind Center Camp, out past Kidsville? The ones full of nondescript camps with lots of RVs, occupied by relatively normal-looking, mostly middle-aged people? They came to drink and fuck, and many of them are decidedly not normal even if they do buy their clothes at J.C. Penney’s.
7. Start your own theme camp with unique art, a great bar, incredible sound system, lighting effects up the yin, and an ‘ironic’/comedic theme based on sex with you. Call it SEX WITH ME CAMP so there’s no ambiguity about it. Lube up.
8. Build a time machine and pilot it to some bygone day before Burning Man started sucking. Depending on your tastes, find Bianca’s Smut Shack or Stiffy Lube, and dive right in. When you return to the present, bring me back a grilled cheese sandwich.
9. Tell absolutely everyone you know that you’re going to set the Man on fire early, then follow through in a way that will surely get you caught in the act. When you get to prison, tell everyone you meet exactly how you got there, and announce loudly that you don’t want any trouble. Enjoy the smorgasbord, you dog, and don’t forget to write a thank-you note to your good friends who went out of their way to help by bringing all their receipts to court with them.
10. Stop trying so hard. Look around you and just be in the moment. Enjoy the art and the good company and the party and the desert, and let things happen the way they happen for a little while. If you’re really that hard up, stop by the Mustang Ranch on your way back to Reno, and support the other arts. . . and tip generously.
