Tag Archives: grifting

Image credit: reno gazette journal
May 28 2021

BURNILEAKS: Government Ramps Up Secrecy Over Burning Man

Has Burning Man burned out? Just like last year, this year you can go for free to “Not Burning Man”. Same place (but more to explore), no tickets, no fences, nobody searching your car at the gate and making you ring some cowbell.

Source: NPR

It’s hard to imagine a more pure expression of Radical Self-Reliance, Gifting, Radical Self-Expression, Immediacy (no multi-hour lines), Radical Inclusion (no dress codes, truly open to anyone of any means) or Decommodification than Not Burning Man. There’s probably even more stuff that gets burned there, just like in the good old days.

Meanwhile BMorg are still selling tickets for $475 to the non-event (annual subscription encouraged). This in itself is audacious enough, but they also rather ingeniously invented the idea of “pre-tickets” – a $2500 ticket that gives you a guaranteed right to purchase a ticket in the future. For an event that doesn’t happen any more. Fyre festival, y’all just a bunch of rank amateurs. Meet fire festival, masters of the Principle of GrIFTING!

They’ve also kept busy scooping up $5 million+ in donations and another $5 million+ in COVID loans grants and doing who-knows-what in their hipster HQ.

We’re saving the world! Even without having Burning Man any more! Please donate everything you have and more.

Radical Transparency

Thanks once again to our source who has been filing FOIA requests about the Burning Man Project for many years now.

People have been FOIAing Burning Man since 2013 – including us. This time BMorg – who hailed themselves as Unlikely Leaders In Transparency a few short years ago – went so far as to sue the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management to block FOIA requests about their festival.

This was covered in VICE.

The case was dismissed with prejudice after Burning Man reached a settlement with the BLM to redact information from their FOIAs. Now even stuff that they used to share has been redacted.

We have long speculated that more expensive tickets and vehicle passes are sold than are officially revealed, or perhaps even permitted. Redacting the information does nothing to dampen down the speculation – if everything was legit, why would you have to do that?

It seems that for some reason the Feds find it imperative that BMorg maintain their false narrative that “nothing is for sale on the playa but water, ice and coffee”. Inquiring Burner minds want to know how much “nothing” a year is made from fuel sales, aircraft operations, the Burner Express bus service, and a smorgasbord of licensed vendors. The details of who sells what to whom on the Playa are considered SECRET information by the government. Ask yourself, why? What other rave would be able to achieve something like this?

What is in this tax-free “charity”‘s information that necessitates spending your tax dollar and your ticket dollar on lawsuits to hide? Trade secrets? There are no competitors! What other festival runs its own airport and airline?

Burning Man is supposedly a non-profit dedicated to making the world a better place by promoting its Tin Principles. It’s definitely not a rave or anything, it’s just a coincidence that everywhere you go in Black Rock City you find the world’s top DJs playing on massive sound systems with lasers and video walls while everyone around you is on drugs wearing glowy shit. At least…that’s the official story.

Burning Man has been the largest annual event held on Federal land and a big money-spinner for all kinds of agencies. It has also been a crime statistic disaster for the local Sheriff’s county, who see a massive spike in all kinds of crime, some quite violent, from tourists during the time of the festival.

There were 41 arrests during the 2019 event. Another juvenile went missing:

In the past Population and Public Health and Safety information was shared with the public by this public benefit corporation working with a permit to have their event on public land:

What changed? Burning Man didn’t happen last year and it’s not happening this year. It may never happen again, which would be welcomed by the traditional land owners the Paiute people, the local community, and the San Francisco community. So why such an extreme need for secrecy?

We know why.

Aug 4 2016

Don’t Sneak In! 2016

anonymous fire

We just received this tip-off from Anonymous Burner:

from private gate FB group where people sneaking in to burning man are being discussed:

Gate are really gunning for people trying to sneak in this year, they are using military grade FLIR and have orders to search all boxes even ones they have to unbolt, plus the LEOs will be on hand to charge any attempts with trespassing and an automatic trip to the Reno jail for a minimum 36 hour stay for EVERY occupant of the vehicle.

There is no way to verify this, so take it for what it is: a rumor. One that sounds pretty credible, given Burning Man’s recent evolution into a very sophisticated police state.

FLIR is Forward Looking Infra-Red. These systems are not just for night vision; they can look within your vehicle to identify bodies. FLIR technology can also be used to identify drugs from their thermal signature.

Last year it came out that more than 50 police departments are using radar to look inside peoples’ homes. The systems can detect the tiny movement of a person breathing, through walls.

Burning Man has for a long time used marine radar to identify people trying to sneak in over the trash fence.

How did Burning Man get access to military technology? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

We covered people sneaking past the Gate in 2014. The threat that every person in the vehicle gets 36 hours jail if they’re harboring someone without a ticket is something I haven’t heard before. Burning Man Gate have the power to lock people up without charges or evidence of a crime? Wow.

Image: Hivemind

Image: Black Magic Hivemind

 

Screenshot 2016-08-04 21.34.12

An All-Seeing Eye at Center Camp is constantly scanning Burning Man, and miles of land around it.

Oct 22 2015

Burner Steals Mansion

Is this an example of Burning Man values spreading around the world – the wrong way?

From the SF Chronicle

Image: Paul Chinn, SF Chronicle

Image: Paul Chinn, SF Chronicle

The vagabond artist and alleged thief at the center of one of San Francisco’s strangest real estate tales admitted Tuesday that he squatted in a historic Presidio Heights mansion for weeks and sold off its pricey paintings, but explained he was claiming ownership of the derelict estate.

“To me, I owned the house,” Jeremiah Kaylor, 39, said from the San Francisco jail, where he was booked Sunday on suspicion of trespassing and burglary. “When I first saw it, I thought to myself, ‘This is it. This is my headquarters. This is my thug mansion.’”

Image: Jeremiah Kaylor/SF Chronicle

Image: Jeremiah Kaylor/SF Chronicle

The three-story, eight-bedroom home — listed on the National Register of Historic Places — was built in 1904 and modeled after the Petit Trianon, a Versailles chateau constructed for French King Louis XV. Cnet founder Halsey Minor bought it for $22 million in 2007 but went bankrupt and never followed through on plans to restore it to glory.

Now it’s listed at just over $17 million, down from $25 million when it first went on the market in 2012. The city has repeatedly declared it abandoned, most recently on Tuesday.

But Kaylor may have been drawn by something else — a rumor that pop star Taylor Swift was considering buying the mansion and fixing it up. Kaylor is obsessed with Swift, in part because her first name and his last name are similar, according to a friend.

Kaylor…stayed at the home for more than two months. His claim of squatter’s rights was countered by San Francisco police officials, who said the intruder stole and sold paintings worth well over $300,000 — most of which were quickly recovered.

Kaylor said he sold the premium stereo system, as well as a Viking stove and some chandeliers, then used the money to travel for a few months before returning to the home two months ago. He said he had spent every night since then at the estate, with the exception of three trips, including one to Burning Man.

Image: Jeremiah Kaylor/SF Chronicle

Image: Jeremiah Kaylor/SF Chronicle

Still in need of cash, he said he began selling artwork to pawn shops in San Francisco and Los Angeles, books to nearby Green Apple Books and other household items, which he brought to the Tenderloin and laid out on a blanket.

Kaylor said he wrote up paperwork saying the property wasn’t being taken care of and he was taking ownership under “adverse possession laws.”

Throughout the interview, Kaylor’s thoughts wandered. He spoke of growing up in Massachusetts, a stint as a heroin addict in his mid-20s and his love for his four children. But he also spoke of fantastical plans, including a 2016 presidential bid. He said he and Swift were destined to end up together.

Image: Jeremiah Kaylor/SF Chronicle

Image: Jeremiah Kaylor/SF Chronicle

Read the rest of the story at the SF Chronicle.

Radical inclusion. Everyone’s welcome, even thieves and squatters.

“Everything’s free”, the bike theft mentality. Grifting, not gifting.”Gift me that immediately!”