Victory for the Little Guy! [Updates]

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Over the last couple of years, we’ve been following with keen interest a lawsuit in Canada. The plaintiff was Decommodification, LLC – a private company the founders set up, which owns all the Intellectual Property assets of Burning Man and is paid royalties by the Burning Man Project for their use. The defendants were Napalm Dragon and Burn BC – a Vancouver-based arts collective co-operative that has been participating in Burning Man and other burn events since the early 90’s.

Here is some of our previous coverage

Canada Draws Battle Lines for Burner Culture May 14

BURNILEAKS: Bullying the Burners Sep 14

Embattled Burners Ask for Support Sep 14

Help Canada Sep 14

South Bhak Oct 14

Quick Update from Canada Nov 14

Burn BC Admits Defeat in Battle for Public Domain Jan 15

The lawsuit saw some eye-brow raising moves from BMOrg, including a claim by founder Crimson Rose that she invented fire dancing.

A year ago, it seemed that BMOrg had won – Burn BC couldn’t raise enough money for a lawyer, and was forced into a default judgement.

Napalm Dragon explained how he was prevented from even mounting a defense in our Jan 2015 story Burn BC Admits Defeat:

A couple of months ago the Lawyers for Decommodification LLC (The new American Corporation that now owns the American Burning Man Trademark) blocked Burn BC from defending itself.

They would not allow the directors of Burn BC to submit a defence, suppressing a very lengthy defence I’d put together for the organisation.

(I was hospitalised with a major panic attack from the stress of dealing with this).

The judge gave 30 days for Burn BC to find a lawyer. If Burn BC could have found a lawyer, we have mountains of evidence that could have easily defended Burn BC.

So without a lawyer, the flimsy claims against Burn BC went to default judgement. Without a reasonable defence for Burn BC, the Judge was forced to rule based on weak claims by the plaintiff.

Decommodification LLC didn’t just stop at $10,000 plus $25,000, they also wanted the Burn BC website. There’s NO need for the website.

The Judge ruled $10,000 damages (based on one sided claims, and no defence), and turning over our Burn BC website to Decommodification LLC. I can’t blame the judge, he had limited information, and Burn BC was completely unable to defend itself.

The judge ordered them to cease using the trademark, they agreed – so BMOrg got what they want, right?

It seems this small victory wasn’t enough. Decommodification LLC – apparently using the Burning Man Project’s extensive legal resources – had to burn the villages too. They pursued Napalm Dragon personally for damages. No matter that the guy has no money, and they take in $32 million a year. He needed to be taught a lesson, publicly shamed, ruined. How dare he be throwing burns and contributing to the community for 20+ years! How dare he try to defend himself against outrageous claims and character attacks! Destroy! Exterminate! Humiliate!

Well, karma can be a bitch: it looks like this strategy backfired. Since Decommodification LLC was going directly after Napalm Dragon personally, he was able to represent himself in court without a lawyer, something which was not possible the way the original case had been structured. It seems the Court did what courts do, looked at the facts, looked at the history, heard the arguments from both sides, and made a ruling based on the law – resulting in a total defeat for the American Decommodification company, and vindication for Canadian Burn BC.

Here is Napalm Dragon’s initial report on his victory:

Burn BC Founder and Champion of Burner Rights, Bhak Jolicouer

Burn BC Founder and Champion of Burner Rights, Bhak Jolicouer

The final paperwork came back today.
I WON!!!
I ROASTED the lawyer, and he caved. He very literally cowered before the courts.

The Burn BC Arts Cooperative is alive and well, I am in the clear, and I forced Decommodification LLC to, not only back off of me, but to leave me alone and relinquish any attempted claims to otherwise very important sacred cultural domain I’ve been intimately involved with for over 20 years.

I briefly thought about going all the way with it; pushing “Burning Man” finally and completely (and undoubtedly) back into the Public Domain where it is and belongs (and could have without a lawyer). I was very literally one Court Motion away from doing it.

But, instead I roasted the Lawyer, and demanded respect, and demanded some clear terms, and got EXACTLY what I wanted and had declared for over a decade.

I was able to do this because Decommodification LLC was not satisfied with destroying Burn BC by forcing it into an undefended default judgement and just leaving me alone.

No, the vengeance of one greedy sadistic and highly duplicitous and domineering woman, and her asinine arrogance, nearly led to her complete downfall by one punk from Canada and his little prank.

[Metaphorically speaking] I had her, and her entire plot by the balls, I squeezed tightly to get her attention, then said “Leave me the F**K alone, I am free to do and say what I please, and if you push me any further you lose every exaggerated claim”.

When Decommodification LLC came after me personally they screwed up. They gave me the opportunity to finally defend myself; and when this finally came before the courts, I completely ROASTED the lawyer. He was very literally cowering before the “judge”, and went pale.

All the egregious demands disappeared.

I then turned it around and said (metaphorically) “This is what’s going to happen, and this is what you are going to do.”

So now it’s done and I’m moving on, and I am free to do and say what I please; as has ALWAYS been my right, as an Artist, Prankster, Empresario, and Sacred Clown.

F**** You!!!…and your Burning Man too.
Keep that dead lie far away from me, and anyone I love.

Now I can finally get back to what I really want to do before this giant stinking pile of bull dung distracted me.

BMOrg have not had their Propaganda-spun statements tested in a court very often. There were a couple of big cases in 2007. Founder John Law tried to keep the Burning Man name in the public domain for all Burners to use, saying “If Burning Man is really a movement, the name should belong to everyone, not three guys who don’t get along anymore”. Although the case got a lot of media attention, and raised the hopes of many Burners, it was settled for an undisclosed sum before going to trial. In the Paul Addis arson trial, BMOrg controversially provided muddled information that ensured a mischievous prank in the Cacophonist spirit was treated as a terrible, malicious felony. Addis got jail time, lost his legal career, then became yet another Burner whose exit from this “movement” was a horrific public suicide.

I asked Napalm Dragon if he had any further comments for Burners.me readers. He said:

I want nothing to do with Marian Goodell or her “Contractually Obliged Brand Cult”.
Anyone who “volunteers” for any project, group, or event, “controlled directly or indirectly by Decommodification LLC” through the use of the so called trademark “Burning Man™” is being taken for a ride by a private American corporation that wants to join the Billionaires Club on the backs of the wide eyed and naive, lost in a labyrinth of past relevance.

The last Great Cultural Emergence of the 20th Century is moving on, leaving behind an empty calcified echo of a spectacle.
The culture created Burning Man; “Burning Man™” did not create the culture.
There is no longer a home for the culture under this so called trademark “Burning Man™”.

When it comes to Burners.me, know that I forced Decommodification LLC to agree to make no claim to “The Burn”. SO the culture has a place to go, freely, and of its own free will and accord, and it’s beyond the reach of Decommodification LLC. (IN WRITING).

Fuck “Burning Man™”, that term missed its opportunity to have a profound, respectful, and positive relationship with relevance, and instead chose to suffocate an agonising and slow retreat into obscurity.

When Decommodification LLC went after me personally, the lawyers could not block me from defending myself (like they did with Burn BC)
I waited for someone who understood the significance of this to hand me a lawyer, and when it didn’t materialise. I played my cards wisely.

Unable to block me from defending myself, I decided to turn it in my favour and completely roasted the lawyer before the Canadian Federal Courts. All the egregious demands faded in the presence of the courts.

I protected some sacred terms, protected Burn BC, and protected myself.
I’m bowing out of this stinking saga with this last prank; and letting Marian Goodell and her American Corporation Decommodification LLC fester in the pursuit of a meaningless trademark in Canada.

Anyone is free to oppose the application with CIPO, I will not be participating in any opposition.
I’ve lost interest. I have nothing but disdain for Decommodification LLC and the words “Burning Man™”.

I’m now going to take some time to consider the most epic prank of my life, and think about the love of my son, and the love of my wife, and our rights to be the creative people we are; unfettered by the looming shadow of a “Contractually Obliged Brand Cult”, or the American Corporation that claims to control it.

I was right all along, and I feel at peace with a clear conscience.
I hope this prank offers some peace to Paul Addis, Caleb Schaber, and Howler (Rest well in your afterlife).

This is my parting gift to those I inadvertently led astray, and those who have inadvertently led us astray.
With Love,

Bhak Jolicoeur (AKA) Napalm Dragon
Avant-garde Artist, Impresario, Prankster, and Sacred Clown.
(Now, to get busy with the good stuff.)

Maybe now BMOrg will accept that Burners create this culture and event, not them. The point of Burning Man, and burns in general, is to create a temporary city together for entertainment –  not to cook everybody’s souls using a cauldron called The Devil so they have a Transformational Experience™. The culture has been developed from the bottom-up, grass roots if you like. Replacing it with top-down legal control from a tax-exempt entity and a board of 1%-ers is not going to make our culture flourish for the next hundred years under their Burning Man™ corporate banner.


[Update 1/14/16 1:29pm PST]

Napalm Dragon wanted us to be clear that Burn BC is a co-operative, not a collective. Sorry about that!

He also points out that the owners of Decommodification LLC, mostly are in no ways the founders of the Burning Man event. He has a good point: Larry Harvey is the only one of the 6 who was at the first one; Michael Mikel the only other one who was there at the Beach and Desert; Crimson Rose and Harley Dubois came to the second desert event, Will Roger arrived in 1994 and Marian Goodell 1995. Black Rock City LLC was incorporated in 1997, after the disastrous Helco burn.

Are the 6 owners of Decommodification, LLC, the same as these 6 “Founders”?

Again, it looks like Napalm Dragon is right. We don’t know very much about this private company. It was spun off before the donation to the non-profit, and the main assets of the business were transferred to it. Supposedly, the “6 Founders” each have an equal share, and have to unanimously vote against a transfer to the Burning Man Project in 2018 to stop it. Does it earn royalties from the Spark movie, the newspaper photo rights, music soundtracks, art sales, or anything else? Or does it simply get $75k per year from the Burning Man Project, and nothing else – everything else goes to Burning Man? We don’t know, and I’d love to think it was the latter – but if so why don’t they just be transparent about it? Why are we only going to find out what is going on with all these LLCs and assets and inter-group relations AFTER many years?

Here’s the official story, as of about a month ago:

Screenshot 2016-01-14 14.10.32

Here’s what Corporation Wiki says:

Screenshot 2016-01-14 12.33.06

 

Doug Robertson is listed in the Burning Man Project IRS Form 990 as the organization’s CFO. Ray Allen is the Burning Man Project’s in-house General Counsel. Nanci Elliot is better known by her alias Crimson Rose.

Screenshot 2016-01-14 12.59.32

The address listed here in 3rd street is also associated with Black Rock Arts Foundation, Black Rock Solar, and Tomas McCabe. From CorporationWiki:

Screenshot 2016-01-14 13.43.25

 

Justia lists trademarks owned by Decommodifcation, LLC. Interestingly, the Ranger logo is here, but the name Burning Man and the regular )'( dude are not.

 

Screenshot 2016-01-14 12.54.57

Trademarkia only has one trademark associated with Burning Man: the main one, which proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Burning Man is a festival. It was last renewed in 2014, with Decommodification, LLC as owner.

Screenshot 2016-01-14 12.57.05

Of course, “organizing community festivals featuring…live music, art displays, and participatory games; conducting entertainment exhibitions” is not even remotely close to Live Entertainment – what are they smoking in Nevada?

Bizstanding lists Larry, Marian, and Harley as the three “Managing Members” of Decommodification LLC. It also lists Brooke Oliver, who claims to have been the legal architect of Burning Man’s non-profit transition.

Screenshot 2016-01-14 13.56.02

 

 

Where’s Will, where’s Danger Ranger? Both of those guys only got paid $70k or so in 2014. Why’s that?

Did donation money given by Burners to support art projects end up going to this lawsuit in Canada? Or did Decommodification, LLC pay for it?

I don’t expect we’ll hear answers to these questions – although it would be a lovely surprise if we do. Simply to ask them, doesn’t make me a “conspiracy theorist”. They are quite reasonable questions, the kind of thing I would ask any $30 million non-profit that wanted me to give them money.


Napalm Dragon has cemented his place in Burner history, along with other eclectic and eccentric figures like Chicken John, Paul Addis, John Law, Caleb Schaber, and (IMHO) myself, who have risked a lot simply to fight for what’s right. A movement that came from a community, not a corporation.

Bhak reached out to the community to help raise funds to get a lawyer. They raised $1650, he wants to wish a big thanks to everyone who donated. If more Burners had stepped up in support, perhaps “Burning Man” might be a free term in Canada today.

The idea that BMOrg need to protect the Burning Man name from anyone else ever using it because people might get confused is kind of ludicrous in 2016, when it’s on Oprah and The Simpsons. Dude. We get it. It’s BURNING MAN™. A name that is now MASSIVELY COMMODIFIED after years of saturation promotion in mainstream media. You need these lawsuits because people might sell t-shirts, really? There are 30,000 merchants on Etsy selling Burning Man products and nearly 8,000 on eBay. Let’s stop kidding ourselves, stop pretending that this is somehow “against Burning Man” or “ruining Burning Man”. This event was built on selling t-shirts. If anything, it’s the “hey it’s cool if we jump the shark, we want new people anyway, doesn’t matter if they’re self-reliant or participants” attitude that is “ruining Burning Man”.

burning man 98 tshirt list

We want to go to officially sanctioned events that are based on the Ten Principles. So why not enable thousands of those around the world, get royalties from all of the franchises, donate generously to art and the environment, and really see if we can make a difference with this culture? Take the royalty money from the 30,000 Etsy vendors, and use it to do some good?

They have enough Burners for that…but do they have enough lawyers? It seems to me that is what is holding our growth back the most right now.

Why is “Burning Man: The Board Game” (free, made by 20-years Burners to entertain other Burners) bad, but “Burning Man: The Musical“, (commercial, by a Google employee who’s never been to Burning Man) good?

Why does Decommodification, LLC feel it has to own Decommodification Itself? What would be the point of that, in a temporary company created only to safeguard Burning Man’s brands for a couple of years? 

Here is Napalm Dragon’s Christmas Day message (and Gift) to those of us who did support him.

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I submit this with a heavy heart.

Yet, I submit this with a burden released from my conscience, after enduring a long, distressing, and frivolous process.

Signed on the longest night of the year (December 21), in sacred concert with the ages, I part ways with the empty spectacle, and protect the integrity of a sacred domain of the arts, and the ancient rites.

My signature ends an era of open cultural relationships with what was once the most relevant cultural event of the 20th century; made relevant by the gathering tribes of the last great cultural emergence of the 20th century.

Until December 21, 2015 I held in my hand the last flickering flame of the Original Burning Man Culture that created the event, created the city, and created the communities.

We created Burning Man.
Burning Man did not create us.
This is the truth, and the truth has set me free.

My submission today, and my signature on this document ends the name of our culture. It ends our relationship with the secret American corporation (Decommodification LLC) that secretly makes questionable claims to what was once the public domain name of a culture, and the public domain iconography of a culture.

In Canada, this secret American Corporation (Decommodification LLC) will soon take control of a trademark based on our Public Domain Culture and Public Domain Iconography in order to steal control of what little remains of our independently developed communities.

I will not be taking part in any opposition to this, that window has passed for me. I held that window open and the loud cries of the vain were all that were heard.

I will not participate in this deceptive practice in any way, or with any organisation, group, or individuals who are blindly mislead by this contractually obliged brand cult.

Our culture and it’s association with what was once our name has lost all relevance. What remains is an illusion, a deception, a mere figment that exploits misconceptions.

What remains is not our culture.
It’s the synthesised echoes of how we express our culture.

It’s a calcified and degraded, proprietary facsimile of the expressions of our culture. It looks like culture, but it’s little more than the exploitation of those of us seeking to connect with our culture.

Our Culture has moved on, and no longer exists within the domain of what Decommodification LLC vainly and arrogantly claims to control.

Pushed to the very brink, I stood next to justice with my back held straight against the wall of truth. I held to my convictions, my rights, my honour, and trusted in my faith that the truth prevails.

In the face of intimidation, being ostracised, slandered, my reputation all but destroyed, and my friends deceived, I stood by the truth and trusted in the power of justice to perceive the truth.

Very literally under the scrutiny of our Canadian judicial system, this deception and intimidation fell apart. What remained was a compromise.

I accepted this compromise and demanded concessions to this compromise that might respect my artistic rights, my integrity, my honour, and my self respect (the only things left to me in this fiasco)

I was failed by the very people who so grandiosely stand on the backs of the artists and declare themselves “the community”. These people loudly proclaimed to support my position, but did little to step up to “Radical Self Reliance”, and offer what mattered. Their words fell to the floor, the empty ashes of an illusion; those of us believing in this illusion vainly grasping at it.

Yet, despite my challenges, I faced the truth on my own accord, and the truth prevailed through the wise mediation of the honourable Prothonotary Milczynski.

I can now lay to rest this deplorable action by Decommodification LLC and move on with my life, as I asked before, and have asked many times before that.

The integrity of my culture now remains relativity intact by other means; holding back the looming shadow over our culture, and out of reach of this secret and deceptive corporation.

I have taken responsibility for my part in being mislead over the last 10 years, and inadvertently misleading others who respected my reputation and good will over the last 25 years.

I can now get on with my life with a clear conscience. My last gift to this community being the truth.

I submit my settlement agreement with a heavy heart, a clear conscience, and a clear perspective on the heinous actions that have transpired over the last 20 years.

I choose today (December 25th) to submit this document to the Plaintiff and the Courts, not as a gesture of good will, but as a reminder of what it really means to offer a gift to the world.

To remind the Plaintiff that a gift was offered to the world, and it was tossed aside like a dirty worthless bone.

I pick up that bone and bury it with grace and respect.

It was a sincere, heartfelt, gift to the community; something we (our culture) offered to the world. Something taken from us, perverted, and tossed away; then synthesized and sold back to our peers with the intent of making the profound; proprietary, mundane, and superficial; something to easily consume from the bucket list of past notoriety, a minor novelty exploiting the good will of vague references to an obfuscated past.

With this settlement, there is no going back.
It is done.

The desert has lost it’s last hope to be anything more than just a misguided, shameful and shallow expression of excess and delusional cultural exploitation; a spectacle cut off from the profound depths of an open culture.

It is no longer a maze of possibilities to transcend the madness, it’s a labyrinth of madness that has no exit.

It’s a culture trap.

A gift is something offered without obligation, and the obligations demanded by the Plaintiff throughout these proceedings with Burn BC and myself were deplorable. They were both egregious and vitriolic. They only served to destroy what remains of the beauty and grace we offered this Culture and Cultural Iconography, and the independent communities that have given (very literally) their love, and their lives to our culture.

Many of us have very literally given our lives to the gifts we offer to our community. We had no intention of giving our gifts to greedy, exploiting corporations. Many of us who could not face our complicit assistance to this deception committed suicide, or died by the symptomatic obfuscation that confuses the profound.

People took their lives, and have died for this culture.
– Caleb Shaber walked into his room in Gerlach Nevada and killed himself with a gun.
– Paul Addis threw himself in front of the San Francisco Bart Train.
– Hours after visiting with my wife and I in Austin Texas, a man went home and shot himself.
– Another close friend swam to his death, and drowned himself.
– Another hung himself in Vancouver.
– Others were murdered by a crazed gunman in Seattle.
– One man hung himself in the Nevada Desert.
– Another recently walked into the fires of an event in the United States.
– A famous CBC radio host died.
– A woman was killed while riding an Art Car.

People died for this culture and because of this deceptive cultural appropriation. These deaths are now empty, sad statements to the deceptive cultural appropriation this corporation has committed with absolute callous disregard for the very culture they claim to have created “from a ceremony on Baker Beach”.

My conscience weighed heavy, it is now clear, and I remember these lives with dignity as I move forward with the rest of my life.

I close this heinous chapter in disgust. I open a new chapter alleviated by taking responsibility. I move forward with a light and clear conscience to live with joy, share in charity, and love with honour, dignity, and respect.

I have fulfilled my obligations.

The intentions of our culture, and our lives, were to offer a gift to the world, and offer a gift to our communities by creating spaces for our communities to flourish unhindered by mediated consumerism, and the marketing exploitation that turns people into predictable products to be repackaged and sold back to us as a limited set of archetypes that we adhere to without question or Critical Thought.

The very foundation of our culture was deeply undermined in the name of pure greed. We were deceived, and as I faced the obfuscation that surrounds this deception, a most egregious realisation was revealed by this frivolous litigation.

It is no longer my concern, this is for others to contemplate.

I am irrevocably done with the words: Burning Man™

What has transpired here with this document I submit, and my signature, is no less than the “end of an era”, not because I have the power to end it, but because I’m willing to recognise the significance of this settlement agreement in relation to the dark shadow that looms over it.

I have been blessed to witness and participate in the last great cultural emergence of the 20th century which emerged around the world throughout the 90’s. It gave profound power and meaning to a name, and cultural iconography.

Now with the stroke of my pen, a cultural relevance is gone forever. It is truly the end of an era. This sad end forced by the unyielding and arrogantly uncompromisingly deceptive greed of one woman and her secret corporation.

When given the opportunity to share in an incredibly significant opportunity to continue respecting the independent nature of our cultural relationships; this was not only rejected, but crushed with brutal dominating vengeance; I realised that the best course of action was to walk away from possibly the most damaging relationship I have ever encountered.

Questionable claims were made by Decommodification LLC under frivolous litigation. There was no reason to waste the precious time of the courts.

The Burn BC Arts cooperative was prevented from defending itself; and even after the matter was clearly resolved, intimidation, and callous technicalities were exploited to undermine justice and force an undefended default judgement against Burn BC.

What remains is a lie, a deception of cultural proportions, a system of exploitation that sullies the very idea of the founding culture here in Canada that gave the last great cultural emergence of the 20th century its power and relevance, and opened a door to beauty, grace, kindness, and the sincerity of The Gift.

A gift is given without obligation. Yet under the guise of a gift, one greedy woman and her secret corporation have taken the greatest gift we could offer to the world, and turned it into a farce, a façade, a lie. She forced those of us afraid to challenge this injustice into obligations that robbed us of hope.

Twenty years of my life have been taken from me, exploited, and destroyed; My reputation ruined by slander, and blindness, and the rewriting of a profoundly beautiful history to wipe the truth from the pages of relevance in a vain and arrogant attempt to own a delusional messianic nightmare based on an outright lie.

My contributions to the history of my culture and my local community developed in British Columbia; and the real significance of it’s impact on the greater cultural evolution have been vainly and disrespectfully wiped from the history books, and replaced by a superficial lie.

I have nothing but disdain for Decommodification LLC (et al), and will never be party to it’s deplorable deception. I will not be party to the death of a once beautiful cultural relationship, and cultural relevance.

Yet, a compromise has been reached.

An agreement has been forged that protects the ancient rites from the delusional claws of this sadistic attempt to “own the exclusive rights to a culture”.

I hold hope in my heart, and feel at peace moving forward. After years of enduring the stunning realisations of what is happening, why it’s happening, and how it transpired, I have found a compromise that can let me live with my conscience cleared and in relative peace.

I can close this ugly chapter and concentrate on what matters. The love of my son, the love of my wife, and the unfettered joy we will have without the looming shadow of this American Corporation and it’s domineering, vengeful, and deceptive practices.

We are no longer party (in any way) to the cultural exploitation of this “contractually obliged brand cult”.

I leave you with this on Christmas Day, the day of The Gift, to remind Decommodification LLC of the vitriolic and divisive darkness they have spread under the guise of “gifting”, and the heavy conscience they must live with on what should be a day of peace, forgiveness, and kindness.

Before this transpired they were given the greatest opportunity to have a dignified and mutually respectful relationship with Canada.

They choose greed, and get the empty remains of the fading echo of the past. The greatest gift slipping through their fingers, greased by money, and replaced by ignorance.

Good bye forever to this deception.
Napalm Dragon
Avante-Garde Artist, Impresario, and Sacred Clown.

[Source: Gofundme]

 


[Update 1/14/16 2:00pm PST]

Anon wanted links to the court documents. Here’s one. If anyone else has any, please share.

Burning Man Scene Pulled From Freaks and Geeks Vacation Reunion

Re-blogged from Cinema Blend:

Late last year, Vacation co-director John Francis Daley revealed to the world that he would be using his directorial debut to reunite with his former Freaks and Geeks co-stars Martin Starr and Samm Levine, adding that he wanted to use the film as an opportunity “to get the three geeks back together in the same project.” Sadly, it turns out that the trio actually wound up being cut from Vacation, and there’s a pretty lame reason for it: the sequence where the cameos occurred just didn’t work.

SlashFilm attended a special early showing of Vacation at San Diego Comic-Con earlier this month, and it was during a post-screening Q&A session that John Francis Daley and his co-director Jonathan Goldstien that the reasoning for the cut Freaks and Geeks moment was explained. According to the filmmakers, the sequence that Daley, Martin Starr, and Sam Levine were in simply wound up not working, and it “wasn’t as funny as they hoped it would be in the final cut of the movie.”

Unfortunately, Daley didn’t offer any specific details about how he worked himself and his Freaks and Geeks co-stars into Vacation – but he did reveal that it was going to be a part of a scene that found Ed HelmsRusty Griswold and his family get stuck at the desert festival known as Burning Man. You can’t actually see any of the actors in any of the marketing materials that Warner Bros. has released for the movie, though there are scenes shown in the trailer set at Burning Man (including a moment with an exploding car):

Justice League Dark

While the Freaks and Geeks reunion didn’t make it into the final cut of Vacation, it was actually shot – and it’s not disappearing forever. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstien apparently confirmed that the special moment will be included with the deleted scenes in when Vacation hits Blu-ray and DVD – which will presumably happen at some point in the fall. In the meantime, comedy fans will be able to catch the continuation of the National Lampoon series when the new movie – co-starring Christina Applegate, Leslie Mann, Beverly D’Angelo, Skyler Gisondo, Charlie Day, Chris Hemsworth, and Chevy Chase – will be in theaters on July 29th.

And for you Freaks and Geeks fans who find this news unacceptable and need more of the Paul Feig-created show in their lives, the good news is that the home video company Shout Factory has announced that the cancelled-too-soon series is in the process of making its way to Blu-ray. So stay tuned for more details on that front!

[Source: Cinema Blend]

 

Embattled Burners Ask Community for Support

[Update 10/1/14]: please help with the modest amount they are raising to mount a defense.

Napalm Dragon, who is being sued by BMOrg who never registered their trademark in Canada, has asked for help on Ello. It seems threats of leaking emails have not dissuaded Goliath from trying to demonize David’s dissent. Is there a lawyer in the house?


Written by Napalm Dragon:

I am one artist defending my right to practice my art and culture that is being converted into a global brand exclusively owned by an American Corporation.

In 1995 I developed a form of art, in relation to a culture here in British Columbia Canada. Much of our inspiration was in relation to a free and open culture that was not owned or controlled in any way by Corporations. This happened because we were not a commodity, and because we’d never really allowed ourselves to be named for fear of being turned into a commodity. It was the cultural engine that fuelled the free parties in England that the Spiral Tribe were involved with, it was the culture that produced the expressions of art and fire that have become synonymous with the Burning Man Culture.

I have documented evidence that shows me and my peers here in British Columbia developed a style of fire and in relation to a free and open culture that the Decommodification LLC is now claiming was invented in the Nevada Desert.

The reason this is important is that even if I decide I no longer want any association with the American Corporation claiming my culture as something they created, I risk litigation for practising my art and culture, because my Art and Culture were absorbed under that generic term of “Burning Man”.

People have said to me “Just don’t use the name, do something else”. But I’m not a party head that just dropped in on an event in Nevada that my culture descended on in the mid-90’s. I’m not just a person who got my ideas from going to that event, created by my culture, who gathered in the Black Rock City and called the culture by the same name as the event they created around the burning of a man sculpture.

It’s a different issue for me. I created my own culture and art in BC in 1995-1997. I never knew about the desert. My art reflected my culture, and our attitude of generosity, collaboration, self-reliance, inclusion, and mutual respect, completely independently of any guidance or control from corporate interests.

While I have no issue with Corporations and their need to do business as the economic engine of Capitalism, what I did in relation to the people I associated was outside the domain of corporations, and religions. It was all our own. A free and open culture. When that culture descended on the desert in the mid-90’s and shaped what we came to know until 2003 as the Burning Man Culture, we did so for each other. We spent our own money and time doing this for ourselves.

When we heard that people like us had set up a kind of Temporary Autonomous Zone in the desert, we went to meet our peers at a gathering point for our culture. When we heard that a city had been set up as a home for our culture, we went to that city to express our culture unfettered by pressures imposed on festivals that receive Corporate Sponsorship, and Sell Everything.

This pace was not a festival. It was a city, and the event was the burning of the sculpture at the gathering of our tribes.

Immediatism, a core element of our culture as described by Hakim Bey existed in a space somewhere on this planet, on a grand scale. The city did not interfere with our culture as it went to the desert and associated with cultural peers who lit the fire, and sounded the all clear through the explorations of the Suicide Club, the Cacophony Society, and Zone Trip #4.

We helped them run the city, we struck a deal. You do what you need to make the city happen, and we’ll pay a tax for using this city. Just be honourable, and use any money left over for the benefit of the city and the communities who self-identify with our culture and bring it to the city. This reflected the attitudes of our culture. That anyone who makes money on our culture aren’t just using our culture as a cheap promotion gimmick like what rave promoters had done with our culture.

I DID NOT get my ideas to Burn from the Desert. I DID NOT contribute to my culture before it became known as the Burning Man Culture to build a global brand owned and controlled by a corporation.

I had learned to breathe fire through a hard-core heavy metal underground musician who had a band called BLAMO. He used was pure fun and pure renegade. He blew up toilets with home-made pyro, for fun. He taught me much of his renegade art, because he liked my renegade attitude. When he connected me with a circus group called Zero Gravity, I met a woman named Jill who’d already been practising her art and culture in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She had also been involved with a local underground arts scene that burned a wicker Bunny on the local beaches, because it was Easter and they’d just watched the old wicker man movie.

The Fire Style started at a show put on by Zero Gravity and was the first time traditional fire associated with tribal cultures in New Zealand and Hawaii had appeared in North America. What we did with it over the next few years travelled down the West Coast and was brought to Burning Man (from Vancouver) for the Pepe Ozan Operas at the Nevada Burning Man event around 1998 or so.

We had fun for the next few years, fully immersed in the culture that was well developed here. We did it for fun, we had no grand design, we just knew it was an amazing experience, and visited many events for little or no cash to explore the full scope of this underground experience and just enjoy it.

Somewhere along the way we started Burning Sculptures as an expression of our free and open culture. Inspired by underground groups in Europe, and as a natural extension of all the fire we’d been playing with. Fire wasn’t a thing at the time, we literally made all our own torches. We just made it up as a creative self-exploration, and shared it openly with mutually respectful peers.

Then at one event, we decided to dispose of some 15 foot tall giant puppets by breathing fire onto them and diving through the flames as a performance. The following year I built something with the expressed intent of burning. I called it a Baboon Robot, because it just happened to look like a Baboon Robot.

We performed “The Burning of the Baboon Robot”

My art involved fire and burning sculptures, and it was an expression of my culture which would later that year start heading to the desert and adopt the Burning Man name.

By 2001 our culture adopted the Burning Man name. We were the Burning Man Culture, and we called ourselves Burners (people who self-identify as the Burning Man Culture). It was a widely used term.

Now an American Corporation is coming to Canada and claiming exclusive rights to the very same culture we developed here, took to the desert, shared with our peers who were doing the same, and called themselves Burners (people who self-identify as the Burning Man Culture), and claiming exclusive rights to the culture we developed.

The American corporation Decommodification LLC knows they did not create the culture in the desert. They know it came from somewhere else, and now they are claiming that the form of fire that emulated from what was developed here in BC, was invented by them in the desert.

This is incredibly disrespectful to the amazing and talented people around the world who fostered, embraced and celebrated this culture, before and after it adopted the Burning Man name.

Now it’s a problem for me as an artist expressing my culture.

Even if I have no desire to be associated in any way with the Nevada people, I can’t change that my culture was absorbed by the Nevada event my culture created and adopted the Burning Man name as the Burning Man Culture.

This corporation is now trying to convert our independent communities and culture into a global brand that they have exclusive rights to decide who can and cannot express it. They are laying claim to not only inventing my culture, but even the very style of fire dancing we created here in Vancouver and brought to the desert around 1997-1998. They are claiming every expression of our culture as a proprietary Global Brand and Communities they own and control exclusively. Communities that developed independently to foster local Burning Man Culture.

You might say “So what call what you do something else?”

But, I’m not a party head. I did not get my idea to participate in my culture or express an art form now synonymous with this culture from the Desert. I created it COMPLETELY independently. Because my culture adopted that name in association with all the expressions of that free and open culture, I can’t practice the independent art that I developed in relationship to my independent culture without fear of litigation.

I DID NOT get the idea to Burn from Larry Harvey’s hat, or Marian Goodell’s corporation. My organisation, Burn BC applied for a mark that is in the public domain to protect my right to have free and open access to the culture that this new American Brand is based on. Burn BC did so, to give it to the Canadian Burning Man Communities so that no one can stop us from being who we are.

This was wrong, NO ONE should have exclusive rights to what has become a generic term to describe the people, art, and culture that created the Burning Man Culture in Canada, and shared it with our peers in Nevada.

Burn BC has already dropped the name, and they can drop the case. But they’re using the case to frighten me and my organisation into complete silence and isolation.

They know they DO NOT own anything in Canada. They know Canada has a right to express its culture. It is not my fault our culture adopted that name and spent countless hours and resources making our culture notorious.  It’s not my fault that the notoriety of our culture and the event that has capitalised on our culture genericised the name to describe a type of art and culture. It’s not my fault that in 2004, they chose to create a new brand based on our open and collaborative culture of self-identifying Burners.

It’s not my fault that they (and their subordinates) are now turning around and telling those of us who do not identify with this new brand, that we are not really “Burning Man” or not really “Burners” or “Not part of the Community”, and insisting that we must adhere to this new brand or essentially abandon our culture.

A culture that existed as a free and open culture, before it went to the desert, and before it created the most notorious event our culture has ever produced.

I don’t want to be associated with this new brand developed in 2004.

I want my art and culture that I already knew and loved, before it ever went to the desert, and I want to be free to express it under any name regardless of what it chooses to call itself in the
future. I want to do this free from the fear of litigation, and I want the same for anyone else who hosts Burning Man Events that celebrate the culture that adopted the Burning Man name…and I want to retain the truth of my life and its relationship to my art and culture. Both if which WERE NOT inspired by the event my culture gathered at and created in the Black Rock City.

I’m begging for help, I’m just one guy refusing to sign away my rights to my arts and culture.

Because whether or not I want to use that name to describe my culture, the media, and people in general now refer to my art and culture as “Burning Man” whether or not I like that. And now, to say “no it’s not Burning Man” is a lie. It’s a lie because the Corporation is claiming my culture as a proprietary thing invented in the desert. That they, and their ceremony on Baker Beach is entirely responsible for evangelising something they created.

I’m at the point where I cannot practice my independently developed PUBLIC DOMAIN art or culture without fear of litigation.


PLEASE HELP ME GET THE MEDIA ATTENTION ON THIS SO I CAN FIND A LAWYER TO HELP ME.

Napalm Dragon

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Burning Man is a Culture:If you want to understand the issue with this, consider the first line of this article.The vibrant and expressive culture of immense generosity and collaboration didn’t originate in the desert. The Black Rock City was just the place that the culture descended on, as it adopted the name of the event that happened in the desert. That event was the burning of a sculpture at the end of the gathering of that culture. The Burning of the Man. The Burning Man.As the culture adopted the Burning Man name as Burners (People who self identify with the Burning Man Culture), a funny thing happened. All the art, style, and format that this already existing culture expressed at the desert event became synonymous with the Burning Man Culture.So you might say “Hey artists don’t have to use the name”. But this is the problem, Artists live in the domain of culture. If they are little more than the “Cultural Engine for a Global Brand”, that’s usually something they get paid for by corporations, and the style and format of their art will reflect this. Many Artists will not sell certain types of work to the corporate brand. That’s why it’s art and not just design.But when a corporation creates an exclusive brand with the same name as a culture, they run into problems, even when artists are not trying in any way to be associated with that corporation, or their brand name. Because, culture is the driving force of art.Here is one of my favourite art projects to emerge in the last 5 years. A fantastic piece of creativity that is in no way related to a brand. Yet, because a culture emerged that adopted the Burning Man name, a culture that had been emerging and re-emerging for decades, no matter how hard an artist chooses to express their culture separate from the brand based on their culture; the culture is used as a comparison.It’s not a bad thing. The Culture, and the people who have offered an immense level of generosity to each other as cultural peers is to be respected.But when these comparisons are made under the looming threat of litigation from a corporation and brand control; the artists are stuck. They can’t express their culture without fear of litigation under any choice to use or not use the reference to a culture that is being converted into an exclusive global brand.Inevitably, like the first line in this news story, the comparison is made, not because the Artist is copying the brand, but because the brand is an emulation of the culture that goes by the same name.

http://www.visualnews.com/2013/07/24/water-gypsies-take-new-york-and-venice

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Now back to Burners.Me:

The case is being tried now. We’ll find out soon what the Judge thinks. BMOrg have presented a 1076-page complaint, which seems like an attempt to out-lawyer the other, much smaller, charity. The Burning Man Project’s stated mission is to spread Burner culture around the world, but clearly they need to be more specific. What they really mean is all Burner culture in the world is “theirs”. If you want to help spread it you need to get a license from Decommodification LLC and obey their rules – one of which is “do not criticize BMOrg publicly”.

Those familiar with BMOrg’s views on Intellectual Property and crowd-sourcing might be interested in this week’s brand new South Park episode, “Go Fund Yourself”, which is about cultural appropriation by corporations who do nothing and make all the money from culture that is sacred to others:

The boys from South Park decide to create a start-up company funded through Kickstarter so that they never have to work again. In the process of deciding on a name, they realize that the Washington Redskins football team have lost their trademark to the name due to it being considered by some as offensive to Native Americans, so they decide to use that name for their company. The new company receives enough money that the boys running it can live luxuriously without doing any work until the football team destroys Kickstarter during a raid.

The episode is about the absurdity of corporations trying to own culture through trademark law. Check out the “Goodell-bot” and the bug-eye guy. The South Park creators are Burners, we hope they’re Burners.Me readers too.

http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e01-go-fund-yourself

Although Larry Harvey has claimed he wasn’t influenced by the movie The Wicker Man, he hasn’t said anything about The Legend of Billy Jean, which came out the year before he and “Air Force brat” Jerry James took their effigy to the Presidio’s nudist beach for a pagan ceremony.

They have been burning a Man called “Old Man Gloom” at Zozobra in Santa Fe, New Mexico, since 1924.

1-Zozobra 4-Zozobra_burning

Fans of Pink Floyd will no doubt be familiar with Storm Thorgerson‘s image “Burning Man”, which appeared as the cover of the Wish You Were Here album in 1975.

"Burning Man", by Storm Thorgeson

“Burning Man”, by Storm Thorgerson

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