Burning Man?

Seems like something so far past it's original premise that it's like the late 80s/90s Grateful Dead Show with the tie-dye/Shakedown bullshit "comuuuuuuity" dominating whatever the actual scene may have originally been.

But I'm sure for those who go it's still a crazy good party.

Whooo.

place is hot as hell and absolutely crawling with cops and vultures

so yeah; a lot like 90's dead lot

bit if'n you like shiny things, and drugs that mostly have numbers for names; it's ground zero

Ronnie Rondell Jr - who was famously set alight for the front cover of Pink Floyd's iconic Wish You Were Here album cover - has died at the age of 88.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c05e0z9lj3mo

Hope he has fun.  If i ever went, I'd definitely stop by Darrell Lemaire's place outside Reno. 

https://erowid.org/culture/characters/lemaire_darrell/

"Picture this: it’s pre-tech boom San Francisco and the City is overflowing with artists, hippies, and free-thinkers. Into this comes the Cacophony Society, “a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in the pursuit of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society,” according to Michael Mikel, one of the Cacophony Society’s founders. Influenced by the Dadaists, Surrealists, and Situationists, the Cacophony Society was a proponent of the “free university.” They also had an extensive mailing list and each month they’d invite members to participate in fun and unusual activities – like exploring architecture, putting on plays, or dressing up and having adventures around San Francisco.

Larry Harvey was a member of the Cacophony Society, and in 1988 he invited Michael to attend his first effigy burning at the as yet-unnamed event at Baker Beach. The following year Larry asked Michael to help publicize the solstice gathering through the Cacophony Society’s mailing list, and thus the event became the newly minted “Burning Man” in their newsletter. Attendance shot up to 300."

https://presidio.gov/explore/blog/then-now-burning-man-at-baker-beach
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I was one of those 300 people, as my friend and fellow holographer, Louis Brill, wrote the Cacophony Society newsletter. At Louis's urging, me and my roommates went down to the beach to see some crazy guy burn a statue for summer solstice (at that time I lived on 28th and California, which had easy access to Sea Cliff / Baker Beach). I remember it was cold. The next year I went back to Baker Beach (more people this time) to help tug on a rope and then also helped erect the man on the barge (in the Marina). I never went to the desert.

^ I'm in that 1990 pic

I lived in apartment on the Great Highway in 90. Some friends from out of town were visiting and they went to the Haight, scored some L and came back to our home base. They went on a beach adventure and came back hours later telling tales of a burning man on the beach. They accidentally ended up at burning man dosed to the gills. 

Went just about every year from 99 to 08. Barlow used to go back then and to my knowledge is the only person from the Dead inner circle that went. It's strange that he publicly stated that he stopped going because he was frustrated about all that energy just going into a party and thought it should go into something that would help change the world the exact same criticism leveled at the Dead. Never ran into him.

Went to a 25 year anniversary party of the big camp we built in 2000 over July 4th not out on the playa. 90% of my friend group to this day is connected to building those camps. The thing that makes it different from any other event/concert is that the people that go are also the entertainment. Every other event has a clear line between paid entertainers and paying attendees who come to see the entertainers. Burning Man is the only place that line doesn't exist. It is better to think of it as blank slate where a 100,000 people gather and compete with each other to see who can build the most amazing experience. It can be as simple as bringing home made pickles and driving around and giving them to random strangers or building a full on outdoor night club in the most challenging environment in the desert  and spending $100,000 of your money you raised to bring it to life. My camps budget was $10k way back in the day and what they build out there now dwarfs that. B Man org does sponsor some of the art but almost all of that goes large sculpture artists. 

Still have friends who go every year and it's still exactly the same as when I went only more people. We are obsessed with the idea that once things go on for a while they get co-opted, but that hasn't happened with B Man because all the organizers provide is the layout of where you camp, porto potties (the guy who took that contract in the late 90's is now a retired multimillionaire) and ice (ice sale proceeds go to the school district of the neighboring town). 

What ruins most scenes is once it gets popular it attracts all the wrong people who are just there to get fucked up and or fuck shit up, but those kinds of people become very unhappy very quickly at B Man because the great equalizer is the place it is held which is the most unforgiving environment on the planet. If you don't have your shit together you will have a very unpleasant time since you are camping on dry wall dust on a huge plain that routinely gets 50 mph winds. It's hot in the day and at around 5000 feet cold at night. 

It's a uniquely American story where a cab driver from SF decides to burn an effigy on the beach because his girlfriend broke up with him and turns that into the best party on earth where people fly in from all over to join in. I don't go anymore because it is just too damn much work. My days of cleaning bass bins with a toothbrush for weeks after the event are over, that and it is now the biggest RV rental event in America surpassing the Daytona 500. That mens an RV that cost me $3k to rent 25 years ago (split between six people) now goes for $10k and up. 

Anyway it's the greatest party on earth nothing else like it. 25 Years ago me in the middle.

VERY hot down there right now.   Not a good environment.

An acquaintance on Facebook today. He's a photojournalist but doesn't take his cameras with him. He's been going for many years, keeps going back.

Checking in safe from Burning Man.

Sadly the windstorm caused widespread damage in the city.
The wind was clocked officially at 45 miles/hour, but all agree the gusts were much stronger.
A camp across the street made up of 10-12 popups was turned into a pile of twister metal.
A tall tower at Alternative Energy Zone came down.
Lots of bent poles and torn shade cloth on my ride around the block.
Our camp fared well thanks to long carriage bolt anchors and ratchet straps holding everything down.
No reports of injuries, but my info is limited.

Tough way to launch Burning Man 2025, but we will rebuild!

>>>those kinds of people become very unhappy very quickly at B Man because the great equalizer is the place it is held which is the most unforgiving environment on the planet<<<

kxla with the perspective.

That makes sense. Good post.

>>>The wind was clocked officially at 45 miles/hour,

The picture is from 2000 which was the second worst weather year only to be beat by the great flood a few years ago. Had sustained 60 mph winds. My friend almost flew away like Dorthy trying to hold our very small tarp down. A lot of twisted metal that year. The surrounding mountains were snow capped when the sun finally came out. 

Paul Oakenfold who is an international star DJ played at our camp that year. He was playing his acetate dubplates in the windy rain storm and at one point the needle just went right across the record. He wasn't used to those conditions and after that year we built wind proof booths for the DJ's. 

>>>Understand the reference to the 80's/90's GD scene<<<

Yeah, I think that was a bad analogy.

kxela's post defined the situation in a way that made it pretty clear that I was off-base there. In truth I know very little about the Burning Man experience except for what some friends who were early participants said about how it had changed, with more & more people attending and needing tickets and such.

Imagine that, an absolute conclusion based on limited actual knowledge. Guilty as charged.

I suppose if the late-era Grateful Dead had just played in inhospitable hellscapes maybe the parasitical shitshow wouldn't have developed. Or maybe that's all there would have been.

Either way, it's pretty clear that I don't know shit about what actually goes on out there in the desert every summer, except that it takes a level of dedication to participate that I clearly have never had.

I hope that whatever it is, it carries on for a long time to come.

Had the opportunity to play guitar in the gospel choir band (would have loved it), but the costs, dust, wear and tear were just too much.  So I got hired to drive RV's down to Reno, that then got rented out to Burning Man goers.  We flew back a week later and drove them back to Portland.  I wrote a chorus about it before driving down, everybody was singing it when I arrived for the initial drive, LOL.  Now that i'm in a band again, had to write a bunch of verses.  It's pure twang; 

(I sing it differently now, but it's the same song)

^ "...ok now, second verse, same as the first....."

Surprisingly, there's some good Thai food in Reno midtown... if you are stuck there. And a good breakfast joint, Great Full Gardens.

Just to be clear Lance it is way different than the real early days a few years before my time when there was really no organization and everyone just camped around the man in a haphazard fashion. The founders really never liked the ravers even back then they made the ravers set up miles away from everyone which was no problem because people would just get in their cars and drive out there. That led to someone getting run over in their tent as someone drove back from the rave. Back in those days they also had things like drive by shooting camp where you could shoot at targets as you drove by in your car. 

Then a few years before my time they started laying out the roads in the big U shape with the Man in the middle of the U. That is when it got on the radar of police agencies. At first is was fine but as the years went on everyone wanted their pound of flesh. So you had two counties out there with their sheriffs and then the Feds started going since it's on BLM land. It is a total money shakedown for most people they bust out there. On your way there you have to drive through the reservation and now you have res police pulling people over for no reason and ripping everything out their cars/trucks/rv's looking for drugs. With just a little bit of awareness you can avoid the police. The thing that will get you busted more than anything is weed since it's on Federal land it's illegal and they will bust for that. They also have undercover art cars run by cops that ask people to donate drugs for a ride and then bust them. Sucks but no different than the undercover cop with long hair and tye die that busted me in Providence for an open beer. 

I would say the biggest change since I started going is you have cell coverage out there now which in my opinion sucks. That brought the influencers and also just killed the ability to go out and find random shit like a grand piano with an opera singer at sunrise. Now everyone is on a schedule and texting their friends. 

There is also a very dark side to the event. My friend used to camp with a bunch of paramedics who would stay for a week after the event. They would almost always find dead people who had wandered out into the desert and never made it back to the party and most years someone will run into the giant bon fire of the Man burning that is so big it creates it's own wind tornadoes. When they do that it doesn't leave a body behind to find. Another friend had big 100 person tent that was open to public and someone hung themselves in there, and it has absolutely attracted men who are only there to sexually assault women.  The B Man org does a very good job of keeping all of that out of the press.

Damn.

It sounds like hell on earth to me, but then I think staying anywhere that doesn't have 24-hour room service is sketchy.

I'm soft.

It sure seems like there's a movie in there, either an on-site documentary or a fictional story.

Anybody ever do that?

I haven't been to Burning Man, but I did go to Ranch Rock at Pyramid Lake, which is about 70 miles south of Black Rock City, over Labor Day weekend in 1986, and that was enough psychedelic fun in the high desert for me, thanks. I will say I'm intrigued by BM every year though.

Here are the fire tornadoes 

https://youtu.be/EBkes7WCZDg?si=q75Kio2Hjks3JIYc

I've seen a few that were OK but can't find them now. One that was good took a trust fund lady and a guy from the projects and followed them around, but most of them are just horrible crap filled with woo woo new age idiots talking about the "spiritual" wonderfulness of it all which is just stupid. There is nothing to be learned about the real world by lugging all the shit you need to live for a week out into the desert and then heading back to the real world after the week is over. 

Also you just can't get the scale on film. Things that look huge when you are staging them before you bring them out just look tiny out there. The inner band of the U is 2 miles across at the end points and that entire city is dwarfed by the land scape it is sitting in. 

This helps with the scale:

Day

https://youtu.be/GG-n-kbwB00?si=ifbHrOyg2KAEbBvM

Night

https://youtu.be/3MI8afEsauM?si=uli2oxg1Z2-lK6oe

Anybody ever do that?

Malcolm in the Middle did https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=926616679438247