http://www.stopburningman.org/

No relation to our list. Yet. That might change. Ever been to ePlaya, Burning Man’s official board? I think you’ll find it an eye opener when you read posts like this one.

http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?p=208057&highlight=#208057

You get to watch the author advocate killing 900 million people because he saw some muslim kids protesting on the news. None of the in-kids seemed to have a problem with that. This came in response to somebody’s attempt to set up a gathering for muslims on the Playa.

An attempt to create a Jewish themed camp was greeted about as tolerantly

http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=3989&sid=2bb3dc831f7c51ba8666b5a6431d8fe4

Keep in mind that this is the same board where somebody was threatened with censorship by the mods because he questioned the 100% effectiveness of condoms in preventing AIDS

http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?p=273656&highlight=#273656

The Burning Man LLC is not shy about silencing those saying things it doesn’t want to hear. It just doesn’t mind hearing a little antisemitism. That may be why the event is as lily white as it is. Somebody like me will take part, fool himself into thinking that he’s among friends and then get an earful of this dreck or something like it.

http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?p=308339&highlight=#308339

Your title for that post was better than you knew. I can’t imagine going back.

thanks for the link.

patrick wrote another blog in response to the comment……

My last two years at the event(99-00)I witnessed the station I had helped create go from a freeform anything goes broadcasting joy into an exclusive programmed formatted facsimile of just another radio station.I even had one kid as I walked in in 99 tell me I could not get an airshift unless I had “done” something for the station,and that he had worked on the floors of the building.I guess organizing the station 5 years earlier,then managing to keep it up and running 24/7 so he could have those eventual floors to work on wasn’t enough.Ah well.

I worked DPW the last two years also, and soon found the time before and after the event was much more to my liking than the week of the actual thing,and I felt a sense of doom and dread during the week.

At one time this event was (although still a party underneath it all) much more in line with an arts festival, it is a shame that it has degenerated into what it has become now,and I feel you described a lot of those aspects quite well,the cookie cutter “indivivuality” (how many megaphones do you really need spouting inanities) etc. etc.

The one saving grace I have,is that in six years of attending, I only had to pay once for a ticket,got paid my last two years (which wasn’t a bad deal considering you got fed and such) and never spent more than a couple hundred dollars in any given year, so I might have actually come out the other side ahead ….

Anyhow,there are other negative reviews out there,you just have to search em out…
http://cardhouse.com/drcliff/wreck/dead/bmisdead.htm

and one of my favorites;
http://poweredbychrist.homestead.com/BurningMan.html

Anyhow, thanks for the good read.

I never cried at Burning Man, only my narrator did. I think he was having a breakdown.

As I said above in Redux:
The alleged “bitter” and angry narrator of my piece was a character in a meta-fiction, not a real person, certainly not me.

This is not an attempt to distance myself from the narrator’s comments or observations. I put the words in his mouth as they seemed true. I’m not trying to “cut and run.” I dislike lies and hypocrisy, not on principal but because they waste my time.

Writing “redux” was not an attempt to backpedal or pull my punches. I just wanted to suggest a more relaxed reading to those who took the essay (and Burning Man itself) way too seriously.

Of course, I knew my over-the-top commentary would enrage all the right people too. As many of you noted, the angry responses and commentary from some seemed to prove my point that a lot of burners are bullies and do not tolerate criticism at all-quite at odds with their alleged openness.

In any case, this was my first blog essay and the range of responses was great.

There is a great scene in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon” in the presidential portrait room. Nixon is half-crazy at the height of Watergate. The end is near and he knows it. Looking at a portrait of JFK he talks bitterly about how much Kennedy was loved and says ” They look at you and dream of what they could be-but when they look at me they see what they are.”

Though my parents were Kennedy Democrats, I find the dark and paranoid Nixon side of humanity far more real and interesting. This guided my focus in the essay.

The other commentary that I fully agree with above is that Burning Man is a big freaky party. This is the truth. BM is not about art, or love or hippies or experimental communities. It’s a BIG, FREAKY PARTY.

Let’s say it together: BIG. FREAKY. PARTY. There is no point in making it out to be anything else. Leave utopia to weeping saints and Burning Man to the rest of us pagans, pirates and sodomites.

As an experiment in “radical self-expression” and utopian sharing, BM is a dismal failure. Most people don’t share much, and the self-expression is conformist and uninspired on the whole. However, as a raging BIG FREAKY PARTY, Burning Man has no serious rivals.

I’ll remember Burning Man 2006 as the biggest and freakiest party I ever went to-an atomic Mardi Gras exploded in a mushrooming airburst over 40,000 fellow freaks. I just wish it had been weirder.

I agree with regard to the general trailerpark tackyness of the creative expression to be found there. It is sad, but for most burners being naked/furlined/painted some color is all they can come up with. And you’re right about the nonacceptance by the cultists who insist you wear the Approved BM Styles®. They are as unimaginative and failed individuals as nazis in a rally.

I’ve gone once, because I was involved in a theatrical project that chose to go there collectively (surprise surprise). As a person of color (brown) I was instantly aware of the relative homogenity of the event, something that white folx of course never have to think about (unless they find themselves in a social situation in which *they* are the color minority). If I ever go again, one of my costumed radical self-expressions will be to honor my ancestry and my culture… I will wear a maintenance jumpsuit, drag a garbage can, and sweep & mop the playa like my Latin family does all over California. Perhaps this might make some take notice.

But I have to offer a defense for the apparent blancheness of the event. It isn’t that it is a self-segregating party. As has been mentioned, tickets are available to all. But there is a social dynamic at work which keeps it mostly white. Namely, Latinos are traditionally a thrift-minded and conservative culture -in order to gain acceptance in Angloamerica we have to be straight, upstanding, and on average wouldn’t be interested. Blacks (I theorize) also come from an oppressed culture which is kept separate, and so even with money they might not generally want to be part of that form of extreme dorkiness.

After all, it really is only whitefolx (generally) who have the resources, leisure, and self-permission to do this kind of festival.

It *is* America concentrated.

I went once. The social and environmental crap was too overwhelming for me as well. I’d never go again, unless to chaperone a lover or family friend in their first BM trip. But in defense I must state that the event opens up your eyes -if they’re ready to open- to the limitless artistic potential, lack of education, warmth & generosity, and depravity & filth that America has to offer. In the end, like America it is what you make of it, but only withn the boundaries of what already exists there. And I’m not particularly interested.

Happy travels!

Many of the people who fled the rest of America for this hip little bubble are just as regressive if you do not match their approved criteria. In many cases they are as “fascistic” as the people from whom they’ve fled. You’d think the mindboggling chutzpah would inspire a little actual self reflection but.. you’d be wrong. They moved here and go to Burning Man in order to AVOID the self reflection required of someone who doesn’t have an identity to slot into.

I’m not at all surprised that FnFers reacted poorly.. they also don’t appreciate it if you harsh their mellow re: the palpable staleness of FnF parties. This is because many of them have their identities bound up in being a part of FnF and I’m quite sure that many of them have their identity similarly bound up in Burning Man. It’s not that either FnF or Burning Man are bad, it’s just that critique of the status quo is frowned on as insufficiently groovy.

Thanks for providing the realists critique of Burning Man. While there are certainly things to recommend Black Rock City, in general it’s an expensive and not particularly pleasant place to visit.

=darwin
(yes.. that darwin.. who was randomly linked to your piece by the CEO of his company.. the internet is a small place..)