Burning Man 2000
The real story
Hi All,
Ignore everything you read on the previous page. The earlier page is the
official position being presented to the media and the world about Burning Man
(BM). This image is being presented as BM can't handle the growth that it is
undergoing and eventually the growth of BM will kill it. In order to stretch
the life span of Burning Man the official position on BM2K was that "it
sucked." We're sorry to have put out a ruse to try and scare you off from
continuing, but if you've made it this far then you're possibly someone that
should attend Burning Man. If the earlier description satisfied you then both
Burning Man and you will be happier with you having that description of Burning
Man 2000. Hopefully after reading this report, this will make sense.
A warning/waiver: The following
report/pictures will include graphic depictions/descriptions of sex, drugs,
rock & roll, violence etc. If you're offended by any of these things it's
possible/likely you will be offended by parts of this report and might want to
skip reading this report. This warning is not a
ruse.
Introduction: It has often been said that
Burning Man is indescribable. So here's a description :-). Besides, they said
that about the Oregon Country Fair and it wasn't that hard (see our
postcard on the
OCF for details.) Honestly, I'm not sure if we can do Burning Man justice but
here we go anyway...
There are a lot of myths about Burning Man. As a matter of fact that's
how we first heard about Burning Man (this seems to be a pattern of first
contact). The myth we heard was on the 700 Club as Pat Robertson introduced a
special "hard-hitting investigative report." Why were we listening to the 700
Club? It's amazingly informative and entertaining, much like the Art Bell show
(in both cases ignore their comments & facts, but they usually discuss
things of interest). This hard-hitting report was the Satanism myth. This myth
describes Burning Man as a gathering of a bunch of Pagans who get together in
the desert to "worship Man" and at the end make a giant sacrifice to heathen
gods.
After hearing this we investigated Burning Man a bit and almost swung by
during our trip out to Eugene (see
postcard
for trip details) from Atlanta. At this point we didn't have a whole lot of
info on Burning Man. Our take on it was influenced by some second-hand stories
from Nick and Clay, along with info from the web site. This gave us an opinion
held by many, the "Desert Camping and Art Show Myth."
This would never have gotten us to goto Burning Man. Well, especially
Jay. In case you're wondering how camping and Jay are linked in the same
paragraph, no, Jay hasn't been abducted by Aliens (see
Art Bell.) Yes, Jay did and does hate
camping on a level with self-mutilation. Jay also promises not to complain too
much here about camping issues, but the camping aspects made for experiences
that I can only compare with those from basic training in N.J. in winter.
So how then did we wind up at Burning Man, camping for a week? Well,
Colin. Some of you may know a friend of ours Colin Finn a.k.a. Father
Collanis. He is currently running a restaurant/cafe in San Francisco. Last year
ISWC was in San Francisco and Brad and Jay
(along with about 22 attendees) took a 3 mile march to Cafe Prust. While there
Colin mentioned that he was running the cafe at Burning Man and tried to
convince Jay to attend and work at the cafe. Incentives included: Large scale
viewing of virtual community creation & destruction, Darwinism in action,
the chance to hang out with Colin & Brad along with lots of other
folks.
Demaris was all fired-up to go. Jay was reluctant (not wanting to get
eaten by a scorpion) and incredibly busy. So Jay agreed to go if Demaris made
all the arrangements. During the next few months we were exposed to the "Rave
Myth", that describes Burning Man as a week long rave with lots of sex, drugs
and nudity. We were also exposed by the mass media to the "dot-com Yuppie
Myth", that Burning Man was a gathering for "dot-commers", with the corollary
from the Burning Man "Old Timers" that the dot-commers were ruining Burning
Man. This made major headlines when it was mentioned in the bio of the yuppie
Big Brother gal who said she had "done Burning Man."
Our feeling just before going was that Burning Man was one part sci-fi
Con, one part NERO event, one part street party, mixed with large art and
camping. As to which of these myths is true, all of them are. As to what my
take on what Burning Man is now, I'll leave that for the conclusion.
Cast:
Jay.
Demaris. Straps are for canteen, camera bag, and pocketbook.
Brad (aka Ladybug) and Spider (aka Spider).
Geoff.
Perlick.
Wes, in front of the Lamplighters' Guild.
The Dark Lord...a.k.a. Colin
Carolyn, Colin's fiancee.
Old School.
Kelly, sitting in front of the Amoeba.
Jim (our camp's cook, not Jay's Eugene friend) and his assistant.
Playa.
Rebar, the tent stake material of choice. Its razor-sharp spines keep
it from working loose from the ground, but casual contact with, say, humanity
is not such a good idea. A piece of rebar tore Jay's boots. A piece of rebar
ripped our air mattress through the tent. A piece of rebar gouged Kelly. Jim
broke his toe on the small piece sticking out of the ground front center. Shown
left to right: "candy cane" rebar stake (with natural rope guideline),
unintentionally bent rebar (held by Jay), straight stake capped with a Gatorade
bottle (with white rope guideline), and the most dangerous form of rebar,
mostly buried but uncapped, left in the ground with nothing to mark it (front
center). The "plant life" is some dried-out bamboo, hauled in from San
Francisco for use as cafe decor.