most awesome camp ever- you're invited!

[pentta]

for 2010, a burning man theme camp will be created called, camp awesome. you are invited to join this budding camp sight-unseen - just show up and you're in. and so you will be. this is a type of total inclusivity (a sort of social 2.0) that you've been trying find for years in other groups and now it's here. burning man has a special way of providing, to be sure. camp awesome will the most blissed-out camp you have ever seen (and will ever see) on and off the playa. the vibe will be loving and electric, it will be like a drug. and like with any good drug, the tendency will be to push it further.

so as soon as burning man 2010 wraps up, plans will immediately begin for 2011 and also for a stream of fundraising parties that will rock all through the year. the first sign of trouble will be when the name of the camp is suddenly changed to (in a secret meeting you won't be invited to), totally cool camp. you'll think the change is a bit odd, but what's in a name when you have such synergy? camp awesome, it was said, was a bit too silly and not cool-sounding enough for some. you didn't ask questions.

but you'll discover there's a lot in a name. or rather, most people place a great deal of importance in names. fair enough. what you won't see happening with the new name 'totally cool camp' (because you won't be asking questions) is that the group identity will be placed within it. unlike camp awesome, which was silly and unsexy, totally cool camp will be a THING - a group thing, moving forward. whereas camp awesome was an unattached collective of individuals espousing inclusivity, totally cool camp will be different; same people but a different animal.

this will all happen in less than a year. suddenly you'll be attending weekly totally cool camp meetings that, aside from content, will be indistinguishable from the ridiculous business meetings you've tried so hard to expel yourself from in your workaday life. meeting points will turn to ideas on how to make money for the camp. no one in the camp will be actually poor, but totally cool camp will need money. how will this cool group exploit itself in various ways in order to make money? answer: PERFORMANCES - performances and more performances. the wall between the performers (totally cool camp) and everyone else (the paying spectators and wannabe members) will go up overnight. yes, performances were always a part of camp awesome gatherings in the past, and they were a wonderful accent on the evenings - but they were an *accent*, not the reason for being. in the middle of a fantastic totally cool camp party where everyone will be grooving and having a great time - everytime there will come a time to "everyone, everyone stop! stop! look at the stage: girls girls girls look-at-me look-at-me". this wall between performers and spectators will be stacked on top of the growing wall of exclusivity, and set the new tone. aside from the faces, everything will change. and at this point you will be oblivious to it.

then the matriarch and patriarch of the group will break up. the patriarch will be your better friend and during the breakup, the matriarch will explode everywhere like an emotional hand grenade. during this drama, the ladies of totally cool camp will decide that it would be in the group's best interest (therefore YOUR best interest) if you legally marry a gal they like that you met from 2010's burn. when you say you're not going to do such a thing (because you don't believe in marriage), it will be determined by the group that you are generally having too much sex. the actual exchange will go, "how many women have you had sex with?" your answer: "not enough." fair enough... but not. immediately the word will be cast down not only within totally cool camp - but to other neighboring groups that you are a slut; a male slut. this, coming from ladies who have lost half of all their panties stuck to the ceilings of whomever's bedroom, dome, RV, wherever.

the gender divide within totally cool camp will be created by the women. although they will not have been oppressed, criticized, or marginalized, and that men and women alike will have been all equal members within the collective and respected as individuals - still a sisterhood divide will form. and you will either be with them or against them. being experts in manipulation and creating drama, the women of totally cool camp will band together and circle their wagons against the men (for amusement? to preserve their sense of perceived power? in retaliation for a standard breakup? only they will know). from members of groups outside of totally cool camp, you will start receiving unsolicited independent reports claiming, (in various wording) 'there's something wrong with your women.' when you hear it the first time, you'll write it off as passing drama. but after the second and third time, there will be no mistake that something twisted and stinking is happening within the group dynamic.

the patriarch, only because he will no longer wish to be in a monogamous relationship with the matriarch of totally cool camp - will start to be forced out of the group, and actively vilified. and because you don't approve of such actions and slander, you will be effectively demoted socially. it will be made known that you are welcome to stay within totally cool camp if you accept your demotion, branded as a slut (try to forget that everyone in totally cool camp is a slut). fortunately for you, your dependency on the group will be wildly overestimated by the wand-weilding princesses of assumed power, as they will soon find this out.

but totally cool camp will kept it together and limp through burning man 2011. what a difference a year makes... but WOW totally cool camp will be promoted to the esplanade in 2011. uh, cool. but you'll wonder if this is what it takes.

shortly after returning from the playa in 2011, you'll commit social suicide and detonated your all your totally cool camp bridges and publicly defame the collective group ego and its antisocial and sexist ways. you won't go along to get along. and in the society we live in (yes, it's the same even at burning man) if you want to play in the games, you'll need to do the silly clown dance by taking it in the ass and sticking it in the ass. but you, homey, won't play that.

the next year on the esplanade, the leaner & meaner leadership of totally cool camp, this self-proclaimed group of 'visionaries', will fail to imagine what the visual impact of an 18-wheeler blazoned on both sides with giant-sized logos of XYZ brand drink will have on the burning man community as it slowly drives up the esplanade to the gate on the last day of the burn. this disgraceful lack of vision (hey, they just GAVE us that truck... what?) will get totally cool camp kicked off esplanade placement in 2012, and will goes down as one of the saddest moments in the soft-commodification of the festival for all who will witness this massacre of community principals. good goin', ladies.

a year or so later, totally cool camp will be no more. all the drama and meanness and back-stabbing trying to protect its brand and the group's own boundaries and perceived power will have been all in vain. it will have been just a name after all... nothing more, nothing at all to be precise.

[Dr. Pyro]

So in other words, the Solo Collective has returned.

[zorro sings]

This was tried before in 2003.

[ygmir]

there goes my plan

[Ugly Dougly]

It was better in 1993.

[theCryptofishist]

And even better during the cultural revolution.

[oneeyeddick]

camp awesome?

Really ?

camp awesome ?!?

THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR !!!

sign me up, because someone as awesome as me certainly deserves to be in camp awesome...in fact, I am so awesome that I deserve to be the camp mayor !!

Now that would be AWESOME !!

*a few minutes tick by *

" As duly elected Mayor of camp awesome, our first order of business is to change the name of camp awesome to camp AWESOME !!!"

*crowd cheers *

"That's right, Camp AWESOME !!! "

*crowd cheers again *


see how much more awesome it is with the AWESOME !!! added ?

boy oh boy, nothing has ever inspired me as much as this in the past, look out Death Guild, we gonna take your place on the Esplanade, because it is out with the old, and in with the new.

The new AWESOME !!!

*crowd cheers yet again *

[Boijoy]

awesome.

[ygmir]

if, we go there, will we become awsome, through osmosis?

[pentta]

totally. it'll be totally awesome. you'll be totally awesome... well, until it begins to ruin your life. but until then - totally awesome.

[ygmir]

anyone, anywhere, against accruing awesomeness, already abhors anti-awesomeness, allowing all american, and anti-american, angst and allegorical artistic artisans, an all around and ancillary activity, and, anticipating any aversion against all actions, are asshats and antisocially allegorical antebellum aristocratic arse-biters. Allowing, anyway, all amenable acolytes access across any anteroom and atrium.

[Bounce530]

Eh?

[Ugly Dougly]

Not awful?

[Ugly Dougly]

[madmatt]

Sounds a little like my camp.

[ygmir]

Sounds a little like my camp.

yeah, but, didn't your have those high things and that cool swing inside? decorated so nicely?

[Remark]

So in other words, the Solo Collective has returned.

giggle giggle snort

[Trishntek]

So this is where Bill and Ted finally end their "Excellent Adventure"!

[Captain Goddammit]

It's already been done. It wasn't that awesome.
And you really can't say what the "vibe" will be, since you have no idea who will show up.

If you have to tell everyone how awesome or cool it is... it isn't!

[oneeyeddick]

[tetraguardian]

i don't really like when people say things have been done. it doesn't matter what has been done and what hasn't been done. if you have that kind've mentality in life then you could say that about anything. oh yea being alive? it's been done. now being dead is in....no wait being dead has been done.
this sounds like a good time to me!

[Ugly Dougly]

I guess you can join up with the other virgin and have an awesome time together! Great!

Neither one of you knows how to capitalize.

[Captain Goddammit]

The fact that it's been done before isn't anything wrong. "Land Yachts" have been done... my old bike repair camp had been done... the "It's been done" was more simply informational, in case the person thought it was a totally new concept.
It just matters how awesomely you re-do the idea!

[C187]

Pentta.... Pentta.... ... PENTTA!
Switch to fucking decaf!
Tentacle almighty.. geze ... If you want to have your Awesome camp then more power to you. Just don't over think it, eh.

Oh, and if you get a lame person fucking up your awesomeness. There is a Camp Lame you can send them to.

Any way....

So this is where Bill and Ted finally end their "Excellent Adventure"!

...one would hope. But a strict rule forbidding anyone from using any emotion when speaking anything but the words, "whoa" and "dude" should be enforced. Mostly to not spook Ted.

[Ugly Dougly]

There is a Camp Lame you can send them to.

I'll try to come visit you if I am not doing anything else.

[AntiM]

Be excellent to each other.

[skwhite628]

the majority of this group wouldn't be coming out of Denver would it? If so I think my friend invited me to be in your camp!

[CapSmashy]

camp awesome?

Really ?

camp awesome ?!?

Dick, you are already camping next to Camp Awesome. This obscene joke of trying to be awesome will be hunted down and killed with fire if it appears.

[oneeyeddick]

Oh crap, I guess I forgot thier already is a camp Awesome, right next to where I camp.

my bad

Sorry.

* heads back to camp to place new trajectories on my mortar *

[Ugly Dougly]

Every camp in Black Rock City is awesome.