Warning: This is the ramblings of a man with too much time on his hands...for the moment. I'm hoping that our world never really gets to this point but it definitely seems possible today, maybe tomorrow though it will be a little less probable and we can find more fun ways to spend our days than dreaming of a Burning Man world tomorrow.
Ok so I've had this idea for a camp rolling around in my head lately since I've had so much free time in Quarantine. If there isn't a burn this year (or even if there is), lets all pool our resources and buy up Birmingham Alabama and turn it into a camp. We can call it camp Burningham. Heck, get enough of us there and we could work to change the name of the whole town to Burningman. Now, I don't mean we should all just run there willie nillie and Burn up the place but, now here me out...we should have a plan. The initial plan being, well it sounds like Burning Man and we were fresh out of the original so we had to make due with making the knockoff work
Do we really need a reason beyond that? I don't know about you, but I don't. However just in case...If you take a look, property values are already super cheap in and around Birmingham Alabama. It is also called the Magic city, which sounds pretty cool to me. How magic you ask!!?? well you can buy a house for $10K magic. Now it may need work, but nothing a little burner ingenuity couldn't whip out as an art project or a practice in survival skills. Nothing says shade structure like a proper roof with shingles, I'm just sayin.
Realistically, as the Quarantine continues over the next few months, the effect on the economy is going to become huge, likely leading to an upcoming crash of the world economy and possibly the fabric of society as we know it. That or we will just have a huge baby boom 9 months from now, and you know babies are expensive and with cheap housing one can easily afford things like baby food, diapers and enough medical supplies to survive parenthood.
So what does the break down of the world as we know it mean....you guessed it, property easier to find than TP at the local grocery store. This time with even steeper discounts than before. Acres and Acres of land, as well as houses, for the price of 3-6 months rent in SF and low taxes to boot. The whole damn state could be turned into one big burner camp!! For the price of a BLM permit for one year, the org could own more acres than burners could fit on reasonably and still have money left over to get more the next year. We are talking buildings, bars, booze and dancing all for one low low rate of a ticket to BurningStan, Burning Man's southern cousin event gone wild.
If we just wait until just the right time (now), ie. right as the housing market is about to crumble in major cities like SF, Chicago and LA, then pull a fast switcheroo on the south by burning the whole place up, we just might win this damn thing. I mean, they are all about freedom there, so they really can't put up too much of a fight, we just have to introduce them to what True freedom looks like, real American Style. Now I can already hear a bunch of you saying...but I don't want to live in Birmingham, I don't like the qualities of the south, and to that I say, check your burner privilege at the door (actually could everyone just do that anyway...I'm looking at you you lovely snarkle ponies and you know I love you). The Truth is that if we aren't willing to work to be the light everywhere we go, we don't grow and there is nothing I want to see more than to see the fire grow and glow everywhere I go, ya know.
The reality is that, unless my spider sense is wrong (which has happened before), this quarantine is going to go at least the next 3 months, if not more. It takes 2-3 weeks for the disease to work through the body when there isn't complications, that means that it will take at least 2-3 weeks AFTER the end of the flattened peak before the government will issue a change in quarantine status, without looking like they are putting the public at risk. Now they may do it earlier due to corporatism(not capitalism) but the risk of that increasing infection might be a big enough fear that they don't push such an agenda. Additionally, the whole world is shut down, even if large parts of us go back to work, the vast majority of work in the US is reliant on the rest of the world both as the source of whats needed for said work, and as customers for said work. So things will be depressed until the major countries are all back online, and thats not even touching on the fact that things will never be the same. Each week that we as a people are locked out of work, more of where we would go back to work dies. It's the end of an era and the start of a new one, one in which I want to see Burner culture in, in every facet possible. To do that we would need to demonstrate its viability first and a rural southern state, that can only be improved looking at the socio-economic data on the state, is perfect.
This idea has some legs and I know I'm not the first burner to discuss building a permanent community of burners. Beyond the economic feasibility of it (heck, the collective camp dues alone could possibly fund this), a group of dedicated and educated burners could really bring life to a part of the country that sorely needs it. With a large enough group living there, the ability to influence the government would be huge. Realistically, I'm not sure even I want to go there but I would consider buying a "second property" there of some land to raise some crops on in a permeculture environment. If things really do go South, it would be a place many of us could develop a radically self reliant and self sustaining lifestyle that's affordable well beyond the means of other locations. The hardiness zone is a place where year around crops can be grown in raised beds and water is generally not scarce.
Economically, it could be a win all around. People with money could hedge against the "end of the world" causing them to lose their support structures. Those with lesser means could survive and thrive within the basic structures we are familiar with. The state alone would see more revenue in years on "playa" bikes alone. I guess if we wanted to be dicks, we could do what the rich turn key camps do if something doesn't work out and just walk away, although I hope we can evolve away from that issue both inside and outside of the burn as quickly as possible.
So in summation, I shouldn't be left alone to sit and research such ideas or else I will end up making a deeply compelling argument for developing a Burner State that we all would love to live in. If anyone else has anything interesting you'd like me to funnel my energy into I am all ears as I have plenty of time on my hand until this whole thing gets really started. However, this is a good idea, it's just not one I think most burners would want to live unless the universe doesn't give us many other options. If that's the case, I'd rather be like bunnies and hop on this quickly, rather than wait until we are trying to finish by a deadline and hoping the glue and duct tape keeps it all together until the burn is over. Which as well all know is way more likely than not, the way we burners work.
I Luv-U All A Lot, James
I decided to go and drive to Alabama to see if what looks good on paper might look good in person. What I found was a state that has much more going on than people give it credit for. Alabama is a state of great beauty and Birmingham has the name, The Magic City, for a reason. However I would want to research a whole lot more places before doing such an event there in reality. A one off event would change the whole state, with them being exposed to burners everywhere, however it would not be the same experience as being at the burn at all if it was done in the way I suggested. It would be something new, more dilute and slightly passive unless a single area was picked and focused on, and even then there is no way to predict the outcome. It would be cool though to track the effect and see what, if any, impact burners have on a town when they are exposed to the culture for a short period of time. The idea of buying property, while sounding great, is beyond feasible without a lot of work. The thought of our current economy collapsing and requiring people all over the country to move to affordable locations to survive with a roof would lend this to be a great place but I'd want to research other places, such as Mount Shasta and McCloud CA, and other locations around the country. In fact I would love to hear some other suggestions because if the job market does tank, those places would most likely be to expensive for most burners to move to and build a community around until the dust settled. That is If that was the way we wanted to take this conversation. So far this has just been me having some fun with capabilities and dreaming with details. I do think there are some new ways for us to be looking at how we can leverage our culture to heal, grow and light fires around the country but I also respect that for this to ever be a viable conversation there has to be a real, intrinsic and True value to such an endeavor (ie. Love). Then again, maybe this was just what we needed to find the right options.