SF's Burner/Party Culture

[El Nino]

This is a conversation I had with a Burner friend of mine about the SF Burner scene. We agree we wanted to post it somewhere. G is female and D is male. Enjoy.
========================================

G: I agree with your analysis of the scene...the most mediocre parties are sold out these days and everything is both overcrowded -- and just too mainstream, too generic. What was even remotely Burning Man about that Mighty party? It could have been any club. The crowd was pretty superficial, and people did not even dress creatively (overall.) It is so hit or miss and quite unpredictable--for example I accidentally ended up at the Kinky Salon / Opel Valentine's party and it was electrifying--very creative and fun. That Opel last year was quite special, and the first one I went to 3 years ago was epic. But for a 5 year aniversary this one was pathetically weak. It was certainly not worth the lost sleep and losing the day on Sunday. How do we bring it back to serving the community and an artistic intention?

g

D: Yeah didn't mean to sound jaded but that party didn't have any intension dedictable by me except outside and by the time I chilled there, I was pretty physically spent. I've decided I need to scale it back some and get back to how this whole thing started - as in art and creativity, in whatever form. Some parties are good, but I need to be more selective. I like the parties in the woods the best. My impression is that the Burning Man culture here mainly, is going off on a party binge which is not serving the overall community. Three years ago, this didn't seem to be the case. But it is so mainstream now.

Of course there are other things going on which are great in SF - the beach cleanup is just the tip of the iceberg. But if all those people were at club Mighty every weekend, instead of selling 300 tickets or whatever the breakoff point is, they'd be selling 3000, so there are other Burners out there, happily.

D (separate thread): Good question. I went to the Opel party last year and was blown away, which is why I went to this one to begin with. I think it has become a club scene. The Burnal Equinox was considerably better and you already voiced a concern about that one lacking intension as well.

Fortunately, these parties don't really represent Burning Man. Our
community is still there. Some of them go to these parties - I met a
couple. But they are getting squeezed into the margins.

How we take it back is by remembering:
1) Not every Burner in the world has the luxury of going to Club
Mighty every weekend. Many Burners live in smaller town where even
smaller establishments don't have a Burner scene. It is about those
conversations around the fire on the Playa. We need to create little
communities like that here. It is about small gatherings, not large
ones.
2) Create. We need to create. Not just indulge. The latter is not a
sustainable model for us or the community and hardly sets an example
of being model citizens, which I think is what we were hoping to do
through Burners without Borders and beach cleanups, etc..
3) When we gather, there needs to be intention, a stated one through
gifting, communing, interacting, creating, leave no trace. None of
those were present at Mighty Saturday night, to any significant
degree. The psy trance parties I've been to recently have been a heck
of a lot better in this department.

There are starting points. If you have other ideas to add, maybe we
can compose an essay to post on our blogs, if you want to take it that
way.

Blessings,
D

G: I think you should post this in entirety to your blog -- and add it as a discussion topic in the Burning Man tribe. My friend C and I were talking tonight and she had some perspective (and she is not even a Burner, but a former hippie who was present during the summer of love.)

People are very scared and uncertain now...the world is increasingly chaotic and frightening. Global warming leaves us feeling helpless. The stock market volatility, the real estate bubble popping, the war that seems to never end... our response is that we want connection, community...just contact with other people can be enough. Connecting, dancing, socializing...partying wildly and with no aparent intention...this is a reaction to the paralysis we feel. So even though these parties feel meaningless, they do have a purpose -- they bring us together. They help us meet, connect and create community. We need to break out of this feeling of helplessness and start to organize with intention to make things better.

G

G (separate thread): There was an event two weeks ago, Ambiotica, that had a stated intention and a panel discussion. And the Union event at Grace Cathedral (coming up on Friday) is deeply spiritual in intention. So there are definitely people in the community who see the need. But this weekend also brings us an Anon Salon, a Kinky Salon, and Spikes Vampire Bar! Maybe there are different stages of evolution and these more shallow events suck in the newbies--who gradually progress to the beach cleanup and the yoga classes.

---------------------------------

D: I like all these discussions and agree with what you said about people craving connection. I've had similar thoughts.

I think it is important to keep this in perspective. In San Francisco, there might be four events in one night and they conflict. My question is does that happen in Portland and Eugene, Oregon too, where there is a substantial Burner concentration as well? I feel that San Francisco is getting hyper. Of course my personality allows me to get pulled into it all very easily.

But we as community need to also build inner strength and things which are sustainable. I don't mind that everyone is at a different stage along the continuum. But I also think we - as community - need to think beyond the infancy stage. What can we do, most likely in little communities, not large ones, to be more sustainable? I am talking in terms of environmentally and consciously. I don't think Larry Harvey would have an issue with this vision. Indeed, I think this is what he has been attempting with strong regional emphasis.

So this brings me back to the San Francisco issue. Because this is the epicenter, for lack of a better word, of the Burner community, we haven't developed a strong regional cohesiveness the way Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, New York, Chicago, and yes, even LA have. So we have to develop in other ways - community outreach (Burners without Borders), Groove Garden, arts events, support groups, and more.

I don't take issue with dancing your brains out. That's why I go to these. I do take issue with paying 20 bucks to be packed like a sardine in a crowded bar with a bunch of drunk people, and where Sunday you nurse a hangover instead of lifting a finger to even clean up your mess. This is so *not* what the Burning Man website talks about. Sure there are networking opportunities through these, as there are in 10,000 other ways, including some of the aforementioned. I love using fancy words.

What I don't want to happen is for us to decay into the decadence which resulted in the 1970s, which so many people speak bitterly of. I think the risk is real.

To be continued,
D