Alright, let's hear the best and worst from 2012

[ygmir]

Fucking Freebird. Just... horrible.

Everything else was just lovely though

I keep waiting for someone to explain this, but it doesn't seem to be forthcoming. DPW lost a core member of their group this year. The playing of freebird was a tribute to him and was in no way meant to be any form of a joke.

No one guarantees you any sort of quiet burn of the Temple.

Just because it wasn't quiet doesn't mean it wasn't done out of love and respect...both for the lost one and the Temple itself.

LoR

and this, perhaps, is why I work both burn nights, and watch from outside the fence about half a mile......
so many think it's "their" burn.........whatever someone else does, that they don't like, is not "in the burner spirit"
Play music for a loved one? and someone is pissed.
sit quietly, and someone is pissed you didn't sing along, or cheer.
your world, is you, and only you.........you have no right, to tell anyone "how to do it".

LOR has it dead on.
If I were to croak, I'd love it if someone would play "The Immigrant Song" there, for me........but I know, someone would bitch.

fooging "self entitled" people, who want it "their way"...........

[illy dilly]

Fuck me, this is difficult, so I'll start with a few of my favorite moments, then I'll quote some folks with a few shared favorite moments.
BEST: - Mostest Favoritest moment was watching the Moon Set right after the Sun Rose on Saturday morning! Cold, but Epic!
-Having Moonrise and the all the 4&F gang come over Tuesday night and do Fire Drinks at our camp! Shit was off the chain! I'm so glad that we were able to pull that together!
-Me and Smashly had our selves a super spectacular date night Friday night that was amazing!
-Eplaya ice shift on Tuesday! Rocked my socks!
-Having random friends wake up on in the Gnome Dome hammock.
-Camping with Juglesmacks and The Girl! They are such amazi.... SQUIRRELS!!!!!!!!

-Not having enough water and having great friends that we could borrow some from.
-The Pier 2 was absolutely amazing! The amount of detail and quality of craftsman ship was awesome!
-Finally got to experience a real white out. In my 4 years I haven't seen a real white out until last week! Obviously the drive from gate to greeters is excluded because that shit is always a white out.
A Few of my favorite shared moments:

illy dilly's hugs

One of the bestest:

This song.. every day.. at 4:20.. from our neighbors across the street. This will forever stick in my mind as the anthem of the 2012 burn:

[youtube][/youtube]

im so down with the brown....

- The bathrooms! I swear there were far more of them, they were far better cleaned, and they were definitely marked well with those nice blue lights and those cool art pieces. Even the busy bathrooms in the middle of the playa weren't filled with cones reaching out of the toilet hole.

WORST: -Getting back to camp after borrowing water and realizing that we 'ran out' because there was still about 30 gallons in the back of the box truck.

-Losing my voice on Sunday during tear down.

[ygmir]

yeah, best burn evaaarrrr..........

a night, with a full moon,
a wonderful, beautiful person.........
the glow of blue moonlight on her skin.......the clouds.....

all combined to make music so beautiful it can't be heard..........
a magical touch beyond words.




yup, lots of other neat stuff, too.


BAD: well, after that night, what could be bad?

[Nipple]

WORST: The stupid bitch at Gate who refered to early Burners as "her dummies" because they arrived a couple of hours early thinking that there would a much, much longer line to the gate. You must think you're pretty fucking awesome to greet people to BRC by insulting them, there, Precious, but you should probably put your Snow White costume back on and go find a job at Disneyland because you're the shittiest excuse for a BRC volunteer we've EVER encountered one playa. In contrast, our DMV experience was great!

Let's meet up at Woosday some time, I'll buy you a beer and explain to you why you're wrong.

If you don't want the beer: The lady at gate isn't there to be your friend. You're early despite repeatedly being told not to be early. Protecting the road and not backing up is a condition of the permit. 6pm. You totally could have hung out in Cedarville with the rest of us waiting to leave and hit the gate.

If you still want the beer, that's ok too.

Edited:

Best: As an incredibly shy person, my favorite moment was the meet and greet, or the burn with my ladyfriend. The volunteering shifts I pulled gave me a different, and greater appreciation of the event from another angle. A very different way to interact with the event. I watched Anubis burn from outside the fence while my partner and I were introducing a ticketless gentleman to some very nice BLM Rangers.

Worst: My volunteering put me out of sync with the rest of my camp. I spent the entirety of the event outside of my shifts alone, up until burn night. It's perhaps the most crushing place to be in the world when you're lonely and have tricked yourself into not having the resources to resolve this. Perhaps next time I will instead wander across the street to the Arrrrrr Bar and sit my ass down, instead of gazing at my reflective yurt ceiling in dispair like a chump. (However, I prefer to have my insanity fueled come aparts in the comfort of my own foam home, like a RESPONSIBLE adult.)

All said... Sunday through Friday of the event kicked my ass. That was followed by the best nights of my life.

Balance.

[lucky420]

one of the best moments=getting branded with my kids )*( and then having some of the best campmates in the world get branded too.

Worst=my skin got really fucked up ( not from the brand though) I thought I had tough-ass feet but the sun and the playa chewed the fuck out of them.

[gyre]

Marco polo

That is so funny!!!

[peyote2004]

Uh.. oh yeah..

Best: She said yes!

Congratulations Junglesmacks

[ZaphodBurner]

WORST: The stupid bitch at Gate who refered to early Burners as "her dummies" because they arrived a couple of hours early thinking that there would a much, much longer line to the gate. You must think you're pretty fucking awesome to greet people to BRC by insulting them, there, Precious, but you should probably put your Snow White costume back on and go find a job at Disneyland because you're the shittiest excuse for a BRC volunteer we've EVER encountered one playa. In contrast, our DMV experience was great!

Well gee. When the opening time is clearly publicized AND you are warned not to come early as it jeoparidizes the event AND because the basic transit time math from Reno to Gelach is pretty simple....yet you failed completely. What are you if not a dummy? Dipshit? Entitled super burner?

Well, Gee. In the Marine Corps I learned that they give some pissants just a little bit of power and authority and it goes straight to their heads. Everybody who has served knows the type. They were shitty, angry little people in the World, you pin some responsibility on them, and suddenly, they feel like they can get all up in their shit because they feel like they've got a little power. They can call you anything they want because they have The Man backing them up. See how that works?

I told you--read for comprehension--that it didn't happen to me. It happened to a person camped beside us, who didn't even pay dues for our camp.
But, you go ahead and keep insulting me anyway.

To be frank, I'm a little disappointed this is all she called you. I'm going to look up the schedule to find out who worked with you so I can provide them with more colorful insults for you next time.

So, verbal abuse is acceptable at the Gate now. That's how the Org treats burners. We'll see. What's your Gate name? I'm forwarding this to the Org.

I mean I know it's ok with you if we create a whole subdepartment just to go babysit you entitled fuckwits

The problem here is, you insulted the wrong person. I paid for my ticket, showed up when I was supposed to and didn't have any trouble getting through. But thanks.

By the way, D-Lot expert, the offending Burner got there early because they read all the doom and gloom, expected a four-hour+ line, left Cedarville about the time recommended, and didn't end up finding a line at all. They were willing to pull over and wait for midnight so they could get in. There was no line. It was still early entry. They were willing to pull over on the IMMENSELY CROWDED PLAYA and wait. It wouldn't have been a problem. But, You just called me an "entitled fuckwit" so, you know what?

Gate was so disorganized and clueless this year that the offending driver just left the D Lot, went to another gate, and got straight through. Great job, Gate. Gate doesn't have its shit together. It's inconsistent. One person tried to block them and another passed them straight through. Gate doesn't appear to be able to pour piss from a boot with the instructions on the bottom, so, why are you hacking early-arrival Burners for showing up a couple of hours early? If preventing them from getting on the playa early was the goal, well, you failed at that too, didn't you?

Speaking of clusterfuck, how'd that 95.1 gate radio work out on Sunday during Exodus? We couldn't pick up anything... the medic in our camp couldn't pick it up on his radio... We finally picked it up when we got past L. We heard a Windows system boot up on 95.1, and a few minutes later, when we were already passed the Greeters area, we FINALLY heard Gate come on and tell everybody what we already know. Do you guys need help operating a transmitter? Obviously, Gate 2012 was disorganized, confused and couldn't do your job. Maybe it's not about the eager burners expecting six-hour entry times, maybe it's the fact that Gate has its head so far up its own egotistical asshole that it can't function properly without insulting people who showed up early with early-entry passes when there was no fucking line to get in anyway. (Caveat: Our gate guy and the one that broke policy by escorting me around the gate after I had already given them my ticket were awesome. MOST people's heads don't balloon up when they get a tiny bit of responsibility.)

So why don't you come on out and volunteer for us next year?

I wouldn't waste piss on you if you were on fire. Entitled? Fuck yeah, I paid for my ticket when they asked me to come to Burning Man, so, tough shit if you have a problem with that. I'm entitled to be treated respectfully and if you can't do that, you're not Burner material.

Actually, though, I arrived early, we built a root beer saloon, served people all week, and I stayed sober during the day so I could give burners rides on our mutant vehicle. I didn't just work a few pre-opening shifts, get a free ticket and stand around ripping tickets. I worked all week. We PAID for our tickets when Placement asked us how many we needed to bring absinthe and root beer to the playa. They didn't ask me to volunteer at Gate. They offered me tickets (at $390 each) to make absinthe and root beer.

I ripped tickets in high school at the theater, checking ID to make sure they were 17. I know how much of a minimum wage job it is, so you listen here:

One of my coworkers died this summer. Another spent three months in a coma and woke up while I was at the burn. I almost died this summer. Your little gate shift isn't hard. You don't burn to death or have your guts sprayed all over a cockpit if you fuck up. People's parents and kids don't die if you fuck up. If you can't handle tearing tickets and directing traffic without having a name-calling meltdown on the WRONG PERSON, it's too much of a job for you. Quit now. Do it. I've had students lock up at the controls and nearly auger us into a runway or trees and I STILL never referred to those people or any other student, passenger or pilot as a "fuckwit." You tear tickets and look in vans. Stop acting like it's difficult to rip tickets and tell people where to park, and don't you EVER presume to tell me that your volunteer shift at the Gate is somehow difficult.

Just shoot an email to gatevc@burningman.com and reference that you're an eplaya helper bunny and they'll get you in the queue.

I'm shooting this to much more @burningman.com than Gate. I think the Org needs to know how you all treat people. I gave somebody ELSE a ride to the D-lot to pick up their mutant vehicle and the D-Lot people told me I had to go out of the gate and get back in line. What about my torn tickets? Uhh... "Well, hopefully, your ticket isn't torn." I ALREADY GOT THROUGH THE GATE, STUPID!!! OF COURSE MY TICKET IS TORN! AM I GOING TO GET KICKED OUT OF BURNING MAN FOR GIVING SOMEBODY A RIDE FROM CENTER CAMP TO THE D LOT BEFORE THE GATE EVEN OPENS? I told the D-Lot guy that Sparky from the DMV asked me to relay a message to call him because the vehicle was registered, but the paperwork was missing. D-Lot Gate Guy goes "Why do I have to call Sparky?" to which I, tired of waiting around for "the Dummy-Lot" to unfuck itself, replied "BECAUSE SPARKY FUCKING TOLD YOU TO!" Instantly, he had Sparky on the line and within minutes, the mutant vehicle was on its way into the city.

You know, every ORG type from Placement to Tickets to our gate guy, to the DMV, Rangers camped next to us and the DPW, got along with us great and we shared an awesome community. The only problems we had were with Gate. With you. And as soon as we can demonstrate that one gate person blocked them and insulted them and then another gate person let them in, we can demonstrate your inconsistency, abusive behavior and inability to do your job.

Yeah, I'll be contacting Gate and the Org. You don't worry about that. Gate's gate, but, you're acting like a piss-poor excuse for a civilized human being and you need to get a grip.

Lovingly yours, "Dipshit/dummy/entitled-fuckwit/super-burner/eplaya-helper-bunny..."

[Nipple]

Tell your friends that distance is equal to rate multiplied by time. They can work backwards from there.

[strike-anywhere]

Thanks for this explanation of Freebird LOR, unfortunately that means my wife is right AGAIN. She got it right from the start. Ah well, women.

[Jax Dee]

I have so many bests I don't even know where to begin: one moment that stood out for me was helping Tamara and Ken with Dye With Dignity, I had so much fun, and loved watching all the happy people leave with their beautiful scarves...and then feeling so honored that Tamara took the time to thank me so sweetly (when it was totally my pleasure!) and that Ken would ask me to help again next year. I am so excited already about next year and I am barely home!

The worst was simply leaving. This was my best burn year ever and I just didn't want to leave. I think I could have happily stayed in that little bubble of perfect forever.

[TomServo]

BEST:





What are the odds TG?

[shroom]

Love the photos!!!! Love everyone's bests!!!

[junglesmacks]

All I can do here... with all this..

is just..

[junglesmacks]

a night, with a full moon,
a wonderful, beautiful person.........
the glow of blue moonlight on her skin.......the clouds.....

all combined to make music so beautiful it can't be heard..........
a magical touch beyond words.

BAD: well, after that night, what could be bad?

S'CUZE PWEASE SIR?

Deets.

[Phreddiva]

Best: the opera singing leading to the opening of Thunderdome.

<3 Thank you. Honored to have made someone's "best" list.

[Phreddiva]

BEST
- Post set-up, impromptu Esplanade dance party Sunday night, greeting people driving on the esplanade by making them get out and dance with us, then loving their shocked response when they were told we were Thunderdome.
- - Male unrehearsed, brilliant dance duet by two camp members during said dance party.
- Feeling like, maybe, just maybe, things could be joyous again after the loss of one of our best campmates.
- Pier II.
- Singing for Everywhere, a Cocktail Party (even though Sergey talked the whole time I was singing), Will and Crimson's wedding, the Temple, in addition to the Thunderdome.
- Meeting and singing with the Stop Shopping Choir for the Temple burn.
- Staying vocally healthy through Sunday night for the first time in ages.
- Kidsville kids coming to the Thunderdome and fighting better than most grownups.
- Walking back from Sarriugarte's camp down A and discovering MASH camp, BRCU and the delightful Kaj from Hamburg, and the Hookah lounge.
- The return of the fire lounge.
- The addition of 3 new art cars to camp.
- Serpent Twins.
- The return of Cowboy Carl.
- 11 amazing, stellar, glowing, hard-working new campmates.
- The return of a few cherished old campmates.
- Tiki Bar in a container.
- French Quarter.
- Connecting with amazing friends very deeply in a year when the cost of perspective was far too high.
- Still loving these people, this camp, this entire THING so much after 14 years.

WORST
- Missing Donovan. I didn't need the perspective that badly.
- Campmates who forget the gruff exterior is for show. We're working on it.
- - campmates who forget to tell friends we have a mailbox.
- Realizing that staying vocally healthy means mostly not drinking at all, not talking in dust, not talking over loud music.

[Simoneau]

...
No one guarantees you any sort of quiet burn of the Temple.

Just because it wasn't quiet doesn't mean it wasn't done out of love and respect...both for the lost one and the Temple itself.
...

I was wowed by the Temple burn and am so glad I went. What a wonderful experience. Two questions:

1) Was the crowd at the Temple burn louder than in recent years? I haven't been to a Temple burn before and was wondering if this year was typical, especially because of the reports of an abnormally large number of newcomers this year.
2) Is there any word from the crew who built and burned the Temple about how they feel about Freebird being played during it, whatever the reason? Their opinion matters to me since they made it happen.

[Snow]

My list

Best
PierII!!!!!!!!!!!!
spending time with a new love
Repelling off wall street building into crowd
riding my fire bike
Cirque de cliche party,
heart deco car ride
meeting awesome new people
seeing old friends
reading the graffiti on BWS and of course burning fucking wall street to the ground
helping a lost virgin and showing her the city
Getting head eaten by giant praying mantis
swinging
whiskey shots at the bar/hotel
being locked in the stocks at the Pier
dancing at various places
unexpected live music
psychedelic ping pong and DJ sets
wine bar on the playa
bernies puppet show
riding the fire truck
pushing dicks buttons on the rape van
getting attacked by a RC shark

Worst:
getting the blinky stolen from my bike
not being able to enjoy the inside of the temple due to the preachy "church" service being held there
riding smack into a shade structure guy wire (totally my fault it was well lit/marked, DOH)

[devilgrrl]

Best

My camp mates. Kiting on the playa. Running into a classmate I haven't seen in over 35 years. All the positive vibrations from other burners. No yahoo encounters. The Greeters who cheered me up. The art. Wall Street. The Temple. The Man. YOU!!!!

Worst

Being stopped at the gate for the sole purpose of asking me if I had a ticket. You've got to be shitting me!

Huh? Are you talking being stopped at the Apex prior to Will Call? 'cause that's where we ask that so we know to direct you to will call or not. There are many ways to ask it...but eventually just asking DO YOU HAVE YOUR TICKET is the fastest, most direct that doesn't invite a fuckin' conversation.

LoR

No surprises that most think you gate keepers are a bunch of uber-authoritarian assholes. You deserve the abuse you get. Lord of Ruin...

Have a nice day.

[Snow]

yeah, best burn evaaarrrr..........

a night, with a full moon,
a wonderful, beautiful person.........
the glow of blue moonlight on her skin.......the clouds.....

all combined to make music so beautiful it can't be heard..........
a magical touch beyond words.




yup, lots of other neat stuff, too.


BAD: well, after that night, what could be bad?

another worse, not seeing all the people I would have loved to see, including ygmir

[ZaphodBurner]

Okay, I'm having a real problem here, and unfortunately this is the place I have to do this and a mod can move it if it's appropriate to do so. First, humbly, I apologize for calling a fellow burner a "stupid bitch," regardless of her behavior. I did not and will not mention her (playa) name and associate it with the phrase.

The culture of verbal abuse, or "snark," or whatever you want to call it, has to stop. It has to stop now. I love to fight, but, like a student of mine who according to police records punched a man so hard the guy's eyeball came out, I have come to this realization: We have to treat each other like we treat our loved ones, and we have to treat our loved ones well. Abusing each other is not a road we want to travel because, even if you can justify it somehow, you don't have any idea what the person you're abusing is capable of.

The box in my center console that normally carries a loaded Springfield .45 when I'm camping was filled instead with my iPad and cell phone charger, because I will not bring a gun into Black Rock City; nobody checked all the same. Might as well have been filled with gunpowder or weed... nobody looked. This is not a threat by any stretch, and I just wrote a letter to the Org and told them I will never knowingly bring harm on another burner because that is not what we do. Furthermore, and even if you abuse me, so long as I can I will say my salty words and turn the other cheek because I can take more than you can give and if you want to take me to Thunderdome and punch me out, I'll know when to quit because I don't want to hurt anybody anymore. But, I'm just me:

On the 4th of July, a friend of about 240 Oregon and Washington burners was murdered, along with her children, by her abusive husband. Not only did he murder his wife and children, he took a photo of it and posted it on Facebook so that all of us could see what he had done to her. Most people thought it was a joke. Instantly, I knew better. -I'm fucking really upset right now...I'm trying to do this quick. The caption of the photo was designed to cause further anger and hate. In other words, he outsnarked us. We're fucking beat, get it? All the insults, snark, verbal abuse and playa fights combined do not stack up to shooting a woman, filming it and showing it to all of her friends. You and I can't top that. He made us look at the photo, and about the best you're going to get by abusing me on the internet is a non-physical PTSD reaction from somebody you've never met. You can't touch me now, so fire away.

I'm a flight instructor and I carry a special tool after, in June, a student of mine named Nate, who took an IED in Baghdad, told me he has anger issues and that he's violent and suicidal when he loses control. I wanted to help a veteran, you know, but, we can't put those issues behind the controls of an airplane. I gave him and his wife a couple of free flights, but I carried a concealed weapon just in case he decided to take us out with him. Just having to do that fucking hurt me. The final time I saw him, I caught him smoking a cigarette under the fuel vent of my airplane and when I alerted him, he took a long, deep drag on his cigarette with his pregnant wife running away as fast as she could, and said "Fuck it." That was it, and I sent him home. The next day his wife called to say he couldn't come out to fly because "he was having a problem and they were getting help." I could hear men yelling and stuff being smashed in the background. He could be a role model and a hero to his family, like my grandfather was after he survived a gunshot to the head by the Nazis, but I'm swallowing hard here because it's not going to work out that way.

There is also Tony F, who took a frag in Fallujah, lost his best friend, and got kicked out of the Marine Corps for violence. Kicked out of the Marine Corps for violence, dig? He fucked a lot of people up and didn't stop when he got home. The day I met him, which was in Vegas, somebody bounced a ball off Tony's girlfriend's tits, and that's the first time I ever really witnessed, firsthand, war-related PTSD of the kind where three or four grown casino bouncers and a half dozen fratboys couldn't control him. He wasn't seeing four or five white dudes in a pool, he was somewhere else, like something you read about in a Vietnam novel. Out of respect for him and you I won't go into it, but, we're all very, very, very, very glad all he had on him was swim trunks. His wife told everybody to get away from him because you can't stop him when he goes over, but I sat with him for awhile. I stuck my head in the lion's mouth and begged him not to bite. I lived, if only because I know how to talk to a Marine. He would have killed people.

Randy the ABUSIVE FUCKING ASSHOLE, who is burning in hell right now for murdering his family as they were getting ready to go watch fireworks, won't be visiting Black Rock City in the future because he's dead and when I find his grave I'm going to shit on it, but Tony F from Vegas, or Nate W or Rick D from Portland, might. They might go to Burning Man next year because, you know, everybody's doing it these days. You can't tell--we didn't know--that they're dangerous and you don't adequately check for weapons.

If some smart-ass at gate abuses Tony, Nate or Rick (people in Portland are familiar with the Gypsy Jokers) and causes them to see red, here's the thing. These guys may, or may not, kill you right there on the fucking playa. If Nate-from-Portland says "Fuck it," your Gate girl and everybody around are, for real, likely to be flat-fuck hole-through-your-forehead headline-news fucking dead on the playa. Rick can't carry a weapon because he's a convicted felon, but, y'all don't check for that either but if you mouth off to him and he flips, he's going to powder your skull anyway. You can't not sell him a ticket because you don't know who he is. 2013 or 2014...he and his wife are planning on going after she graduates. His face is all fucked up from cage fighting and a "blood out" ritual, otherwise, he looks quite a bit like Mick Foley.

Again, with tears in my eyes, I'm begging you. Verbal abuse leads to physical and emotional abuse, and those things lead to death. My name is Chris and I drive a silver Ford van and I camp at The Green Hour. I haven't kicked anybody's face in since college. If I catch you peeing on my vehicle like somebody did on a Slutgarden car, I will bitch you out and shove you out of camp or turn you over to the Rangers. You can verbally abuse me all you want, but, this: Unless you're ready to see people crushed because some clueless fool insulted a Tony, Nate W, Rick D or Randy Asshole out there, think about what you say to people you don't already know. You learn really quickly in places like New Orleans when to keep your fucking mouth shut, because nothing you can say to somebody is worth being found in an alley or a canal. Being a smartass Gate volunteer with three friends to protect you, and the police off somewhere, might only get your friends hurt too.

If Tony shows up 15 minutes early as Marines habitually do, and you call him or his wife a "Dumbshit" and he goes to his dark place, what I'm saying to you is that somebody like him will destroy you before you know it's coming. If your gate buddy steps in to help you, he's fucked. Nate is suicidal. He smokes cigarettes next to gasoline and his pregnant wife. You think he won't get out of his car and fucking burn you? For all you fucking know, he's got an AK-47 or just a hammer in his rig. These people are all real. And, as I'm learning at my job with all the VA and GI Bill folks coming in, there are a whole hell of a lot of these folks out there.

The '90s are over, and times have changed. Maybe it would be a better world if we stopped insulting and abusing people for being human, especially if they're not trying to hurt others.

We're human, and we make mistakes. This does not give you a right, and nor does it help them heal, to be verbally abused because they lost the paperwork to their mutant vehicle, they arrived a couple hours early with an early-entry pass, you don't like their music, or they won't give you the drink you want, or you didn't get a blowjob, or they're homosexual... We all work, we all suffer, we all love, we all burn, and we all die. The first question is, can we get along in the meantime and the second question is, how prepared are you if you fuck up the first one?

What humanity needs more than anything right now is a loving, peaceful, forgiving society that doesn't tolerate the custom of abusing each other. Haven't we learned this yet? If we can't find that in ourselves from the instant we set foot on the playa until the instant we leave it, we'll never have that in the real world. Which is why I carry a .45 in my van, and why I try, try, try, to give to people in person with the same respect and dignity that I wish them to give others. I believe in a polite society even if I sometimes suck at it.

Thank you/fuck you/love you... feel free to move this, abuse me, block me, whatever. Fire when ready. I'm sorry if I have hurt you and I'm sorry for calling the Gate volunteer a stupid bitch. So...

WORST E-PLAYA RANT OF 2012!!!!

-Chris
gatt at juggerbot dot com

[Eric]

Best: the opera singing leading to the opening of Thunderdome.

<3 Thank you. Honored to have made someone's "best" list.

Diva! I didn't know you were on here!

Let me add to my bests:
Best: Being the face of the BRC Weekly's "Girls Guide to Pervs of the Playa" with the Diva

Hanging out having a spontaneous single-malt tasting with Death Guild the Sat. night before Gate. The Diva disappeared with Adrian to give pointers on protecting the voice while I was forced to hang out at the porch drinking heavily & getting back massages. Death Guild is soooo mean.

[ZaphodBurner]

Let's meet up at Woosday some time, I'll buy you a beer and explain to you why you're wrong.

If you don't want the beer: The lady at gate isn't there to be your friend. You're early despite repeatedly being told not to be early. Protecting the road and not backing up is a condition of the permit. 6pm.

I said it wasn't me, and these were early-entry passes. Sunday, 12 a.m. Not 6 p.m. Early entry. There was nobody on the road. There was nobody in line at the playa. And we're not there to be her friend either but if you all want people to abide by the Principles, start at the entrance, and Principle #1. "We welcome and respect the stranger..."

The gate lady doesn't have to be anybody's friend but if she wants to be treated in the real world with dignity, humanity and a lack of abuse, she will return the courtesy. I didn't have any problems getting on the playa with our early-arrival passes at all. Sunrise on Sunday, drove straight to the gate. That way, despite the white-out, by the time the rest of you totally left Cedarville, we already had our camp laid out and construction started, and had made friends with the rangers next to us and started chilling root beer for people to enjoy while you "get your sparkle on."

You totally could have hung out in Cedarville with the rest of us waiting to leave and hit the gate.

You can keep the beer. I'm not interested in meeting you in person for the purpose of consuming alcohol while you tell me how wrong I was for leaving Cedarville before 6 p.m. even though I had an early entry pass. After some of the stuff I read here every day, I couldn't look at people, watch them smile and pretend to think that they're actually nice. Either eplaya or on-playa, one way or the other it's fake.

Ah, you know what? Like Nate said. "Fuck it." You're right, I'm wrong, Burners don't need to try to be friends with each other, even if you have an early entry pass that says 12 AM, you should totally hang out in Cedarville with everybody else until 6 p.m. and add further traffic to the highway. Let's ALL LEAVE CEDARVILLE AT THE SAME TIME next year. What could possibly go wrong? Whatever. Call me names. I'm a douche. I didn't have a problem getting through, except going back to help others, but, I'm a D-Lot Dipshit. Whatever you say is right.

[theCryptofishist]

Best

My camp mates. Kiting on the playa. Running into a classmate I haven't seen in over 35 years. All the positive vibrations from other burners. No yahoo encounters. The Greeters who cheered me up. The art. Wall Street. The Temple. The Man. YOU!!!!

Worst

Being stopped at the gate for the sole purpose of asking me if I had a ticket. You've got to be shitting me!

Huh? Are you talking being stopped at the Apex prior to Will Call? 'cause that's where we ask that so we know to direct you to will call or not. There are many ways to ask it...but eventually just asking DO YOU HAVE YOUR TICKET is the fastest, most direct that doesn't invite a fuckin' conversation.

LoR

See, I thought she was making a joke...

[Kenny Z]

Fucking Freebird. Just... horrible.

Everything else was just lovely though

I keep waiting for someone to explain this, but it doesn't seem to be forthcoming. DPW lost a core member of their group this year. The playing of freebird was a tribute to him and was in no way meant to be any form of a joke.

No one guarantees you any sort of quiet burn of the Temple.

Just because it wasn't quiet doesn't mean it wasn't done out of love and respect...both for the lost one and the Temple itself.

LoR

LoR, I was with you on the greeter thing. At least to the point that year after year we are told not to come early and we do. Regardless of excuses, it jeopardizes the event. As for the temple, the playing of Freebird was done out of respect with no concern about the respect of others. I'm sure this guy was cool as shit but was he cooler than a little girl who lost her life in grade school? Thousands of people are their to pay their respects to loved ones and nobody should be more important than another (even if they are the Grand Pooh-Bah of Burning Man).

So yeah, there is no guarantee of a quiet burn, only unrealistic hope. And we'd be high as fuck to think inconsiderate douchebags won't show up to Burning Man. But luckily a core DPW got his tribute at the expense of lowly burners trying to reflect quietly on their loved ones. If I die in the near future, my wish is to have Robot Heart blast "I'm Too Sexy" at max volume during the Temple burn. Fuck all ya' all! ;-p

[Snow]

Best

My camp mates. Kiting on the playa. Running into a classmate I haven't seen in over 35 years. All the positive vibrations from other burners. No yahoo encounters. The Greeters who cheered me up. The art. Wall Street. The Temple. The Man. YOU!!!!

Worst

Being stopped at the gate for the sole purpose of asking me if I had a ticket. You've got to be shitting me!

Huh? Are you talking being stopped at the Apex prior to Will Call? 'cause that's where we ask that so we know to direct you to will call or not. There are many ways to ask it...but eventually just asking DO YOU HAVE YOUR TICKET is the fastest, most direct that doesn't invite a fuckin' conversation.

LoR

See, I thought she was making a joke...

me too, me too...

[Simon of the Playa]

Another Worst:

Realizing the Management at Root Society doesnt give a fuck about the community or its members by holding a masturbatory "camp meeting" about some stupid ass DJ ego stroking bullshit while the Entire Camp, especially the newbs MISSED the entire core burn so the bosses could hand out $2000 worth of fucking masks for their dirty old man eyes wide shut party...

Oh, we missed Anubis for the same bullshit.

Inexcuseable.

Fuck Root Society...

More to come when i gather the crimes against
BM and the community.

J'accuse!

[ygmir]

Okay, I'm having a real problem here,

*snip*

Thank you/fuck you/love you... feel free to move this, abuse me, block me, whatever. Fire when ready. I'm sorry if I have hurt you and I'm sorry for calling the Gate volunteer a stupid bitch. So...

WORST E-PLAYA RANT OF 2012!!!!

-Chris
gatt at juggerbot dot com

that, was very well written, and insightful. Thanks.
we may not agree on all things, but there is much in what you wrote, that rings true for me........I, for one, will try to be nicer.

[shroom]

ZaphodBurner, I appreciate you post and I do agree, we need to be nice to each other. Too many people have PTSD out there, and not only that, we're all human so let's treat each other that way!

My father was in vietnam and had after effects of agent orange. You could not wake him up because he thought he was still over there. Never hurt us but sure scared us a time or two. It's a scary thing knowing so many men and women in this generation may be going through the same thing.

Hugs to you! Maybe I'll see you next year.