WHY I’M NOT GOING BACK TO BURNING MAN

[Zane5100]

The human mind, our neural networks, the accidental products of billions of years of evolution, are the only moral agents in the known universe.

You can't prove that, one way or the other.

We are foolish to revere nature, which created us only long enough to see possibilities of a just world, and then destroys us.

I disagree.

[PJ]

...clearly you have never worked on a car ad. They do a lot of crazy shit to those vehicles to make um squat and roll just right. They aint nothing like stock. Then, if there is any performance aspect to the add, they beat the living shit out of the thing over and over and over. It's pretty messy.

High performance needn't result in leakage. Race cars aren't allowed to leak because that'd cause hazardous track conditions. I agree that they beat the crap out of them--anybody that emulated a pickup or SUV commercial would need to buy a new truck daily. But why (short of puncturing the oil pan) should that cause leaks? In my experience most engine and gearbox seal leaks are due to the combined affects of age and high temperatures on soft polymers.

[bigdave]

The human mind, our neural networks, the accidental products of billions of years of evolution, are the only moral agents in the known universe.

You can't prove that, one way or the other.

Humans are the only KNOWN beings who can produce, describe, and carry out a moral code. Better?
Do you know of another being? DOLPHINS? Perhaps space aliens.

We are foolish to revere nature, which created us only long enough to see possibilities of a just world, and then destroys us.

I disagree.

Why?

[III]

i like how the bells and whistles (like multiply indentable quotes) actually end up interfering with the message, rather than aiding it.

i'm getting my sense of irony back.

i think that's a good thing.

[stuart]

...clearly you have never worked on a car ad. They do a lot of crazy shit to those vehicles to make um squat and roll just right. They aint nothing like stock. Then, if there is any performance aspect to the add, they beat the living shit out of the thing over and over and over. It's pretty messy.

High performance needn't result in leakage. Race cars aren't allowed to leak because that'd cause hazardous track conditions. I agree that they beat the crap out of them--anybody that emulated a pickup or SUV commercial would need to buy a new truck daily. But why (short of puncturing the oil pan) should that cause leaks? In my experience most engine and gearbox seal leaks are due to the combined affects of age and high temperatures on soft polymers.

picture, if you will, stoned P.A.s loading the back of a volvo ti wagon with bags of sand to have it squat more in the shot. Then picture said P.A.s driving off road and/or over parking dividers cuz they are dumb to begin with and have not slept in 30 hours. Now picture the leakage. Also, any new engine, not broken in, redlined repeatedly, is gonna have issues. I saw a new Saab9000 turbo begin shooting oil out of the tailpipe. Messy.

[PJ]

picture, if you will, stoned P.A.s loading the back of a volvo ti wagon with bags of sand to have it squat more in the shot. Then picture said P.A.s driving off road and/or over parking dividers cuz they are dumb to begin with and have not slept in 30 hours. Now picture the leakage. Also, any new engine, not broken in, redlined repeatedly, is gonna have issues. I saw a new Saab9000 turbo begin shooting oil out of the tailpipe. Messy.

A friend of mine shoots car ads. His primary client (Mitsubishi) gives him cars for free afterward, the only stipulation is that the cars be crushed, not resold, when he tires of them. I'm wondering why he'd want one; I'll ask what sort of troubles he's had with them. (But he never keeps them even a year.)

[Zane5100]

Why?

I don't find that it's lacking in sense, judgment, or discretion to stand in wonder of dangerous things and forces. Actually, I tend to find the wonder of something is proportional to its danger.

Although a loss of composure can occur when you luck out and dodge a bullet.

Just because nature will destroy you doesn't mean you can't enjoy it while you can.

[bigdave]

"Also, any new engine, not broken in, redlined repeatedly, is gonna have issues. I saw a new Saab9000 turbo begin shooting oil out of the tailpipe. Messy."

Must've been a Saab 9-5. The 9000 ceased production in 1998. Shooting oil out the tailpipe? My goodness.

[Kinetic]

picture, if you will, stoned P.A.s loading the back of a volvo ti wagon with bags of sand to have it squat more in the shot. Then picture said P.A.s driving off road and/or over parking dividers cuz they are dumb to begin with and have not slept in 30 hours. Now picture the leakage. Also, any new engine, not broken in, redlined repeatedly, is gonna have issues. I saw a new Saab9000 turbo begin shooting oil out of the tailpipe. Messy.

A friend of mine shoots car ads. His primary client (Mitsubishi) gives him cars for free afterward, the only stipulation is that the cars be crushed, not resold, when he tires of them. I'm wondering why he'd want one; I'll ask what sort of troubles he's had with them. (But he never keeps them even a year.)

I'd love to have a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder....I'd be driving that thing into the ground. With my job all I get is a 23% discount on pretty crappy service phones. Some days my job sucks, after seeing this I know it sucks.

Back to the thread, a good friend of mine used to be the end of the line t-shooter at GM's Fairfax plant in Kansas City. He took me out in a brand new Pontiac Grand Prix....and he revved it to the redline, slammed it through chicanes at 100+ mph, ran it across concrete moguls at 70 and proceeded to push the car to it's limits. He pulls it back to the service bay, puts it in park and the tranny literally exploded down into the pit below. It also had oil in the exhaust and lots of minor problems....he just shrugged, wiped the tranny fluid off his arm that came through the window and then proceeded to hop into another car and try the same thing again. To this day I can't believe they did that to a new car!

[Flux]

I think I'm starting to understand part of why cars are so bloody expensive...

[stuart]

"Also, any new engine, not broken in, redlined repeatedly, is gonna have issues. I saw a new Saab9000 turbo begin shooting oil out of the tailpipe. Messy."

Must've been a Saab 9-5. The 9000 ceased production in 1998. Shooting oil out the tailpipe? My goodness.

no, no. Was a 9000. This was several years ago, Pre GM I believe.

[raven74]

Last year was my first year, I actually went as an engineer for a large theme camp to build as well as build my own solar sculptures. Which ended up not creating light and going to generators to light the camp. I guess the fact that I am a gypsy and travel between here and southeast asia, I expected the humility to be more evidant. My last year camp experiance was upsetting, struggling financially to get there, to find the strangers of my new found esplanade themers piling out of thier SUV's and setting out large jars of "E" on our kitchen table. I watched for days as the lawyers and politicians placed gliltter upon thier wives bodies and pulled out thier priceless custom made costumes. Still sitting in disbelief I pondered, wondering what this was all about.

still not finding the connection, or the spirit of it all, this left me soul less at the burn, I was more astonished at the swingers of my camp and the assholes showing up thursday and leaving sunday morning, I stay behind like I did this year breaking down and clearing the playa of my camp as well as our neighbors. I've decided it's more work than none, and I was more upset this year at the burn, when the light burned brighter and the crowd dissapates, and I was ankle deep with bud bottles and beer cans on the ground, so I lifted my skirt making a holding vice and walked around clearing the playa of what I could, others joined me, and I started packing local art cars with bottles and cans, I only said "this is the difference between a frat boy and a burner" or was it? I am saddened by my two year experiances, and will not return next year, I had problems watching and witnessing. Yes I am an engineer, but an environmental science engineer, as well as a priestess. Thank you for your written word, it validates the discomfort in my heart, I'm sure I will get hate mail, from others viewing this, this will just add to my discomfort of what it means to distroy the elements instead of pay honor to.....

blessings,
Raven from Seattle.

[Guest]

Raven,

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, twice no less. Please don't judge the event based on the poor choices of some of its participants. It's not about the E, it's not about the glitter, and it's certainly not about who's got what profession back in the real world. In fact it's not about Thursday, either; some people have professions that limit the time they can spend on the playa.

I certainly hope you won't get hate mail. More than likely, you'll get sympathy and suggestions to come back and make it into what you want it to be. That doesn't fix the beer bottles left on the playa but keeping the spirit alive might be considered treating the cause of such selfishness rather than the symptom.

[raven74]

KM,

Yes, I am searching for a soulful group, I have had bad luck finding the right groups of people, and participation is important, no matter how long you stay, the community needs connection as a whole, and people should take that into account when joining a group, or at least being up front about what they can offer as a whole.

Like I said, I am an engineer, my point was that the materialism was more profound than the compassion towards eachother and the earth elements....maybe that is more clear.

If I do go, I will base a camp with my lover and select friends and such. I have been in two large theme camps on the esplanade...and I guess that is to be expected, thank you for your support, and I know love is everywhere,,,,,it was upsetting. But beautiful in the same.

Blessings,
Raven awi

[PetsUntilEaten]

...clearly you have never worked on a car ad. They do a lot of crazy shit to those vehicles to make um squat and roll just right. They aint nothing like stock. Then, if there is any performance aspect to the add, they beat the living shit out of the thing over and over and over. It's pretty messy.

picture, if you will, stoned P.A.s loading the back of a volvo ti wagon with bags of sand to have it squat more in the shot. Then picture said P.A.s driving off road and/or over parking dividers cuz they are dumb to begin with and have not slept in 30 hours. Now picture the leakage. Also, any new engine, not broken in, redlined repeatedly, is gonna have issues. I saw a new Saab9000 turbo begin shooting oil out of the tailpipe. Messy.

wow. I know this is pedantic, totally silly, & of no interest to anyone but me but :

I work on car ads. I'm a Production Bitch/Hag. Maybe you were talking about the 80's?

There is weighting & special fx - but we aren't allowed to make changes to the engines. There's a car prep team, the agency car guy, SAG stunt/precision drivers, and grips for exterior rigging - who in the hell would let PA's touch one of hero cars?! much less drive it? much less be stoned on set? what kinda third rate production are we taking about? Maybe a japanese cash job? - - - but damn, son, this isn't low end stuff. If the agency & car prep altered a car that effected the legality of how they represent the car - they certainly wouldn't let me or anyone on the crew know. Ok ok - maybe in those ads where they flash the full screen disclaimers - - - but they still have rules to follow. I.E.: Once when we needed to record some engine noises we wanted to but couldn't use the agency's car with a more powerful engine of the same model car due to legal issues.

but stoned PA's? - on behalf of my PA's - write me & I'll get you some people who are worth their fee. and working 30 hours? - that's also against the law - and I'm not going to jail for "criminal negligence" or hating myself the rest of my life because I over-worked a driver that died at the wheel. I bring in replacements or get hotel rooms after 16hours.

And BTW - we avoid BLM land like the plague - it can take one to three weeks to clear & we often don't have that kind of time - And they don't seem to care about how much money we have. Also - any company big enough to be doing a car commercial probably has a high end crew that is ridiculously responsible about leaving no trace. Besides there are on site reps & rangers that watch that we clear the area. These rangers can are hard core, sometimes hate film crews, and have us picking up micro trash from the 1970's - which means we often make it cleaner than how we found it.

Don't be play-hating the PA's, man - they save my ass by being on-point motherfuckers regularly. You are only as good as your crew.

(rant over)

- pets.

[PetsUntilEaten]

ps - The full 80's to the present update: Commercials have teamsters now too. The PA's can't even drive Passenger Vans.

[Angry Butterfly]

Wow Raven,
I am really lucky I didnt have the same kind of experience you had, I guess it is because a lot of my "real life" friends are also burners and dont realy separate their identities on the playa from their real life. I almost could have though. I abandoned the people I rode in with after realizing if I spent another minute together we would no longer be friends, when one of them thought it was more important to bring a generator than my water supply, I realized HE WAS NOT the kind of person I wanted to spend the week (or one more minute) with. I had actualy planned on camping with different people from the start, In a large sponsored them camp, and I had helped weld the very unique dome they were building. The friends I came with ended up visiting my camp 3 times, each time to buy drugs, never to visit me. I was really hurt. They wanted to leave immidiately after the temple burn, they said "nobody really stays for the clean up" That is when I realized there was something fundamentaly different about the way we saw the world, and there was no way that I personaly was going to change their mind. I decied to risk not having a ride home rather than leave a mess. A friend of mine who didn't even know me that well took me home, and even though I was in a packed jeep with no air conditioning and had to hold my backpack on my lap, I was more comfortable than I had been coming in in a town car. Anyway, while I was there I got to see and help set up a sculpture by an artist I really admire, I got to help crush cans and sort out the recycling at my camp, and get to know some really good friends better who dont live near me in real life. I got to see a greenhouse that really worked that recycled grey water, made by a former friend of a friend who is now a real friend (who happens to be a grad student in environmental engineering) I got to share this with a sweet cowboy who was disapointed that the grass at xara died, and I made friends with the head of recycling camp, who was actualy on my wavelength and was someone who I never would have met in real life, We got together just after we got home and he stopped at the store for some food and when they said paper or plastic, he pulled out a cloth bag and I almost started to cry because I realized I finaly found someone who really acted that way all the time, and not just once a year. A lot of people actualy don't understand why I don't own a car, or why I carry my own water bottle and refill it, and I have almost given up on the grocery store since they just pack up my stuff in plastic bags before I can even tell them I brought one, or how I can do all that stuff and not be a vegitarian, ( OK, I am honestly working on that, but it was easier for me to give up my car than meat, I don't know why, everybody has a weakness ) Contrast the people I met like Desert Duck and Sarah, with my friends who didnt even bother to take the packaging off all their shit and "NEEDED" a generator, and kept telling me how "great" it was to have convineintly individualy bottled water, and I realize I would have been pretty miserable if I had stuck with people who didn't share my values. I almost didn't come because I was really worried about the desert, I knew that burningman is one of the cleanest events on earth, but I still couldnt shake that I had heard it takes at least 100 years for a desert to heal after you break the crust. I guess my point is that you learn a lot about people and a lot about yourself out there. It sucks when you realize how many selfish ( ok, I really dont want to insult pigs, but I that is what I want to call them ) pigs are out there, but it is amazing when you meet people who share your values, or when you realize that your friends are really more like you than you thought, ( like when a couple of girls I didnt know that well before burningman picked up an empty half liter water bottle and started ranting, SISTERS!) Or when you meet people 10, 20,30 years older than you and connect with them. ( I got a laugh out of a couple of off duty rangers when I joked " They dont call it 'swinging' anymore, they call it 'polyamory' but it is the same thing with e instead of coke!." ) So I guess what I am saying is that if you don't want to go back, dont go, but if you want to give it another try, find the people who you really connect with, who arent just using you for your skills, and if you get stuck with jerks, leave them to fend for themselves, someone will appriciate you out there.

[Flux]

Wow, AB, that's a great tale of making the best of a less-than-ideal situation, and a great lesson in "Burning Man is what you make it." Congratulations and good for you!

[Angry Butterfly]

Thanks, I guess I am lucky because I know how to make friends easily, I moved around a lot as a kid and realized what it really means to be yourself, I also lived in a lot of places with no garbage pick up, and my dad was a traveling salesman and I used to go on the road with him a lot, so I know how to pack lightly and efficiently. That was all good preparation for becoming a burner. A lot of people were surprised it was my first year, because I seemed "more prepared" than a lot of people, and I was like, DUDE, I LIVED "pack in pack out" for years growing up. In fact, BRC had a LOT more modern city conviniences than I had until I was in college! I was really surprised!

[stuart]

what kinda third rate production are we taking about?

some english guy named tony something directing. no one big at all. Europen ad for volvo.

[raven74]

Thank you to all of the ones who support eachother, due to daves brilliant piece, I feel a collective conscious changing....I think people are feeling at a cellular level the impact we have on the earth and eachother.....the cruelty and knife throwing.....even in the forums....what is this about?

community....or lack there of...just in one day of posting I have talked with several people with the same collective mind....wow....now I'm burning again....in my body.

good to know your all out there

peace, take care of you and the ones around you!!

raven aka priestess awi

[atari-x]

Pretty soon the eplaya forums are going to be indexed on livejournal drama.

[Ivy]

Too late, it's already happened.

[Kinetic]

Unfortunately I've contributed to some of the drama...but I need a break now. If anyone else wants to step up and provide some more, the stage is all yours!

[raven74]

it's the whole springer car crash on the highway thing...people can't help it...but they should try eh? dinner next week? Thai or Italian? hmmmm.....numers

[PetsUntilEaten]

Well - for what its worth - this is a bit of an email between myself and a friend. Its worth mentioning for context that she's been going about twice as long as I have - and has a very zen/anarchist bent. I met her when she was my playa neighbor last year. She often stays out in Black Rock about a month doing clean up.

Me:
The short story is: that every year I
have this "is it worth it?" struggle with myself - because at some
point its always extremely hard. But I've made the mistake of weighing
the struggle against how much fun I have - instead of how much I learn
& grow. I know it probably seems basic - but I think I really came to a
point of knowing why I ultimately embrace the struggle.

My friend's response:
Wow, I've never heard anybody say this before. I wonder if that's why so
many people don't return...because maybe they don't remember how much it changed them, and what a positive effect it had on their life.

The amount that BurningMan changes me every year is often scary, but somehow I feel as if it is my destiny to learn how to allow change, to move with it rather than resist it.

Even though I've never seriously questioned my fate to attend year after
year, even *I* forget from year to year exactly what it will be like. I
always seem to pack the wrong things. It's almost like it doesn't really
matter WHAT I bring and somehow the less I bring (outside of a project) the more fun I have.

[Flux]

I've made the mistake of weighing the struggle against how much fun I have - instead of how much I learn & grow.

Well said. I find that the learn & grow stuff is harder to remember, literally. Memories are records of events, and learning and growing are not really events, whereas "fun things I did" are. If I only went for the fun, it wouldn't be worth the effort.

I almost didn't go in 2001 (my second year). We were broke, and it just seemed like an unnecessary extravagance. I told my wife I was thinking of staying home, and she looked at me and said, "No, you have to go. Fuck the money, we'll figure something out. You're going." I went, and I'm glad I did; if I hadn't, I might never have made it back to the playa again, and that would have been a huge loss.

So, even when I forgot what a profound difference it made in my life, she remembered. (Isn't she wonderful?!)

[Piper]

I've made the mistake of weighing the struggle against how much fun I have - instead of how much I learn & grow.

Well said. I find that the learn & grow stuff is harder to remember, literally. Memories are records of events, and learning and growing are not really events, whereas "fun things I did" are. If I only went for the fun, it wouldn't be worth the effort.

In one of my favorite books a man is telling a story about how he was in prison for 10 years, no outside news of any kind. The writer, through, this source remarks how the world changes, but we do not notice, because we change with it. I would suspect that this a good explination of what happens at BM, what changes out there is part of what makes us "us", so we do not notice utill something"reminds" us what changed.

to actually address the thread, I am going back. I got involved with a truly great group of people and got to participate more, see more and meet more of the event than I would have by just camping. I had some bad times (relecting many of the complaints previously voiced), BUT I carry home some stories of triumph and some happy happy joy joy times...and I am going over my packing list already, I took way too much stuff.

[raven74]

yes Flux, I have many pleasant memories of the burn.....it's just a collective thought process and it helps to put like minds together,, yeah, I 'm lucky we brought food home because we are broke!!! it's been pancakes and cereal for dinner every night

[Flux]

it's been pancakes and cereal for dinner every night

I hope you brought some playa dust home with you for seasoning. That'll make crappy food taste better every time!

BTW, I've enjoyed your posts on this topic. I'm not always sure I understand what you write, but it resonates with me somehow.