Bad Behaviour on the Playa

[Martiansky]

While sitting at a geocaching M&G on friday, several of us witnessed some asshat riding his bike up the road dragging a roadsign.
The WHOLE post and all. We did laugh when he didn't make it far because the post was acting like an anchor and he had to hop off the bike quickly in order to not wipe out.
Really, why take the roadsigns?

[Wrath]

I've heard that 25I can be great if you know what it is going in. The deaths are from people thinking it was LSD and taking a massive dose or from insufflation which is just dumb. It's a slightly rougher ride, to be sure, but from what I've heard chromesthesia is pretty fantastic.

It's your brain, so burn it as you will, but it's my hope you choose to keep this discussion a theoretical one as opposed to one rooted in personal experience. Particularly with your background, you should be looking at molecules and analogs and doing the math.

Joey did not look like he was having fun. "Furious irritation" seems closest to the mark.

[kittyrodriguez]

I treat the stuff I heard over the radios when Scott was in ESD as not to be broadcast in public--even ten years later or more, it turns out. It made me very cynical about burn attendees/participants very early on in my relationship to the event.

+1000 Yes! There is shit going down that you have no idea about. The best thing you can do is be a responsible citizen of BRC and help educate those who can be educated. There are plenty of folks who are just going to be shitty and you can't let that color your burn.

[spacetime]

While sitting at a geocaching M&G on friday, several of us witnessed some asshat riding his bike up the road dragging a roadsign.
The WHOLE post and all. We did laugh when he didn't make it far because the post was acting like an anchor and he had to hop off the bike quickly in order to not wipe out.
Really, why take the roadsigns?

Earlier in the week someone said the road signs would disappear, and indeed most non-numbered roads were taken. I believe a souvenirs. Is this typical? Seemed normal.

At one point a septo truck was backing up to service an RV kitty-corner to me and totally busted up the road sign. Someone immediately swept in and took up the name. I walked over to the RV owner and explained he either needed to have the septo truck take the sign parts and twisted metal pole, or it needed to be stowed under his rig and become his moop for the burn. He was cool about it and made the septo guy take all the wood pieces and metal.

[yellfireinatheater]

I feel like I have to be honest here, I myself engaged in some rude behavior this year. Nothing too serious and I feel I was still respectful to the playa, temple and places I find sacred. I was not, however, over respectful to handfuls of sparkle ponies and darkwads. To clarify, I'm brutally honest in default, but at BRB I'm usually much nicer. However, this year (my 6th burn) I just couldn't bring myself to coddle shitty burners anymore. I don't know if I reached a breaking point of polietness or if it was just an angsty year for me, but honestly I feel much better. While some of my behavior may have seemed destructive or cruel, for me it was cathartic and honest. I actually noticed this escalated angst on a whole in BRC and very much so in my camp this year. We even joked that our new camp motto is "fuck your burn". While I agree with most of you that MOOPing and whatnot does not qualify as radical self expression, we need to remember that people learn and process at different rates. People are struggling with demons, they get a little too fucked up and they have different ways of expressing themselves than you do. Burning man is a radical place for radical people and you can't expect all those extreme personalities to always be in agreement.

[andy]

One problem is that the percentage of Burgins has been alarmingly high. Not that I am against growth, but it takes veterans to set the example, and when 40+% of the people are new, they see "non-burny" behavior and assume it's normal and OK. By contrast, when 90% of the people are "with the program" you catch on fast and become an example for next year.

On another note, and echoing another poster, I find appalling levels of damage to the porta-potties. Besides the fact that it makes the Burn worse for everyone, there's no way that we aren't being charged for the damage in some way, either through higher ticket prices or reduced services.

[theCryptofishist]

But 40% is about typical, I understand.

[trilobyte]

@El Capitan - it could also be that, being your second burn, you were more aware of bad behavior - all those things happened last year too.

My own experience was pretty good - in fact, personally it was a fuckton better than last year, when we had people urinating on the lampposts out in front of our camp and even some random person coming in and taking a dump under the side of our rental truck one night, as well as a lot of our art get damaged, destroyed, and even stolen. We only had two bad experiences this year - on Tuesday morning we found some stranger had come into camp and passed out in a campmate's tent. It took a while to rouse him, at first he refused to get up and we thought rangers may need to be called but eventually he figured out it wasn't even remotely his camp... and then on Sunday night long after the temple burn some drunk guy came stumbling through our camp's private space, and being blind drunk he of course tripped over a stack of bins and crashed down on one of our worklights.

[Nipple]

We had a guy pass out on our art car before Temple Burn, and continue to sleep on the upstairs futon throughout the night.

I didn't even know he was up there until I went up and was dancing around on the thing while it was parked. When I freaked out a little bit at the OBVIOUS CORPSE ON THE COUCH, my camp mates assured me "He has a pulse..."

Dude was out solid. At some point in the night he got up, went into our commissary tent and left a nice trail of fucking Chex Mix back up onto the second floor futon where he fell asleep again.

At some point in the night he soiled the futon mattress...badly. When he woke up during the breakdown of the art car the next day he announced "I'd like to help, but I have to go to the bathroom first" and then proceeded to walk over and try to pee on our commissary tent.

Yelling ensued, and he's pretty luck that the folks at the Gate asked me to leave my drum of tar, and giant bag of feathers with them.

[Jovankat]

Ken was alone in our public space when this crazy lady rides her bike into the monkey hut and starts berating him for the name of our camp. She was deeply offended on behalf of marines everywhere. Lucky420 and I came running. I asked nicely if she noticed it was dye, as in dye fabric. She started yelling again about how our name was an offense to marines everywhere and how dare we. I laughed and said I had marines in my family and she was a asshat. She kept yelling and lucky convinced her to leave. As she was driving off I was yelling something about asshats and looking up what semper fi actually means.

She headed off towards Barbie death camp. I wanted to follow her to see what she thought about that, but we were laughing pretty hard at that point.

Yeah wtf! She wanted to come in and scream at us without letting us explain much or really get to know us. At least have the balls to stick around for discourse. I told her to "FUCK OFF AND DYE

Um, maybe this is obvious to locals but what does "Dye/Die with Dignity" have to do with the marines? If anything (other that dying silk scarves) I'd think maybe you guys have some opinions on euthanasia but I'm really not seeing a connection to the marines? Or was this woman just bonkers?

Some of these stories are as mind boggling as they are saddening. How do people justify this stuff in their heads? The dude who climbed the aerialist rig in particular, how can you look someone in the eye and not feel any remorse for damaging their property with your idiocy? I really hope his friends/campmates saw the light and gave him shit for it themselves.

[lucky420]

I'm not sure but I think "Die with Dignity" pertains to a service person who died in the line of fire.


Lady needs to lighten up or wear blinders

[chuckularone]

Everything in the "Die with Dignity" google search pertains to assisted suicide. Curious.

[graidawg]

i did some bad behaviour this year but it was in private.

[666isMONEY]

Everything in the "Die with Dignity" google search pertains to assisted suicide. Curious.

It's not associated with the Marines but with the 442nd Army during WWII. Google: "Live with honor, die with dignity".

[theCryptofishist]

So, if she comes back next year, you can yell back about how she's not respecting the army.

[GreyCoyote]

Kill her with kindness, and she can dye with dignity.

Or you can just cold-cock the snippy little bitch and drag her ass out behind the DPW ghetto. (Oh wait: Was that out loud? My bad...)

[pink]

One of our virgin campers got dosed with something, maybe roofies? Luckily he had the clarity to find a ranger when he started feeling weird, who took him to Rampart. Since they didn't know what he had taken, and he didn't want a trip to Reno, the rangers brought him back to camp. He was out cold in a chair for 5 hours, and doesn't remember anything once he got dropped off.

So dudes should watch your drinks too. Has no idea how it was slipped to him.

[maladroit]

[tatonka]

One of our virgin campers got dosed with something, maybe roofies? Luckily he had the clarity to find a ranger when he started feeling weird, who took him to Rampart. Since they didn't know what he had taken, and he didn't want a trip to Reno, the rangers brought him back to camp. He was out cold in a chair for 5 hours, and doesn't remember anything once he got dropped off.

So dudes should watch your drinks too. Has no idea how it was slipped to him.

[media]

[otakup0pe]

I may have sent some kid wandering the streets pleading for "acid or molly, anything please" to BLM camp on esplanade.

Look for the red and blue blinky lights you'll find it eventually!

[MoBo]

I may have sent some kid wandering the streets pleading for "acid or molly, anything please" to BLM camp on esplanade.

Unless by "kid" you mean under 21, you may have just instructed him to RETURN to his BLM camp on esplanade...

[otakup0pe]

I may have sent some kid wandering the streets pleading for "acid or molly, anything please" to BLM camp on esplanade.

Unless by "kid" you mean under 21, you may have just instructed him to RETURN to his BLM camp on esplanade...

Under 21 or not they were wearing far too many clothes to be a undercover cop.

[Eric]

Under 21 or not they were wearing far too many clothes to be a undercover cop.

And this is how people get busted by undercover cops - "but they didn't look like an undercover!"

[otakup0pe]

And this is how people get busted by undercover cops - "but they didn't look like an undercover!"

Yeah and they can't lie if you ask if they are a cop.

this is what people actually believe

But for real... A big "fuck you" to the assholes apparently dosing people without consent this year. Have heard a few different tales wind back to that conclusion from this year.

[chuckularone]

I love how people believe that they have to tell you they are a cop if you ask them. The law is allowed to lie to you, but if you lie to them, it's obstruction of justice or interfering with an investigation.

Just ask Martha Stewart

[Eric]

Yeah and they can't lie if you ask if they are a cop.

this is what people actually believe

Trust me, I know. It was part of my rant this year.

[Nipple]

And this is how people get busted by undercover cops - "but they didn't look like an undercover!"

Yeah and they can't lie if you ask if they are a cop.

this is what people actually believe

One of my favorite moments this year was asking a BLM ranger, "ARE YOU A COP?! YOU GOTTA SAY IF YOU'RE A COP!!!"

[MoBo]

One of my favorite moments this year was asking a BLM ranger, "ARE YOU A COP?! YOU GOTTA SAY IF YOU'RE A COP!!!"

You asked a uniformed firearm carrying BLM Ranger, I assume?

What was his/her response?

[FossaFerox]

Well, it was one of his favorite parts so clearly it went well.

[Elderberry]

BLM as in Bureau of Land Management Rangers do carry firearms.

It's the BRC as in Black Rock City volunteer Rangers that do not.

Rangers don't carry firearms? o_O