Just how wild west were the BM 90s?

[theCryptofishist]

Sure there was great dancing around the lingam, creative original ritual, a new language, beautiful bodies, but hey, IT WAS JUST A BIG DICK WITH A VAGINA ON THE BOTTOM! Talk about a spectacle, and a pretty simple one at that.

And cribbed from the Hindu to boot. Wrong kind of indians for the wild west.

[Steven bradford]

BigCock wrote:

what you make of it.

I nominate this for the 09 theme.

[Alchemy]

and how many old burners are still around?
i think most the talk is bullshit..
some one pays good money to go to burning man year after year just so they grip about it???

Present and accounted for !!
money means nothing to me
but bitching and burning
well thats a privilage worth the cost of going and annoying you for!
sign me up!

[Simon of the Playa]

since 96.....The year Helco Bought everything......

has it changed....yes and no....

when you look in the mirror every day, you dont notice that you are slowly getting older...

i still think i look 18, but thats when i squint a little...

my point is that if you dont see your, lets say nephew or niece, for many years, they will literally have shot up before your eyes, and they will appear to be totally different....they are the same person,but they've grown up a bit...

the man is merely going thru another mid-life crisis, but it's STILL THE MAN.



and there is nothing like it on earth.


you do get what you make of it, and changes aside, i still love it dearly...


maybe he just needs a little grecian formula, to "stay in the game"

or perhaps a stick lift....




and if you want wild west, go to the kwik fill in winnemucca.

[Teo del Fuego]

Burning Man is like what Ive heard abot heroin....your first time is so magnificent that you try harder and harder your subsequent times to recapture the magic of that first experience. Im relatvely new to BM, 2005 was my first time. I know that no matter how fabulous the art or my interactions, I will never recapture to the same degree that sense of being awestruck by it all. I also vaguely remember feeling alone and left out my first year as I felt like I had brought nothing to the table. Also, as an uninformed heterosexual single male. all the sexual double entendres leading nowhere made me feel like the worlds most undesireable person. That negative element never clouded my subsequent vists to the Playa, but nothing, in my mind, will replace the seer joy of the FunHouse maze, the Dreamtime dollhouse, the giant black wall with the red audio button, so on and so forth.....

Someone in this thread mentioned confessional booths. That surprised me a bit because I had been planning on making a confessional booth that looked like the real deal...ornate dark wood. Inside I planned on having a glory hole and porn music that activated when the door was closed. Has this been done before?

[Ugly Dougly]

It has definitely shrank.

[Bob]

No illusions my first year ('96), so nothing's ever surprised me then or since, but I grew up in Frisco and tramped all over the western slope of the continent since Hector was a pup.

[CLARKcon]

BigCock wrote:

what you make of it.

I nominate this for the 09 theme.

I second the nomination and move to a closing vote...

BM 2009 "What You Make It"
This year's theme is built around and, from a premise of..uhh..f*ck it! It is what you make it. If you bring out a stove, then guess what? You have a stove. It will be exactly what you put in to it, and if you put a mirror in front of it, then that's what will coincidentily be reflected back. Build it. Burn it. Love it. Hate it. It's your one week, now...b e c o m e---

[Bob]

Boring.

[TomServo]

1999 was pretty wild...2001..ok..2002 um...

BUT! at least we always had the oldtimers to bitch!


it's everyone's playground....drop it!

[Marscrumbs]

Wild west hell yes. Comparing the two is like they sixties vs. the seventies. Sumer of love vs an ABBA concert.

We were out in the center of the playa like being lost in the ocean rather than in an orange cage. Let save us lots of time and money in '09 and hold Burning Man in the Carson City Walmart parking lot.. most appropriate as trends go.

[Simon of the Playa]

how about we book the entire circus circus Reno, then burn the clown at the end...


it actually might end up being cheaper.

[Melvynman]

I remember the call going out to help pull the man up or down with a rope so he could be worked on. Disgruntled postal worker’s carrying AK47 riffles. Mud pits, Heloc, “NO SPECTORSâ€

[This Woman]

I remember turning off the highway onto the playa with only a compass point and mileage meter to find your way BRC. And everyone drove Mad Max style, kicking up dust and screaming like banshees. The first year I went (95) we had 5 vehicles driving in v-formation when suddenly we came right up on a couple making love on the playa. We were going so fast, and came up on them so quickly we had no choice but to give them a sound, two sided dusting. I felt bad, but ever after, I always wanted to experience that particular kind of dusting. What a baptismal!!!

[Simon of the Playa]

yes, i must admit it is alot of fun to push the accelerator to the floor, let go of the wheel (as long as you are going straight) and then close your eyes...

i think we had the jeep up to 125.

it's hard to do past 8 mississippi....


those days are gone im afraid, never to return.

[This Woman]

Hellco was aweome! and the operas. But I also remember never being able to find my way home after the burn because every landmark had been burned. and couches were commonly burned. Talk about your toxic mix.

I understood when they took the guns and cars away, though I feared the loss of the people that would take exception to that. But I have to say, f*ck the health department. they dont care if we live or die, its just more money to their coffers they want. They took away the mudbaths, and made it harder to gift food.

So, yes, I'm an old timer, but hopefully not too bitchy a one. We didn't have streets, the music was just aweful, though I confess I loved it anyway.

Larry Harvey unknowingly gave people a fabulous forum for expression. Over the years, the increase in population (good!) as well as the ever more greedy and multiplying governmental entities have insisted on their fees (bribes - bad!), has brought some limitations, not all of them bad. But it is now and has always been what we make it. sometimes the tourists are so thick one can become disheartened. But I prefer to think of it as an opportunity to be an example for those people. Watch me create, live, love and NOT feel the need to tell you what to do...then go pass that on to others.

[golgotha-a-go-go]

A most excellent topic. I welcome it.

‘97 first year…hello to all my fellow burners from that era.

’97 was anarchic, surreal, wild, a little scary, liberating, nutty, funny, lots of clothing optional, very sexual, cop-less. We were on the Hualapai Playa. Camped a block off the esplanade next to the Art Cars. I just found space and camped there. Simple. We put on the Petting Zoo Zone as an ad hoc theme camp. The Man was on hay bales. Center Camp was just a frontier outpost, not a place to sleep off your drugs. No bar at every other camp. We slathered playa mud on ourselves. Mainly participants, few spectators.

’97 is still the most emblazoned upon my psyche, leaving a deep impact on me. Decompressing was rough: two weeks of sadness and feeling hemmed in by walls and clothes.

Been to all but one since, so I’ve lived the changes. I remember those early years but don’t lament their passing.

Do I still adore it? Of course.

I still make it special by finding what works for me. I focus on the aspects that make me happy, which is what I also do in the modern world.

I still revel in planning for 2 months, building my own structures, making our own clothes, not generating any power, not RV’ing it, keeping it simple, elegant, comfortable, sustainable, community oriented. I flex my ingenuity each year. I try to reuse objects rather than buy new ones. I leave no trace. I converse with as many people as possible each day. I spend much time in the outer playa soaking in the scapes. I roam the city and try to check in on as many camps as possible: simple pleasures in the midst of an other worldly experience. It’s what each of us make it.

Any more ’97 memories and/or photos? I lost mine…photos, that is…

[MissNev]

97 was the first year for me. I readily admit I wasn't ready for it. I know I surprised campmates by wanting to go again. Yes, the event changes both for good and bad. It still beats the heck out of anything I've ever done. Everything around me changes, but I'm still the same.

[Simon of the Playa]

we pulled in late on monday night and set up in what was to be hotel 666...

we woke up in the middle of their camp, and they said, hey, they left the light on, why not stay....and we did...

we had just gotten married and were trailing all kinds of cans and crap behind us wherever we went.

we also almost got whacked by golfballs as we drove around on the golf range and eventually got stuck in our rental car which was later stolen at the reno airport so we didnt have to pay any clean up fees!... what a year...

there was a huge dream machine near us too...i remember because we walked in, i had a rifle, and a big game hunters hat and jacket and i was asking everyone if they had seen any hippies, and that the brochure promised hippies of all colors and shapes and sizes and dammit, i was gonna bag one before we left...

my wife (ex) rebecca pointed at one and said "HiM! he'll match the mauve in the rug!"

i just love that type of shit...

[TomServo]

Hellco was aweome! and the operas. But I also remember never being able to find my way home after the burn because every landmark had been burned. and couches were commonly burned. Talk about your toxic mix.

I understood when they took the guns and cars away, though I feared the loss of the people that would take exception to that. But I have to say, f*ck the health department. they dont care if we live or die, its just more money to their coffers they want. They took away the mudbaths, and made it harder to gift food.

So, yes, I'm an old timer, but hopefully not too bitchy a one. We didn't have streets, the music was just aweful, though I confess I loved it anyway.

Larry Harvey unknowingly gave people a fabulous forum for expression. Over the years, the increase in population (good!) as well as the ever more greedy and multiplying governmental entities have insisted on their fees (bribes - bad!), has brought some limitations, not all of them bad. But it is now and has always been what we make it. sometimes the tourists are so thick one can become disheartened. But I prefer to think of it as an opportunity to be an example for those people. Watch me create, live, love and NOT feel the need to tell you what to do...then go pass that on to others.

most of the bitchers are gone now..it has changed..from 1999 to now...just as Im sure it changed from 1996 to 1999. Still feel that "feeling" though..no matter how big it gets

[TomServo]

wow..reread that last post...go at it snarkers

[Gizmo]

How Wild West was Burning Man in the past?..........
http://laughingsquid.com/the-drive-by-s ... -man-1994/

[This Woman]

Yes! The driver by shooting range is the story that gets people the most awestruck and even fearful. Good times.

[Gizmo]

The next year, they got even crazier, with the help of John Law and others. 1995 on the Playa, but a few weeks after Burning Man.

http://laughingsquid.com/car-hunt-95-a- ... rt-safari/

[Ugly Dougly]

Larry wore a TEN-GALLON hat, instead of a Stetson, and rode through Center camp with his entourage, on horseback, shooting wildly in the air.

[This Woman]

Damn! Now I'm getting all nostalgic.

That car hunt looks like so much fun. I confess I forget about the beautiful, empty playa most of the year.

[willyloafofphora]

[quote="Steven bradford"]the last couple of years I've noticed that we've all become much better about not leaving pea stains everywhere.

.[/quote]

In 06 it seemed like there were barely any pee stains. Last year it seemed like every installation on the playa had a ring of pee stains about 30 feet out. Did anyone else notice this? I personally hate potties and love peeing out doors. When I came to my first burn I had read the survival guide backwards and forwards and the first thing asked the greater was if they were serious about the whole potty thing. I thought it might have been like the no drugs rule and wanted to know how far away I had get from the city to politely urinate under the open sky. Well the greeter begged me not to pee on the playa at all saying that it caused a chemical reaction that was environmentally destructive. I thought that he was full of shit and planned to just pee really far away from stuff but when I got out there I realized that there was no where to go that might not latter be the site of some poor shroomers dirt rolling session or some nice couples starlight picnic. Plus fresh pee sticks to bike tires and then gets flung at you, its really gross. I think the greeters should make a special point to let every one know exactly why they shouldn't pee on the playa. I like to yell at people when I see them peeing on the playa, nothing too serious just enough to make them uncomfortable.

I latter found out that there are shrimp living under the playa and that they don't like pee. Who would have thought, it looks totally dead out there.

[willyloafofphora]

For some reason the drive by shooting range looks safer in that video than I had always imagined it. To bad they had to stop but i guess bullets are moop. Have they come out with compostable bullets yet? Compostable land mines would be cool too. After six months or so you could dig them up and use then in your tomato garden.

[This Woman]

Two of the best things we ever did for our camp was find and build the perfect evap unit, and spring for the rental of personal sani huts. It's not as good as open air peeing, but it's soooo much better than using the public sanis. And its cheap!

[Ugly Dougly]

For some reason the drive by shooting range looks safer in that video than I had always imagined it. To bad they had to stop but i guess bullets are moop. Have they come out with compostable bullets yet? Compostable land mines would be cool too. After six months or so you could dig them up and use then in your tomato garden.

I don't think that MOOP was the concern when they closed the gun range; likely it was something related to safety...
uhhh...
Where to hide the bodies, and what do tell the police, that's it.