Since the organizers are always in jeopardy of losing use of the land, they're EXTREMELY militant about taking out absolutely every last thing you bring in. They don't provide trash cans, you have to cart it all out yourself. They only provide porta potties. You have to bring your own equipment for bathing or showering, and all grey water needs to be evaporated, you are not allowed to dump ANY grey water on the playa. Technically you're not even allowed to pee on the playa, although it does happen, and because of the make-up of the playa surface, it leaves a mark for a while. Once everyone is gone, volunteers stick around to scour the ground for every last remaining bottle cap, sequin, and cigarette butt. $250 entry fee for a week does not seem all that exorbitant to me. Nobody makes a profit on it, everything is dumped into covering costs for the event.

I have not been. There were plans to go for the weekend of the burn with a coworker who has gone the past few years, but a deadline for a huge project, and my going through a break-up and then having to scrape together a large amount of money to find an apartment made the trip impossible this year. The coworker has already reserved an RV for next year, and so hopefully everything works out and we'll be attending.

I hate jam bands, not a consumer of controlled substances, deny being a hippy, and totally not hedonistic enough to get nekkid in front of strangers, but there's more to it than that, which is what the draw is for me.

Superking, your photos, they're lovely.

Hippy-cum-raver bullshit festival. Never been, but I do know many who have gone, and they are the sort that are like "ooooh look at me. I have green hair and long mutton chops and astroturf on my motorcycle and troll dolls glued on my crappy car... My favorite band is Franky Goes to Hollywood".

It's so entrenched in this neo-hippy DJ MC electronica look at my retro Pumas crap, it's not even funny...

It seems all trends tend to die out... I am just counting the days until eletronic dance music and raves share their place in history with disco.

Marsupialized wrote:Burning man is fucking awesome, fuck all you.
Go to burning man, drop a bunch of acid and tell me you did not have a good fucking time.
Weird motherfuckers hanging out doing weird shit, and not the type of weird motherfuckers who you hate...not college kid gimmie attention weird, but honest to goodness 'I live in a house made of plastic milk jugs and have never cut my fingernails' weirdos.
Really wonderful feeling in the air, everyone's having fun and talking wild talk. Extremely easy to get laid, almost impossible NOT to bang some freaked up naked dreadlock chick at some point.
Weird Dr. Suess looking cars and bikes zipping around, people in bizzarre outfits dancing around fires. Loud psychedelic music in every direction.

So what do you people think sucks about it?

The thing I think that sucks about this (and many people in general) is how free and existential they think they are because they have dreads, tatoos, multi-colored hair, piercings, etc. and they just look like a smaller subset of cretins. There's nothing original about it, but they claim to be these existential bon-vivants who are so into non-conformity and so individual... Yes, so individual that it is:

Marsupialized wrote:almost impossible NOT to bang some freaked up naked dreadlock chick at some point

Most of these people lead lemming-like, unexamined lives and do whatever people in their anti-culture clique think is cool. But they will tell you how weird and non-conformist they are.

I don't mind if these folks get together and have fun, but let's stop with how original and free these "weirdos" are. They just conform to a different standard.

If you want to find free-spirited and free-thinking people, look for the modern theorists in any university. Look beyond the clothes, hair, bullshit, etc. and listen to the ideas... This is just a big party with a sheen of environmentalism and bullshit pseudo-left-wing politics.

Your avatar is a unicorn.

Your avatar is a baby wearing headphones.

Who are modern theorists?

I've always wanted to check it out, but never have. The Best in the West Rib Cookoff is that weekend and I would rather drink beer and eat a lot of ribs I guess. It's funny seeing people roll through town completely covered in desert grime when it's over.

My buddy goes to this thing every year. He has a hilarious story about his brother getting his brand new SUV of some sort high-centered on some railroad tracks while trying to take a short cut across the desert to get to Burning Man. This was a few years ago so maybe it wasn't as organized as far as entry to the event or whatever. Anyway, they're standing around, in the middle of the night, stoned and drunk, trying to figure out what to do about this predicament when they hear the train horn off in the distance. You can imagine the rest.

When he tells this story, with all the little details, it is unbelievable.

yut wrote:If you want to find free-spirited and free-thinking people, look for the modern theorists in any university.

I hope that is a joke.

You are confusing imaginary people in your imagination with the actual people who are hanging out at this thing. I hate hippies and jackass goofy college kids more than most people hate Hitler yet somehow I enjoy this thing and most of the people there.
I would also like to let everyone in on something....It's just a wacky LSD party in the desert, no more no less. Some of you are reading way too much into it.

Marsupialized wrote:

yut wrote:If you want to find free-spirited and free-thinking people, look for the modern theorists in any university.

I hope that is a joke.

Marsupialized wrote:

yut wrote:If you want to find free-spirited and free-thinking people, look for the modern theorists in any university.

I hope that is a joke.

You are confusing imaginary people in your imagination with the actual people who are hanging out at this thing. I hate hippies and jackass goofy college kids more than most people hate Hitler yet somehow I enjoy this thing and most of the people there.

No joke. Just because someone has some solar panels on their VW bus doesn't mean they are some extraordinary person who lives outside of society... They just conform to a different subculture.

At a certain level, it seems like it could be fun, but I just can't stand those people. I think living in SF for part of my life has really made me deteste the fakeness and group-think (these people tend to be vegans, have odd colored hair, piercings, tatoos, make very bad art, listen to electronic dance music). But they will call someone like me a conformist, because I don't look like a certain type of freak they find acceptable.

The thing is that 75% of the people I personally know who go there (and one of them works for the organization and has for several years) are the sort of snobby uberknobs that think they are such free individuals because they conform to a hippy-rave subculture. I deteste these people more than frat boys and jocks... They are just as cloistered, but at least frat boys and jocks will admit they are like that. These hippy-raver folks think they are the new civil rights movement, but in reality they are chickenshit conformists (just like their parents).

I even brought up the new Burningman thing in Austin... Because Burningman has too many dorks showing up. They don't have dreads and they eat meat. Ewww... Total uberknobs...

So it's not so much the group-think and "you can hang with me if you have a cool lip piercing" thing that bugs me. It's the fakeness of their political and social beliefs. They are elitists of a different sort -- ones with very little power... But when they have some power, they choose to exercise it poorly.

I went to some party a friend was doing live sound for. I was told it was a party. I drive 20 miles to get there, and shit -- it's a rave. So I'm wearing a button down shirt, and tons of people are like "nice shirt dude". Then some smelly, disgusting hippy-raver with no shirt refuses to sell me drink tickets, because I don't have a bone in my nose. Some of these people are the most snobby elitists you will find. I would rather hang with GW and Dick Cheney than these buttholes.

That said, the other 25% of people I know who go there are actually cool people who are not obsessed with the hippy-raver subculture. They just want to have fun. They are OK with the fact that I wear a button down shirt from time to time. I think it's OK. Even Peter Hammill wears them...



No drinks for you prepster!

I still say, crap, though... I don't care if the drama kids in high school never got over it. I'm sure there are very cool people who are in the neo-hippy-rave scene... I just find these people to be deplorable snobs and not very cool human beings. Maybe they need to be on E to be decent. Maybe all the E has desensitized their brains to serotonin... I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV... I just know most of these sorta people that I have met have never made a favorable impression on me... To spend a week in the desert with them is crap.