Marktopia

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:47:20 GMT

Just because I haven't posted anything fire-related in a while...

mwahahahaha

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:00:04 GMT

I had a very cool epiphany at the gym yesterday: the law of attraction doesn't exist. (well, ok, I guess that's a bit obvious, but...)

As silly as it is, the law of attraction was pretty much my religion for a year or two. I was in a depressed funk, watched The Secret, felt inspired, and pretty much just followed it blindly, and it helped me get to a much better place. It didn't seem to matter that it was nonsense (in fact, I knew that intellectually from the start), I was just very comfortable believing in it.

Later on, I started having some difficulty with it and mysticism. What used to be highly functional aids to my psychological well-being started to seem pointless. Now, I needed a justification for how they worked if I was going to get any use with them. My faith had been shaken. I kept trying to find the same happy, inspired state of mind that worked years ago, couldn't, and found myself getting increasingly depressed.

Then, I simply had the realization that I'm not supposed to believe in the law of attraction anymore. The law of attraction is meant as an aid for beings of a lower order (who cannot yet grasp that the appearance of the law of attraction is just an illusion created by the fact that positive thoughts influence a positive mood which affects more efficient decision making which produces better results which gives more impetus for positive thoughts, etc., and vice versa) to meaningfully comprehend one aspect of reality. Once the phenomenon can be fully understood in the resolution I've described, it is actually counter-productive to even bother with the law of attraction because it is more natural for the mind to start pursuing the creation of a very pragmatic psychological/economic/spiritual infrastructure.

All enlightenment is is a stripping away of one familiar level of understanding and replacing it with one of higher resolution. And it seems like because the world has a nearly infinite resolution, this can go on forever.

Which makes me wonder what my newly found ability to relate to people will one day be replaced by. It's something I can't know now (and frankly don't want to), but it seems like understanding this will make the transition much less stubborn than the previous one.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:03:47 GMT

new mission in life: start bringing libertarians into the burner scene.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:57:19 GMT

SPIRITUALITY SERVES AS SELF-EVIDENCE THAT VALUE IS NOMINAL AND NOT RELATIVE!!!!!!

AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS IS FOUNDED ON A FAULTY PREMISE!!!!!!

The methodology remains intact, but if a different fundamental premise is inserted, the output is.....oh my god.....

Wow

WOW

Fuck me, I have to completely re-think everything....but holy shit is this going to be enlightening!!!!!!!!

Oh how I wish I had my material shit together, I want to explore this so fucking badly!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:20:15 GMT

You HAVE to focus on yourself before you can help others.

That's all there is to it. I have been fighting this reality for so long, and I'm sick of it. Guilt has helped me recondition my world paradigm to something that is less destructive, but it has also rendered me a miserable, worried, useless little pussy in the process. Fuck it, I'm over it.

It's time to kick ass again.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:07:09 GMT

I took an OkCupid variation of the Meyers-Briggs personality test recently (not the most reliable source on anything, obviously, but it's fairly accurate). In the past I have usually scored INTJ, with particular pronouncement on N and T. The most recent result was ENTJ. N and T are a little less pronounced than they usually are, but E was through the roof!

I used to be the most introverted person you could imagine. I can count the number of times I went out and visited someone from my high school on one hand. I always saw myself settling down on some big, private piece of property and being a hermetic writer. Today I can't imagine a greater hell. I find people interesting. They are stimulating, relaxing, empowering, and comforting all at once. I am happy to have amazing human relationships and to feel like a part of something greater than myself.

I am grateful for all of this.

And I think that Sartre was a fucking retard.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:54:12 GMT

Yesterday was an amazing day; I managed, without drugs or being in a large audience, to finally re-experience the love of firespinning that has been lacking in me for the past year.

We were at Forest's house in Asheville (Forest is a member of Unifire, a professional troupe in North Carolina). The fire scene was quintessentially southern; messy, debris-ridden backyard, whiskey and locally produced organic cooking, lax safety, and a "hey y'all, look at this!" attitude.

Forest's style is very similar to mine: big, flashy, sensual, loose on techique. We play off each other very well. We had a lot of fun while there was a crowd, but then later I went off, put on some of my music on my headphones, and just spun for me.

It's something I haven't done in a while. I've always been "practicing," trying new tricks, perfecting old ones, trying to keep up with Lucas, Baz, and the other top spinners. I did it so much that it made me almost averse to spinning. I forgot the spiritual aspect of it: having fun. Well I remembered what it was like again, and my old spinning style finally came through. It felt great.

It's amazing how easy and subtle it is for anything fun to morph into a miserable discipline. It can happen with firespinning, sex, partying, and games. Discipline is important, but without taking the time to remember why you got into it into the first place, you just can't continue.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:39:52 GMT

They say it's much harder to make friends when you leave school.

This, I declare, is crap.

School (particularly college) is very accepting. The culture is equally permissive of overachievement and underachievement. Everyone lives in approximately the same kind of domicile. The kinds of jobs that are available to everyone are roughly the same. Personal wealth is basically irrelevent, because everyone basically uses the same public student resources. We are insulated from our jealousy, and never have to confront it.

We know such a lifestyle is unsustainable, but we are all naively confident about what the real world has in store for us.

So when we get out in the real world, find it to be much harder, and find that the jobs, home types and lifestyles vary wildly, and see some of our old friends doing much better than us...well...we don't know how to handle it.

But that still doesn't change the basic laws of human connection. We believe that people won't accept us unless we are successful. And in certain cultures, that is true. But for the most part, adults are just big children, looking for connection, emotional freedom, and fun. We don't care about how successful anyone else is. All you have to do is admit to yourself that no one cares about your success, put aside your ego, open up, and you find it's just as easy as it ever was.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:22:54 GMT

So recently domspe (who, it should be mentioned, is a goddess), helped set me up with a writing job. I will be writing some simple content for websites about a bunch of different subjects. The articles will be short, the workload will be small, and the pay will not be that much, but I will be able to intellectually masturbate and work from home, so these happen to be factors that work brilliantly with my situation and choice of lifestyle. I am incredibly happy about this!

If this pans out, I will finally be able to pay all of my bills doing next to nothing, with no job interfering with my desire for self-expression, with a complete lack of soul-crushing idiocy, and with the fascism of the alarm clock finally removed from my life, perhaps forever. If I build upon it and organize my tenant situations correctly, I'll be able to take off on road trips fueled by laptop writings and fire performances for extended periods of time, whenever I want. I'll finally be able to give a proper "fuck you" to the real world with a melange of hair dye, tattoos and piercings that are sustainable with a mature, responsible, sustainable lifestyle.

I've never been so excited about the future in all my life. It is surreal to think that the distant dreams I've had for so long are soon, very very soon, going to become today. :)

On Death Panels

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:06:34 GMT

A few years ago, my grandfather on my mother's side was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He was 78, well retired, a devout Catholic, and a bit overweight. The cancer treatment was very harsh; for four months, my grandfather endured an ugly series of chemotherapy, drugs, illness and pain. The cancer was eventually removed, and after a few more months of rehabilitation, he was finally able to come home in a wheelchair.

There was a family gathering that Saturday afternoon. His wife, his brother, his four grown children and their families got together on the outside patio to to see him back at home. It was an unpleasant sight. His formerly handsome head of silver hair was now completely bald. He breathed through a tube connected to a machine. He had lost an awful lot of weight, which made his formerly plump skin seem baggy and old. He had especially lost weight in his legs, which now looked like tiny spindles. He could not walk, he had to be moved about in the wheelchair by family members. He did not have a happy look on his face. He looked exhausted and seemingly pessimistic. To any objective observer, and to myself, it was obvious: this man had months, not years, to live. At best.

However, the reaction from us suggested the contrary. We spoke optimistically of how he was going to get better, how he would walk on his own again, how he would not need the respirator, and how everything was going to be fine.

Bullshit. He's going to fucking die.

It never bothered me at the time because surrounding the ill with hope, comfort and reassurance is typically how we react to sickness. And for the most part, that is a very appropriate reaction; in many circumstances it helps ensure the best possible quality of life for the sick. But we have no idea how to deal with death, even when it is inevitably in front of us. Surely a more appropriate way to approach the situation would have been to spend the time helping my grandfather reflect on his life and look back fondly rather than bullshit ourselves about what meager mortal existence he has ahead of him. (And considering that my every member of my family is Christian and believes, at least in theory, that eternal salvation awaits him upon his demise, this is doubly confusing to me) Death is inevitable, we should have in our culture an appropriate way to deal with it.

This raises a more difficult question: do we provide seniors in our society with an excessive degree of medical care? What is the point of dragging an elderly person through weeks or months of physical agony, at great monetary expense to society, only to prolong his death with a few more months of miserable torment? Surely the situation would be better handled with a responsible acknowledgment of the incredibly high likelihood of death and a healthily reflective cultural response, and allowing the resources to go to people who still have a real life ahead of them.

From an economic standpoint, the logic seems very sound. If the marginal utility per dollar spent on life-sustaining treatment decreases exponentially with age after a certain point, and if the trend in life-supporting technology is to continue finding new ways to employ these costly measures in more critical circumstances, then it stands to reason that a large elderly population, a system that enables health care to be spent without regard for cost, and a fragile economy could be ingredients for an economic disaster where young workers are taxed into insanity so that the old people they don't have time to visit remain zombified in a home somewhere.

There HAS to be a check against this situation. If our health care model is a fully privatized one, this is straightforward: the elderly continue to live as long as either they, their family, or their insurance company are willing and able to pay for treatment, but if the model is social it becomes more challenging. In the event of resource scarcity, how are medical services distributed? First come first serve? Do certain people get priority over others? How do we decide who?

This is why I think that, under dire circumstances, death panels could actually be necessary to a social health model. Surely no one would agree that it should be left to chance that a certain person be allowed to live or die in tight economic situations, and I think the easiest way to do this is come up with a reasonable paradigm of priority. I feel it is inarguable from a social standpoint that the young be given priority over the old (all other variables being equal) and that the very old be denied costly treatments in these circumstances so that more valuable members of society be allowed to receive them.

So bring on the death panels. Our pussified society is so scared of death that we can't even look it in the face. It's time to be reminded of our mortality and learn how to deal with it. If we can't do that, how can we expect to actually live?

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:33:34 GMT

I haven't written anything satirical in a while, and I thought this was clever :)

GEICO AGENT: Hello, and thank you for insuring with GEICO! How may I help you?

CUSTOMER: Hi, I used to be insured with GEICO through my employer, but I was laid off recently and I wanted to know if I can continue my policy?

GEICO AGENT: All right, I'll be happy to help you with the rate! Can I have your name please?

CUSTOMER: Jason Smith.

GEICO AGENT: Date of birth?

CUSTOMER: April 16, 1984.

GEICO AGENT: Current place of residence?

CUSTOMER: 103 Magnolia Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

GEICO AGENT: Last four of your social?

CUSTOMER: 9673.

GEICO AGENT: Mother's maiden name?

CUSTOMER: Cameron.

GEICO AGENT: What kind of vehicle do you drive?

CUSTOMER: 2004 Honda Civic.

GEICO AGENT: Pre-existing conditions?

CUSTOMER: Nope, I have a clear driving record.

GEICO AGENT: All right, I have your file up here. Your new monthly quote will be $613.48, would you like to set up Autopay to save you time when making payments?

CUSTOMER: $613.48! That's more than my rent!

GEICO AGENT: If it's any consolation, sir, you can rest assured that you already have been paying this much on a monthly basis throughout the duration of your employment, it was just taken out before you got your paycheck. So really nothing's different!

CUSTOMER: There's no way I can afford to pay this much for car insurance. I might as well ride a bike from now on.

GEICO AGENT: Well sir, I strongly urge you to reconsider. Car insurance mandates are going to be going into effect soon. Perhaps you would like to enroll in a simpler individual plan? I'd be happy to tell you about our "Super Saver" Program.

CUSTOMER: All right, that sounds reasonable. What is the monthly quote for that?

GEICO AGENT: That's going to be $362.14 with a $500 deductible.

CUSTOMER: That's still an awful lot of money for simple coverage. What am I covered for?

GEICO AGENT: You are covered for full liability and collision in amounts up to $100,000, hospital stays up to $50,000, emergency roadside assistance, eye exams, new paint jobs, oil changes, stereo/video system upgrades...

CUSTOMER: Wait, wait, I don't want any of that! All I want is to be covered for basic liability and collision. I can pay for my oil changes out of pocket. I don't even want a stereo upgrade in my car.

GEICO AGENT: I'm sorry sir, but these are state mandates. All auto insurance companies are required by law to include these services as part of their packages.

CUSTOMER: Ugh. Ok, so for upgrades and tune-ups and the like, I simply take it to the shop and send you the bill?

GEICO AGENT: Not quite. First you have to select a Primary Care Mechanic who must abide by CMO regulations, and get his signature on a referral to another specialist mechanic if you want something fixed.

CUSTOMER: I think this is ridiculous. I'm going to go with another insurer.

GEICO AGENT: Well good luck with that, they are all going to offer you the same minimum packages we have, and I guarantee you you won't find better reviews on any auto insurance companies than ours. That's why we have 90% of the market share in the state.

CUSTOMER: Then I'll find one in a different state, car insurance is only half as much in the southern states.

GEICO AGENT: That's illegal.

CUSTOMER: So I'm stuck with you?

GEICO AGENT: Yep.

CUSTOMER: Well, I suppose I don't have much of a choice. I guess you can start sending me the bills.

GEICO AGENT: Excellent, I'm glad we could be of service!

CUSTOMER: You know, in Canada they give all this stuff away for free. Liability and collision are free, tune-ups are free, gas is free, none of it costs a dime. When the new legislation passes, your sorry ass is going to be out of a job.

GEICO AGENT: This company predicts increased revenues after the legislation. Sorry you missed out on single payer, but hopefully the private mandates will work in your favor. I know they'll work in ours.

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:53:39 GMT

Wake up. Last day here.

It's weird, even wrong to be seeing people packing up and taking apart this beautiful city. The climbing dome is down. PEX camp is taking down playa putt-putt and the sound stage. A few people come up to me an say goodbye. This is all so weird. Burning Man gives you just enough time out in the desert to create a psychic connection with it. You FEEL one with the playa. Human on this bizarre alien landscape. It feels natural and right.

We leave tomorrow. The plan is a clusterfuck and an expensive one at that. Lucas and I will ride with Parker to a Hertz agency in either Sacramento or Reno at the asscrack of dawn, rent a car and get replacement keys, come back to the playa, and take both cars to Sacramento. Lucas will miss his early flight and I have to get him a new one, but I don't care anymore. What's done is done. I have been reprogrammed.

We take down the shade structure and pack everything up. Parker is camped on the outskirts in Clue Camp, at 3:45 and L, along with Conway, Katie and a bunch of Lucas' friends. We are going to stay in their camp overnight after the temple burn.

I haven't been past Avenue G the whole time I've been here, and when I finally get to Clue camp I realize just how different an experience this is. The blocks are wide and spacious. Quiet. Unencumbered by the sight of giant domes and RV's, Clue camp is treated to a spectacular view of the mountains. The wind is still. There are no crickets. The mountains sit in a beautiful stillness. There is just air and playa. It is wonderful simplicity.

The people here are different. In Esplanade everyone was from a big city. Here, everyone is from the country. It is laid back and chill, like the atmosphere I'm used to at my southern burns.

I wander near a large white dome and look around at how the PVC is built. An old man with long hair and a beard comes out to talk with me. His name is Dr. Placebo. This is his eleventh Burning Man. He's brewed some cocoa and invites me to have some. I go inside with him. He has pictures of Burning Man from the wild west days of the 1990's. He tells me about how the desert works, why it has the effects it has on people. He tells me about domes and dome architecture. He and his friends love to build big domes. One of his friends, he says, has built one on Avenue L that looks like center camp. His energy is wonderful. Calm, focused, lucid. Happy . He doesn't do drugs anymore, he comes to Burning Man to volunteer and has a glass of red wine at night. I see in him exactly what I want to be when I grow old.

I go with Clue camp to see the temple. The temple burn is beautiful. It burns brightly, brighter than the Man even, but the audience sits in perfect silent reverence. Twenty thousand people at the wildest party in the world...silent. It's the first time I ever feel we are all experiencing something together.

They want to go back to Center Camp for a spin jam, but I part. There's one Burning Man experience that I NEED to have before I go back.

I take the long way back to Clue Camp, through avenue L. It's a LONG walk. The road signs have all been taken down; I have little more than an unfamiliar mess of RV's in the moonlight to navigate with. I stumble through in the direction of 3:45 and L, but cannot pick out Clue Camp. So instead I stumble over to another tent that looks interesting. It looks just like center camp. I am greeted by an old hippie with a short black beard. His name is Ocean. He is the friend Dr. Placebo mentioned. He takes me inside. We smoke a joint and we eat fresh baked pizza and chocolate chip cookies. I tell him all about my first experience, about Transformus, and about North Carolina. He hangs on every word. It's funny to feel someone just genuinely have an interest in your stories for no real reason at all, but then, isn't that how it should be? We all have very interesting stories to tell; we just need to break the walls and tell them.

I thank him for his hospitality. He points he to Clue Camp, which is right nearby.

I take out my contacts, which are killing me since I have lost my goggles. As I place my left contact into the lens case it vanishes. Just disappears. Not blown away, the air is still. It's like a magic trick. This is the desert's final test for me to see if I can still be fucked with. I can't. I laugh.

I walk out into the deep playa, past avenue L. There are no tents or RV's, I just walk and walk. I walk out to the fence, marking the border of Black Rock City. I cross. I walk deeper into the barrenness of the desert until the sound just dies and it is just me and the mountains.

I will never be the same person again. In fact, there is no person anymore. Nothing to hang onto. No self to fight for. I am a servant to the world, ready, after years of miserable, alienating selfishness, to give to the community within and abroad. To be a burner without borders. To make life better for the rest of the world. It is liberating; I have absolutely nothing to worry about. I have been connected to a power that transcends my own muscling by an incomprehensible factor. I am ready to ask for help, and ready to give. My giving is its own reward. I am free, and I will not stop until I see a Burning Man of six billion people.

My throat is hoarse, but I can scream.

BLACK ROCK CITY, I RENOUNCE MY EGO!

</div>

Lucas wakes me up. It's six thirty. Time to roll.

He, Parker and I get in Parker's car and roll out before the exodus begins. Time to make some much needed phone calls. My iPhone is dead so I need to charge it up, but Parker tells me that this rental car doesn't have a working power outlet.

Lucas gets two bars when we get to Empire. I get through to Hertz, who tell me, much to my chagrin, that they do not have a spare set of goddamn fucking keys. The available options are tow the car, or pay them with my soul. God they're evil. Always buy insurance.

Time for Plan B: getting a locksmith from Reno to drive out to the middle of the desert and make me a key. I have no money and no ID.

The first candidate tells me that there's no way he's driving out there. Strike one. The second tells me that he won't be able to make it out until tomorrow afternoon, leaving me shitting myself till then. Strike two. I am hoping that my newly discovered spiritual awakening doesn't go to shit a mere six hours after it happened.

The second locksmith recommends another fellow for me to try. I get through and tell him that I have a stranded car out somewhere in the Desert near Gerlach, and I am filled with joy to hear his response: "oh cool, I'm headed over that way now, where are you camped at?"

BURNER LOCKSMITH! Oh the universe provides.

The whole thing is amazingly serendipitous. He happens to be passing through Reno on 80 W at almost the same time that we are on 80 E. He says he's stopping for gas off exit 294, which is right where we are. I ask if I can hitch a ride with him, and he says sure, if I don't mind sitting in a pile of tools and keymaking hardware. I don't.

Lucas and Parker drop me off at the gas station. Lucas spots me some cash and bids me adieu. James the locksmith pulls up in a big yellow van, sees me in my playa coat and says with a smile "you must be Mark!" He is driving along with his wife Ann, who is super nice and offers me bottled water and junk food. They love Burning Man...not just good for business, but because it has made Reno such a fun place to live. God it must be cool to have a city that is that influenced by Burner culture. And isn't in California. We get back on the playa and I am first on his list. The key is graciously cheap. I thank them and head out.

The exodus takes two and a half hours, which is spent listening to Burning Man radio and firing squirt guns at other burners stuck in the exodus traffic. The streets are lined with hitchhikers trying to get back to Reno, SF, LA or wherever. I remember hearing stories from my burner friends who would simply try and get to Reno and then hitchhike to and from there. It sounded insane, but now it made perfect sense. Hitchhiking with burners is very easy. Why the fuck would ANYONE rent a car?

The streets of tiny Gerlach are abuzz with commerce. They are 400 people strong out in the middle of NOWHERE and this is their christmas. I get my car washed and refueled and get some burritos at the stand. These people are EXTRAORDINARILY simple, it's kind of charming. And creepy.

I clean the car with baby wipes, dump the trash in a dumpster by a McDonalds, and eat a few cans of cold soup. I meander through the mountains, back to Sacramento.

And now, the airport fun. I get the car back to Hertz. It is now about midnight. The attendant is a perfectly miserable prick who looks at my playa coat and says "You took this car to Burning Man didn't you? We're going to charge you for detailing. And it's $100 for the key." I'm in no mood to argue right now. I tell him I hope he enjoys his job. He walks away.

The plane doesn't leave till 6AM and I try to stay awake. I sit next to two guys, probably about my age, one Hispanic and one white. They are "friends," in the conventional sense of the term, meaning that they sit there flinging a series of vicious insults at each other. They know no other way. Most of us don't. This is all most of us in the outside world know.

I stay awake by going around talking to random people in the airport. I ask them where they're going, or what they're coming from. I look pretty unthreatening in my blue Santa Claus coat, so everyone is happily willing to talk. They tell me their stories, but quickly, because they don't want to be imposing, and they certainly don't ask anything about me. I talk to the employees, who are quick to tell me how much they hate their jobs. And their coworkers. Airports are miserable places.

It's 4:00 AM and security is opening up. I am somehow able to board a plane across the country with no ID, a dusty playa coat, cracked out eyes and having not shaved or bathed in over a week, it just takes a slightly uncomfortable series of questions from some dude witha computer database. I didn't think you could do that in a post 9-11 world. Yay being white.

Dana picks me up at the Raleigh airport and asks "So how was Burning Man?"

How am I supposed to answer that question?

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:25:45 GMT

The fabled Black Rock City hangover is not pretty. Don't go drinking without a CamelBak to bail you out.

I want to feel sorry for myself. I'm dehydrated, miserable, lost, unprepared and have no idea what to do about this car or getting back to the East coast. I grog myself back to the lost and found. The line is long.

And futile. I know I'm not getting my backpack back.

I'm not supposed to getting back.

What's going on here? It's not bad luck or poor planning. The desert is trying to tell me something and I am not listening.

This is a test. A test of my faith and spirituality. Can I part from my own mind when necessary (after all, nothing can be done until tomorrow at the earliest) and enjoy the greatest party on the face of the earth? Can I focus even when at disequilibrium, knowing well that I will have the mind and the resources to bail myself out when necessary.

More importantly, why am I so attached to material objects in the first place? What goal does it serve? Has the desert not taught me that object fetishism brings misery and craving, which remanifests as scarcity in the material plane? In an unreal quantum world where don't know the rules and anything is possible, can we not just as easily manifest luck, wealth and opulence as we make losses? Is the "real world" anything more than a miserable construct built around the fear of loss to give us some comfort of the familiar?

Fuck that. Fuck reality. This is a quantum, magical world where will takes form. And fuck any skeptical scientist who tells you otherwise; they're sitting in a lab getting paid shit and not gettiing laid.

I've been a whiny, spoiled, stupid brat who has abused the gift of life for too long now. Time for a fucking change.

Now burn the fucker:

Saturday night is fun. We dance at the Root Society, the sixty foot dome monstrosity at 10:00 that rattles your skull with bass. We tour the vista of the playa on the pirate ship. We watch people beat the shit out of each other in the Thunderdome.

I climb to the top of the climbing dome and spin fire. Why the fuck not.

And the whole night passes without drugs. I don't need them.

Free your fucking mind baby.

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:32:31 GMT

The fourth principle of Burning Man is Radical Self-Reliance. Fail.

The burners here are not like the gentle, laid back southern comfort burners I'm used to back home. They don't bend over backwards to wipe your ass if you fucked up. The desert is not meant for pussies. If you fuck up, it is on you.

The lost and found is not a happy part of Black Rock City. The people are very anxious, and they're all the people that clearly don't know what they're doing. The kind that bitch about losing their camera, blaming the lighting on the playa not being sufficient. The volunteers running the place aren't the most sympathetic either; you walk to the trailer, tell a volunteer what you've lost, they go in and either bring it out (in which case the line cheers) or they say "come back later."

Right before its my turn one of the volunteers walks by and addresses the line "how many of you guys lost something here?" We raise our hands. She puts an "L" with her forefinger and thumb to her forehead and says "then you guys are losers!"

Then I get a "come back later."

I hate today.

I kind of want to cry, but I'm not sure where to go in this place. It is so big and so alienating...and I definitely don't want to burden other people with my problems. I don't like the sympathy I'm getting from other people, I shouldn't be putting this on them. I tell Lucas about what happened. He's shocked and starts trying to coming up with a solution. I'm not sure if I want to think about solutions right now. After all, it is Friday at Burning Man.

I need a distraction.

I meet a girl at the ArcheDream blacklight show. She's very cute. We hit it off. We pull my playa coat over ourselves like a blanket. We sit near each other on the sofa, and drink and smoke pot. underneath, and make out. After the show we climb to the top of the scaffolding on the stage and continue. We are thirtiy feet up in the air on a very flimsy metal strructure on a sofa with half the cushions missing. The scaffolding creaks as we move, but it doesn't stop us. It is cold, however. My tent is nearby.

Tips to prepare you for Playa Sex:

1) LUBE. You need it here more than any place you have ever needed it in your life. The dry desert air, day or night, sucks moisture like a black hole. Guess where it takes the moisture from first.
2) Camp well. The weekender's two person tent is good for survival, bad for fun.
3) Don't walk around naked all day long. This is a break from my usual habits at burns, but I am thankful that I have taken the advice of other burners and now do not have a dong covered in gypsum dust.
4) Prepare psychologically. Have sex on acid in the privacy of your own home before going to burning man, preferably in public. That will help you keep your head on straight.
5) Learn to use baby wipes seductively. You will need to use them repeatedly, why not learn how to make wiping the playa off your partner part of your foreplay?
6) LUBE. And water. I am NOT kidding.

Here is a video of me coming:

Peter North, eat your heart out.

I don't fully understand what about the desert makes me explode like that. We open another package of baby wipes to clean up. She's not too happy. What a mess.

What a fucking mess.

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:12:10 GMT

When I wake up on Thursday, the first thing I think is "I am going to win Fire Idol."

I think this is ridiculous because I'm outmatched, unprepared, and have never even been in a fire contest of any sort before. There's no way. Really, I should probably just watch. But who the hell needs sanity at a time like this?

Fire Idol is a weird competition that is notorious at Burning Man. You usually get radical mixed reviews from the people that saw it...well, mixed I should say is a bad word, more like "bad." But considering that I am perfectly ok with the idea of making a fool of myself and coming in last if needs be, I figure what the hell.

We line up around the stage. Everyone is nervously practicing. I'm noticing that most of the competitors here are actually pretty feh, I might actually stand a chance in this thing. More noobs show up. Then more. Wait a minute, where the heck are the good spinners?

The first rule of Fire Idol is: don't take Fire Idol seriously. The judging panel rides in on an art car, drunk. The host is this tall, skinny, dorky looking fellow with a high pitched nasal voice, talking about how lame all the fire spinning has been since he's gotten here and how he doesn't see any actual talent out there. Within a few seconds, you realize that this is a joke and the performers are the butt. It's American Idol, down to Simon.

We go up in groups of four for a minute. The judges make derrogatory comments and pick the least offensive contestant, who gets to compete individually in the second round. I am unfortunate enough to win my group.

The halftime show is done by Jennifer Steele (google if you want pics, NSFW), who has the wonderful professional combination of being both a fire performer and a porn star. Her stage presence is impressive to say the least. She lays on her back with a fire breathing torch in one hand and a banana in the other. The torch goes into a the banana, and the banana into her. She breaths a column from her spread. WTF.

Back to the competition. I'm actually quite pleased with how I did. The judges randomly select music (usually terrible) for you to spin to. I did a pretty damn good job with the poi, not the best, but I'm very happy. 9.7, 9.0 and 8.0 (bitch). I come in like 5th or 6th. Fire Idol is generally won by people with good stage presence that don't take themselves seriously. Poki, the winner, actually had professional clown training before his fire career. And it was pretty fun(ny) to watch:

Jennifer Steele then hosts the Hot Sex Fire Jam at her camp on 6:30 and D, which is a very nice spin jam with nakedness and sexiness encouraged. Naturally the bigger draw to the show is Jennifer, who fills the gaps of fire sessions with her acts. The best one is when she pulls a person out of the audience to take a bong hit out of her ass....which is accomplished with a device that is a butt plug on one end and a bubbler on the other. After we're done she says "Thanks for coming to our show everyone! We are having clam chowder in the kitchen and an orgy in the dome afterward."

Burning Man hosts some amazing concerts on the weekend. Armin Van Buuren is finishing up when we get to the Opulent Temple and Infected Mushroom is about to go on. These performers aren't getting paid a dime for what they are doing; they're just here for the magic of Burning Man.

And damned if the venue isn't awesome:

After the concert I meet up with some friends at the concert who are setting up a fuel dump to burn at. Goa is some of the most intense shit to spin fire to, and I'm trying to keep myself psyched for it. It's not easy. I am delirious and dehydrated but I push on. I see a spot off in the corner, away from the fuel dump that's more surrounded by the crowd. I put my backpack down. I go in and bust it. I am going WAY too hard tonight. I chug half a gallon of gatorade after I'm done and lay in a state of stupor.

I go back to my backpack and...it's gone.

....

fuck.

I search high and low. Nothing. Someone's made off with it. I can see why people hate the Opulent Temple so much. Chapstick, sunscreen, glowsticks, eating utensils, wallet with all my ID's and keys to a now terrifyingly uninsured rental car.

Fuck me. I hate the desert.

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:55:29 GMT

Wake up. Eat a can of Chef Boyardee, brush teeth, apply sunscreen, don goggles and dust mask, pack backpack, take a shit in the porta potty, go to the chill-out area. I'm getting used to this.

The sheer alien-ness of Black Rock City and the Playa itself are impossible to convey to someone who's never been. I don't think I can say that enough. Everything you know from the "real world" makes no sense. Out there, aloofness and reserve when meeting strangers is the norm. Here, it is a sign of spiritual maldevelopment; a good burner gives a friendly smile to strangers. We have status symbols, but different ones. Creativity is status here. The best costumes, the coolest theme camps, the best inventions, the richest experiences, the freest minds. Fuck the outside, this is the real world.

There is a geodesic climbing dome set up near the PEX camp. It is made of triangles, each side is about 5-6 feet long. It is forty feet high. It is spackled with climbers, who are evenly distributed throughout the various heights. There is always one at the top, who looks like he is playing "King of the mountain."

I get about halfway up before the angle starts to change. The wind picks up a bit, and I remember that I have to get down too, and that's harder than getting up. The drop to the bottom looks painful. I force up two more levels and hold on. Below I see girls posing on the bottom levels, doing splits in tight shorts. Their bodies are hard and tan like desert warriors.

I can't go up any further, it's just way too freaky. I look around at everyone at the same level. They are all feeling the same thing I am. We all recognize that we are in a weird sort of danger that we never get to experience in the outside world. Our outside world instincts tell us that we shouldn't be doing this. Someone should be coming over here and chastising us, because this is wrong. We should be being told by the owner of the property or by the police to get the hell down, and be more worried about that than the actual climb. But that person isn't there. The only person who is there is a buff, shirtless mountain climber jumping gracefully from section to section with a power drill in his right hand. He fits the hex bit around a nut near the top and tightens it. He says to me, "I heard there was loose nut up here, do you see any more?" I shrug and he continues his Sherpa-ing about.

"How long did it take you to build this thing?" someone asks.

"Couple hours."

"How much weight does this thing hold?"

He doesn't even change his gaze. "I don't know. You read the ticket."

The city is probably twice as populated now as it was on Monday (and will be twice as populated again come the weekend). It's turning into a costume contest. A man walks by with stilts on his feet and hands, and a gas mask that hangs down like an elephant's trunk like some bizarre humanoid quadruped.

I think the best one is an infamous fellow who is known to attend every burning man and freak the hell out of people. He is a big fat naked guy who rides around on a bicycle with an amazing assortment of tattoos and piercings. You catch a glimpse of his penis. A ladder of bars runs up the top and bottom of his shaft, with ampallangs and dydoes through the head, a row of rings up and down each side of his scrotum and a prince albert which has been stretched enough to hold the combination lock bolted through it.

It's hard to be an individual out here. Yes it's a festival of radical self-expression and you can do things that you can't do on the outside, but if you're trying to draw attention to yourself, rather than the performance or the camp or whatever you are contributing, you are S.O.L. There is always going to be a bigger freak than you are. No one cares.

And yet, that's ok. Why do we try to be individuals in the first place? We are so desperate to feel human connection that we will go to great lengths to pull people out of their own selfish minds and give us attention that we fight to be better than everyone else and distance ourselves from our own friends. But here we don't have to do that. The love is right here. The ego just doesn't have as much of a purpose. If you want to do something here, you make it something that everyone can enjoy. Because no one gives a fuck otherwise.

Almost none of us are good citizens to our communities or to our countries, and there is a damned good reason for it. They are worthless. They are cold, alienating, regulated social clusters of randomly selected individuals there because that is what their economic status dictates. We can go years without saying hi to our neighbors. Our voices go unheard in the democratic process. Our cities have no real spirit to them, how can we lose our selves in them?

We cannot give to communities when there is no community.

To finally be presented with a real, honest, no-bullshit community is a beautiful experience.

The best international fire performance troupes in the world come to Burning Man. Seeing them live will BLOW YOUR FUCKING MIND. The Cinder Circus is a prop-heavy troupe from America that put on a show at Shiva Vista. And damn if they don't have some amazing props:

My favorite, though is the Pyronauts. They come from all over the globe, Japan, USA, Canada, Britain, and so forth. Their technique is amazing, but originality and charisma are unmatched. Burning Man is one of the few places on earth where you get to see shit like this:

Seeing fire spinning at Burning Man is like watching fire spinning for the first time. It rekindles everything I ever loved about the art. I feel focused. I feel like I have a purpose. I feel like I belong. I feel like I can devote me life to this art and this amazing scene.

A strange feeling suddenly comes over me. It is a wash away of fear. I feel, for just a moment, perfect focus. Unafraid of failure or death.

I go back to the cllimbing dome and ascend. My wrap pants and playa coat should get in the way, but they don't. It's an easy climb. I know this in my mind, but now I know it in my heart as well. I climb to the top without a shred of doubt. The view is amazing.

What a mind-fuck.

Burning Man 2009

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:00:26 GMT

Here's what I've got thus far. Haven't gotten to the interesting parts yet, but I figured I'd post something....

SUNDAY

I wake up at 7 am. I am packed, but not packed well. I scramble and do some last minute checking as my roommate starts the car to take me to the airport. I'm very nervous. I've never flown by myself before, and I have no idea what to expect from Burning Man.

Life is very chaotic right now. I have no job, and have been spending the year going to burns. I just haven't made it out to the big one yet. I need to get my shit together but I can't do much until I come back from the playa. Part of me thinks this is a dumb idea, but it has to be done. Why, I don't know.

I meet Lucas in Dallas and we find ourselves by amazing chance sitting next to each other on the flight to Sacramento. We laugh about past adventures, talking about girls and drugs. We get some funny looks. We meet Parker take the shuttle to the rental place. I am completely disorganized and scatterbrained and leave a bag on the shuttle. Lucas and Parker watch for it while I fill out the rental agreements. God I am a mess. We buy as many items as we can for the trip at one of the Walmarts in Sacramento. We are throwing things jn the carts haphazardly and having trouble keeping track of what we need. We tally that we still need white gas and bikes and it is now getting late. The gate opens in three and a half hours and we still haven't reached Reno, so we split and hop back on the road. This day utterly sucks.

Something feels distinctively magical about the drive along I-80. Every other person is driving an RV. All the cars are adorned with )*( symbols and have bikes attached to them. We pass by a gigantic tractor-trailer that is lined with blowtorches leading into a giant dragon's head at the front. This is VERY different from the regional burns. The volume of this festival is starting to sink in.

When we reach the Walmart in Reno, it feels like a family reunion. Everyone in the store is wearing dreadlocks and raver gear, and is giving each other hugs and exchanging friendly smiles and advice. "Oh yeah dude they sold out of bike locks here, but if you come with me I'll show you where they're still selling them and much cheaper." There are giant corner displays of condoms and white gas. It is the most enjoyable experience at a Walmart I have ever had.

We take I-80 to Wadsworth, twenty minutes outside of Reno, and get on 447. And here's where the trip starts getting weird. 447 is a rinky-dink little highway that cuts from Wadsworth, a small desert town, into the middle of nowhere. And when I say nowhere, I mean it. There are no gas stations, stops, exits or anything resembling civilization for eons. I suddenly feel like my home North Carolina is getting a bum rap...we are said to be full of "rednecks," but the fact is anywhere you are in North Carolina is near something. What kind of desert folk live out here in this isolated wasteland?

447 is PACKED. We see a trail of red lights as far ahead as the eye can see and a trail of white in the rearview. We are ALL burners. We are surrounded by empty darkness that expands in all directions.

The cops on this road are like sharks in a feeding frenzy. There are enough drugs in the cars on this road to get all of Reno high. 5-0 weaves in and out of the burner line, what they are looking for exactly is something we don't know. I see blinking lights cut right behind me and tailgate me. I pull over, but before I come to a complete stop, 5-0 gets back in the passing lane and jets up behind some RV. Why my car? The utter lack of distinctiveness? An out-of-state license plate with no bikes or distinctive burner markings? Is that usually the kind of vehicle the big camps use to haul drugs in?

At about 12:30, we hit the line. A river of brakelights awaits us, and the waiting game begins. Vendors are scattered along the road. Bored and tired passengers get out of their cars and shoot each other with squirt guns. The line stops dead for long periods of time at various parts and we have to get out and stretch ourselves. Everyone is excited! We are almost at the gate!

At 2:30 I am too tired to drive and pass the wheel to Lucas. I drift in and out of consiousness in the passenger's seat. 3:30. 4:30. 5:30. This line is LONG.

The line splits into four lanes as the ground changes from blacktop to...damn, how to describe the ground. It's not soil, it's too barren and dead to be called that. It's not sand either. It's this thick, crusted dry mud-top that kicks up clouds of dust everywhere. We have been on this thing for five minutes and every car we see is already covered in this awful dust. If you open the car door for few seconds, this shit will waft in and cover the back seat. It looks like fine snowflakes against the headlights. This is the infamous playa dust that all burners must get WELL acquainted with.

We at last reach the gate. "Hey guys, welcome to Black Rock City! Can I see your tickets?" We hand them over, he tears off the tabs and hands them back. No ID's, no wristbands.

We follow the line of cars to a point where they start branching out to where other cars and RV's are camped. This is 6:00 and L ("Lineage"), the great entrance to Black Rock City. We pass waves of cars as we look for a sign for A street ("Adapt"), then make a left until we reach 8:00. There is no parking lot, you just park wherever. Lucas wakes me up. I get out of the car and stretch. This big dude named Jose comes and greets us. Jose is camped with PEX (The Philadelphia Experiment), the camp that owns the area where we are staying. We are neighbors to camp Chillax and BBC (Bouncy Bouncy Camp). Jose gives us a warm welcome and shows us around the PEX kitchen and gives us a drink. I am so tired at this point that I can barely maintain focus for even a simple exchange of colloquialisms. It's time to get the tents pitched and get some sleep so we can do the shade structure in the morning. We pitch the tents in a very half-assed fashion and throw some shit inside, and it is FINALLY time to get some sleep.

The air grows warm as the sun begins to rise, and before I can fall asleep I see the playa, for the first time, begin to be illuminated by the daylight.

I had envisioned the playa as being a barren, miserable shithole that just happened to be the only place on earth that could accomodate a 40,000+ person burn. This is not the case. The playa is unimaginably beautiful. The visibility of the dry air shows the definition of the Sierra Nevada mountains which engulf the playa miles out in the distance. It is like being on an alien planet. It is a truly bizarre natural wonder to planet earth.

I put on my fuzzy playa coat and walk to the Esplanade. PEX is still setting up but almost done. Tetris camp, our neighbor on 7:30, has already erected their massive soundstage. The giant geodesic domes of Root society at 10:00 are still going up. The wide arcs of black rock city stretch for miles into the distance, and half a mile into the playa I see the distant white glow that is the Man. For a brief moment I stop feeling tired. The scale of this festival overwhelms me.

This is awesome.

MONDAY

A lot of people manage to camp in tents without shade structures on the playa. Either they are just using their tents as storage and passing out in the chill-out areas or they are complete desert badasses, because trying to sleep through the playa sunrise feels like this:

Luckily, the problem is easily rectified with some rebar, PVC, and UV-reflective tarp. We groggily assemble a triangle-prism structure with the shade tarp. The tents are quite comfortable now. Amazingly comfortable in fact, maybe even more comfortable than most other campsites.

The playa, if adequately prepared, is a surprisingly comfortable place to camp. This may not seem obvious, but you have to consider the fact that many of the variables that make this terrain challenging...the dust and the sun...are very easily counter-acted with liberal helpings of shade structuring and sunscreen. There isn't much one can do against the bugs and humidity of southeastern swamps.

Without further ado, let's discuss

TIPS FOR PLAYA SURVIVAL

1) Water. Or better yet, Gatorade. Bring a giant tin of gatorade powder and mix it into all of your water so you actually retain it. The effects of the dryness are not apparent until you start noticing just how much water you are consuming. 2 gallons of water per day is about average, and it is meant to be drank throughout the day AND the night. The desert is a dry, barren place that is thirsty at all times. The air sucks the moisture from your lungs and the dust, which hovers over the playa at all times, dries out your skin. Carry it by the gallon or bring a camelback.

2) Sunscreen, lip balm and moisturizer. Your sunscreen should be an SPF high enough to make that smart-ass at the pharmacy say "you know, after SPF 45 there is no difference in UV protection." Buy SPF 80 and get on with it. All moisturizing agents must be applied several times a day to avoid looking like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western.

3) Dust protection. You need two sets of goggles, one with UV protection for the blindingly bright days, and one without for nights. You need a dustmask, not a bandanna. Bandannas don't work. If you want to look cool, get a gas mask; they actually work too.

4) A very well-organized backpack. You will need to have everything accessible to you at all times, often at a mile or more away from your tent. This may seem cumbersome until you realize that everyone else is wearing backpacks, gas masks, goggles and cowboys hats, and has figured out a way to make it look good.

5) Socks and shoes. Bring two pairs of socks for every day you are there and prepare to throw them away when you are done. This sounds gross, but the alternative of walking around in those filthy, crusty foot coats....or worse, walking around barefoot only to see your precious tootsies dried zombie white and cracking in pain...is far less than ideal. Socks and sandals are okay; be a jersey shore tourist.

6) A bicycle. Distances on the playa are HUGE; it is approximately one mile from 3:00 and esplanade to 9:00 if you're going directly through the man, and any distances through the streets need to factor in some variable and pi as well.

I have prepared poorly, and don't follow any of these rules.

I walk around for half an hour and say hi to friends setting up at various places. I hang out in Center Camp. Center Camp feels like a mini-bastion of capitalism within Burning Man; the only place where you can buy stuff (lattes, water, coffee, ice). There are various stages around where songs and spoken word are taking place. In the center is an open circle where spinners, jugglers and contact-improvers congregate. It is a very impersonal place, safe for newbies who don't know exactly where to go. This is a necessary function, as Black Rock City is large enough to be very alienating at times. If a friend who isn't camping with you wanders off, you may never see them again. It is unlike any other community burn I've ever been to. I spend most of my afternoon there.

The rule of sunrises and sunsets is this: if the air starts feeling comfortable, get back to your tent. The air is cool, but the wind is beginning to pick up. Hard. I can barely see through the dust thirty feet ahead of me. Goggles and dust mask on.

At this point I realize that I have an excellent idea of how not to build a shade structure. The wind is hitting the flat part of the tarp head-on and is pushing it back like a sail. The central rebar-pvc beam is cocking back and is about to rip out of the structure. Apparently Mondays exist even on the playa. The knife is with Lucas, and I have no idea where he is, so I take my keys out and start ripping holes in the tarp to let the wind pass through. The center beam rips out. I try to hold it back and it feels like the wind is going to knock me over. I cannot let the structure go and fck up someone else's tent, nor can I allow it to fall into shambles and deny myself respite from the desert sun.

The dust rips against the sides of my face. My goggles fog with sweat dripping down the insides. The top beam of the shade structure finally pops. I am stuck tending to this miserable mess while the party is starting inside the city.

And suddenly I have a moment of clarity. The rest of the world disappears; I am here and now, tending to the structure in the storm. Nothing else exists. This is part of the beauty of the desert: there are no distractions. No cell reception, no precipitation, no life, just barrenness. Whatever occupies your mind is right in front of you, there is simply nothing else. I am surprised to feel a focused, good feeling, like when you feel an adderall start to work. I smile underneath my dust mask at the absurdity of seeing beauty while bracing a shade structure against a punishing dust storm.

Lucas appears. We work together and cut the tarps from the guy lines. We fasten them over each other, forming a small dome directly over the tent. It's not pretty, but it will do.

TUESDAY

It's like waking up anywhere else, you have a morning routine.
1. Stretch
2. Take your vitamins
3. Make a futile effort to get rid of some of the dust in your tent.
4. Mix a gallon of Gatorade and down a quart immediately
5. Wipe the dust off a can of chef boyardee, pop it and eat it with a spork cold.
6. Wash the dishes and take a shower (both of these things can be accomplished with baby wipes)
7. Bathe yourself in sunscreen
8. Dress for desert conditions: cowboy hat, goggles, dust mask, bandanna, candy necklace, carribean wrap pants, fresh socks and pink shoes.
9. Shit. Enjoy reading the poop limericks that the LLC has taped into the stall. There's not much point of making graffitti in the stall, BM has already come up with something more perverse to post officially.

The weather is hot again. My body is adapting, but is displaying some weird properties in doing so. Namely, my emotions are greatly intensified. The eddies of thought drift through extreme highs and lows. Confidence feels REALLY confident. Happiness feels like euphoria. Worry is terror.

The reason for this is multi-causal. First, the conditions have my body on hyper-alert, so my adrenal systrm is overqcting while my body struggles to adapt. Second, the environment has created a shift in my normal priorities; I am focused on food, water, shelter and preservation. Third, the environment is extremely stimulating to the senses. This combination is sufficient to shut down all of one's normal, civilized coping mechanisms, because the whole world is too alien for them. Walking miles through the hot desert to find water while a double-decker neon schoolbus pirateship filled with naked chicks blasting electrohouse goes by you and whips up a dust cloud. It will fuck your mind.

And then there are drugs.

It's recommended that you spend at least a day or two in the desert sober just so you can get a feel for desert survival before you start doing mind-altering chemicals. Drugs hit HARD. I lay underneath the Cubatron (a giant three-dimensional visualizer) with a bunch of other happy trippers. They gift me mushrooms. Not much, just a cap and two stems. I eat them and relax for a bit.

As I feel something beginning to kick in, I make my way over to something a bit more exciting:

Spinning fire at the Shiva Vista stage is unbelievable. The video doesn't even do it justice. The entire place swells me with passion and happiness. The crowd is wonderful. I feel unbelievably free creatively; for such a large project there is almost no regulation on what you can and cannot do performance-wise (as long as you bring your own fuel).

I return to the fuel dump and watch the event from behind the new addition for 2009 to the stage: six three-part blowtorch cascades that fire out of the top, left and right of the tips. The lefts and rights are on pendulums and can swing back and forth as they fire, and have a slightly different tone to their blast, creating a giant sound visualiser made out of moving blowtorches.

That's awesome.

I am balls right now on that benign cap and stem. I have no idea how this is happening. I am a puddle of euphoric mush on the dead dusty ground, one with the explosiveness of the world. It feels like a fucking hippie flip. It's unreal. There is nowhere else better to be. Nothing else to talk about. I marvel at the inspiration of some of the most creative and beautiful and free minds of this world. I am inspired beyond belief. I can do anything. I am focused. I feel no fear.

Black rock city by night is something to be beheld! Handfuls climb a forty foot geodesic dome illuminated with blacklights, with no safety gear or pads beneath to catch their falls. Dancers rock the funky house soundstages from multiple platforms. Topless women serve free drinks inside raunchy bars. Pole dancers practice their art for fun and free in a completely decommodified and accepting setting. Rollers lay in friendly cuddle puddles in the open chill out spaces and invite strangers in for massages. Giant fire sculptures adorn the playa, creating a sensuous feast for the eyes. Public transportation takes the form of art cars and mutant vehicles, which range from the benign forms of hovering blacklight bunny mobiles to gigantic two-story steampunk victorian cottage airships. I watch it all from the center, in the white neon glow of the Man: a vista of MILES of parties, lights, domes, explosions. It is a vision of how human beings are capable of living in this world. It is beautiful anarchy. I smile joyously as I see this endless parade of bliss blast fireworks into the air, telling the world how good it is to be Human!

And it's Tuesday.

I love this place.

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:44:02 GMT

I am returning from the most epic and life-transforming adventure of my life. Very, very long update to follow...

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:34:02 GMT

Signed a contract to buy the lot next to me, which will take my property up to 2/3 of an acre. Aquatic swimming facility is being built catecorner to my house, will be done next year. Neighborhood is rapidly regentrifying. Roommate left unexpectedly, forfeiting his security deposit, got an electric engineering student in two days. Insurance prices are coming down for me. Will buy a rental property next year and free myself of economic exploitation. Making connections for fire gigs. The Bassment is almost dug out. I have an acronym for a name. Studying history and economics and enjoying it. Have a hot chick who is super intelligent, gives me affection and freedom when needed, and knows how to make costumes. I have a matrix-style trenchcoat made of blue fur. And I'm going to fucking Burning Man in less than two days.

God my life is fucking awesome. Overwhelming at times, but yeah, awesome :)

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:36:30 GMT

I am caught in a philosophical dilemma.

I do not know what approach to take with people. I can be both a dualist and a communist, I see pros and cons to both, but I don't know where and when to apply them. For example, I cannot be purely selfish/dualistic and view other people simply as means to my own ends. While it will get me further ahead materially, it will destroy my relationships (as it has done in the past) and leave me isolated. But at the same time, being a truly communal person puts me in a vulnerable position, as it invites me to be taken advantage of and, on a very Ayn Randian note, does not encourage others to be productive or responsible. It also leaves me lethargic and lacking the motivation to create beauty in my life.

I know that the answer lies somewhere in between; one approach is good for these circumstances or these people, and the other approach is good for the these and these. I have no idea where though.

This would be so much easier if other people were smarter and didn't make it easy for me to fuck them out of their money.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:13:21 GMT

An End To Movements by Douglas Rushkoff

The national healthcare movement was doomed from the start. TV clips of shouting matches at town halls and fear-mongering by cynical politicians may be lamentable, but we are witnessing something more profound than the collapse of civic discourse. The failure of a movement that could rightly claim over 70 percent public acceptance just a month ago, exposes the inherent failure of movements of any kind to effectively address our society’s ills.

That’s right. Mass organization may just have been a twentieth century thing: collective actions of all sorts—good and bad—were responses to the corporatization of government and industy. As such, they took the form of the entities with whom they sought to do battle. But—like the top-heavy, highly abstracted creatures they were created to counter —they are proving utterly incapable of providing an alternative to what they would replace.

They did work for a time. When a corporation had the power to hire a police force to crush labor unrest, labor created its own collective, virtual structure to fight back: the union. When disenfranchised blacks faced Jim Crow laws, the Civil Rights movement gave them a tent under which to organize, a charismatic leadership to follow, and a clearly articulated cause to promote. It was branded. Marches could be scheduled, buttons could be worn. And it worked.

Between the 1960s and today, however, the mediaspace through which these causes disseminated ideas and gained momentum has changed. The best techniques for galvanizing a movement have long been co-opted and surpassed by public relations and advertising firms. Whether a movement is real or Astroturf has become almost impossible for even discerning viewers to figure out. The question often becomes the new content of the Sunday morning news panel, taking the place of whatever real issue might have been addressed.

But the problem is not simply that we’ve lost the ability to distinguish between real movements and cynically concocted fake ones. It’s that they are functionally indistinguishable. They may as well be the same thing.

In our current position, when disconnection from the real world is itself a cause for concern, movements only serve to disconnect us further from the actionable. They give us content for websites, language for our bumper stickers, and faces to put on our ideals. But they distract us from the matter at hand, and worse, turn our attention upward toward brand mythologies instead of immediately before us to the people and problems that need our time and energy. In the place of real connections to other people, we get the highly charged but ultimately fake connection to an image.

This is why progressives are so disillusioned by President Obama. He was never anything other than a centrist Democrat. But “brand Obama” gave his supporters—a movement in the fullest sense of the word—an abstracted ideal on which to focus. At least until his election. Meanwhile, the real requirements of progressive activists to contribute to their neighborhoods, promote local business and agriculture, invigorate failing public schools, were again left to someone else. This is not the failure of a president, but the flawed functionality of movements themselves.

For while civil rights, suffrage, and many other causes were largely won through traditionally organized, long-fought, top-down movements, the scale on which these great battles were waged is one no longer appropriate to the tasks at hand. In fact, it is the scale itself on which we have been attempting to orchestrate human affairs that is suspect.

Activists would do more to fight Big Agra simply by subscribing to their local Community Supported Agriculture groups. We’d more effectively pull the rug out from under a corrupt financial sector by simply investing in one another’s businesses—our own town restaurants and drug stores—instead of outsourcing our retirement savings to Wall Street. We could more easily re-invent public schools by volunteering our time to them directly, instead of sending our kids to private schools while we sign petitions for government to re-prioritize. And even in health care, we’d end up cutting everyone’s costs by commuting less, smoking less, landscaping less, and, yes, hating less. For each of these actions triggers different responses, undermines industries, requires new legal structures, and so on. It’s tiny, but it’s almost fractal in its impact.

For as the alternative is now teaching us, one size does not fit all. Americans, in particular, have been living under the premise that there’s something to buy, vote for, or believe in that will simply change everything. And it’s certainly still possible that government could develop the single payer system that pretty much everybody knows deep down would bring the best of industrial health care to the most people.

But just as we are learning that industrially produced food is not ultimately nutritious, a top-down, passionately executed, and highly branded movement is not ultimately effective.

In fact, by creating and branding a movement, even the most well-meaning activitsts are disconnecting from terra firma, and instead entering the world of marketing, public opinion, and language selection. Potential participants, meanwhile, are distracted from whatever on-the-ground, constructive and purposeful activity they might do. They get to join an abstracted movement, and participate by belonging instead of doing, or blogging instead of acting.

What an excellent article!

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:41:03 GMT

Two days ago, I quit my job. I simply had enough of their goddamn fucking passive-aggressive manipulative shit. I loudly called the management a bunch of worker-exploiting assholes in the middle of the dining room in mid-shift and took off. It felt pretty fucking good. I don't have anything else lined up, but because of my situation this is not a big deal.

What really pissed me off is the reactions of my coworkers. I was told afterward that what I did was childish, even though I was expressing exactly what I know to be how all of them felt. They complain incessantly about the conditions, but when it comes time to do anything about it...at meetings, or even in the structuring of their own personal lives...they seem unwilling to do anything but break from the mildly comfortable familiar grind that gets them through the day.

This is an example of what pisses me off about this country: the apparent death of leftism. What originally started as a culture of hard work, communal independence, and the hope of creating a better life for the average schmuck has been replaced with voting for Democrats. "Politics" seems to refer almost exclusively to the federal level, where the average schmuck has no say at all. The strategies needed to free oneself from economic exploitation (read: the acquisition of productive capital) have been dismissed as either wrong or foolish. We have brainwashed everyone to want to be employees.

It takes so much less than everyone thinks to economically liberate oneself in this country. I want to help teach the next generation how to do it, but it seems like my biggest obstacle is putting energy into complaining about politics when I could simply be empowering myself and others more...so I'mma go do that now, peace :)

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:55:27 GMT

Fire eating is the easiest of the fire arts. Let that be known. I am pretty sure I can teach any competent person to do it in twenty minutes.

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:39:27 GMT

Yuta from Japan....this guy is AWESOME! :)

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:33:59 GMT

HARRY IS DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!