Maple Syrup Actual's Burning Man Posts from TPI

[Trigger]

Damn. MSA tells a good story, spins a good yarn. Whether an adventure to Burning Man or building a skiff.

Good stuff. I miss his input around here.

[Tabasco]

I went in 1995, 1996 when there were 4 to 6 K attendees.

No rules.
Drive by shooting range.
Someone had a go-cart with a pulse jet engine that glowed red hot at night.
Another attendee had a gyro copter right out of Road Warrior.
It rained in 1995, and that Playa mud is something else.
Forgot how the desert dehydrates you and had the worst ever hangover, thank you Evan Williams.

Packing up in 1996, this song came on my mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPDLJ1UU2Uk

I never really liked that song until then.

Was not interested in attending, thinking it a mix of Rave and Rainbow Festival type thing. Saw a picture on the front of the SFSU Campus magazine of a naked guy with a Ruger Blackhawk as his only article of clothing and decided it might just be interesting after all.

[jh9]

I went in 1995, 1996 when there were 4 to 6 K attendees.

Burning Man, 1995:



Burning Man, 2023:

[Duelist]

Burning Man, 1995:



Burning Man, 2023:

Johnny Depp went in ‘99? Who knew!

[Tapatio]

Superb write-up.

Burning man has always evolved - many of the original burners disavowed the event in the 90s when unprepared yahoos from the world wide web first started attending and authorities forced more and more rules to prevent dumb deaths. Yet despite the changes a huge cohort kept coming back to rejoin "world b" year after year.

But within the last 5-10 years, all of the early burners I know have stopped attending. These antimaterialistic found-object artists driving jalopies suddenly felt judged and unwelcomed by the hoards of new bright shiny influencers.

The best description I've heard is that early burning mans were a lot like improv: Yes! AND... You accepted your neighbor's absurdity and eagerly built off it. Sure you were expected to be self reliant, but you were also expected to embrace community. Now many attendees show up just to consume: music, drugs, alcohol, etc without contributing anything more than their ticket.

Yes AND...

I attended 1994-1997. Not so coincidentally my last year there was the first year the event was chaperoned by law enforcement. No offense to fellow PF'ers who happen to be cops. But a big part of the fun for me was that it was true anarchy, of a very friendly sort. My first morning in camp one of the rangers rode up on a bike, introduced himself, asked if we were having fun, and told us the only rule was have fun (and respect others while doing so).

We brought a lot of firearms, booze, costumes, flammables, as did a whole lot of other people. It was all fine until a few years later when attendance rose and the law of averages caught up with the event and people started to die.

I saw a lot of irresponsible behavior (and may have engaged in some myself) but hey, we were all adults. And in that Punk Rock DIY techno-Hippy kind of world that's all you had to be. It was truly amazing to watch people not twelve hours out of the city start to shed their clothes, and their inhibitions. Met a lot of interesting people from all over, saw some unforgettable sights and events, slept very little.

Proud to say I drove the RV that hosted what was arguably the first-ever rave camp, back when electronic dance music was a fringe underground thing, and not the worldwide mainstream celebrity DJ hypefest phenomenon it has become.

Great memories, great times with friends, and it gave me a real affection for the Great American Desert that I'm still exploring, albeit in a much quieter fashion.

Oh, and tickets were $35, if you bothered to pay at all.

[Tapatio]

And in case anyone cares, the arrest stats from this year's festival are in:

https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2023/...s/70798045007/

I don't know if BM is safer or less safe than your average American city of 70,000.

[fatdog]

I went in 1995, 1996 when there were 4 to 6 K attendees.....Drive by shooting range.

I heard a story about the "drive by" thing years ago from a lady I knew who went during that time frame I think. She said there was a drive-by shooting thing with an 8' tall stuffed "Barney" the PBS kids show Dinosaur thing...you rode in the back of a pick up truck and they let you open up on it.

According to her it drew people in droves who hated that dino and his stilly "I love you, you love me" song, which at the time was an earworm that plagued millions of parents in this country......

She said at the end of one day somebody went to move the dino to a trailer or truck or whatever to haul it off, and it literally and totally fell apart in their hands to smithereens, handfuls of feathers and dust, it had been shot so many times...

Firing from a moving vehicle in AL is not legal in any circumstance so we never held such an event here. But people hated that purple dino so bad back in the 90's I bet we could have charged for it and gotten hundreds of takers.

[Stephanie B]

I heard a story about the "drive by" thing years ago from a lady I knew who went during that time frame I think. She said there was a drive-by shooting thing with an 8' tall stuffed "Barney" the PBS kids show Dinosaur thing...you rode in the back of a pick up truck and they let you open up on it.

According to her it drew people in droves who hated that dino and his stilly "I love you, you love me" song, which at the time was an earworm that plagued millions of parents in this country......

I hate you,
You hate me,
Let's hang Barney from a tree,
With a great big gun,
Put a bullet through his head,
Aren't you glad that Barney's dead.