Month: May 2012

How to get a Burning Man ticket

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Many of us who have taken very visible positions in the burner community amongst our wonderful queers have been asked on many occasions HOW do I get a Burning Man ticket. “Can you help me get a Burning Man ticket?” The answer is yes.

10 Principles: Start Here

There are tickets available. While either passively with BMorg’s help or through articulation tickets have managed to become available and wanting badly to be in your hands. In just recent weeks people have been offering tickets for community members in need.

Why start with the 10 principles? Well, one of them is very important when it comes to almost anything in the Burner community… it is the one that will slap any Sparkle Pony… spank any tourist… it is Self-Reliance. Not to sound snarky, because I am going to tell you how to get a ticket either free or a reduced cost if not full price, but you have to be a participant.

Participation is 90% of the infrastructure of the Burning Man event and if it were not for it’s volunteers or do’ers there really would be nothing to go to. You have to be a part of something or be a contributor in some way. You have to add to the fruit salad of Burning Man with blood, sweat, tears or whatever your Radical Self-Expression might be. So the answer is be a part of the salad.

Be part of a camp infrastructure, help on an art project, create your own art project, art car, performance… whatever. If you are a part of someone’s collective and get your face involved in a community of people then you suddenly have more eyes looking to help you get that ticket.

The Answer

If you skipped down to this part you are missing the point. Burning Man is not a tourist destination. Although a lot of people have figured out how to go and offer nothing with Plug N’ Play camping, thinking it is just one big party, or having no understanding of the lifestyle many of these people have evolved with.

If you skipped down to this part reconsider if this is what you really want. Burning Man is not a bucket list item. Coming to this event with no expectations… Giving of yourself over to the Black Rock Desert… unconditionally and without any expectation… then you are on the right journey.

Conclusion

Be a part of a community by representing yourself as part of a collective. It might just be 2 people, it could be 120, but add to the fruits salad! (If you don’t get the fruit salad comment please read back). Just being on this web site is not the answer but could simply be the point in which you tie into something through the Groups section or by talking with another member. The answer my friend is simple: pARTticpate.

Support Art

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Art is the core of Burning Man. No, not the whump-whump-whump-whump-whump-whump-whump-whump …no. Art is the core because without it it might as well be the Electric Daisy Festival. But then again, even EDC gets burner art at their event.

CharonIn recent years we have been blown away with pieces like Charon, Bliss Dance and so many more. Art by Queer Burners can’t be separated from the herd, but we can talk about it a little more as we honor our pink-tinted brothers and sisters of the playa.

This year there are more exciting projects and the fear that art was vanishing because of the ticket disaster might have been premature… or they fixed the issue. Either way let’s look ahead to some cool stuff.

A few pieces have made their way to the Gay Burners page on facebook and we anticipate greatness on the horizon. Exciting… but money is needed to make these things happen and even $10. can go somewhere.

Murmuration

Murmuration is an insanely cool interactive kinetic art piece for Burning Man 2012! We are a small group of L.A. Burners bringing art and fun to the Playa. Looking forward to bringing this insanely interactive kinetic art piece to the Playa 2012!

Issues on the Table

This one is the most personal project to date as it goes back and reaches deep into the very dysfunctional relationship I had with my father growing up. Looking at the graphic you can clearly see two sides of a dining table with one side melting into the other.

The Pier 2

Last year 25 great friends came together to build a 300 foot long third world pier in the middle of the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man. We all thought the idea was pretty cool but we were unsure of how well everyone else would receive it. Much to our surprise the people of Black Rock City seemed to adore The Pier and we were asked to bring it back!

Mayan Tricycle

I want to build a great big “hamster wheel” that people can run in that will roll inside an even larger wooden wheel all connected to an odometer to show the workings of the Mayan Calendars. It will stand 22’+ tall, have gears meshing with gears and the whole thing will burn down a week later.

Breaking Wave

The Breaking Wave sculpture wants you to be involved with it’s construction. We want random pieces of wood, specifically abandoned lumber that has drifted onto a west coast beach or coastal area. The Breaking Wave will be constructed from scratch on the Playa at Burning Man with drift lumber contributed from all  over the World.

  • Web Site

Support art going to Burning Man any way you can.

Why were these pieces chosen out of so many? Well, these are actively engaging our community and are reaching out to us.

Response to Burners.Me Article

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When working on building something with passion and meaning behind it, there is likely to be no shortage of detractors. The win is when there are cheerleaders out there too. This thing that is QueerBurners.Com, what could be Quire, or become a voice in the Burning Man regional construct, these are all things very foreign to some members.

My name is Scott aka Toaster and I started Queer Burners, once known as Gay Burners, with a desire to create a place for LGBT+ men, women and various transitions to connect. I believe we have a unique spin to this lifestyle under the 10 principles that offers something special to the community as a whole. It was never meant to be political or divisive. It is growing and maturing. I hope Quire will elevate it to the next level.

A couple of times people have posted on Facebook, told me in person, and complained on ePlaya that there could be no reason for a site like Queer Burners dot Com. Hundreds and thousands of people say otherwise based on membership and guests visiting the site.

BMorg has been supportive of this site on some level. Partially by letting it exist. Partially by donating a lot of take-aways for the QBLS. On a couple of occasions with posts in the JRS.

One of my mistakes in the evolution of QueerBurners [dot] Com and the projects I have undertaken since joining the burner community in 2008 is that I have looked to BMorg for approval. Sort of like an unconfident child seeking a parents support. It never came and often that parent was too busy to acknowledge. But there were times when there was something of a relationship there. Before moving to San Francisco.

QueerBurners [dot] Com will do everything it can to be supportive of BMorg and the mission of Burning Man under the gray lines of the 10 Principles. Although not acknowledged officially, not disavowed, we have enjoyed a nice and almost polite coexistence.

Burners.Me

An article posted May 4/2012 on www.burners.me used a lot of quotes from this site extended from the Burning Man Leadership Summit. Turns out another attendee posted very similar comments that were also included in the article. Combined they were highly critical of BMorg in their response to safety concerns expressed at the Summit. Although the issue was rather poorly answered on Saturday (dismissively so) the conversation continued through Sunday at the Summit.

3 queer R.C.’s had very different points of view about QueerBurners [dot] Com but all were supportive in general. I listened carefully to all the feedback. There was a lot of shock and surprise that there were these kinds of concerns; even though women have been issuing these same concerns about aggressive male behavior before we spoke up.

There should be no mistake that the words shared on Burners.Me are those of myself (Toaster aka Scott), but I do not want to make good things happen by being a bully. The words expressed were real and came from those who attended the QBLS. Those words were my mission when attending the BMLS. I wrote them, but tried to convey a message, one that I hoped would make something positive happen.

The fact people are talking about it is a win. The fact that some R.C.’s have made a joke out of those concerns is a concern which makes the Burners.Me article very pointed. But we want BMorg as a partner. Even as BMorg crumbles from a series of mistakes in 2012 damaging it’s relationship with its own community and it turned a blind-ear to the concerns we still stand strong to carry the message of the 10 principles bravely forward because they do really mean something and work.

The path of least resistance

Any sense of drama or discourse seems to send a lot of Burners packing. Many will quickly put their hands over their eyes, ears and whatever protects the rosy image of the perfect Burner world. Many employ a tactic openly discussed called “Shunning” to shut the voice of discourse down rather than take any critical feedback. The path of least resistance is to deflect it or ignore it.

We have a challenge right now to be the best we can. I was forced to acknowledge the dismissive comment by Andie Grace that: Burning Man attendees are responsible for their own safety … Yes we are. Radical Self-Reliance is a major principle we live by. But by some estimations 70% of the people attending Burning Man in 2012 have never participated or understand the 10 principles.

I am not an advocate of more L.E. or BLM! But if Burning Man is not going to acknowledge the danger, we have to create something within our community that makes us more aware and less vulnerable in Black Rock City. In the end we, in our regional and social communities, have to be much more security conscience this year. More so than ever before.

Bottom line… QueerBurners [dot] Com and Quire is not here for politics or to battle BMorg. We are here to be a community center point to help network people. Find Queer camps, Queer resources or more. Some of our members are not interested in politics or to see any official representation with Burning Man… they just want to have fun and look at cool stuff. You still have that… some people will be organizers while some will be the participants/partiers or whatever… enjoy that. If that is your groove then be groovy, baby.

Conclusion

The article by Burners.Me was very unnerving as I read it because it was the sharpest points of a conversation splayed out and they sounded like a lot of frustration. While there is some frustration from someone like me who has put himself into the line of fire. I cannot help but feel like Don Quixote when looking to Burning Man for any real acknowledgement.

I suggested it was time for queer Regional Contacts representing the Queer Community of Black Rock City and beyond, but there was no real support. But, who is out there taking our issues seriously? We have friends in BMorg and there are some amazing people there, but the Regional team who should be listening is not. When our concerns are treated like a joke on their private boards there is something wrong. When I ask about safety I am dismissed – there is something wrong.

The dialog is still going on and all we can do is see where it goes. Burning Man is not Burning Man anymore, they are the Burning Man Project. The ticket disaster is still a shit storm. And now the BLM sanctions against Burning Man for their attendance issues last year are causing havoc. It really is a year of evolution for Burning Man… certainly Fertility 2.0 can have a deeper meaning in the end. Will the Queer community have a voice? Time will tell…