More Butts, Fewer Seats! (x-post)

traffic jam
UGH.

Back when Black Rock City’s population would barely overwhelm an In ‘n’ Out drive-thru, let alone the two-lane highways leading to the Black Rock Desert, the Burning Man Rideshare board was just a handy way for people to catch a ride to the playa.

But with our burgeoning population — and hopes of burgeoning it yet more — ridesharing has become a necessity to ensure the long-term survival of the Burning Man event in Black Rock City (we say “in Black Rock City” because there are 60+ Burning Man events around the world … but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here). The environmental impact aside, the reality is our favorite two-laners to nowhere just can’t take the traffic. So the Rideshare board? Very important.

The board was getting seriously long in the tooth and creaky at the knees, so we sent in our crack tech team to beef, clean, and pretty it up, and then add flight sharing into the Black Rock City Airport (or any other airport for that matter … but there we go getting ahead of ourselves again) and other cool features to help you find the ideal seat for your butt.

Rideshare!
Rideshare!

OK so here’s the really cool part: we’re making our Rideshare board available to any Burning Man Regional event to manage their own carpooling efforts. That’s right, we’re taking our sustainability efforts global. Any of the 60+ Burning Man Regional events around the world will be able to facilitate carpooling and flight-sharing using this system (whether they do or not is up to them).

Wait, flight-sharing what? Yes, that’s right. If you’ve got an extra seat to share on your plane, we got that covered too — whichever airport you’re using.

Cool huh? OK so say it with us: More Butts, Fewer Seats!

Now … get in there, and find your ride.

NOTE: CROSS POST FROM THE VOICES OF BURNING MAN (ORIGINAL POST HERE)

What happens at Burning Man, stays at Burning Man:

Taken from the pages of Queerty in a lovely article linked here.

So, fun story time. Burning Man is a weird place. Someone (as a prank) put up a bunch of flyers that read, “Tantric Blowjob Workshop, males needed due to overwhelming female response. 1 pm, 3pm, and 6pm daily.” They had the address to someone else’s camp.

201-600x489Of course, every few hours a bunch of thirsty dudes show up to invade this poor camp, and someone staying there has to explain it. Well, this guy shows up late, and the camp member who just explained it was a prank goes to greet him.
They shake hands, talk a bit, still shaking hands. Someone comments on how awkwardly long the handshake is. Someone else exclaims “its not like they’re shaking dicks!”

One guy jokingly goes for the crotch grab. The other guy sees, then actually goes for the crotch grab. Cue awkward dick handshaking and laughing. Laughing stops. Cue shorts sliding down / sarong coming off. Cue two dudes standing face to face jerking each other off while ~20 watch.

The guest finished, the camp member didn’t. His wife showed up just at the tail end, and jokingly shouted “Damnit, Robbie! Not again!”

And that’s how a handshake turns into a double hand job.

ADMIN: Ask Catcher and he will tell you these kinds of things happen all the time at the Down Low Club. DLC Yahoo Groups Link.

Stories of 1st Year

What was your first year at Burning Man like? Following up our week of Acculturation posts lets see what some people experienced on their blogs out there:


Bored Panda Posted this: Here

Last year I attended my first Burning Man festival and had the most insane time of my life. I have never been surrounded by so much creativity and enthusiasm, and as a photographer/videographer I was highly inspired to capture the festival from my own my-surreal-photographs-from-burning-man-2014unique perspective.

The whole week felt like a really trippy, lucid dream, and through the use of experimentation and photo-editing, I attempted to express my thoughts and feelings into each photo.

Burning Man truly is a one-of-a-kind festival and I really hope to return this year.


 

5 Things I Learned at My First Burning Man: Here

Two weeks ago, I made the decision to attend Burning Man for the first time. I had been making excuses for years on why I couldn’t go (“it’s too expensive,” “I don’t have goggles,” “techno isn’t my thing,” “my costume wardrobe is kind of lame,” “The New York Times says it’s played out — the techies have taken the playa over worse than they have taken over the Mission,” “I don’t own a CamelBak,” etc., etc.) but this year I finally bit the bullet. Instead of putting it off for the future, I finally accepted the time to go was now. A friend of mine passed away recently and his death has made me realize how fragile life is, how impermanent we are, and how little time matters except for what we are doing right now.


 

Burning Man Memoirs: Here

I went to Burning Man for the first time in 2012. From the moment I decided to go through my return to the “default world”, I felt compelled to photograph and write about the experience.


 

ADMIN: Just a few stories from the interwebs and hopefully making the days to come easier.

Education is Everything: Better Behavior Through Learning

Posted by

Here’s what I remember being surprised by the most during my first visit to Black Rock City, in 1998: No garbage cans.

I had come utterly unprepared, and had little idea what going to Burning Man meant. Traveling separately from my only other friend who was going, I grabbed a spot on the Green Tortoise, packed a couple of bags, and made my way to the playa.
Danger Ranger, Burning Man Cultural Ambassador, 2013 (photo by Mark Hammon)Danger Ranger, Burning Man Cultural Ambassador, 2013 (photo by Mark Hammon)

Even today, I frequently recall wandering the Esplanade during Burning Man 1998, a wad of garbage in my hand, and simply not grokking why there was no place to throw my trash. Having failed to read the Survival Guide, that just didn’t make any sense to me. Not that I was the kind of person to blithely toss crap on the ground, but I had no idea what to do. Eventually, I found a nook in some wooden structure crammed with others’ refuse, and jammed mine in alongside.

See the original source of the post here: CLICK HERE

 

Immediacy and Impermanence

[This post is part of the 10 Principles blog series, an ongoing exploration of the history, philosophy and dynamics of Burning Man’s 10 Principles in Black Rock City and around the world. We welcome your voice in the conversation.]

(image used by permission  Photo Credit: John Chandler, 2013..Believe by Laura Kimpton)

There have been some recent losses in our community — suicides and accidents — that serve as stark reminders of the impermanence of it all. My heart goes to the friends and family impacted by these losses. For those of us connected through social networks, both personal and online, we are entering new territory. No generation has shared and mediated grief through digital space like we do, and no generation has been so removed from religion. In the spirit of continuing the exploration of how we talk about impermanence in a radical, creative culture, I’d like to share the following reflections.

Read the entire original post and supplements here…

The best conversation I had in 2013 was about death. I was being interviewed to be a volunteer at the Zen Hospice Project (ZHP) and, in my 1.5 hour long interview, the Volunteer Director, Roy Remer, now a collaborator of mine, asked me all sorts of questions about death and dying: “Had I ever seen a dead body?” “What was my experience with death?” “Why did I want to work with people in their last days of life?” “What was my work and how did my work life connect to this hospice work?”

I work for Burning Man. I don’t often have conversations about death and the role of death in my work life. Mostly, I think of the event as a celebration of life; a feeling of connection to Immediacy but not necessarily a connection to “THE END.” And I think that is, in part, why I wanted to volunteer for ZHP.

I was looking for something that would ground me and connect me to something bigger. I don’t belong to a church and I never have, but I do believe in Karma Yoga (or Gifting); I do believe in service. And I have always believed that our final days of life are an incredible, potent, important time. I have often wondered who would be there at my bedside when my time comes. And when I signed up to volunteer, there was something romantic in me about what I might be able to do for someone in their final days. It’s hard to be romantic about death but I thought perhaps I could be there for someone else in his or her last days. Maybe I could provide a kind face for them; give a heartfelt hand squeeze; maybe I could help someone in their last days feel a little more love.

Image of the Pandava Brothers in Exile, Public Domain

There is an ancient yoga story from the Mahabharata about the five Pandava brothers. They all get lost in this forest and as they approach this lake, they get overwhelmed with an incredible thirst, but a voice comes from the lake and says, “Don’t drink me.” But they are all really thirsty and so they all follow their desires — they all drink from the lake and so they all die. Except for one brother, Yudhisthira, who talks to the voice from the lake and it turns out it’s a spirit. Testing Yudhisthira, the spirit from the lake asks him these questions:

“What is the most remarkable or strange thing about human life?”

Yudhisthira says, “That everyday people die, yet humanity goes on thinking they are going to live forever.”

It’s true: we have a hard time imagining we are going to die. Who wants to think about death? Death seems sort of scary and sort of impossible when you’re alive.

The spirit of the lake asks a second question:

“What is the greatest gift, or what is the only friend, a dying man has at his bedside?”

And Yudhisthira says,

“The charity that the man has done throughout his life will be his companion.”

That struck me, this idea that whatever good we do throughout our lives, and hopefully we are doing some good here and there, it comes back to us in the end. So when we are dying, the love we have given can be felt internally or seen and received in the loved ones around us.

EGO by Laura Kimpton and Mike Garlington, by John Curley 2012

So with ambitions of some sort of a spiritual redemption, I went into this Zen Hospice Volunteer interview. And Roy asked me about Burning Man. I told him that in a way, we (the Burning Man community) deal with impermanence all the time. We build a temporary city out of the dust; in two months it is created, celebrated, disassembled and returned back to the dust. There is always a great high and excitement at the birth of the event and there is always a sense of despair and desolation following. It feels like a loss and a death, every year. And some years are harder than others.

We celebrate Immediacy because we know that the spectacle can’t last. The Burning Man community pours tons of energy and attention into art and an experience that will exist for one week. We pay close attention to the art of the social interaction and performance; the art of the fire; the art of the dance; these moments are so fleeting and unreplicable. And of course there’s The Man: the man — the physical body of a man — that is built and then burnt. Every year. Although there is no “defined” meaning to this ritual, for many participants, The Man (and his burning) is a symbol of freedom.

2013 Photo Chapel by Mike Garlington Photo by John Curley

So maybe life’s most important work is about freedom and learning to let go. Maybe Burning Man has tapped into the art, creativity and expressive side of this work and maybe Zen Hospice has tapped into the Palliative care/End of Life side of the house. Maybe I have a lot still to learn too, but maybe there is a connection between these two sides, art and death.

Maybe we make art because life is short. Maybe final moments are art, too.

And then I started volunteering. After a couple of months at the the oldest Almshouse in the country, I moved to ZHP’s six bed Victorian in Hayes Valley. It’s there that I found — sort of — my groove and realized that the trick to volunteering is actually very Zen: you don’t do or expect anything. As a Hospice volunteer, you are there to bring the residents some food or a glass of water; sit by them or talk to them or watch TV with them; or to help the nurses when they need something. It’s very simple work, and yet it’s incredibly grounding.

Every so often a small miracle happens, or a small horror, and then that too is gone. At Zen Hospice, the most dramatic experience of a person’s life — Death — is occurring. There is no trumping this final act that sometimes plays out over days. Whether a resident is smiling or groaning, surrounded by friends and family or all alone, each person’s journey to the other side is theirs alone.

And so each day, this experience provides a stark reminder:

“Wow. I don’t have forever. Life is precious. What am I doing with MY life?”

I often walk away from Burning Man pondering this very thing.

So this November, in a few weeks, I’m bringing these two ideas together in a larger, public forum. I’m excited to talk to others about the connection between Zen and Burning Man; immediacy and impermanence; creativity and liminality. I humbly invite you to join me for a talk or a workshop (Nov 7, 8 & 9) or maybe a comment on this blog.

Ritual Death and Transformation: lessons from Burning Man and Zen Hospice Project

BRC Honoraria Art Grants — New Process for 2015!

Big Rig Jig by Mike Ross, 2007. (Photo by Gabe Kirchheimer)
Big Rig Jig by Mike Ross, 2007. (Photo by Gabe Kirchheimer)

Burning Man Arts — the new department combining the Black Rock City Art Department with the Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) — will launch a new online system in mid-November designed to make it easier for artists to apply for honoraria grants for art destined for Black Rock City.

Read the complete original article here on the Burning Man blog

This year, applicants will be required to first submit a Letter of Intent (LOI), which will allow the Grant Committee to select which projects will be invited to participate in the full grant application process, saving everybody time and effort.

The system will go live in mid-November, and LOI submissions will be accepted for four weeks. The Grant Committee aims to inform artists if they are invited to participate in the full grant application process by the beginning of 2015.

All artists hoping to receive a Black Rock City honorarium will need to participate in this new LOI process.

More information will be made available via the Jackrabbit Speaks and on the Burning

Art Beyond Burning Man – Making, Thinking, Understanding

Building art for Burning Man always seemed to be part of my yearly cycle. I love what I have been a part of creating in Black Rock City; I have grown up and cut my teeth building art out on that remarkable desert canvas. Over the last several years, though, I’ve found myself bringing more art to life out here, “beyond the fence.” Thanks to the efforts of so many, we can now cite several instances of Burning Man art in lots of cities around the world.

Zoa Crew Photo by Kim Sikora

At FLUX we have created 12 works of art in our 4 years of existence. This is something we are truly proud of. We’ve successfully made interactive art accessible to a wide audience, and we use this art as a platform to engage people in the core values we have cultivated as Burning Man artists. Our works have been experienced by people in Oakland, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, and now, San Francisco. Sometimes, we are so busy building we forget to take a moment to celebrate and share what we’re creating. In this case, we are celebrating our newest interactive sculpture, Carousel.

read the complete article on the Burning Man Blog by clicking here

Dispatches from Burning Man

In less than a week, over 70,000 people will converge on a dry lake bed in Northwestern Nevada to create Black Rock City, which hosts the festival known as Burning Man. Founded on the principle of radical self-expression, it’s natural that it would attract more than its share of folks who identify as queer. I am one of those people.

What has kept me coming back year after year since 2005 is that Burning Man makes me feel boring and pedestrian. Being a stereotypically flamboyant gay man, I was often the most “creative” or “out-there” person in family settings, at work, or in other social settings.

My first trip to the playa (the term used to refer to the dry lake bed) made me realize just how many other people had similar approaches to expressing themselves, many of whom had developed it to a much more sophisticated level than I had. It is comforting to have such a wealth of inspiration.

In this article I present the perspective of five other queer burners. I will be referring to people by their “playa name.” It is simply a snapshot, one of thousands that could be taken.

To read the complete original article on EDGE Media Network…

Kitten

During Kitten’s first burn in 1998, a particularly violent storm scattered all his belongings, which were then cemented into the ground by a three-inch downpour of rain. Desolate, he wandered the streets aimlessly until he stumbled upon a camp focused on providing mani/pedicures.

“My hands and feet were all cracked, and through the process of cleaning, moisturizing and painting my nails I became much more hopeful. It made me appreciate the value a camp could bring to my fellow burners.”

After centering himself, he was able to focus on getting some action.

“A lot of my awkwardness before going to Burning Man was from trying to fit into other people’s parameters of hotness. I was shocked that I could get as much play as I did out there, from the type of guys who wouldn’t have been interested in me in the city.”

Although Black Rock City had a population just over 10,000 at that point, there were already a couple of camps that had a queer sexual vibe to them.

“Bianca’s Smut Shack looked like a typical suburban home, except for the pornography spread throughout the place. It wasn’t necessarily an orgy happening, but people of all persuasions would have sex there. They also served grilled cheese sandwiches every night at 3 A.M. I heard about Jiffy Lube as the place to go for man-on-man action, but I couldn’t locate it until my second year.”

(Jiffy Lube, which started in 1995, sparked one of the greatest controversies at Burning Man in 2001, when a large mechanized illustrated sign of two men fucking was used to advertise their space. For the full story, visit www.pissclear.org/Articles/2002/coverstory_Jiffy%20Lube_1.html)

These early experiences, plus a few years being a part of another theme camp, inspired Kitten to help found Comfort & Joy.

“Our platform for success is to feed people well, and take care of their physical needs, so they’re able to do their art, whatever that may be.”

This philosophy helped grow the camp from 35 people in 2005 to 140 people by 2013. It features a large courtyard with several interactive art pieces, a large shade structure, a kitchen/commissary area, a gym area painted bright pink, two fire pits, a drag closet, an elaborate multiple head shower, and most famously, a 20 x 50′ tent that hosts workshops, performances, nightly dance parties, and all manner of sexual expression.

The entire camp is highlighted by large neon flags, which are visible from half a mile away.

Says Kitten, “If you are just walking by the camp, there is nothing overtly gay about it, but the bright colors of the flags and the art draw you in.”

Over the past five years, many queer camps have been requesting to be situated next to Comfort & Joy, creating a “gayborhood” in Black Rock City. A previous incarnation of the gayborhood existed from 2000-2008, during which a collection of queer/queer-friendly camps assembled themselves into Avalon Village.

Kitten would like to extend the philosophy of Comfort & Joy to the outside world. The group holds several parties a year in San Francisco, holds educational workshops related to helping fellow queers, and is building a relationship with the Paiute Indians, on whose ancestral land Burning Man takes place.

“As a queer person, I sympathize with other oppressed peoples,” said Kitten. “The Paiutes have a rich tradition of honoring Two Spirits (people believed to possess both the masculine and feminine). Unfortunately, due to colonization of their tribe, the Two Spirits are considered sinful by most other tribe members and most are closeted. Therefore, Comfort & Joy coordinates a food drive every year, where we encourage people leaving the burn to donate their leftover food at two sites marked by our neon flags. By identifying ourselves as Two Spirits while interacting with tribe members, we hope to change tribe members’ perceptions of Two Spirit individuals.”

(Learn more about the food drive at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1446811415604268)

Amanda Love

For Amanda Love, who first attended in 2007, “It was a very magical and very intense year. I went with my boyfriend at the time who was there to spread the ashes of a loved one, while at the same time my brother was battling cancer.”

One of the ways he processed this was by visiting the Temple, the second largest structure at Burning Man. Designed to allow contemplation, people place all sorts of notes, photographs, and objects relating to their thoughts. The entire structure is burned on Sunday night, the day after the “Man” is burned.

Amanda has been burning on and off since then, always as a member of Comfort & Joy. “They allow me to be included in a group without having to conform to a set type. No judgement happens, just open arms.”

As a hairdresser, one of the ways he likes to participate is by providing manscaping, a service which has proven quite popular.

“I’ve had a line of twenty guys, both gay and straight, waiting for me to groom them.”

One of the straight guys would become erect every time Amanda held his junk to shave something.

“Lines are very fuzzy out there,” said Love. “Sometimes guys are horny, but they don’t really know where they’re going with it. I’m not going to be the one to shove them over that line, so I’m gentle about those things.”

What Amanda appreciates the most about Burning Man is the overall environment. “Burning Man creates so many different flavors of spaces for people to explore their identity, all crammed right next to each other. It brings out the best in most people. The intention behind something is where you find the magic.”

Ariel Pink Pants

After driving from the East Coast in 2005 in a biofueled bus with two other people, Ariel Pink Pants and her pals named their first camp “Unifried.”

“My first year was about my own self-experience, but it developed into a desire to give people like me a place to shine,” said Ariel. “I was sitting on the playa with my friend when we realized there was no camp talking about trans issues.”

Inspired by her experiences at Comfort & Joy and Camp Beaverton (whose members are primarily queer women), Ariel helped create Gender Blender in 2009, “to give gender queer people a safe space, and to give cis-gendered people a place to explore.” Their first year was a bit rocky but instructive.

“We were placed on the Esplanade (the most heavily trafficked road) by the Placement Committee, because they liked what we were doing and wanted us to get lots of exposure. Our neighboring camp had a much larger budget than we did, and it showed. They were so put off by the scrappiness of our camp they put an orange net fence between us. Since then, we have requested to be next to more sympathetic camps in the gayborhood.”

That experience gives Ariel pause about the supposed difference between Burning Man and what is often refered to as “default world.”

“Trans people do not have the same access to resources as the broader gay community does, or society in general. Most of our camp members are on low-income tickets and we run our camp on a shoe-string budget. I would like to see a discussion within the Burning Man community about how this sort of work can receive more support, particularly in light of the phenomenon of ‘plug n’ play’ camps, where attendees spend tens of thousands of dollars to have everything assembled and taken apart for them, without really adding anything to the Burning Man experience.”

In spite of these difficulties, Ariel is excited about the opportunities she is providing people.

“At our play parties, we have trans people of all stripes, gay men, lesbians, and straight people. What we are doing is unique even for Burning Man.”

Hysterica

“My first year was 1996,” Hysterica recalls. “We arrived at the entrance and were told by the lady standing there to drive 4.6 miles straight ahead, then turn 90 degrees and drive 2.5 miles. All this through a blinding dust storm. Somehow at the end of it, the storm lifted and we were in Shangra-La.”

Hysterica camped next to Mascara, which featured legendary club promoter Ggreg Taylor (who would arrive on-playa fully decked out in evil clown make-up, sometimes dripping with lit candles on his shaved head), and drag artiste Phatima Rude, who was fond of lounging in a play pen.

One morning Hysterica and his playa boyfriend (term used to describe someone you meet and hang out with only at Burning Man) started a tradition that lasted several years, The Romp of the Playa Hookers.

“We came up with the idea of being playa hookers,” he said. “We got all scantally dressed up and walked all over town, amusing people and causing mischief. The next year, we had 20 more people along with us. I’ve tried to retire it several times but so many people would come up to me the next year asking to be a part of it.”

He was and is thrilled by how friendly people are on the playa. “Burning Man has a very bisexual energy,” said Hysterica. “People in general are very kind and flirtacious. One Sunday night after Temple Burn, I was riding my bike around, looking for one last party. I struck up a conversation with a straight man, who then confided he would like to experiment with another man. So we went back to my tent and had a lovely time.”

Mucho

Mucho heard about Burning Man for almost a decade before finally attending with his partner Matt in 2010. “We felt very welcomed,” he said “A lot of care was taken to make us feel a part of our camp and of Burning Man in general.”

He immediately sought out ways to participate in the wider Burning Man community, including joining the Rangers, the volunteer force of intermediaries between law enforcement and the burners.

“One year, I often worked alongside a straight ex-navy guy, who was very cool about me being gay, and felt comfortable telling me intimate things about himself. People out there are very open about things. They break down barriers and share.”

Last year he helped create the art car dubbed BAAAHS (Big Ass Amazingly Awesome Homosexual Sheep), a school bus converted into a giant sheep/mobile sound system.

“I was a ‘rear entry specialist,’ developing the chute through which people would enter BAAAHS. When we’d meet people driving around the playa, they’d get a big thrill out of sliding into its asshole.”

Burning Man inspired Mucho and Matt to relocate to San Francisco from New York to be closer to a larger concentration of burners. “We’re not fond of circuit parties,” he said. “Burner parties have a much broader array of people who all comfortable around each other and are creating amazing spaces.”

Decompression

Because Burning Man is such a magical environment, many people get depressed when it is over and they have to return to the default world.

I used to feel this way, until I finally relocated to San Francisco last year after attending Burning Man for nine years. Just like Black Rock City, San Francisco can be very physically and emotionally challenging, but it’s also full of dynamic, creative people who gently push me to be a better person. Burning Man is the natural by-product of this city’s ability to foster all kinds of people, especially queer ones.

2014 TTITD Ticket Sales

According to the JRS (Jack Rabbit Speaks) ticket sales are starting soon. They will virtually be the same as last year except they will come through a different provider. YOU MUST HAVE REGISTERED A BURNER PROFILE in order to participate with this sale… period.

  • PreSale : 3,000 Tickets :  $650./ea : Weds. 1/22 12pm PST
  • Group Sale : 15,000 Tickets : $380./ea : Weds. 2/12 12pm PST
  • Individual Sale : 38,000 Tickets : $380./ea : Weds 2/26 12pm PST
  • Last Chance : 1,000 Tickets : $380./ea : Thu 7/31 12pm PST

STEP: where you can buy and sell previously purchased tickets safely dates have not yet been set.

Property of Burning Man
Property of Burning Man

It is the Secure Ticket Exchange Program which is Burning Man’s answer to the scum out there that tries profiting off these tickets and selling fakes.

Low Income Tickets

These tickets must be purchased via an application that shows a need for this special pricing. The dates have yet to be announced.

  • Low Income : 4,000 Tickets : $190./ea

Plan on driving?

YOU MUST be aware that there is a big change this year! In order to drive into Black Rock City you will need a $40./ea car pass. You can add this when you purchase your ticket.

Ticket Delivery

With the exception of Low Income Tickets, all tickets purchased will be delivered in June. LI tickets are picked up via Will Call and paid for by cash at the gate.

NOTE: All this information is extrapolated from the January 8th, 2014 edition of the JRS. All additional details can be found by reading the post.This is a link to the archive: Click Here. It is highly recommended you get this newsletter by clicking here.

*TTITD: That Thing In The Desert

X-Post from Gay Burners Facebook

(This is a repost from the Gay Burners page on Facebook. It, according to Facebook, was seen by 261 people as of this x-post and almost no one made comments on the content of it.)

With all the fun stuff there is some serious things too. We take the good and the bad and we deal with it as a community. Never be afraid of offering critical feedback. And if you have suggestions please feel free to share them. Even when a subject makes a person feel uncomfortable it is still important to deal with them. If you have something to add then pARTticpate with immediacy and do it… this project Gay Burners / Queer Burners / Quire is a community driven series of projects.

This is Scott aka Toaster writing after the last 2 posts. Some members of the community have been critical about some of my postings in the past as having been too controversial. The phrase “…more flies with honey” has been thrown around a lot.

Truth is I have struggled a lot with the comments made to me by Andie Grace in the main hall during the Burning Man Regioanal Conference that I attended for the 2nd year in a row in 2012.

Now I see these posts about rape while on the other hand the Placement team did such an amazing job helping build the Gayborhood; and from that came the Gayburbs (see trip report on queerburners.com for details on that).

I read the @Burners.Me article as soon as it came out and let it flow around in my head until I saw the Huffington Post’s article. Even then I held my tongue because I started to realize on Thursday night with a group of Burners that I am invested in this culture very differently than many of my fellow burners.

I see us as being not unlike a congressional district desperately in need to a voice and I think I was trying to be that voice. I have, from the heart, taken on some ugly tasks in this culture where I believed strongly that the 10 Principles were being violated by people who were charged to enforce them. I also took on a Burning Man representative and his partner who were actively attacking specifically female members of the community and ended up landing on my face. I have taken on battles against some great people in this community in leadership positions with a hell of a lot more influence than I and have been knocked down again and again.

Andie Grace aka ActionGirlWhen I stood up at the Leadership Conference for Burning Man Regionals and spoke out I realized I just took another grenade thrown by the Regional Network; specifically Andie Grace. I was at the front of another losing battle when I talked about the concerns that were addressed at the Queer Burner Leadership Summit 2 weeks before.

When I asked for other representatives from the Queer Burner community to come with me to the Regional Leadership Conference the Regional Office said “no”. I was fortunate to attend, but this office in particular ( that includes Megs, Andie Grace [formerly] and Marian Goodell [one of the 6 owners of Burning Man, Director of Communications, and Board Member of the Burning Man Project]) has been highly resistant to giving us an official voice even though we make up a huge part of their census.

There is a flaw in my argument though! When I say we should have a Regional Contact (or 2 or 3) for LGBT people I am not unaware that Radical Inclusion is not part of our community.

My home community, the regional community I was once a part of before moving to San Francisco was Las Vegas and they were so loving and inclusive generally speaking. There was no need, in my opinion, for a separate Regional Contact in my mind back then.

Yet, as I became more involved in the landscape of this culture and invested myself to an “all-in” position I see where this is actually important. We are a community in a community.

When I asked the Regional Network team about this I was dismissed. I was told the BDSM community asked for their own regional, too, where would it stop? Again, the LGBT community was dismissed as if we were part of some chosen quirky lifestyle making unreasonable demands. Yet, 2nd Life (a computer game) has its own freaking regional?

There are Regional Contacts out there who have done NOTHING for the community in years but still hold on to this title for their free ticket to Burning Man each year (a reward for all their work). We do have queer Regional Contacts and I met a lot of them this year; but who are they representing?

Yes, they have a voice for Queer subjects but who is watching out for the LGBT part of burning man. Imagine when Jiffy Lube was being told they had to relocate (way back when) if there was a buffer between them and Larry Harvey… have you seen the videos?

Note to beat a dead horse, but there are some serious disconnects at BMorg and I am personally trying very hard to make this project be a positive representation of what we are bring to the playa and the default world every day.

My personal investment is a little OCD compared to others I see around me. At our San Francisco meet & greet Thursday night I looked around at the people around me. I saw in them a deep commitment to this life. I saw how different it was from mine; NOT THAT MINE IS BETTER! I am saying mine is a little too much sometimes. The issues I bare might not be mine to carry, but I try to do it to make things better for us all and better networked so we queers can help each other with our projects and other functions inside and outside the trash fence.

So with respect and love I invite critical feedback. Don’t shove daisies up my ass and pretend everything is lovely… some have. We need to be able to talk about things and your involvement at the next Queer Burner Leadership Summit in the beginning of 2013 will be invaluable.