The last word on Plug n Play (PnP) Camps

Burning Man posted 2 items on this subject this week giving us the defining and final decision on the subject. It is something that many members of the community have been up in arms about because to many – the existence of these camps appeared to be in direct opposition to the 10 Principles we all hold dear.

On December 3rd two blogs were released on the blog.burningman.org “Voices of Burning Man” page; one form legendary Larry Harvey and one from the Borg.

founder Larry HarveyIn the midst of the current controversy about Plug and Play camps, there has been a great deal of talk about equality, but I think that much of this misses the mark. Scan Burning Man’s Ten Principles, and you will not find radical equality among them. This is because our city has always been a place where old and young, and rich and poor, can live on common ground. The word for this is fellowship, as in the fellowship of a club or lodge whose members, however diverse, are united by common values and a sense of shared experience. But common ground is not a level playing field, and should not be interpreted as mandating equal living conditions.” – Larry Harvey [Link to the entire piece]

However, the real meat and potatoes came from a much more definitive post listed as from Burning Man that followed Lord Larry’s post. Together these releases provide the Burning Man COMMUNITY the final answer when it comes to the Commodified and #turnkeycamps; basically setting the standard back to the level any theme camp applying for placement needs to meet.

Below is from the Burning Man Blog: [Link to the entire article]

  • Camps should be visually stimulating, have an inviting design and a plan for bike parking and crowd management.
  • Camps must be interactive. They should include activities, events or services within their camps and they must be available to the entire Burning Man community.
  • Camps must be neighborly. This includes keeping sound within set limits, controlling where camp generators vent exhaust, and easily resolving any boundary disputes that arise.
  • Camps must have a good previous MOOP record 
(for returning camps).
  • Camps must follow safety protocols designed by the organization (this includes traffic management on the streets, proper handling of fuels, and any other areas defined by the organization’s production team).

end quote

Basically, we are interpreting that Turn Key Camps have to meet the same standards as Theme camps for placement. And we seemed to have received an apology in the end as well as a set of changes we can live with moving forward for the betterment of the community.

It therefore follows that the best reform we can enact is to stop placing these Plug and Play camps in a category that sets them apart from others. This was done informally, it was not fully thought out, and we apologize for this mistake.” – Larry Harvey [Link to the entire piece]

2015 Burning Man Theme: Carnival of Mirrors

The new theme was announced on Burning Man’s new web site www [dot] Burning Man [dot] Org today! The new site is a great leap from the [dot] Com site which is still around. While on first review the web site looked a little incomplete on a more complete review found it much more modern and less contextually intensive than the predecessor.

Carnival of Mirrors

It is absolutely exciting and as powerful sounding as Caravansary was. The possibilities and idea flourish and the theme speaks to the hearts and minds of many of us. Cheers to 2015.

2015 Camps listed?

Here I come!Are you kidding me with this already? Yes, today I posted the 2015 Camps List without knowing who the heck was going in the first place. The truth is that I was just doing some pre footwork by accumulating a list of camps that I know about and will edit the list as we get closer to the big event.

This will also give us a chance to give people visiting the site to see what camps have been at Burning Man and associated with the Gayborhood (directly or loosely). Links to the various resources are there and will be updated over time as well.

Ruining Burning Man? WTF?

What is really ruining Burning Man? Is it being ruined at all? Every year there is a new source to blame. The position from this Admin (Toaster) is that Plug-n-Play camps are bad for burner culture. It is Commondification and those people cannot seem to grasp 10 Principles thinking. Yes, this is a blanket statement but the statement is against the general concept.

Will Pants (Right) Burning Man's voice
Will Pants (Right) Burning Man’s voice

When famous voice-box WillPants gets it twisted in an official Burning Blog he uses typical media spin to stir people away from the real issues at hand. He tried to use Virgins as the scapegoat… it is the dangling of the carrot  off to the side to distract from the fact that Plug-n-Play camps are a bigger problem for the event theology than wallets are willing to admit.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re not apologizing for Turnkey Camps and virgins who may have mis-stepped … nor are we sweeping anything under the carpet.original post by Will Pants

But that’s not all. We are not out to poo on the event or the people running it. Frankly the work being done by the Borg is a symphony. It is art unto itself. To manage and maintain something that has grown so much over all these years is magnificent. But willful disinformation just makes them look bad and while a lot of leader have progressed over time some are still in the 90’s Borg thinking.

We’ve been hearing and reading a lot about Turnkey Camps over the past couple months (haven’t we all?) and I have to say, I’m a little confused by people’s apparent willingness to make or buy into blanket statements and generalizations about Turnkey Camps, virgins, who should be allowed into Black Rock City, etc. – original post by Will Pants

There is well-enough naysayers out there. The embittered trolled on the Facebook Group to the fundamentally angry Burners.Me posts. Not a space we on Queer Burners want to participate in. We are looking for the Borg for leadership to help this culture stronger and better. We’re asking for more transparency and engagement on some levels. But truthfully we have something amazing.

 

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

Is Burning Man getting too Gay?

Burning Man Gay Pride

The message that Burning Man started off with, the 10 Principles, are the same thing the LGBTQ community has sought from the world at-large as long as many of us have been alive. When a group of San Francisco based hippies are screaming it we believe it because the bay area has been the voice of independence and personal liberties for many years. But since June 28, 1969 we started fighting back for it. The messages attracting queers is:

  1. 08282012_burn-303Everyone is welcome
  2. No money needed, give from the heart expect nothing back
  3. Let’s get rid of the corporate bullshit
  4. Stand strong on your own
  5. Express yourself freely and honestly
  6. Stand strong on your own but a community is stronger
  7. Your community is stronger when it is responsible to itself and the environment
  8. Keep our world clean
  9. Get involved and no sitting on the sidelines
  10. …and act. Act now. Act up.

While these are interpretations of the official 10 Principles from the Burning Man web site the words are the dream of many LGBTQ++.

Demographics

See the data for 2013 and 2014 where we can clearly see a surge in fluid sexuality out numbering the self identifying heterosexual attendees.

“The largest percentages for the overall, male, and female samplings represented heterosexual Burners, however, for the group identifying as fluid/neither gender, only 17% of them chose heterosexual as their orientation. The overall data depicts the Playa as a largely hetero, but bicurious environment. The same was true for females Burners. However, the male population was largely hetero with the second-most reported orientation as gay, while the fluid/neither Burners were mostly bisexual and refused labels”. [quote]

The 2014 data was presented in much more detail than in previous years and put the details in a well written presentation. #demographics

The Gayborhood

3This space along the 7:30 corridor since 2013 is an attraction at Burning Man and an impact on the event itself. There has been a lot of information posted over the years under the category #gayborhood. It is huge! It’s a huge leap from the beginnings back in the late 90’s detailed here and on the Mudskippers web site.

What people are saying…

While the culture of Burning Man is that all their kids should be able to play nicely in the same sandbox many of us know homophobia on the playa in spite of the glitter in our eyes. But we have a huge gulf between ourselves and how we approach the culture we are a part of. While snarky queers look down their nose at the Gayborhood there are still others exploring it for the first time even with a lot of playa time behind them.

Burning Man is not a gay event. No, it is not. There is an undeniable effect on identity and orientation as people selectively explore the boundaries of their sexuality at the burn. There are more and more stories of gay men having self-identified straight boyfriends while out there.

While the diversity in our approach to our sexual orientation, lives and sexual identity are as diverse as our heterosexual community, snark and

all, tearing ourselves down or putting others down for who they are – is self destruction.

Burning Man Gay Pride

Conclusion

The demographics from Burning Man are amazing. We are a strong presence and more than what the census says. One simply cannot turn around without running into people who would be under the LGBTQ banner whether they accept the label or not.

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

QB Leadership

Our community is expansive. We are part of the Burning Man community and by the latest numbers it appears to be somewhere around 66,000 people who show up in the desert and up to 200,000 around the world.

Where does leadership come into play with these numbers

  1. The Borg : The Burning Man Organization who are based out of San Francisco
    There is an annual event called the Burning Man Global Leadership Conference / Regional Contact Conference that focuses on major projects and community leaders.
  2. Regional Contacts : R.C.’s are official representatives of Burning Man who are volunteers who help guide communities all over the world and help protect the brand.
  3. Community Leaders : also voluntary roles where people take on various Burning Man related projects that are on all kinds of scales. They often are a source of leadership for groups.
  4. Camp / Project / Art Leaders : often involved in smaller groups but are engaged on some level with any of the above.

Queer Burner Leadership

There is no one in charge of anything related to the Queer Burner Community. The work through the Queer Burners pages is also voluntary and many of the people who are self identifies leaders in the LGBTQ Burning Man scene have also gone to the Global Leadership Conference in order to better engage our community.

Since 2012 (3 years) Queer Burners host Toaster has held a leadership conference in San Francisco. The Queer Burner Leadership Network operates under handle Quire : Queer and Fire. We have had great success at these events and hope to see them continue in whatever form they take in the future.

Who’s Who in Queer Burner Realness

Several people have been very responsible for helping make this successful. We have leadership throughout the LBGTQ who have great successes in their own areas but occasionally amazing people reach out past that.

Mario CisnerosA personal note from Toaster: While I have many people to thank it cannot go without mentioning Mario Cisneros of Moonbow camp who left us in 2012. He called me on the phone days before he left the earth and gave me the most amazing pep-talk.

He started the Gay Pride parade at Burning Man and was the host of the Offcial Queer Burner Meet & Greet which I took over for now at least until the mantel is taken over by someone else.

Kitten CaffeeOne of the earliest people on the queer burner train was Kitten from Comfort & Joy. He has been a fantastic ally in many of the projects initiated by this group.

08282012_burn-3033 of the Mayors of Camp Beaverton have also been fantastic partners in this process and that includes Bucket, Foxy and Glo. It was hard getting in and meeting this amazing group of people but what fantastic people.

Scott BeardetteScott Beardette from camp Conception has also been a huge asset and partner over the years. His ability to network, troubleshoot and respond to community issues is amazing.

1959620_614030481983786_1056781635_nCyndi Vee and Pink Pants from Gender Blender have been  rock stars in this community. Running the largest trans/fluid sexual identity camp at Burning Man. Not only that, has really brought it to San Francisco Decom and have been a great ambassadors for Trans issues in our culture.

A lot of thanks and love out to many many others as well. Catcher and Red from the Down Low Club have allowed us to host the Official Meet & Greet at the Down Low Club the last 3 years and were strategic partners with Mario too.

Ranger Sirius from BloAsis who has been a great asset to the community and has also been helping Toaster on some additional projects beyond the QB banner.

manAndEdAnd Ed Edmond and all his amazing people out of Burner Buddies who have also hosted the after party for the Gay Pride parade for… more years than I can count. The also hand out the official Gay Cards!

It is more than a handful of people. Because voices make up a chorus and that is what Quire is all about either directly or indirectly. Kelly Kidd from Mudskippers, Matty from Yes,Please, Tom and Matt from Camp Stella, Turtle from Coffee Camp and more more more.

When Brian from Crisco Disco, Chickpea – Cody – Blitzy – Coop – Poohbear … oh so many from Comfort & Joy … all these people are more engage they are bringing something amazing.

So what about it?

The people talked about here have been real givers. They believe in this community and are engaged and always willing to give to their communities; not just queer burners but their regional and social communities.

THANK YOU!!!

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.