re-post – Queerburners Blog Site

Tickets! Christmas Tickets!

09/27/201412/15/2012 by scott.kay

You knew it was coming but did you know it was going to be $650.00? That’s right! Higher price for the benefit of having that tickie in your hand. The upside, the money goes to The Burning Man Project… yeah.

From the JRS:

Early-birds can participate in our Holiday Sale, which allows folks to buy tickets in time for holiday gifting. PLEASE NOTE: Holiday Sale tickets are priced dramatically higher than our regular tickets will be and Black Rock City, LLC will donate 3% of the price of each ticket sold during this early Holiday Sale to the Burning Man Project, a new nonprofit dedicated to spreading Burning Man culture around the world. (In addition, Black Rock City, LLC makes other substantial contributions throughout the year to support the Burning Man Project, including contributing the proceeds from fundraising events and many other forms of support.)

So ... here are the details:

- 3000 tickets will be offered at $650 each for the Holiday Sale.
- In order to participate in this sale, you must pre-register at:
http://tickets.burningman.com/registration-holiday2013.html
- Registration is open NOW and will close at noon PST on Wednesday December 19th.
- Those pre-registered will be able to participate in the first-come first-served sale on Thursday December 20th, starting at noon PST.
- You may purchase a maximum of 4 tickets per person.
- These tickets are not eligible for STEP, but are transferable (you are welcome to resell them on your own, if you wish).
- The only payment types accepted are Mastercard or Visa credit cards, or debit cards with either the Visa or Mastercard symbols. If you don't have one of these cards, you will need to obtain a one-time use card.
- Physical tickets will be shipped between June 1 and July 15, unless you opt for pick-up at Will Call in Black Rock City.

(We will not be implementing identity-based ticketing (e.g. name-on-ticket) ... for more information, see this blog post from Larry Harvey: http://blog.burningman.com/?p=23887.)

As always, you can find find full ticket information on http://tickets.burningman.com, and answers to your questions in our Ticketing FAQ (http://tickets2.burningman.com/faq.php) and spiffy new online ticketing forum (http://ticketsupport.burningman.com/home).

X-Post from Gay Burners Facebook

09/25/2012 by scott.kay

(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.

When 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.

When Wal-Mart meets Burning Man

12/27/201509/21/2012 by scott.kay

By Christopher Reynolds
Los Angeles Times staff writer
September 19, 2012, 7:30 a.m.

Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers, Wal-Mart workers and Burning Man personnel. Maybe your hopes and dreams aren’t so different after all.

A couple of weeks ago, traveling in Arkansas, I stopped in at the Bentonville storefront where the Wal-Mart empire began. It’s a visitor center now with exhibits on corporate history. I picked up a brochure listing Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s 10 rules for building a business. All very sensible and offered in six languages. I stuffed the brochure into my pocket.

Then a few days later, visiting San Diego, I heard a speech by Chip Conley, who is, among other things, a board member of the Burning Man Project. That’s right, the annual later-summer tribal party in the Black Rock Desert outback of northern Nevada, where about 50,000 artists and revelers unite amid throbbing music, body paint and an ignited effigy or two. Not only does Burning Man have a board of directors, those directors have business cards, and on the back of the business cards are 10 guiding principles. Conley gave me a card, and I stuffed it in my pocket.

So now I’m back from the road with one list (printed on orange paper) to my right, and another (printed on blue paper) to my left. This is a nice reminder that travel will mess with your mind as thoroughly as any drug or management-training program. It also shows that human beings love lists, and the number 10, and making plans for other people, whether we’re moving merchandise in a suburban big box or dancing naked in the desert.

But surely, it’s easy to tell Burning Man’s principles from Wal-Mart’s rules, right?

Not so much. I’ve combined the two lists into one, alphabetically ordered. Go ahead. Sort these out.

— Appreciate.

— Celebrate.

— Civic responsibility.

— Commit.

— Communal effort.

— Communicate.

— Control.

— Decommodification.

— Exceed.

— Gifting.

— Immediacy.

— Leaving no trace.

— Listen.

— Motivate.

— Participation.

— Radical inclusion.

— Radical self-expression.

— Radical self-reliance.

— Swim (upstream).

Ok, so a few were easy — “control” and “decommodification,” especially. And you can eventually figure it out, because one organization prefers verbs and the other likes nouns. (By the way, Burning Man was born in the late 1980s, when Wal-Mart was in its third decade. Sam Walton died in 1992.)

Here’s a little more on Burning Man’s principles, and here’s a little more on Walton’s rules.

We can agree, I think, that nobody playing at Burning Man and nobody working at Wal-Mart lives up to all of these ambitions every day. But, hey, it’s good to have goals. Maybe some district manager out there will adopt all 20 here and create the grooviest big box ever.

(via When Wal-Mart meets Burning Man – latimes.com)

Burner Personalities

08/21/201208/21/2012 by scott.kay

Want to know about those personalities you will meet out there or in your community? Those burners you are still trying to figure out. This handy guide to identifying burners courtesy of reddit.com/r/burningman (In other words I didn’t write this):

• The Acquisitor: Measures how much fun they’re having by how much stupid crap they can stuff their pockets with. Warning: the

y’ll try to steal some key piece of decor from your bar. Also, they’ll try to trade you a handful of painted bottle caps for a dose of E.

• The Bad Couple: Fights all the time. Fucks the rest of the time. One or both of them may try to seduce you; it’s not worth it.

• The Barfly: If you have a bar, this person will keep people coming back to it, night after night. Always willing to spell you at bartending, always there when you need a smoke, always drunk enough to find everyone fascinating, will dance to any music, laugh at any joke, applaud any story. Will probably sleep on the couch even if their tent is ten feet away. This person is your bar’s heartbeat.

• The Burnier-than-thou: similar to the Jaded Old-school Burner, except this is their third year. Don’t try to tell these people awesome stories of your adventures… They’ve seen it before, and anyway you did it wrong.

• The Camp Bitch: Would really have been happier staying at a nice hotel in Reno… but then they wouldn’t have lazy filthy campmates to complain about! They can’t believe what giant slobs everyone else is. Will moan incessantly about how no one else wants to wash the dishes. If you’re burning with more than two other people, you have at least one of these in your crew. If you don’t know who it is, maybe it’s you!

• The Center-camp Hanger-outer: Hangs out at Center camp the whole time. By the end of the week, they’ll have spent more money on iced-coffee drinks than you spent on gas. PRO TIP: Center camp is lame.

• The Creepy Date-rapist: Always has plenty of drugs.

• The Creepy Photo Guy: Self-explanatory. Never asks for permission. Often found lurking in center camp or anywhere else women congregate. Refuses to make eye contact. Angry when confronted.

• The Cruise Director: Has read the guide. Knows what day it is. Eats spectacular meals in a different place every night. Easily spotted by the addresses written on their arms. If you want to go to bed early, spend the day with this person; by sunset you’ll be exhausted.

• The Dirt Hippie: wears earth tones, asymmetrical clothing, often in layers. Bare feet. Real dreads, not fake ones. Strong smell of b.o. and sometimes patchouli. Often sighted at yoga camps, sound healing domes and center camp, showing off their contact-improv-partner-acroYoga.

• The Engineer: On the up side, they’ll do all the work and keep your camp functioning. On the down side, they’ll never let you forget that they do all the work and keep your camp functioning. Try to get them laid.

• The First-timer Whose Mind is Completely Blown the Whole Fucking time: Depending on your point of view, these people can be deeply inspiring, or even more annoying than the Jaded Old-schoolers. Usually they take too many drugs and have at least one nervous breakdown.

• The Fish-to-water: It’s their first year, but they wear the playa like Jessica Rabbit wears an evening gown. Fearless, self-deprecating, and utterly charming. Makes even Jaded Old-schoolers smile. Make them your camp ambassador.

• The Font of Swag: Exact opposite of the Acquisitor. Each morning they’ll fill their bag with homemade junk, and won’t return to camp until they’ve “gifted” away all their garbage.

• The Jaded Old-school Burner: Never shuts up about how much BM sucks now… but still comes! You won’t see much of these guys, though, because they never leave their camp.

• The New Age Pussy Hound: Man of any age, but often 35+, sometimes with a eurotrash accent. Lures women into his orbit by several means, often involving a “punani trimming camp”, “shower camp” (ladies only of course) or other “Goddess-servicing” camp. Tells you you have an old soul. Likes to offer shoulder massage or g-spot massage to release your Inner Goddess.

• The Overly Spiritual Burner: Can be easily identified as the person who never laughs at your jokes. Thinks Burning Man should be like Easter mass: solemn and incomprehensible. Just drop them off at the temple while you hop a totally undignified art-car to the upside-down-on-a-pole-in-a-wet-t-shirt drinking contest at Pinky’s.

• The Overprepared Neighbor: Forgot your can opener? Your toenail clippers? Your corkscrew? Here you go! No, you can keep it; I brought twenty.

• The Person Who’s Having Way More Fun than They Seem to Be: Often the oldest person in their camp. Has had a hard life. You have trouble catching their name. You’ll worry because they just sit at the end of the bar the whole time, drinking from a flask. but when you catch their eye they give you a giant shit-eating grin.

• The Perv: All their clothing is shiny and/or crotchless. They brought a “bag of tricks.” For most of the week you don’t know where they are; that’s because they’re next door, having earth-shaking sex with your dumpy middle-aged neighbors. If this person invites you to a party they heard about, FOR GOD’S SAKE GO!

• The Philosopher: Prefers shots to cocktails. Often fails to notice hot nudity that’s right next to them. Has rough mornings. Loses their voice.

• Playa Barbie: Furry leggings, sparkly hot pants, furry bikini top, fake dreads, goggles perched on head. Often high or drunk, they travel in packs. They appear underfed but never actually seem to eat — ecstasy totally like omg doesn’t make me hungry at all!

• The Raver: Wakes up at sunset. Measures fun in decibels. Runs out of drugs.

• The Seagull: That filthy kid stumbling around asking for water/food/drugs. Can also sometimes be discovered digging through your cooler if you leave it visible. Occasionally found passed out in your tent if your tent is near a road (true story – a campmate found one of these in his tent one year). Probably got into BRC via a “I Need a Miracle” sign and a gifted ticket.

• The Shell-breaker: who would have thought boring old Doug from work can sing like Barry White and do beer bongs like Bender?

• The Sparkle-pony: No camp is complete without some of these. Well costumed, and fun but offer not much in the way of usefulness as Sparkle Ponies. They hug, but don’t do dishes, nap during dome setup or offer sunscreen but not help tear down. They’re a bit like furniture you might get a chance to fuck.

• The Weekender: Arrives on Friday in an RV that’s more luxurious than your apartment. Doesn’t want to meet their neighbors. Doesn’t pack out their trash.

• The Wrecking Ball: Spills drinks, knocks over barstools, falls off of tables, rides their bike into support ropes and is humorously flung backwards, wanders off with the bong, invites thieves over, gets hurt, gets tickets. Can always lay their hands on a megaphone.

• The Yahoo: Says woo. Picks fights. Is a dick.

• Your Dream-girl/guy/both/other: Your perfect soul-mate. You’ll spend the most wonderful night of your life with this person. Then you’ll find out they’re married.

Stay Informed!!!

09/27/201408/07/2012 by scott.kay

See the new section in the above menu called “Announces” where I will endeavor to post important announcements and their sources! One of the most important out there is the JRS… see the links below: