"and you should feel the same way"

BULLSHIT. I probably agree with you, but ANYTIME someone begins a tirade with those words I turn them the fuck off.

"and you should feel the same way"

Throughout the years people have been killed for just that reason.

you have GOT to be kidding. if anything, the burning of the man, and the derrick were far more acts of environmental terrorism than burning the man. those burns were SO not green.....

"a giant stage filled with engaging green inventions and art executed not by big corporations but by inventive burners. "

And maybe you should read the article in the July issue of Business 2.0 Magazine and find out just which "big corporations" were actually there, which ones spent money to be there - and while not having their advertising at the Man - had it littered all over business magazines and their corporate websites.

BMan, has gone corporate. And attendees are being described as a marketing demographic:

"This community is a dream for anyone looking at demographics," Goodell says. "We have kids who work in coffee shops and we have billionaires. To ignore the value of our brand, the buying power it has, is silly. But it's a ritual for these people, which is why it's going to be hard for them seeing businesses out there." Burning Man's customers keep coming back to Black Rock precisely because it's so far outside the scope of the corporate culture - and its incessant marketing - that most of them live with the other 51 weeks of the year.

So the organization decided that the companies that come this summer will have to play by Burning Man's rules. The first letter inviting corporate participants was pulled off the website after only a few days; Harvey says it made the event sound too much like a trade fair. The revision stated explicitly that no marketing whatsoever would be allowed at the event. "

Yeah, no marketing at the event. But all of the press in trade magazines is HUGE for business.

The point I'm hearing is that there was an intended element of evolution that the BOrg was trying to instill that didn't get its chance in the petrie dish of BRC. Rather than a move forward to promote positive change forward, the early burn was a hearkening back.

I'm glad the hexyyurts got put to good use.

At least you got the chance to shake your booty.

Sunshine, my friend, I hope we get to meet soon. I had a very similar reaction to the Addis thing, but then I thought it through a little and came to a different conclusion.

Here's the first thing: BM.org *could* have rolled with the punches and just kept the pavilion open. I don't think there were safety issues once the Man was down, and if they'd had to, say, move items to the Cafe area and put them around the edge of that space, I'm sure the show could have gone on.

I think, frankly, they bottled out. The Addis thing provided them with a way of ducking the cultural issues around corporate participation at Burning Man, and they took it. Right in the long run because it gives the community more time? Perhaps.

This may sound odd, but I trust their judgment, even when I can't agree with it. They do the impossible, like justifying BM to the authorities in a way that allows us to continue, so that means they don't always have to explain. They just point at what they've done and say, "well, how do you think we did that? Trust Us."

And I do, for the most part.

Here's the other thing, and I'm sorry if this upsets people.

vinay.howtolivewiki.com/blog/h...dis-274

He looks like he has mental health issues, for one thing. But for another, there's something in there, some visible seed of light that's hard not to see. Next year I think we'll understand that perhaps the approach taken to corporate participation taken this year was fatally flawed at some profound philosophical level, and either they should never have been there, or there should have been some entirely more profound rethinking of the role of corporate citizens of Black Rock City.

I *think* what it is, is that Black Rock City needs a "Business District" - an area for corporate theme camps which are essentially as unrestricted and free as anybody else's theme camps - where they can *by god* throw down, show their creativity, and make art too with the rest of us.

Still the absolute bar on sales and marketing but a lot more creative freedom and vision to display their vision of the world.

IF YOU WANT TO COME TO BURNING MAN, CORPORATION, YOU MAKE ART

Just like we did with art cars. Vehicles needed to be constrained to Burning Man culture, and we did it by making sure that they had to play ball with the Playa.

So suppose, next year, there's a Burning Man Business District, and all Corporate Camps have to demonstrate three things.

1> First class environmental performance, or (for companies that are big, old and slow) evidence of tangible improvement in Triple Bottom Line accounting terms. You cannot come unless you are clean. The Playa is barred to companies who have no place in the Future in their current business model.


2> No marketing. Your company comes to the Playa AS A PARTICIPANT. You can use your stuff in your projects, you can ignore it and make art on your own terms, but this is not a goddamn trade show. For example, say Kodak wanted to come to the Playa. Maybe their project is that they give out 5000 digital cameras, and at the end of the week you drop them in boxes on the way out, and they run giant face recognition systems over the photographs, and you can see all the places where you were in the background of a shot, and it's like your Burn Diary (and, of course, you can also opt to have any picture with you in it taken off the web.)

A meditation on privacy and surveillance, brought to you by Kodak. Does it matter, if that art is produced, that it came from a corporation?

Of course not.

Is it marketing? Well, no more so than the art made by individual sculptors who make their living selling sculpture off the playa is marketing. Corporations are made of people, and maybe we should let them play on the same ground that everybody else does.


3> No use of imagery from Burning Man in advertising or marketing.

You come, you make art, you don't get to use your goddamn BURNING MAN BROUGHT TO YOU BY KODAK shots anywhere else. And I think that, given that it's our choice whether we let them participate or not, anybody who's using Playa-like imagery in their advertising (a disturbing trend) can't come either.

The place is sacred and demands to be treated as such.


So, I dunno. Much as I initially wanted to punch Addis in the teeth, Burning Man is too big and to fierce a force for an idiot with a blowtorch to derail *if* it's correctly aligned with it's basic values.

I think of him and his actions as a symptom that corporate participation had not been done right this year.

Even though neither your project nor mine was corporate at all, remember that Treehugger is Discovery Channel, and Current TV is a company, and they introduced us and put us in the Pavilion. We were there as parts of the Corporate Program, and we're evidence that good things *can* come out of corporate participation at Burning Man.

But not, apparently, like this.

Next year, on the Playa, my friend, we'll fix it.

We worked for ten's of thousands of hours on our projects and one egocentric man named Paul Addis destroyed our contribution for his own self serving message of anger and discontent.

www.burningman.com/environm...tion.html

Shame on him and his followers.

people.tribe.net/22603408-...ffd8225a50

tribes.tribe.net/pauladdisformayor

***

Arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 25 at Pershing County Courthouse in Nevada.

www.pershingcounty.net/districtct.htm

The current Judge and staff of the Lake Township Justice Court are:

Justice of the Peace – Carol A. Nelsen
Senior Court Clerk – Karen Stephens
Court Clerk II – Sheila Reitz

Lake Township Justice Court
400 Main Street
P.O. Box 8
Lovelock , NV 89419

Phone: 775-273-2753
Fax: 775-273-0416

www.pershingcounty.net/justice.htm

***

Gonzo, a Brutal Chrysalis

Seattle Dates:

September 20-22 and 27-29 at The Freehold Theatre, 8PM
October 4-6 Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC Showroom), 8PM

LA Dates:

Oct. 12-14, 19-21, and 27-28 at the Whitmore-Lindley Theater
11006 Magnolia Blvd
North Hollywood, CA
(818) 761-0704

www.gonzoduke.com/about.html

"Gonzo, a Brutal Chrysalis presents the life of Hunter S. Thompson, Producers quietly accept full responsibility for shattered icons and existential conversions. All litigation to be tried in federal district court, San Francisco, CA. Patent pending. Everyone reserves their own rights."

*******

Pursue civil damages at:

www.washoelegalservices.org/smclaims.htm

Anyone using the word "terrorism" to describe Paul Addis needs to be smacked across the face with a wooden board. I think Addis is a egotistical dumbass, but people have really got to stop throwing the word "terrorism" around.

Paul Addis is a Burning Man hero.

Dude... someone else is calling themselves "Sunshine" ?

I certainly don't want to be confused with this other Sunshine
yeesh

Dear Sunshine,
You are a nutball.

Yours truly,
Sunshine

"and you should feel the same way"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!! WAIT....HAHAHAHAHAHAH

YES MASTER...I WILL FEEL THAT WAY....THE WHOLE FESTY IS AN ACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISM....LETS SEE...40,000 PEOPLE TRAMPLING THE DESERT WHILE BURNING A RECOCKULOUS AMOUND OF ALL KINDS OFF DIFFERENT FUELS, BLOWING UP OIL TANKERS, AND LEAVING A 200 MILE TRAIL OF GARBAGE ON THE ROAD.....BURNING THE MAN WAS THE LEAST OF THE ENVIRONMENTS PROBLEMS.....AND ILL TELL YOU NOW...TELLING PEOPLE HOW THEY SHOULD FEEL IS A PRETTY PISS POOR WAY TO MAKE PEOPLE SEE YOUR POINT

Arthur, love you man, but uhhhh... terrorism? Can you possibly be serious? And even if you believe that, using the linguistic equivalent of a chainsaw to make your point?

While I do understand much of your position, I'll simply say this:

If it was terrorism, who is it that is being intimidated, or oppressed by the early burning of the man? (And please that I DIDN'T ask: "Who is being disappointed, deprived, etc?.")

Hey we got to burn two men in a green year. I used more propane this year and people loved it. To raise spirits and bring people together by the light of fire, that's green to me. Ground a couple of bombing missions and the entire carbon footprint of burning man is offset. And that some people are NOT bombed in our name is an added bonus. The USA waging an illegal war against a soverign nation that did not attack us, now THAT'S environmental terrorism. Charge: Preaching to the choir. Verdict: Guilty

It wasn't because of one asshole, that's pure fallacy.

I think it was a combination of several thousand assholes collectively called Yahoos, and BM getting too big for it's britches and starting to collapse under it's own weight.

I say let it collapse. Dozens of regionals have spun off from it, that's where it's future lies.

Also, If we let it collapse we could use that to send a big "fuck you" to uncle sam and all his little cronies who've been trying to tax it out of existence. Suddenly they'd have to cope with the cutoff of all that extra cash they've been raping us for.

I don't understand why assholes get such a bad rap. I mean, really -- try to live without yours for a day and see what happens.

Did you drive, or walk, to Burning Man??

Whatever we call the act isn't important, nor is the motivation. What concerns me is what will BLM consider it to be. And I'd bet that "terrorism" will be high on their list, environmental or not. Among BLM's concerns is sure to be, how will BORG be able to control an even larger crowd next year. The end result of this one act could push the burn further away from what burningman used to be, or cause it to end altogether.

my 2 cents,

Paddy

IS this and ISN'T that... Our concepts of what Burning man IS are primarily only meaningful to ourselves, and expressed to everyone else in what you bring to the community. No matter what you think of the act of arson, the cultural ripples and the dialog it's set off have laid the stage for change, and it a'coming...

People seem to forget that this whole thing started with a Cacophony Society event. From the intro on cacophony.org

"The Society is a loosely-structured network of individuals, banded together -- as our name suggests -- by a common love of cultural noise: belief systems, aesthetics, and ways of living striking a note of discord against prevailing harmonies..."

We have set up a resonate harmony in the cycle and structure of life in BRC and this influx of the social rules of the default (No matter how whitewashed) is always going to cause a backlash of discord. And thank Eris for it. Otherwise I'm thinking what we have is an insanely expensive rainbow gathering.

Not everyone gives a shit about the carbon footprint, no matter how much you wish it were so. Live it and make it work where people can see and they'll follow. Shout it from a soapbox and it's just more white noise.

Sunshine-
I read your post after it has attracted a bunch of responses-- which I haven't read. Just want to say that I agree that Paul's stunt, for whatever it was or wasn't, and whatever should/should not be done about or to him, caused a major de-rail of the green intentions of the event. I personally feel like I missed out on a lot of new ideas that I had been looking forward to.

But the info and the need is still out there, and I'm hoping that you and others will keep on doing what you're doing. And who knows, maybe there will be some other gathering place at some other time where this much creative force can regroup. Afterall, it's not like we will be needing it any less in the future.

namaste~

Let your thoughts be heard by the Pershing County District Attorney

Jim C. Shirley

Criminal and Juvenile Case: To promote the safety of public by prosecuting criminal and juvenile cases in a fair and judicious manner and to the extent as allowed by law, while understanding and attempting to lessen the impact on victims and witnesses;

Pershing County Court House

400 Main Sreet

P.O. Box 299

Lovelock , NV 89419-0299

(775) 273-2613

Facsimile (775) 273 7058

jshirley@pershingcounty.net