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BURNING_IRRITATION
September 12, 2006
February 14, 2007
Coming in to "Burning Man" late on
Wednesday, I crawl slowly through the
dark dusty streets in our beat-up '88
Honda. Some twenty-something looks
at me and does a "Are you *just*
getting here? You should get here Yeah, thanks. I have in the
sooner!" past, I may do so again.
Weirdly enough, I know
something about this.
Note: the Man burns on
Saturday, the Temple
on Sunday, after that
is the Monday exodus
when it is nearly
impossible to leave
because everyone is
trying to do so.
The set-up period
in the weeks before
the Big Weekend
A rather chintzy "art car" piled is often genuinely
high with kids too lazy to walk more interesting.
to the rave buzzes away from the
porta-potties, dropping an empty The weekend itself
plastic water bottle behind. is often dominated
by idiot ravers,
Dangerbaby tries to get them to and other related
take it, they blow her off, and party-party cults.
speed away.
I'm giving them the finger,
and one of the punks on the
back of this car goes through (I should've done a tarzan/king
this act making bogus violent kong breast-beating gesture in
gestures (come and get me, I'm reply. Well, there's always
right here). next time. Unfortunately.)
I try to memorize what
they look like... is it
worth turning in a
complaint about them?
Their "art car" (The point of all this
probably isn't even being that littering is
registered with the DMV. a serious no-no at
Burning Man... *all* of
DMV = "Department of the trash has to get
Mutant Vehicles" shipped out of there,
one way or another.)
We got the tip-off that the "Plya
Bar-B-Q" camp was going to be giving
out free food on Monday evening, so we
peddled on over there.
After a number of delays, this
rather self-important aging hippie/
hillbilly dude known as "Reverend
Smoke" comes out and begins
lecturing us that he's going to
feed his own people first.
A young asian kid nearby said
something like "is there going Ungrateful or not,
to be enough food?" it doesn't seem like
that weird a question...
The good Reverend went off on a trip
screaming at him for his ungreatful Why else would he be
rudeness: worried about feeding
his crew first?
"Is this your first burn!?"
The kid was presumably
Later, we notice just wondering "should
Smoke grabbing a I keep hanging around?"
young female out
of the line,
sheperding her up
to the front. Not that I'm ungrateful
or anything.
Milking his position
for all he can get. But then, Dangerbaby and
I went away from Burning Note: do
Man with two cases of not touch
diarrhea. the cole
slaw when
So: thanks guys. visiting
a carnivore
camp.
Then you have:
Me dissing ravers... BURNING_DEFENSE
and RV campers... BURNING_ROVER
Hipster finger-pointing can
be some of the most tedious
display of one-upsmanship EGGING_ON
imaginable.
But how else can we learn
from each other, how else
can a group self-regulate?
Ah what joy,
around and around: Let he who is
without uncool
Seizing the parental role cast the first
unasked, shrugging off sneer.
the faux parental
authority, assumed by (And thus the
others... game goes to
the uncool.)
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