In 2006 I camped with Chillonia and it was their last year
after 8 years in a row. Their complaint
with Burning Man was that “It’s not the same. It’s changed too much”, and their
Burner career was over. Now I’ve been
the last 8 years in a row and feel the same way. Maybe it’s the 8 year itch or something, but
there seems to be a big difference in how I experience the event as veteran
versus a wide-eyed wondering newbie. Or
it’s possible I’m just burned out by Burning Man. Let me explain how it happened and how the
event has changed, and why I’m not going back.
Vehicular amazement at Burning Man changed me forever. My first step on playa in 2006 was greeted by
a pagoda in the dusty distance, which slowly moved away. Later I saw a three-story Victorian house on
wheels sitting under a massive wooden cave with the best party of my life going
on around it; I knew I wanted to build and bring my own vision of creativity to
this event.
My whole life I’ve been into cars and was a gearhead. I went to engineering school and designed
cars in Detroit, and was doing Fast-n-Furious style tuner cars before the movie
even came out. There’s a certain
creativity to those cars, which aren't mass produced, but unless you’re making your own body kits and tuner
parts, it’s really about mass customization rather than individual
creativity. And someone else’s automotive sculpture formed
the basis for my personalized version.
How creative is selecting options from a menu of
choices? Sure, I had a one-of-a-kind
unique car when I was done, and nobody else had what I’d built. But it’s only one step above the creative level
of choosing if you want a #4 for here or to go, or choosing what color fur to
have someone else apply to your plug-n-play camp’s bike option.
So for the next few years I dreamed of how and when I would
be able to build my own art car. I even
rearranged my life to make it possible, by moving from Detroit to
California. Eventually everything came
together and I began the design process and by April of 2012 started the build
process. Her name was the M/V Nain
Rouge, and she was to be a 1000 foot ore freighter in 1/25ths scale, sinking by
night and sunk by day. When I was well
along into the build, I found out there was going to be another sinking ship at
Burning Man in 2012. “But mine will
move!” I told myself. This year a
campmate was inspired by my art car. He
was super-enthusiastic and wanted to build toilet seat car. I had to tell him, “It’s been done. Not
creative enough. Back to the drawing
board”. You don’t want to be the person
showing up at the party wearing the same outfit. To this day I tell Burners I
built a sinking ship, and they immediately think it’s the much cooler one at
the pier.
The inaugural year for the Nain Rouge was horrible for me:
my camp didn’t get tickets and didn’t go.
My friend and I were two people assembling and building the whole thing,
as well as operating it the whole time.
Driving that art car was boring as hell... art cars go 2 mph, and the
party is on the back, not with the driver.
I felt much more akin with all the paid service workers at the event:
the porta-potty cleaners, law enforcement, County Health Department workers,
potable water deliverers, etc, except that I had volunteered for this
duty! I’d express my woe at being stuck
driving it, and people would all offer to take a shift. But when it came time to take them up on the
offer, they couldn’t do it. The fact is
that at Burning Man, everyone is either already fucked up or planning to be in
the very near future. I had been in
denial about this party-as-sole-purpose aspect of the event for a while, but it
became crystal clear to me when nobody would drive it. And I realized that the only reason I didn’t
want to drive was because I desperately wanted a beer from the mobile viewing
platform I’d built 15 feet off the ground.
I felt like a complete sucker. Here I had spent over $15K on a large art car
only to rope myself to taxi driver service.
I started to understand the meaning of generosity versus sacrifice, and
had definitely crossed the line to sacrifice. I questioned my motivations for
building it in the first place: did I just want to express my creativity, or
was this all about my ego? At least my
dream of having an awesome party around an art car came to fruition.
Year two for the art car went a bit better since my camp
came back one last time and everyone contributed financially to bring the art
car back, but I really resented how it made me feel. You see, the gift economy isn’t real. It’s a
generosity trap, and Burning Man is set up to suck you dry if you let it. If you are feeling generous, you give from
your level of generosity and it’s a blessing to the giver and receiver. If you
are coerced to give, the gift becomes less meaningful. I actually think it becomes a kind of
spiritual poison if a “gift” is received like that.
For years and years, Burning Man ticket prices were
reasonable and available in different tiers.
If you had extra to give, and felt inspired to do so, you could buy the
more expensive tickets and help subsidize the event and purchasers of lower
tier tickets. Then after the 2012 ticket
fiasco, everyone had to pay the highest prices for tickets. I paid $390 and brought an expensive art car
to Burning Man in 2013, even after being laid off in early April of this year. This completely tapped me out, and I really
have to credit my camp, Bike-n-Booze, for financially supporting the return of
the ship this year. Without their help,
I would not have gone. Between liability
insurance, the expenses of maintaining and registering a Commercial Vehicle in
California, and the diesel fuel at 10 mpg, you need a good income to afford
this.
Everyone who stepped foot on the art car was essentially
getting a $100 ride, if they were to pay the true cost of riding it, and my
generosity was tapped out. It was all
sunk cost by the time the art car showed up at Burning Man, so I didn’t
actually resent any person riding it or care at that point. But I was pissed at myself for spending so
much money, and giving to an event that didn’t give back in equal measure. My generous gift became a poison to me.
I got absolutely no support from Burning Man Org for my
efforts, and paid a shit load. This
happens all the time with art cars and sound camps. This is perhaps the main reason why I’m not
going back to Burning Man again. Where
is my ticket money going? Not to the
things I want to support at Burning Man.
I learned that I’m not my own wealthy patron, and I learned that people
with the real deep pockets do more for Burning Man than we’ll ever know. Our neighbors down the street brought the
amazing Wide Awake art car, which apparently is owned by the guy who runs
Insomniac Events. It had to cost $250K
to make, at least. Why am I even trying
to compete with that? Next time, I need
to be the guy who gets hired to make art cars reality.
And to the entitled newbies that demanded to the door
operator that we stop and give them a ride: Fuck Off and be happy if you ever
get gifted an Art Car ride. If you want
an Art Car to stop, you talk to the driver.
For some reason people think the door operator controls everything. That’s like expecting the gangway platform
operator on a cruise ship to be in charge.
Ask the Captain if you want to ride.
Sometimes the door people have a communication line to the front, but
not always. So it doesn’t hurt to ask
both people, but don’t expect to get a ride on an Art Car by just walking up to
it, especially when it’s moving. One guy
was so upset he couldn’t get on that he demanded to know the name of my art
car, like he was going to turn me into the Art Car police. Ok I’ll
step off the soapbox on that subject.
So the art car was taken apart and destroyed
at the end of the event. I burned all
the wood at Burning Man and scrapped over 450 lb of steel when I got home and
got $13 for it. I am hoping to recover
about half my $15K in build expenses when the truck sells. I learned a lot about myself and a lot about
generosity, and became completely burned out on Burning Man. I found I love the
regional events, because they’re small enough and un-bureaucratic enough to
have the vibe of the Burning Man that I loved my first year.
At SD Decom this year I met the guy who
bankrolled an awesome sound camp there... it was pretty tight. Nice lights too.
He just was sitting back looking smug, and I was like "you had something
to do with this, didn't you? I recognize that look." Yep. He basically
said, "we spent the whole afternoon tweaking the sound. I paid for all of
this". The one thing I can say,
having been in his shoes, is that it makes you feel like a fucking magician. It’s
the whole "I built this" feeling; it's the accomplishment of real creativity, not creativity like choosing what color ipod cover to buy.
We should allow some room for ego at Burning Man. My first year out with
the art car I kept questioning if I did this out of ego or just to see it out
there, to prove to myself I could build it.
The first year was purely for the vision, to see creativity come to
life. The second year: ego, to prove that Burning Man did not defeat me. At this point, my ego is satisfied.
So who really benefits from getting 600 people to spend
anywhere from $2K - $250K on their art cars? You could say the participants, or
you could say the Burning Man Organization. They jacked up everyone’s ticket to
$390 and don’t fund art cars. BM Org’s Profit: Priceless. There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s generous
suckers.
