If you’ve wondered why this blog appears to have gone quiet in the last week, it’s because I’m travelling on a trip that has taken me from the White House to Miami’s Winter Electronic Music Conference to West Point. Meanwhile, nothing much seems to have happened in the Burning Man world during this time. That may be about to change, with a rival civilization springing up to challenge Burning Man’s supremacy as a temporary city.

Fox TV has begun casting for a new reality show, called Utopia. The show is being produced by Dutch TV maestro John de Mol, who has won 25 Emmy awards for his contribution to the medium. He created the Big Brother show where people live together in a house with cameras on them 24/7. There they perform all manner of bizarre antics and entertainment for the home viewers, trying to avoid being voted out. What kind of antics? Well, the show’s most famous and controversial moment in Australia was a “teabagging incident”.

If you think you have what it takes for reality TV, then you might enjoy dedicating a year of your life to this new show, Utopia. It has debuted on Dutch TV already – so strongly that it triggered a bidding war amongst American networks looking for “the next big thing”.

The debut exceeded expectations, ranking as SBS 6′s highest-rated nonscripted premiere in six years. It won its time slot and pulled a 25.2% share in adults 18-49, improving the network’s market share in the time period by 500%, and drew almost 1.6 million overall viewers compared to SBS’ average viewership in the slot of 300,000…and nearly 100,000 people downloaded the app after the first episode

John de Mol also created Deal Or No Deal, Fear Factor, and The Voice – but he says “this is the purest form of reality that I have ever produced in my career”. The Hollywood Reporter called it “the most ambitious social experiment on television”

The premise of the show is “start your own civilization”, and see what you can achieve in a year. The location of where in the United States this will be remains a secret; it is unlikely to be the Black Rock Desert. Still, radical Burner skills of self-expression, self-reliance, participation, communal effort, civic responsibility, and immediacy could all be useful in this new civilization. Some creativity would be required to demonstrate how a society could be built entirely from Gifting: surely someone would have to have access to more resources than others, in order to have more gifts to distribute over the course of an entire year. Decommodification also seems like a challenge, when you are a wannabe star in a mainstream reality TV show broadcast around the world. Something tells me Fox will find some sponsors for this. I find it hard to believe how a TV production crew on  a set they construct from nothing over a year is going to “Leave No Trace”. Still, Burners are nothing if not ingenious, so this could be a fantastic opportunity for The Burning Man Project to test how their principles work away from a rocket testing site in the Wild West – perhaps a useful exercise before they start their own brand-licensed colonies.

Gretchen Miller is doing the casting, and she says they have already received applications from some Burners. You can contact her here.

UTOPIA is a bold new unscripted series that moves 15 everyday Americans to an isolated, undeveloped location – for an entire year – and challenges them to create their own civilization.

With cameras following the pioneers 24/7, viewers can watch their society unfold, both weekly on FOX and also online. As they observe the inhabitants living together, and building their new existence, viewers themselves will have the chance to become a valuable and powerful asset to the community, and ultimately to question whether Utopia remains an elusive but alluring fantasy, or whether the pioneers have truly realized their dream

We are looking for those strong individuals who will create this new world on live television to see if they have what it takes to work together and create a new society from scratch.

We need people from all walks of life and skill sets to contribute to this new community being founded.  I am familiar with Burning Man and have attended in the past. Attendees have such a great sense of community and ideals which I think will be a great asset on the show. We are looking for artists, tradespeople, activists, contractors, doctors. lawyers,inventors, chefs, firefighters etc.

Please check out the show’s website at http://www.fox.com/utopia/.  For anyone interested in applying they can go to http://www.utopiatv.com  and fill out the questionnaire or contact me directly.  The show’s trailer can be found here: http://youtu.be/xfnaDbmFpP4.

John de Mol says:

“Utopia is a positive and constructive program that gives people the opportunity, if you can start all over again, start from scratch and create laws and make decisions, will you be able to build a society that is better than the one we have; will it be chaos or happiness…Big Brotheris a competition among 12 people who don’t have the worry about money, their fridge is always full, it’s a totally different setup.” He also noted that the cast members on Utopia, which requires a lot of skills, tend to be more upscale

Pro tip for budding social engineers: wear a Stetson.

As we enter the 5th month of the year, BMOrg are managing to be strangely silent, while at the same time being all over the news. The “Burning Man Organizer Throws Bundy Fest” story has been picked up by mainstream organizations like  Washington Times, Fox News, Reno Gazette Journal, Las Vegas Sun, Daily Kos, topix, Raw Story, The Blaze, Spin; as well as “alternative media” sites like Godlike Productions, BeforeItsNews, DiscloseTV,  FARK, the Daily Paul, and even Datehookup.com.

Burning Man’s response to the confusion has been tepid. Communications director Jim Graham said in an email to the RGJ: “The person is not a Burning Man organizer and we actually have no information on him”. On their Facebook page, they said “For the record, the Burning Man organization has absolutely no involvement whatsoever with the so-called #BundyFest or its supposed organizer Sean Shealy.” This information may be useful to Burning Man’s community, but how many Fox News reporters are reading their Facebook page? As far as we can tell, no press release has been issued. So this is the total extent of their denial.

Instead, BMorg wrote a blog post entitled “why doesn’t Burning Man take a stand?” They published this with a new logo, mixing the Burning Man symbol with the American flag. This blog post  and logo was put on the front page of their site. The post doesn’t explicitly say “we have nothing to do with Bundy Fest”, but it does try to throw them into the political mix.

In answering their own question “why don’t we take a stand”, they are, in fact, taking a stand. The stance they take is “we try to stay out of it, because radical inclusion means everyone is welcome; and immediacy means we can resolve political problems with face to face discourse”.

Certainly, the Feds are welcome. BLM special agent Dan Love, who led the machine gun brandishing, cow and tortoise killing, woman-tasering Federal team at the Bundy stand-off…also leads the SWAT team-like BLM forces at Burning Man, looking to bust Burners with their night vision goggles, drug sniffer dogs, and fully automatic weapons.

Supposedly, the cowboys are welcome, as long as they don’t bring their horses. The militias are welcome, as long as they don’t bring their guns. The Second Amendment is suspended at the largest event on Federal Land.

Here’s what BMOrg say:

Now and again somebody tries to tempt (or badger) the Burning Man organization into taking stand on a political issue – most recently the dust-up at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada.

Why doesn’t Burning Man take a stand? The answer is simple: our principle of Radical Inclusion. “Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.”

We believe the best way for people to develop and evolve their political positions toward a better future is through interpersonal connection, sharing ideas, and engaging in informed dialog with people representing a diversity of perspectives.While many of our staff are politically active (across the entire political spectrum, actually), we pride ourselves on facilitating and cultivating a community that welcomes all political stripes. And religious stripes. And genders. And races. And creeds. And sexual preferences. And … you get the idea.

Face-to-face interaction is key in this equation … which reflects another of our 10 Principles: Immediacy. “Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers standing between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience…

…We want to better the world. We ALL want to better the world — and people have vastly different visions of what that actually looks like. We’re not going to tell you what that looks like, but we can provide the space to find out for yourself.”

Does Burning Man really think that everything would be fine, if these good ‘ole boys and patriot militias showed up en masse?

There is nothing in the Ten Principles, or anywhere else in the ticket rules, that specifies a dress code for the party. And yet – can you wear jeans, shirt and a cowboy hat (if you’re not Larry Harvey)? Can you wear camo pants and Ron Paul t-shirts? An LA Clippers jersey? Perhaps you might answer “yes”, but come on – that’s theory, not practice. In practice you would be attacked by mobs of burnier-than-thous. You would be booed and jeered. There is an expectation to conform to Burner culture, as we explored in this earlier post “everyone’s unique except me”.

“Participation in society” and “dressing half naked in costumes, taking drugs and dancing on an art car” are not the same thing. Going far, far into the desert, and partying with other like minded people, is more like participating in a commune, than society.

It seems to me that BMOrg are quite content for the media blitz about BundyFest to continue, spreading their name to new audiences. They are even trying to capitalize on it by positioning themselves as an appropriate venue for political discourse – between us Burners, with BMorg staying neutral and providing “the crucible”.

The move may backfire, as Burners realize that they are losing freedoms at TTITD, not celebrating them. On the official blog, Burner Silvio says:

I’ve camped with Clan Destino since 2002. We had a meeting last night, and decided for the first time they we’re going to pass on BM this year, and put all our effort into BundyFest. We’ve always wanted to extend our time on the playa, we have more resources to offer than can be delivered in just 1 week. So we’re going to spend the whole month at BundyFest and offer the same entertainment and services we’ve offered for over a decade at BM. This decision was made for this reason, plus the fact that LEOs raided our camp last year because someone rolled a tobacco cigarette. The dogs were called in, and every tent and vehicle was searched. They found nothing, and even Black Rock Rangers helped to turn our camp upside down.

It’s just the evolution of Burning Man. It was just a matter of time before something like BundyFest would take over. I hope to see all of you out there.

As for the strange silence, we are still waiting for the announcement of 2014 Art Honoraria winners, the new web site, and the restoration of the marketplace.

What do you think, Burners? Should you have to dress like you’re at Burning Man, to be part of it? Or should people come in their everyday clothes, because everyone is welcome and we want to evolve their political ideas?

For San Francisco Burners, there are a couple of sales coming up this weekend featuring Playa-ready outfits. If you’ve never been to a Burning Man trunk show before, I highly recommend it. There’s a bar, DJs, and you can support the Burner ecosystem while getting decked out in the latest fashions.

NIMBY in Oakland

8410 Amelia St

Saturday 10:00-17:00:

Are you still looking for that perfect Burning Man outfit? Well look no further and come visit the East Bay Burners at NIMBY on August 9th. We have faux fur, sparkly spandex, jewelry, funky shoes, glow in the dark T-shirts, unique crafts, swag, and the list goes on. Please come on by and pick something up and support your local burners as they continue to fundraise to bring their large scale art projects out to the playa.

We are also still accepting donations of costumes, crafts, treats for a bake sale, booze, volunteers to help out. Contact leorigill@gmail.com. 

And at Mighty in the city, a trunk show featuring more than 30 designers:

8th Annual BEYOND THE FENCE Trunk Show!Saturday, August 9th
@ Mighty – 119 Utah San Francisco
Noon – 6pm
Free Entry
https://www.facebook.com/events/658419364252890Our trunk show highlights over 30 local independent designers showcasing designs for both on and off the playa. We are very excited to be bringing you some new designers and kick off the shopping season properly!

On the Decks:
Anthony Mansfield – Disco Knights
Joel Conway – Housepitality / Bubble
Wichita Ron – Disco Knights/Magnificent 7

The Designers:
10th Muse
Aya Papaya
AvaTailor
Blue Moon Designs
Dr. Cory
Dreamtime
Eghan Thompson
Firebird
Flow Toys
Gata Designs
Ghetto Goldilocks
Gita Salem
Griffin Wings
Gypsy Streetwear / Firefly Style
Hipstirr Belts
In Visions
Jan Hilmer & Sparrow
Kayo Animae
KrakenWhip
Malvoye Enterprises
Minerva’s Antennae
Miranda Caroligne
Nomadic Nectar
Om Gaia Tree
Opal Moon Designs
Phoenix Rising
Pretty Kitty
Renegade Couture
Sefirah Fierce Designs
Shawna Hoffman
Sheila B
SilverLucy Design
Skin on Skin Belts
SuperSugarRayRay
T.S. I LOVE YOU
Tamo Design
The Window Lady
Tooth Gem’s by Foxy
Warrior Within Designs

Once again, an idea originally introduced to this community as an amusing farce, has now become an established money-making service.

The Burning Man concierge is here.

From BurningmanVIP.net:

Burning Man Concierge Service is a product of The Key Group. We are an european company based in Geneva (Switzerland) and Luxembourg, specializing in Family Office and Private Concierge services.
From the begining, we always develop some new products in order to meet the specific needs and requests of our clients. Our dynamic team is used to treat the most eccentrics requests, while maintaining total privacy and also the safety of our clients.

Going further than just a supplier, we study the request with our customers to assist them in each project. Together We develop projects proposing some new ideas, extremely targeted to provide total satisfaction to our customers. Whether to make a personal dream, any urgent need, planning some holidays, or even to please your own clients in a Business to Business, our team will make every effort to surprise you.

IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, WE CAN DO IT

Following the request of a group of clients, we decided to create this service of Burning Man Concierge Service to allow you to enjoy this wonderful experience in the best conditions of comfort you can expect. With a long experience in the major festivals around the world, our team will take care of everything for you, to let you live your Burn and keep a magical memories of this unique adventure !

What sort of services are on offer, for those who like their Radical Self Reliance to be Immediate? Everything from holding your parasol to fetching you in a private plane and designing your own art car.

To enable our customers to make the most of their experience at Burning Man, we offer a concierge service that takes care of all the logistics of their stay, and which offers the best comfort you can hope for in a desert camp.

P.Diddy’s girlfriend Cassie poses in front of the couple’s Pilatus PC-12, a sweet ride to the Playa

Example of proposed services :

- Arranging and booking of flights to Reno
- Welcome and support from the Reno airport
- Flight to Burning Man in a private plane
- Skydiving over the playa
- Survival pack 
- Establishment of a camp with electricity, water and satellite internet wifi connection
- Welcoming participants in some luxury RV, comfortable and air-conditioned (2 – 4 people per RV)
- Daily water supply for the RV
- Private toilets for the camp
- Musical entertainment in the camp
- Organization of Camp central tent (decoration, sofas, beds)
- Supplies additional costumes and accessories for bike decorations
- Customized Art Car for all the group with BM authorized driver
- Cooks and fresh buffets for every meal
- Snacks 24/24
- Open bar 24/24 with fresh drinks and alcohol at discretion
- Possibility of ordering goods and products from outside Black Rock City every day (+24h)
- Technician guard 24/24
- Physical coach and 4 times per day sport training sessions at the camp and around the playa
- Massages on request provide by the physical coach
- Photo reportage and editing a souvenir book
- Organize a goodbye party for 300 person (guest + friends) in the camp (DJ)

Extra VIP services :

- Study, design and creation of your own art cars
- Coordination of any artistic performance of your choice

[Update 8/10/14 1:44pm]

Technically, this is all perfectly fine for them to offer – just like Turnkey Plug-n-Play camping – as long as BMOrg gets their cut. The BLM takes 3%. Radical Inclusion, Radical Self Expression, dehydrated Sparkle Ponies and Leave No Trace butt up against Civic Responsibility and Radical Self Reliance and Decommodification and Gifting and Communist Ethics Communal Effort in one big, confusing, lucrative mess. Wash your own brains. The people giving you a ride on that public conveyance Art Car or displaying that giant fire breathing statue for your enjoyment might be there on one of these packages, so think before you hate. This is by no means the only private concierge service at Burning Man.

Commenter Nomad Traveler points out that this must be sanctioned by the BMOrg, like SK8 camp’s merchandise, since they are using the Burning Man logo.

http://burningmanvip.net must be a BOrg-sanctioned activity because:
a) it has the Burning Man logo;
b) it uses the “Burning Man” name in it’s title and domain;
c) it uses BM pix for commercial purposes;
d) they list a US contact: Los Angeles +1 323 375 0 735 usa@the-key.ch.

Otherwise, those add up to the sort of thing the BOrg has unleashed their lawyers on. Nope. I figure it is just another way the BOrg is cashing in.

It ain’t no troll people. This is the real deal: and for many wealthy clients, and indispensable service. Their personal assistant might not have Playa experience.

Watching the UStream feed, it looks like the gate may be open again for people who have been waiting there all day. There are vehicles are coming in. If we get an official announcement we will let you know. All Burning Man’s official channels are silent, piecing things together from Facebook we can tell you the highway patrol are still turning people back, BMOrg just let some people in who were stuck in line at the Gate and Will Call. More rain is expected tonight. The gate is still scheduled for official opening at noon tomorrow. Will update as we hear more.

[Update 8/25/14 9:30pm]

Although there has been no word on the official Burning Man social media channels for 8-9 hours, BMIR let slip that the gate was open – then didn’t mention it again. Cars were seen on UStream driving into Black Rock City. A few Burners between Gerlach and the gate have reported that cars are moving again. Peter Hirshberg told us:

“Gate is open. The road blocks are still in force, but being stood down town by town heading south. Here in empire we are being told that the highway patrol will give us the go signal within the hour. As the backlog clears, towns further south will open . We’re being told not to proceed until the highway patrol says go, Or “you’ll be turned back as a matter of policy” The whole thing looks pretty well coordinated between bmorg and law enforcement .”

John Curley continues his excellent reporting from Black Rock City on the official Burning Man blog.

Gate and Will Call entry lines. photo: clevertalkinglaama

Burning Man pressed the “pause” button today, as heavy rains and hail prevented people from getting in and out of Black Rock City, caused widespread power outages, and intensified the misery of people waiting in the “will call” lines at the box office.

The gates to the city officially opened at 10 am on Sunday, and for most of the day it seemed like the event was off to a pretty good start, despite harsh weather during the build that forced everyone to hustle to catch up to schedule.

It seems there were quite a few problems in the Will Call line, before the weather forced them to hit pause.

Things got further off track as Sunday progressed, though, with horror tales of people spending as many as eight hours in the will-call line. The scene at the gate last night was unprecedented. As people wound round and around waiting in line on foot to pick up their will-call tickets, there weren’t any cars ready to be processed through the gate.

Will Call line. photo: John Curley

It almost seems like there’s a new challenge in the ticket system every year, and this year it has been the backlog at the will call window. Nimbus, Burning Man’s ticketing manager, said in her seven years with the organization, she’s never seen so many people arrive at the will-call window in such a short time frame.

…Megan Miller, Burning Man’s director of communication, said, “There are a lot of factors that we’re looking at. Some of it is in our control, and some of it isn’t.”

The contributing factors include the number of tickets that are sold electronically and require a check-in. Those include the 3,000 tickets that were sold in the “oh my god” final sale in July, the 4,000 low-income tickets, and the increasing number of tickets sold to international participants, who now are about 20 percent of the population (the organization does not ship tickets internationally). Plus, all the tickets re-sold through the STEP program also require a visit to the will-call window.

And then there are the vagaries caused by dependence on technology: If the wifi is down or bad weather is affecting satellite signals, the check-in process is slowed. It’s still the desert out here, you know, and things just don’t work they way they do in the default world.

20% of the population is 13,600. Add that to the 8500 OMG-STEP-LI tickets, and it seems that about a third of all tickets were at Will Call. What a nightmare. Maybe BMOrg should start mailing tickets to Burners in Canada, Mexico and the rest of the world. The $14 handling fee should more than cover a dollar or so of postage required. You’d think that since 1986, an event that boasts its own rival postal services would have figured out how to send a letter to another country.

photo: John Curley

Burners responded jovially to the wet conditions.

…The good planners knew that plastic bags wrapped around your shoes prevent “playa platforms” from building up on the soles of your shoes. That was really only the beginning of it, though.

There was the simple approach to getting around: no shoes at all. (The mud doesn’t stick to your feet.) Then there was the utilitarian approach: Black or clear plastic bags, zip-locked or taped. Then there was the fashion-forward approach: White plastic bags arising to mid-calf. And then there was Helen Hickman, who took advantage of the weather to invent a new genre of playawear: the trash suit.

“I must say, it’s very becoming,” Larry Harvey said as he walked around Rod’s Road, sidestepping the muddy clumps and randomly talking to people hoping to start their burn.

Helen had a message: “I have to tell everyone, trash-bag wear is going to be the thing this year.”

Larry agreed: “Fur is out, trash bags are in,” he said. “You’re the harbinger, you’re ahead of the game. By the time people catch up with it, though, you’ll be out of it. … You’re a finder, not a flounder.”

Larry continued: “You know, I tell the people, sometimes, some of the things we might want to do, and they get a little ‘founder-itis.’ And I tell them, you know, sometimes we’re founders, and sometimes we’re flounders. … But on our best days, we’re finders. And so are you!”

“We have a transformation quota, you know” he said. “We say, ‘How many lives have you changed today?’ And then we keep track of the salesman, you know, who’s the best salesman of the day…

“Well,” Helen replied, “I was raised a Catholic, but I can sell like a Jew.”

So there you have it, campers. Lives transformed with trash bags.

…the rain had one other significant impact, especially on Burning Man staff: the meeting schedule was positively in tatters. Somehow, all the acculturation training and process mapping would have to be rescheduled.

“We’ll have a meeting about the meetings, I’m sure,” Larry said. “We may have to send out for extra whiteboards, though.”

Filed under: News Tagged: 2014, bmorg, city, fashion, ideas, photos, playa, rain, stories

WIRED magazine has a report on Agora, the new online drug bazaar “marketplace of anything”. It is based on Agorism, a philosophy that a free, stateless society can be achieved via disruptive market means. Forget counter-culture, that meme jumped the shark. It’s time to move on to counter-economics.

From Wikipedia:

Agorism is a libertarian social philosophy that advocates creating a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter-economics, thus engaging in a manner with aspects of peaceful revolution. It was first proposed by libertarian philosopher Samuel Edward Konkin III in 1975, with contributions partly by J. Neil Schulman.^[1]

Agorists consider themselves market anarchists. While many characterize it as a form of left-libertarianism,^[2] others consider it a branch of, or a transition strategy for achieving, anarcho-capitalism. Agorists generally oppose voting for political candidates and political reform. Instead, agorists stress the importance of alternative strategies rather than politics to achieve a free society. Agorists claim that we can achieve a free society more easily and sooner by employing such alternative methods as education, direct action, alternative currencies, entrepreneurship, self sufficiency, and most importantly “counter-economics“.^[1] Agorists consider their message to be scientific because science is an appeal to reason, which they believe is only possible in the Agora or free market; they also argue that State backed, regulated and funded science is illegitimate.^[3]

From WIRED.com:

For two and a half years, the Dread Pirate Roberts and his Silk Road black market ruled the Dark Web. But last year’s FBI’s takedown of that narcotics smorgasbord opened the underground trade to competitors. Now those sites have a new leader, one that’s bigger than the Silk Road ever was and continues to grow explosively.

The online bazaar for contraband known as “Agora” now has more product listings than any other online black market, according to a report released last week by the Digital Citizens Alliance, a nonprofit focused on internet safety. The analysis counts 16,137 products for sale on the site, which is protected by the anonymity software Tor and accepts only bitcoin. That’s about 200 more listings than Silk Road 2.0, a reincarnation of the original Silk Road launched earlier this year by several of the same administrators. It’s also several thousand more than were offered on the first Silk Road before its seizure in October of last year.

“Just as on the rest of the internet, users on the dark net are very quick to move on to new things and move away from those products and websites that seem stale and old,” says Adam Benson, communications director at Digital Citizens Alliance. “Maybe that time has come for Silk Road.”

…unlike Silk Road, it allows users to sell several categories of weapons, including powerful semi-automatic firearms. The site is still less permissive, however, than markets such as Evolution, which also allows the sale of hacked credit card information and other stolen goods. Agora’s “market rules” ban not only stolen property but also “assassinations or any other services which constitute doing harm to another,” “weapons of mass destruction,” “poisons,” “child pornography” and “live action snuff/hurt/murder audio/video/images.”

Despite those restrictions, Agora’s administrators haven’t displayed any of the political bravado of Dread Pirate Roberts, who frequently posted libertarian manifestos in Silk Road’s user forums and even hosted an online book club around topics in free market economic theory. Silk Road 2.0 similarly proclaims those radical principles; “You are writing history with every item purchased here,” reads a message on the site’s homepage. “Silk Road is not a marketplace. Silk Road is a global revolt. The idea of freedom is immortal.” 

…Instead of political rhetoric, the tactic that set Agora above the rest of the dark web when it launched earlier this year may have been its sense of exclusivity: Users can sign up only with invite codes, although those codes are freely distributed on other market forums and Reddit and can be reused. “It might build some allegiance,” says Digital Citizen’s Alliance’s Benson, “It gives users a sense that they’ve been vetted and that some people have been weeded out” such as law enforcement, fraudsters or less in-the-know users.

Read the full article here.

It’s an interesting counter-balance to Re-code’s report from Burning Man, about finding Camp Bitcoin next to the Orgy Dome [update - it wasn't anywhere near orgy dome, according to Burner Debra]:

Flipping through my 160-page official Burning Man book of events, I noticed something strange: Camp Bitcoin was hosting a “worthless currency exchange.”

Bitcoin Camp?! Worthless currency exchange? I had some candies in my backpack that could certainly count as currency here.

It was about 4 pm when I left the Burning Man Reddit meetup, where I had been listening to two dozen guys talk “Star Wars” trivia, and had been misted by someone with a pesticide sprayer full of water. The Redditers told me that the bitcoin guys were just a few streets away, in the Anahasana Village, and that they were a bunch of nerds, real geeks.

The Anahasana Village (Burning Man villages are collections of smaller camps that share resources, like a kitchen) is famous for its contact-improv sessions (standing cuddle puddles) and its Orgy Dome (what it sounds like).

It’s not where one might expect to find Camp Bitcoin.

There, about a dozen bitcoin dudes were sitting cross-legged in a circle under some scaffolding, an old orange parachute draped over it for shade. They were talking about all the money they could have made if they had bought various cryptocurrencies at various points..

One bitcoin camper, lean and shirtless Josh Katen, explained to me that this isn’t really the bitcoin camp anymore.

“The Bitcoin leader was arrested right before Burning Man ’cause he was maybe helping the FBI, and … Anyway, we’re the Dogecoin Camp now,” he said.

Another shirtless fellow…said he had a vision, based on Burning Man’s gifting economy. In his vision, cryptocurrency is just the first step toward making a large-scale gift economy.

“Once we learn to monetize everything, we take this gifting economy out to the world,” Keim said. “We can take the Illuminati’s cyber gold and silver, and distribute it evenly. Once we have this, we can live in abundance, rather than scarcity.”

… came to Burning Man to see what a gifting- and abundance-based economy could look like. Money and branding aren’t allowed at Burning Man. Everyone brings or prepares gifts (alcohol, snacks such as pancakes, or little necklaces that say “Burning Man 2014”) that they exchange.

“One of the biggest barriers to the gift economy is debt, the usury. With cryptocurrency we can reengineer abundance rather than scarcity,”

…someone riding past their camp earlier that day had yelled at them — “F—ing bitcoin’s not allowed on the playa,” or something to that effect. The campers had been surprised but not terribly offended…

“I’m the messiah, and money grows on trees,” Keim said.

No, but seriously, what’s the gist?

“I am the messiah,” he repeated, getting on his dust-and-EL-wire-covered bicycle.

Before I could reenter the tent, an extremely attractive couple stopped me and eyed me up and down.

“This is it, right?” asked the man, who was wearing a top hat and genie pants, which for some reason wasn’t even a turn-off anymore. (I’ve been here too long.)

It?

“Tantra tent?” he asked, cocking his head.

No. Not tantra. Bitcoin.

Sounds like Mr Bitcoin messiah might have been tooting his own horn, if you know what I mean. Scarface, if you don’t.

Full story here.

Kudos to Nellie Bowles and Re/Code, your Burning Man coverage this year has been superb.

Money is technically not banned at Burning Man, and Bitcoins certainly aren’t…yet. The principle of “DeCommodification” conveniently stretches to include a lot of things. If you read the fine print of the Principles, they never actually use the word money. They do, however, place a ban on “consumption” – if you want to partake, you must participate.

Everything’s free but nothing’s for sale. Gifting is encouraged, but barter is verboten.  Volunteering (ie free labor) is encouraged, as long as it is on projects that are for the benefit of BMOrg. The systems they’ve built to facilitate all of this are rudimentary, and don’t seem to be much of an Organizational priority. The priorities are more like new ticketing schemes and revenue streams, corporate tax structure, self-promotion, and Big Data: “Burner Profiles” and Census results. The information collected about us continues to become more detailed, as the ticket prices head skywards.

BMOrg claim to be pioneers in the “sharing economy”, yet it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly they do that relates to it. “We don’t sell drinks” is not quite the same as “we’ve figured out new economic models for people to peacefully co-exist”. Rather than being counter-economics, the economics of Burning Man are not dissimilar to those of the Pharaohs. Pharaoh gets the gold while the sherpas do the labor.

Is this all that could ever be? Do we create a radical experiment, year after year, by doing the same old shit in the same old way – just add Virgins?

This is what cellphones looked like in 1986

Burning Man started in the mid-80’s, when Madonna’s new album was “Like a Virgin” and the first gangsta rap song had just been released. Now we are well into the 21st century. In the 90’s we got the Web, in the Naughties we got smart phones and social media, in the Teenies we got Twitter and Uber and NSA spying and Google buying military robot companies.

Larry Harvey was asked about Bitcoin in New York in 2013.

I’m in Dr Kittay’s class at Columbia University called Technology, Religion, and Future. Today, we had an event on Burning Man, where the Burning Man committee including Larry Harvey (Founder of Burning Man) came in to talk about the event with our class. The link is below

http://blog.burningman.com/2013/10/eventshappenings/event-the-founders-speak-burning-man-technology-religion-the-future/

I asked if they would consider accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment. They unanimously said yes! At first Larry was like, hmm never thought about that. Then one guy said, well its not really that stable yet but hell, if it makes people happy lets do it! They all nodded in agreement. Woot! Now they just have to follow up on it by adding the ‘Pay in BTC’ button to the ticket purchase section of their site.

Of course, fast forward a year later and there is not so much as a hint of Bitcoin entering the Burning Man universe, yet alone experimenting with new ideas of liberty like Agorism. Quite what is the vision for this social engineering petri dish over the next century remains to be seen: it’s “coming soon”, like the video of the Founders talk at Columbia. BMOrg are still struggling to mail tickets to people in San Francisco, and are completely unable to mail them to other countries. Meanwhile we have Burnier-Than-Thous bemoaning smart phones, drones, sherpas, dubstep DJs, even the postal service. Will technology innovation in the Default world have to stay there, while Burning Man stagnates, just so that Burnier-Than-Thous can feel they’re doing it better?

Is this the future we choose for the experiment of Black Rock City: no more innovation, just more complaining and more douchebags? Rude Man, as I saw it called on Facebook today.

Their Plan for the Playa, it seems, is to force us to accept an ever-increasing range of Default world transactions (all done solely via BMOrg, with the Feds getting a cut too), and an ever-decreasing amount of Gifting. Commerce is banned, so’s barter. Citizens don’t get a say in the city, so there is no political discourse in this civilization – except for the guest speakers the Founders invite in. Burning Man doesn’t care what you believe, as long as it’s the Ten Principles.

Perhaps it is significant that BMOrg are strengthening their ties to the two major political parties, while at the same time trying to dismiss the streak of libertarianism and anarchy that Burning Man originally sprung forth from.

When innovation and creativity are regulated out of existence by bureaucracy, the subversive dissenters, the anarcho-crypto-punks, start looking for remote wildernesses where they can go and create the New New Thing.

“Good riddance!”, cry the Townspeople, when the Sheriffs chase the Cowboys out of town. It matters not to them that the Cowboys started the town, hired the Sheriffs, and invited all the Townspeople in. “Cowboys are bad”, say the Townspeople. “Everyone knows that”.

It seems that, behind every weary merchant visiting the oasis with a caravan of treasures to gift, is a team of Sherpas to wipe their ass. According to the New York Times, the rich people of Burning Man try to “one up” each other with the lavishness of their camps. Whether it’s prototype inflatable dhomes or stackable cubes or 5-star teepees, just having an RV is no longer enough.

Many Burners have expressed outrage at this behavior, believing that “Radical Self-Reliance” is at odds with “getting others to do your shit for you”. Personally, I think a designated driver is a major safety issue. It sucks to be that person at Burning Man, so if a few people can chip in and pay a driver, Burning Man will survive. I can’t cook, so I don’t mind if someone else cooks for me. If I have to buy that person a ticket, and give them a place in my RV, that’s fine. “Oh you can’t come to Burning Man, you can’t cook”.

I think the deeper shame in this is that the Super-Sherpa-Burners have lost the point. If you want to one-up other rich people at Burning Man, don’t do it on the level of creature comforts and luxury goods that you airlift in with private planes.

OUT-DO EACH OTHER WITH THE ART

Perhaps one way to facilitate this would be promoting a closer link between Big Art and Art Cars, and the Theme Camps behind them. As in, “we’re Thunderdome Camp, and our Art Contribution is Thunderdome”. Or, “we’re Star Star and our Art Contribution is Daily Circus performances”. Right now, shit is going on everywhere, there’s cool shit everywhere to look at, but it’s all pretty anonymous.

Burning Man has been called the Special Olympics of Art – just getting there is good enough. The all-inclusive nature of the art means that there is no requirement for talent, nor indeed any form of reward. There is no real after-market for art of this type, and whatever there is has been cobbled together by Burners. Logistics are left up to the creative types, who each have to figure it out for themselves. BMOrg seem more interested in the artists working at their event(s), than getting their art into the broader community independently of their tentacles. And their answer to “people tagging the art” is not “promote the art as sacred”, it’s “more rules”.

Burners pay inflated ticket prices, and only a tiny amount of that goes to the artists – and gets split over just 63 projects. It’s about $12 per ticket – less than the ticket processing fee, or the government cut for all the LEOs.

Many of the artists who are awarded Art Honorarium grants are wealthy in their own right. Why award the project to them, and not to the starving artists who can’t produce a piece without money to buy the materials? The answer lies in politics as much as merit or reason or justice. There are no guidelines for art grants, it’s at the whim of BMOrg, and if they prefer to favor their friends when they come to dispensing our money, who’s stopping them?

If the rich people were to direct the focus of Burner attention away from their own personal comforts and vanities, and towards the contributions they make to this awesome party, I’m sure that would ease the ire of many in the community who feel passionately upset by gentrification.

Will Smith chose not to take one of his fleet of these to Burning Man this year

I’m on your side, rich people! I need A/C too. It’s the desert, FFS. I was using an RV at Burning Man before there even was “radical self-reliance”. I didn’t stop being a Burner just because Larry wrote a page of words one day, 20 years into the event. “Oh, Larry wrote words! Better disable the generator!” Lecture me with the Tin Principles all you want, it doesn’t make you a Burner or take my 11 burns away from me.

To me, going to Burning Man automatically makes you rich – but I accept that many Burners are seriously rich. I know that rich people give SO much to Burning Man, that there wouldn’t be a Burning Man without them. The whole event is based on the premise of ridiculous destruction of wealth for the purposes of temporary entertainment. It’s like people lighting cigars with flaming hundred dollar bills – times a billion.

The Burnier-Than-Thous have it wrong, saying that rich people don’t get it. It seems to me that they are being radically self-reliant if they are smart enough to want privacy in their camps, and playful social interactions with randoms on the Playa. Part of self-reliance is being able to defend yourself and your tribe from dicks. The number of dicks is skyrocketing, and now they are publicly advocating their dickish actions. It’s not the fault of people who can afford to rent RVs that privacy is required; and just because they sleep comfortably doesn’t mean it’s impossible for them to “get Burning Man”.

More than anything else, I think it is the government infiltration of Burning Man – both overt and covert – that is driving the walled off RV compounds. You used to welcome any random into your camp, and the first thing you’d offer them would be a beer. If you were passing a joint round – which people did, since it was hundreds of miles away from anywhere, in the middle of the remote desert, at a festival – then you would take a hit and pass it on to someone next to you, even if they were a stranger. Puff puff pass, just likes kids have been doing at festivals since the Sixties.

Then, the cops started doing “stings”. Dressing officers up as Burners – “off duty clothing” – and trying to entrap them into breaking the law in front of them. They’re looking for drugs, for people serving alcohol to anyone underage, for people sharing food, public displays of lewdness, and anything else that could be banned and ticketed. Give them an excuse, and they’ll come to your camp with sniffer dogs. Meaning that one random wandering into your camp and lighting a joint, could spoil it for everyone.

This year, it sounds like the cops were much better – chilled, enjoying the party, taking pictures with Burners. But it’s too late – the trust has been destroyed. This is no longer a city of friends. The trust hasn’t been destroyed by rich people; it’s by all these spies trying to bust innocent Burners, while letting the thieves and vandals run rampant. What Burners want to do is illegal, despite being harmless – from smoking a joint to driving at 6mph in a 5mph zone to shirt-cocking. Rich people didn’t make those rules – alright, technically, at the top pulling the puppet strings of government are the Uber-rich who do make the rules, and yes many Bohemian Grovers go to Burning Man – but most of the rules that have led to these RV compounds and private entrances were made by BMOrg in co-operation with Federal and State authorities.

No-one is affecting your enjoyment Burning Man if they got a free ticket, or didn’t have to pay for their flight. How is getting $400 cash different from getting a free ticket? For many who aren’t rich, getting casual employment for a few shifts at Burning Man is the only way they can attend. Crack down on Sherpas, the rich will still be rich and do whatever they want, but now these poor Sherpas – willing to work for their ticket, instead of being Sparkle Ponies – won’t be able to go.

The answer to this is not “ban Sherpas”. How could you possibly police that, if you can’t stop bike or sign theft? It has been going on for years, and fighting against it now is pointless, in my opinion. The horse bolted a long time ago. You might as well ban planes, RVs, delivery trucks, dance music, cars newer than 2010, and so on. Stealing signs will change nothing, and may lead to violence as people try to defend their property against drug-fuelled vandals with political grudges.

The answer is to change the focus.

Let people do whatever they want in their camps. That’s their private area, where they and their tribe of friends and family and fellow travellers make their “home within a home” for a week. If they want randoms in their camp, let them make clearly marked “random zones”, where you can come and hang out and get to meet them. Don’t just assume “I’m at Burning Man, and Radical Inclusion says I’m entitled to fall asleep in the middle of your camp”. Usually these “party roadkill” people pass out on the most comfortable spaces, preventing other, awake people from using those.

Burning Man is not about invading your neighbor’s space, in the name of some misguided class war protest.

It’s about the art.

BMOrg make the rules, but Burners make the city.  There is something we can do, if enough readers want to help.

Together, we can try to re-direct the focus to the art. Camps should be proud of which art pieces they are bringing to share with the rest of us. If rich people want to sponsor art anonymously, Burning Man lets them hide anonymously within a Theme Camp, and even more anonymously behind a Playa name. Larry Harvey likes to say “no artist at Burning Man ever signed their art”, but let’s change that. Let’s promote the amazing artists behind the event a bit more.

How Will We Do This?

Starting today, we are going to have a competition. “Best of Burning Man”. And it’s going to be as crowd-sourced as we can practically make it, at short notice and with the limited resources of a Gifted blog.

You guys submit here, in the comments on the Web or Facebook, your nominations for best art piece. We will collect the nominations, then present the most popular finalists for a vote. Everyone votes, and we declare a winner.

What does this mean for the artists? Even if they don’t win, they can get a sense of how their piece was perceived by the community. If they would like to participate with the rest of the community, they might want to share something about themselves and their art, and the meaning of the piece.

This is the direct opposite of the way Burning Man does it – receive thousands of applications, and pick a few winners arbitrarily. Every artist can be included in this, and to win, you have to be the best in the eyes of the people. Even to be in the final 20, you will have to have pleased a lot of people.

Categories are:

Best Art

Best Art Car

Best Camp

Best Music (camp or Art Car)

Best Music (artist)

Best Photo

Worst of Burning Man – could be Will Crawl, Exodus, rain, bike theft, David Kiss’s performance art piece, anything.

Over to you, Burners. Nominate away! I’m interested to see how this turns out.

Image: Nathan Proudlove/Flickr (Creative Commons)

[Update 12/7/14 10:35am]

This post has been restored because some are trying to tie it into the online smear campaign against me.

It’s back here now because readers should able to see for themselves how “terrible” it is, since I am being accused of all kinds of nasty things simply for posting something that a Burner asked me to, and editing it when another Burner asked me to. It also shows the difference between Burners.Me, which respects requests from our audience, and burningman.org, which will not remove even personal details when asked to, and has no problems with its directors spreading outright lies about people. Nothing in this post is a lie, and if the email had said “this offer is for center camp volunteers only”, I would not have posted it. Instead it says that volunteers can purchase hoodies for others (maximum 2 per person).

For the record: I totally support volunteer departments having their own merchandise. I also totally support art projects, art cars, and theme camps having their own merchandise. I think this raises the much bigger issue of “Selective Rule Enforcement”, which you can read more detail about here.

Why would it be so bad if Burners could buy a Burning Man hoodie? Sure, if they had a merch tent at the event, that would be against the rules Principles, but aren’t any transactions outside of Burning Man allowed?

Thanks to Anonymous Burner for sending us this tip.

Want some cool official Burning Man merch? Only $25, but you have to order by December 9. Don’t tell ‘em I sent you!

______________________________________________________________Hello Dusty Friends!!It’s Chi Chi, your friendly swaganatior here, writing to inform you of the status of your amazing Hoodie orders…There is still one week left that you could order a beautiful 2014 Hoodie. All you wonder people who have already ordered through the orginal email thank you and your orders will be out soon. Also, if you order a Hoodie and did not have the time to pick it up on playa I will be sending them out this week!!If you have not already seen it, This Hoodie is Teal on Black with the year 2014 printed in the center of the graphic, also all sizes are mens, And let me tell you these Hoodies are totally COOL. There is a limit of two hoodies per person.And Guess what… They are only $25.00… OMG THAT IS SO CHEAP!!! (that includes shipping, unless shipping to somewhere like Europe, then I will have to get you a special price.)But you only have ONE WEEK to order, YES you heard correctly ONE WEEK.  We will try to have all Hoodies sent out by the holidays!!All Orders Must be in by Tuesday the 9th of December. All Orders must be paid to Paypal Account [snip]

Step one
follow the link to
https://www.paypal.com/home
and sign on or open a paypal account

Step two
go to pay a friend and type in [snip]

If you are paying with a credit or debit card the price is $24 (plus a 1 dollar service fee)
If you are paying with a Paypal balance account or linked bank account the price is $25Step three
Follow this link and fill in the information asked for including you Paypal transaction ID number (the number you receive in the email from Paypal), size you desire,first name, last name, playa name, email, and shipping address. Also for each Hoodie ordered please fill out a separate form.All Orders Must be in by Tuesday 9th of December. All Orders must be paid to Paypal Account [snip]

SEE YOU IN THE DUST!!

[Update 12/5/14 6:51pm]

Glynda from Center Camp has contacted us to say that yes, they are selling Burning Man merchandise, but no, regular Burners can’t buy it.

I’m the Volunteer Coordinator for the Coffee Shop at the Center Camp Cafe and I’d like to let you know that this hoodie offer is only available to verified active Center Camp Cafe volunteers and not the general public.

[Update 12/5/14 7:42pm]

What does “active” mean? What about the paid Center Camp Cafe workers? Can they buy it? I repeatedly asked her these questions, Glynda refused to answer them. But, I removed the links to this offer as per her request. When asked to modify statements on my site by a member of the Burner community, I do it. Which is more than I can say for BMOrg…

Not even if it’s outright lies from one of their Board of Directors. It seems Burners.Me must be factual – yet still gets accused of misinformation – while burningman.com routinely spouts misinformation, and refuses to correct errors even when asked to. Welcome to the topsy turvy world of the Burning Man Project. Is this what they mean by “making the world a better place?”

[Update 12/6/14 7:38am]

I was sent an offer to buy Burning Man hoodies, which ran out on Dec 9. I promoted the offer here. It did not say “Center Camp only”. Then I was contacted by Glynda, who initially simply clarified that the offer was only for volunteers. I updated the story, as you can see above.

Then Glynda contacted me again, and asked me to remove the links to the PayPal email address. I did that too, and asked her a couple of questions. I never said Center Camp was bad for selling these hoodies. The email I was sent didn’t say “this offer is not available to the public”, and when I received that information, I updated the post. This is a blog, it can change as information comes in – it’s not a Vanity Fair article.

Later in the day, Crystal contacted me and asked why I had put her email address in the post – did I have something against her? I explained that no, I was just trying to promote the offer I got sent. It seemed like a good idea that Burners could get a Burning Man hoodie before Christmas. She was rather upset, so I apologized. At the same time, from the comments to this post, it seems many were finding it hard to keep track of what was going on, and why it was even there if they couldn’t buy hoodies. So I just took the post down, even though I think it highlights some bigger issues.

Now my deletion of the post is being used against me, in online attacks that I will address later today. So I’ve restored it so people can see what’s so “terrible” about this. Sorry Crystal.

I think two issues are highlighted here:

1. Burners.Me responding to our community, when asked by Burners to do something, we do it. Meanwhile, BMOrg Directors spreading total lies, and when asked to correct the lies, saying “we don’t have any policies requiring truth”

2. Selling merchandise. Why would it be so bad if Burners could buy hoodies? Wouldn’t that “help spread Burner culture around the world” – the entire justification behind the Burning Man Project being tax-exempt?

Why can’t artists, art cars, and theme camps sell merchandise to raise funds to bring their projects to the burn? How does that hurt Burning Man’s culture? We’ve covered that previously in these posts:

The Fishy Smell of Corporate Excess

Do Not Use The Words Burning Man

Art Versus Money

Is BMP really trying to spread Burner culture far and wide? Or is this more about control, royalty streams to the founders through their secretive private company, and tax minimization?

We are everywhere! Here we have the latest fashion from the 2015 Grammy Awards. Clearly Burner-inspired…

Image: icdyk.com

Joy Villa, a model/actress and recording artist, took her cue from Burning Man’s trash fence. She up-cycled her nudity. Very avant garde…This is a Bjork-in-a-swan level publicity stunt.

Image: Molly/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The dress was designed by a San Diego man, who “just made a superstar”.

From NBC San Diego:

The Grammy gown — or snow fence dress or orange dress or whatever name you’ve heard it called — that everyone is talking about was designed by a San Diego man.

In fact, it debuted here three years ago.

The gown is part of Andre Soriano’s vintage collection, and before New York-based artist Joy Villa walked it down the red carpet at the Grammys on Sunday, it made its runway debut during San Diego Fashion Week in 2012.

“I was like, ‘Girl, you wanna take over the planet? I have a gown for you,’” Soriano told SoundDiego.

Up until about a week ago, Soriano and Villa didn’t know each other. Then her agent called him about dressing the artist for the Grammys.

“” just forewarned [Villa],” Soriano sayid. “ ‘You’re going to trend in the best and the worst.‘ But she’s an artist. She really has an amazing voice, and I channeled her.”

Though Soriano had a few options for her (“I have a purple gown that has a train longer than the 101 Freeway,” Soriano said, laughing), he pushed the orange gown made of recycled snow- or construction-fencing material — like what you’d see at a ski run.

“Orange is the new black!” Soriano exclaimed. “I thought that was just a perfect position for her to just make a statement, really, and I highly suggested the orange gown. The minute she stepped foot on the red carpet, she was being pulled left and right. Everyone is like, ‘Who is Joy Villa?’ And they’re like, ‘Andre, you just made a superstar.’ And I was like, ‘I did?’

Source: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/blogs/sounddiego/Orange-Fence-Dress-at-Grammys-Made-by-Local-Designer-291432921.html#ixzz3RU5knvM9 

Images via Buzzfeed.com:

CBS

AFP / Getty Images VALERIE MACON

AFP / Getty Images VALERIE MACON

CBS

CBS

[Update 2/11/14 6:30pm]

It seems a Burner got there first:

The Bold Italic has a hilarious look at the “Basic Bitches of the Bay“.

Although San Francisco in and of itself is a vibrant and unique city that fosters eccentricity, you will still see those who fall prey to the growing contagion of the Basic Bay Bitch. Without necessarily being bitchy, basic bitches embody the standard, typical nugget of certain SF subcultures. They can come in any age, gender, or race. You recognize them from a distance; and you also recognize yourself in them. So without any further ado, here are some of our most basic bitches:

One in particular looks very familiar!

Image: Leila Moussaoui/The Bold Italic

Check out the other Basic Bitches of the Bay.

If you’re in San Francisco, whether you’re going to Burning Man or not you might want to check these shows out. Always a fun crowd, and you’re supporting your fellow Burner fashion artists.

Lorelei says:

wanted you to know about a few Amazing Playa sales coming up for costumes to help Burner culture be able to radically express themselves to the fullest on the playa. These sales are like a box of crayons as they offer something for everyone from fairy, steampunk, hippie, leather feather, gypsy swank, tribal fusion and so much more. Carefully curated New pieces from all over the world to your local used thrift store scores. Not to be missed. These events are full of happy customers who were thrilled to get unique playa outfits at AFFORDABLE PRICES! Let your camp mates know & go together to coordinate your playa gear.

San Francisco Sales: 615 Indiana St | SF (Warehouse on same street as SF Decompression)
July 25th: https://www.facebook.com/events/780609732053508/
Aug. 9th: https://www.facebook.com/events/1613007802280058/
Aug. 22 &23rd: https://www.facebook.com/events/465793750256053/

Only East Bay Sale: Subterranean Arthouse | 2179 Bancroft Way| Berkeley
Aug. 2nd: https://www.facebook.com/events/478443448989696/

PlayaWear *Cream of the Crop* Nomadic Nectar Sale!!! 25 July at 11:00 615 Indiana Street, San Francisco 401 people joined