I would have your wife right in front of you. I would smoke the last of your glaucoma medication. Then I will surely drink your liquor cabinet dry. However, know this my friend. I will never break an oath to uphold the public trust. My affidavit will be signed in my own blood. A Pirates crimson mark, with real binding effects into my after life. Laugh if you will then ask yourself if you could do it.

James Hill is a pirate running for Congress in Iowa, and he wants your vote.

While I’m skeptical of electing a binge drinker to public office, he does plan to fight earmarking of bills which is cool. Vote for him, Iowans!

I’ve long been a fan of The Postal Service, and I was near the point of obsession with the Iron & Wine cover of Such Great Heights (original version here). Thus it’s no big surprise that I’m also thoroughly impressed with the Ben Folds version of the same tune (YouTube).

Poor Microsoft. They just want to profit from every waking moment of our days, and we give them such a hard time about it.

Zune is Microsoft’s first venture into the MP3 player market, a beautifully Machiavellian betrayal of their former PlaysForSure partners. Young Cesar Mendez holds down the fort at the Zune Insider blog and tries to answer questions and respond to comments. I felt bad for him when the shitstorm rose up on his blog.

I have a feeling that shortly after the Zune is released, firmware hacks are going to spring up which will magically heal the player’s achilles heel. You see, Zune allows you to transfer music wirelessly from one Zune to another, but cripples the music with widely-hated Digital Rights Management wrappers. The DRM allows the newly transferred song to play three times, or expire in three days, whichever comes first.

Just like the first-gen XBox, the Zune could turn out to be a nifty device despite Microsoft’s intentions. The first generation of XBoxes weren’t anything compelling in their out-of-the-box configuration, but once the modders got into them it opened a Pandora’s box of awesomeness. Gigantic hard drives, the ability to copy games, the ability to play old Atari and Nintendo games, it’s all there. Indeed, with a firmware hack the Zune could also be an interesting device, then once market share is achieved the second generation will put the screws to the users. This is what I’m predicting, with the caveat that it could just tank like MS Bob.

Update: Read a great comparison of the two MP3 players.

Avast, ye scurvy dogs! Brush up on your pirate speech, ye cube-dwelling lubbers. There be a helpful guide. Yo ho ho, it’s Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Last night I stumbled onto a snarky and disingenuous review of this year’s Burning Man. The author wrote it in hopes of getting it published in the SF Guardian, but it was declined with prejudice. After failing to get publication, the author decides that the press is sour grapes and dropped it into a blog post instead. It’s pretty long-winded and riddled with inaccuracies and ad hominem, so I summarized it for everyone:

Achtung Hippie! : Reflections on the Burning Man Scam
by Patrick Mulroy

The idea of holding a massive event in one of the hottest nastiest driest places on the planet seems stupid on the face of it. Why would almost 40,000 people pay over $200 for a ticket and probably $1000-1500 total to suffer in this godforsaken place for a week or more? For years my common sense kept me away, just as it has safely helped me avoid backpacking in Afghanistan, running an ultra-marathon in Death Valley or eating bacon wrapped hot dogs from the vendor carts in Tijuana. Though my common sense seldom fails me, my friends often do and they conned me into wasting a week of my life and about $1500 to attend Burning Man 2006.

Summary: I didn’t belong at Burning Man. My friends thought I wasn’t anal retentive.

To be fair, my friends had been conned themselves by glowing reports of the “magic” of this overrated hippie love fest at the gates of Hell. “Burning Man changed my life, man” was the word. Hey, we all want to change our lives: stop smoking, lose weight, quit drinking, fall in love. The promoters of Burning Man promised all of this and more in their feel-good web accounts of dull people who now lead exciting lives, thanks to taking the Burning Man cure. These absurd claims had the hollow ring of cult indoctrination, but I was hooked. I wanted to drink the spiked kool-aid and search for magic in the nothingness of the Black Rock Desert.

Summary: My friends are more open-minded than I am, and they foolishly invited me along to shit on their party.

Nothing could have prepared me for the stupidity of this event, except perhaps an honest account of how truly awful it was. I’ve been unable to find such an account, online or elsewhere. I offer my dissent to the pretense that is Burning Man. I hope that my eyewitness report will save potential burn victims a week of vacation and at least a grand in misspent cash.

Summary: I chose to go to Burning Man without so much as lifting a finger to tap into the vast amounts of information about what I could expect. Piss Clear wrote this essay nearly ten years ago.

Few communities want 40,000 yahoos drinking, drugging and fornicating in their backyard for a week. I know I don’t. As such, Burning Man is held in a dry ancient lakebed known as a “playa” in a state where gambling and prostitution are legal, respectable businesses and 24 hour boozing is a protected right: God Bless godless Nevada. When the gold ran out and most of the Indians had been murdered, they turned to exploiting human weakness to earn their daily bread. Promotion of vice is the state’s stock and trade.

Summary: I oppose vice, yet knowingly decided to spend a week in its heart. I believe this year’s 40,000 attendees are not as smart or virtuous as I am.

Whatever Burning Man supporters claim, know this, the event is a 24/7 bacchanal of booze, drugs, nudity, S&M, public sex, and bad art, all done in a scorching flat dry oasis of misery that reminded me of the surface of Mars. This drug orgy is translated by event promoters on the BM website as a “radical experiment in self-expression.” Wasn’t that Jeffery Dahmer’s excuse when asked about the body parts in his fridge?

Summary: I equate the recreational activities practiced by a broad cross-section of the US population with mass murder.

Playa compound magnified From San Diego, the Black Rock Desert is exactly 900 miles on my trip odometer. I arrived with two friends, Tim and Alex, just past sunset on the first official day, Monday the 28th of August. As we descended onto the site, we could see the flat and vast playa, ringed by the Jackson Mountains and Black Rock Range. Stark and beautiful, yes, but thousands of cars and RVs, combined with the constant wind, had kicked up a massive storm of alkali dust. Dust masks are required gear at all times though many do not wear them. Even with a mask on, it is impossible not to inhale alkali dust at Burning Man.

Summary: I had no idea that there would be dust at Burning Man. See above: I didn’t lift a finger to learn about the event before arriving.

We waited in the Will Call ticket line for 30 minutes in this storm. Most of the Burning Man staff are volunteers and seemed stoned and disorganized, though cheerful. Most Burning Man tickets go for $225 if you buy them a well in advance. As “the burn” approaches, the prices steadily ratchet upwards.

Summary: I’m telling a baldfaced lie. Tickets are actually $180 if you buy in advance, and $250 if you purchase them a week before arriving.

While we waited in line, a staff member announced that all the $325 tickets were sold out and that the price was now $350, snickering as he made the announcement. There was now little pretense that this was not a massive grift. The only service included in your $225-$350 admission is overflowing portapotties, often devoid of toilet paper. That’s it. In what universe is that not a grift?

Summary: I’m now going to slander the organizers of the event by accusing them of fraud.

Prior to entering the BM compound, all vehicles are searched: not for drugs, guns or explosives (bring as many of those as you want), but for stowaways trying to avoid the $250 ticket price. “Don’t try to grift a grifter” is the point here.

Summary: In case you didn’t get that the first time, I’m again going to accuse the organizers of fraud.

Finally reaching the front of the line, we were met by a greeter: “Welcome home!” she gushed. Good acid, I thought. She must have mistook us for black rock beetles, the only living thing that calls the playa home, surviving mostly on hippie skin and other organic matter blown by chance onto the playa.

Summary: I’m going to slander the hard-working volunteers.

After a two-hour traffic snarl at the gate, we arrived at our camp: exhausted, surly and coated with a fine layer of dangerous alkali dust. If the founder and King Rat of Burning Man, Larry Harvey, had been present we would have gladly taken turns shocking his balls with a car battery, Abu Ghraib-style. We were that pissed. Larry was likely in St. Bart’s spending our money, or perhaps in a fabulous underground lair built by enslaved hippies from previous burns, or maybe just laughing from his Lear jet above in his trademark white Stetson. The man seems a curious cross between P.T. Barnum and Jim Jones, conning the same moon-eyed Bay Area seekers whom Rev. Jim hypnotized so tragically.

Summary: I came to a massive festival not expecting traffic. I came to the desert not expecting dust. Also, I’m not above petty name-calling. I will express my frustration with my unrealistic expectations by slandering and defaming Burning Man founder Larry Harvey.

The first full day at BM felt like the worst jet lag of my life. I was tired from the 900-mile trip, exhausted from the heat, the dust and the 4,000 ft altitude and thin air. The word “nausea” barely covers the full body ache you feel when “acclimating” to the Martian landscape and punishing heat of Burning Man. You can’t move, you can’t escape the dust or heat and you are surrounded by some of the most perverse and deviant people you will ever meet. Everywhere you look a “porno-copia” of sagging balls, flopping peckers, hairy asses, flabby breasts and other uninvited unattractive nakedness will strip away any remnant of goodwill you may feel towards your fellow burners as the caustic alkali dust strips away your exposed skin. What gives these naked perverts the right to expose their ugly fucked-out carcasses? If being forced to view hundreds of hairy ass cracks as you gag down breakfast sounds fun, Burning Man is for you.

Summary: I’m not able to handle an altitude that is over 1,000 feet lower than the city of Denver. I reiterate that I did not expect dust. I am not even able to handle temperatures lower than those in Los Angeles.

In the mad heat of Burning Man at 2pm on Tuesday, parachutes opened 6,000 feet above and I imagined that Pope Benedict, former child Nazi, had jumped in, leading a brigade of storm trooping Cardinals and castrated choir boys, his Vatican banners streaming yellow smoke from his Luft-Commando parachute, to lecture these folks on the spiritual benefits of wearing clothes.

Summary: Someone got tired of my whining and dosed me with acid. I saw people parachuting and pretended it was the Pope.

The Black Rock Playa is about as far as you can get from the Garden of Eden and still be on the planet. Adam and Eve were said to be naked and perfect as God made them. Most of the Black Rock nudies were much less so, and could have hung signs around their necks reading “Behold the Ravages of Time.” At least viewing their tanned and leathery hides reminded me to apply sunscreen.

Summary: I expected the Garden of Eden.

Then I saw a naked fat man walking alone across the playa into the dead oblivion of the Jackson Mountains, a Barbie doll sticking out of his ass. Ok, I got dehydrated and imagined that one. Still, the official Burning Man web site would welcome Barbie-Ass Man since “There are no rules about how one must behave or express oneself at this event.” When in human history has “no rules” ever been a recipe for harmony or peace?

Summary: I was irresponsible, and my friends were so annoyed with me they didn’t bother to remind me to stay hydrated. I hallucinated. I believe in authoritarian government.

The overheated Burning Man playa is subject to dust storms that may appear as slow whirling tornadoes or a massive wall. Though you can often see them coming, escape is impossible and winds can top off at over 70 mph: hurricane force. Shade structures and scaffolding with steel frames can be pulled from the ground and may hurt or kill you.

Summary: I’m again going to exaggerate the temperatures and mention that it can get very windy, just like it can in San Diego.

There are thousands of temporary steel framed structures, secured loosely to the playa, that may go airborne without warning as dust devils assault Black Rock City. Note to future burners: You may be injured or killed at Burning Man. The climate and weather of the Black Rock Desert is wholly unsuited for an event of this size with thousands of steel framed shade structures.

Summary: I’m going to misconstrue the dangers of the playa architecture and fail to mention that structures are typically secured to the ground with 1.5 meters of rebar. Also, I didn’t bother to read the warning in BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS WHICH IS THE FIRST SENTENCE ON THE TICKET.

Burning Man Wednesday to Friday was a cauldron of dust, heat and shabby monster trucks (some absurdly labeled as “art cars”) crammed dangerously with partiers blasting bad music from blown speakers. Every day the noise and number of yahoos increased as the weekend approached. The post-apocalyptic spirit of Mad Max and Beyond Thunderdome were all around: monster cars, noise, chaos and intimidation.

Summary: Reiterating that I did no research, and depicting the atmosphere as ‘intimidating’.

Imagine a shabby, somewhat dangerous crew of NASCAR fans, bikers and other bullies looking to inflict their lifestyle on your camp site, then circling for hours and hours all night for another round of megaphone ranting and stupidity. These are the people who tailgated us at 80mph in overloaded RVs hurtling recklessly down the infamous Donner Pass toward Reno. These are the people who complained when firearms were banned from Burning Man a few years ago. If you want to live in a trailer park with 40,000 people where insane drinking, drugging, public nudity and lawlessness are the norm, Burning Man is for you.

Summary: I have a hard time keeping my generalizations straight, for I’m now going to reclassify the ‘hippies’ as NASCAR fans, bikers, and bullies.

The Department of Public Works (DPW) is the rowdy but hard-working crew of roughnecks that sets up and breaks down Black Rock City. They spend months on the playa in rough conditions with low pay to build the city’s infrastructure and return it to a pristine state, post-burn. During one rare moment of comic relief during BM 2006, the DPW paraded through the streets in their beat-down trucks, raiding each camp and demanding cold beer. We gladly surrendered our beer to this heat-crazed and desperate bunch. I have nothing but praise for them, as would anyone who prefers not to be tracked down and killed. “Fuck your day” was their motto: now it’s mine too.

Summary: The DPW are violent alcoholics who intimidated us into giving up our beer.

Despite its pretensions as a wacky art project, Burning Man is not about art. Most of the art was terrible with garish acid-inspired images and other peeks into Hell. Any random collection of Toto and Yes album covers would contain better trippy art than all of Burning Man. A few of the “art cars” were inspired and brilliant, though most were just chicken-wire enclosed golf carts kicking up dust on the esplanade and trailing a few Christmas lights and dusty faux fur.

Summary: The art didn’t fit my definition of art, so it wasn’t art.

Burning Man is not for non-conformists. You must wear a Burning Man outfit or risk constant abuse. I did not wear any silly costumes at Burning Man, or dress in drag, or hang my ass in the breeze, nor did my friends. Surviving the heat was plenty: we had no spare energy for playing dress up. For this breech in burner protocol, weirdoes in furry suits chided us that “jeans are not a costume.” These “furries” dress in full fur suits, like comic characters in the Ice Capades or that big rat at Chucky Cheese, and like to do drugs and have sex in their suits while in character. If there is anything worse than a pervert, it’s a self-righteous druggie pervert, dressed as a chipmunk, offering unsolicited fashion tips. If you want catty advice on how to dress from a crowd of Rocky Horror Picture Show rejects, Burning Man is for you.

Summary: I lack imagination and industriousness. I attended the event expecting other people to entertain me, and am indignant that people pointed out I went against the spirit of the event by behaving like a tourist.

Despite pretensions of forming an “experimental community” the Burning Man demographic is whiter than the crowds at the Republican National Convention: Dick Cheney white and twice as mean. I saw less than a half-dozen black people all week and only a few Asians. This proves my theory that blacks and Asians have way more sense than whites. The lack of diversity and total indifference to this lack seem odd considering the pretensions of many Bay Area residents and other burners to racial and ethnic inclusion. There is nothing new or experimental about an all-white community.

Summary: I will now claim that residents of Black Rock City are primarily racist.

I doubt that the white bullies who dominate Burning Man and define its aggressive personality make non-whites feel welcome or safe. If you are white and prefer to party with whites only, Burning Man is for you.

Summary: In case you missed that, I will again claim that Burning Man is a racist event.

The climax of this neo-hippie hootenanny is the burning of a 40-foot wooden effigy, known as the Burning Man. Before his destruction, this blue neon lit figure is the center of attention in the middle of the Esplanade, the central plaza. I love fireworks and enjoy burning things so I had hoped that this final orgasm of flames and destruction would somehow mitigate the misery of my worthless trip.

Summary: I came to Burning Man fully planning to have a terrible time, as I explain in my pre-trip post:
http://timmy.vox.com/library/post/getting-ready-for-the-burn.html

The burning of the man is 90 minutes of fire dancers and neo-pagan ritual, all centered on a god-like central figure, with his arms raised in triumph towards a frenzied, expectant crowd, clearly united in some dark purpose. This finale of Burning Man is a kind of hippie Nuremberg Rally.

Summary: I think the Holocaust wasn’t a big deal and it’s trivial to joke about. I’m also going back to generalizing the attendees as ‘hippies’ rather than as ‘NASCAR fans, bikers, and bullies’ as I had done previously.

As the Burning Man burns, both his arms eventually fall to his side. Curiously, his left arm dropped first, leaving his right arm raised in a straight-armed Nazi salute. At that moment, a spontaneous cheer went up a thousand right arms were raised as one over the smoky playa. Heil hippie! No shit, I have it on film.

In case you missed the earlier statement, I am again trivializing the Holocaust.

Despite my disdain for Burning Man, many claim that the event is “magic” and “life altering.” For some, this “magic” comes from their first Ecstasy, acid or mushroom trip. Powerful mind-altering drugs are consumed in massive quantities at Burning Man. People are very nostalgic about the first place they got really, really high. This is part of the affection many have for the event: nostalgia for a first high.

Summary: I will now make the blanket accusation that everyone at Burning Man is on massive amounts of illegal drugs, and this is the only way anyone could enjoy it.

Though not officially a sex party, Venus rules Uranus at Burning Man. The young get laid because they are young and older horny guys can get laid using drugs and booze as a lure. Sometimes their prey will stumble into camp pre-drugged, always a bonus. For many creepy middle-aged guys, Burning Man is a week long frat party where they get their last real shot at nailing women half their age. Lone women are easy prey. The darkness, disguises, anonymous playa nicknames and extreme intoxication that occurs at Burning Man makes it a date rapist’s Disneyland. Of course, if sober and fully consensual sex is your thing, there are several approved swinger and sex-themed camps at Burning Man too.

Summary: I am desperately horny, and I am projecting my desires onto others. I also imply that older men trying to have sex with younger women is a trait unique to Burning Man.

If you did not get laid, high or loaded at Burning Man but still claim you liked it, then you may have been infected by their magic pods and are now a self-deluded supporter of the Burning Man cult. The cult mantra is that Burning Man is “magic.” I guess, but so is cocaine if you do enough of it. I imagine that the supernatural success of this event could not happened without some special help from the Devil himself, who I’m told holds the deed to Larry Harvey’s soul. If Hell is half as nasty as Black Rock City at noon, I’m going to start being good soon. If you love the Devil and the events he supports, Burning Man is for you.

Summary: I will now make nonsensical claims about Larry Harvey selling his soul to the devil, and Burning Man being hell.

If you read my review of Burning Man and assume I’m some hung-up religious prude, I can assure you this is not the case. My factual description of the event is accurate. I wrote this review because I could find nothing truly critical of Burning Man online. This is incredibly suspicious. Mother Teresa was considered a living saint yet there are many critical essays about her, but none on Burning Man? Many supporters of Burning Man defend the event as fervently as Tom Cruise defends Scientology. Anyone that is critical simply does not “get it.” My friend Tim responded in kind to a BM supporter when he replied “Is it possible I got it, but ‘it’ actually sucks ass?”

Summary: I assert that everything I have written is factual and accurate. I will also falsely claim that this is the first critical analysis of the event. I didn’t know about any other critical analyses because, hey, I didn’t lift a finger to find out about the event before attending.

Though a Burning Man “virgin”, I’ve been to a dozen weekend campouts with music and partying and have enjoyed each one immensely. None of these events cost more than $75 and often included meals. All were held in beautiful locations with plentiful water, usually in the mountains. No profits were collected and none of us were burned. Most of the participants were beyond friendly: downright open, affectionate and loving. This was not the case at Burning Man.

Summary: I reiterate that I had no idea what I was getting into because I did no research before attending. I thought it would be like a Phish campout concert I once attended. I will also generalize the personalities of 40,000 people.

Note to hippies: Burning Man is not run for hippies and not run by hippies. It is run by thugs and bullies for the benefit of thugs and bullies. It is a festival for the Freudian Id, the sub-basement of the human psyche. Hermann Goring would have been in heaven here with the drugs, freaky sex, cool costumes and torch-lit rallies. If we all spent one more week in this dark utopia, I’m certain cannibalism and goose stepping would have been de rigueur, then mandatory.

Summary: Swinging my generalizations back from hippies and calling attendees and volunteers ‘thugs and bullies.’ Also again trivializing the Holocaust.

Too many at Burning Man were not even civil or respectful of their fellow burners or themselves. In a sad way, the event reflects our current national temper, a country controlled by red-state yahoos, led by a reckless bully who refuses to change course despite the pile of bodies in his wake. Burn on W. Burn on.

Summary: I’m running out of nonsensical statements to make, so I will somehow try to bring politics into this.

We packed in darkness at 3am Sunday morning, the day of resurrection. The road was empty and I was exhausted and wanted to escape before anyone sobered up. Perhaps this was the magic of Burning Man: surviving an annual death cult rally and returning to the joys of hot showers, air conditioning and dust-free living: civilization never seemed more splendid or necessary.

Summary: I’m bitter that I missed the Waffle burn, but I can’t handle being dirty. I’ll throw in a parting jab at the event.

I reminded my passengers that we had spent one week in a desert hell but no one had shot at us or tried to blow us apart with an IED. Servicemen in Iraq are deploying for a year or more and are in constant peril. Severely injured and maimed Marines have become a common sight in my favorite Oceanside, California poker room. Black Rock City is better than Baghdad, that’s for sure.

Summary: I’m more at home in a climate controlled room playing poker. Also, somehow I’m going make a non sequitur and try to tie this in with the Iraq war.

The wind was rising, carrying the scent of the last bonfires into the Calico Mountains. I murmured a prayer for everyone. What else could I do? The whole world is bleeding but you can only burn off so much bad karma in a week. The Buddha urges patience in these matters. All is passing, everyone we love, the rights we enjoyed before 9/11, basic civility and human decency, all gone now.

Summary: I’m a former Buddhist apostate. I wrote this essay that flies in the face of Buddhist philosophy, but now I shall embrace it. I shall also start to flog a dead horse named politics.

The America I was raised in is dead, replaced by a monstrous pretense of democracy. I drank a Red Bull and kept my eyes on the road. I could not stop crying.

Summary: I’m not done flogging that dead horse. Also, I cried at the metaphorical spanking that Burning Man gave me for failing to prepare.

Dawn As we headed for Reno across the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation, my friends drifted to sleep as the muffled voices of Native American spirits reminded me to stay awake and the horizon glowed with the heartbreaking blue light of the desert before dawn.

Summary: I was still tripping on acid while I drove, and I thought I heard spirits talking to me.

I’d like to see more of this in the traditional SoCal freeway chase videos, please.

What can I say about Burning Man that hasn’t already been said? It’s an annual explosion of creativity and debauchery in addition to being heaven on earth for pyromaniacs. I can safely say that I have never seen so much fire all around me. For six days I walked around every night and saw no less than a dozen gigantic propane jets shooting fire into the sky. The propane fire jets were everywhere: on art cars, in art installations, at dance parties, in computer-controlled arrays, built into massive serpents.

I camped with Liminal Labs, a group of very interesting people mostly hailing from San Francisco and New York, and a couple people from the UK thrown in for good measure. Everyone in the camp was an accomplished professional with fascinating stories to tell. It’s always fun to spend time with people who work hard and play harder.

Burning Man is for the kids, and by kids I mean adults who are on vacation from rules, clothing, and sobriety. It’s without question the adult equivalent of Disneyland, and probably more fun for adults than Disneyland is for children. The culture is one where norms are stripped away (often literally) and absurdity, humor, beauty, and freedom are the dominant paradigms. It’s not for everyone, and in fact there are few people that I would recommend it to for the same reason I strongly recommend it for others. Some people need the rules and the typically taken for granted conveniences in order to be happy. For some, having to use port-a-potties with dubious sanitation standards every day for a week is a deal breaker. Some refuse to come because it’s in an extremely dusty lake bed. For some, seeing grown men over 60 completely naked at least once per hour for a week would be very troubling. Others might say that seeing completely naked and thoroughly attractive women at roughly the same frequency makes up for this.

If you’re not willing or able to make it with me in 2007 (oh yes, I’m going next year if I have to sell organs on the black market) you can recreate the experience at home by following a few steps. You can also check out the photo extravaganza I shot over the week.