More on The Man who Burned The Man at Burning Man
BB pal Scott Beale has been following this week's shocker of a tale from Burning Man -- here's Mark's earlier post. Short version, some wacked out dude burned down The Man on his own, and everyone flipped out. I'm hearing that many disheartened Burners were so distraught, they've left the playa. Scott's main post with all the updates is here, and he tells BoingBoing today:
The damage to the man was too extensive so they are re-building the sculpture and will have a new one in place, complete with neon by tonight.Image above: thumbnails of some of those old tyme Burning Man shots, on Flickr.The person arrested for the early burn was Paul Addis of San Francisco who has been attending Burning Man for at least a decade. He is now out on bail and his supporters have set up a legal fund for him.
His now infamous mug shot can be found near the bottom of my post.
Here's my LOLburn image from the mug shot.
Recently, Paul portrayed Hunter S. Thompson in his one-man show Gonzo.
In 1997 Paul hung a pair of giant silver testicles from Burning Man's groin.
The Burning Man community seems to be quite divided on this issue. Some are angry and annoyed about it and others are calling Paul a hero, saying he pulled off the ultimate Burning Man prank. For years the running joke on the playa was to burn the man early.
Oh and another thing that might be of interest to BB readers is my guide of remote access to Burning Man 2007. I used quite a bit of this for my coverage of the early burn.
Finally, since this woke up a bunch of the old-timers, my friend Kevin Evans, one of the original crew who helped bring Burning Man to the Black Rock Desert, posted some of his photos from Burning Man 1990-1995.
UPDATE: The new Man is now up -- here's a screencap from the Burning Man webcam, via Jim Graham. And Scott has updated his post with a statement from Addis. "The best part is his reference to Black Rock Intelligence," says Scott.
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so a whole subculture based around bucking rules gets angry when one of their own bucks their rules?
i support this gentleman wholeheartedly.
Yeah this really shows how Burning Man is just a big corporate monster at this point. The whole idea was do whatever you want. You can't have a free form expression when youa re selling tickets, people might want their money back.
Paul Addis may have made a statement, but he essentially acted like a jerk. Full commentary here:
http://sfscene.blogspot.com/2007/08/thoughts-on-burning-of-man.html
Burners are wankers. They've turned a celebration of nihilism into a yuppie theme-park. I'm glad the man got burned early. It should happen every year.
A true artist he is of which there are few of on the playa. Used to be you had to have sex with the curator of this thing to get the $$$ they hand over. This idea was, stolen from SFAI students who did this every year 79-85, end of the summer burn of bad art and scultpture and old studio stuff. LH the antichrist of free radical expression lifted the inspiration and idea from them and now AAA calls it a family event?
"I'm hearing that many disheartened Burners were so distraught, they've left the playa. " So the poor, distraught Burners are so upset that someone destroyed their precious man that they're going...where? Probably the nearest hotel where they can finish off their playa drugs in peace.
I find it funny that the legal fund is trying to recoup the money used to bail this guy out. Are they EXPECTING him to jump bail? As long as he makes his court appearances, they'll get their money back.
Funny or no, Arson is arson. Lock 'im up.
Does this remind anyone else of the Futurama episode in which Dr. Zoidburg gets punished for eating a U.S. flag in celebration of freedom?
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I've never understood the fascination with Burning Man. To me it's always seemed like nothing more that a bunch of naked men riding around on bicycles.
that is *exactly* what we want you to think....so stay away
It always struck me that Burning Man was suppose to be about people doing their own thing - and to perhaps even anarchy.
And therefore, he exemplifies this perfectly.
My god, get OVER it.
@Kevitivity, jeez that's so narrowminded of you. BM is also about naked WOMEN running around on bicycles. [scoffs].
Freedom is best served to the "individual." When it's just one guy rolling around naked, burning things in the middle of the desert -- well, that's creative freedom. When you have a whole mass of people . . . their must be rules and structure.
When are we going to get that through our collective thick-heads? I mean, this is a lesson we learned in the 60's and the 80's.
We can go rule-less, be free, let the wind blow through our heads when it's just US . . . alone . . .individual . . . one.
But because we are not a TELEPATHIC race, once you get in a group situation -- to make sure everyone can enough the freedom, the love, the whatever -- rules must be made or someone ends up on the wrong in the stick (and your man burns down).
I myself HATE rules . . . but I understand that because people can not get my HEAD or my HEART (and I can not do likewise as well), rules and communication are rudimentary tools for GROUPS of people.
As we can plainly see with this current event.
The problem a lot of hero-worshipping burn-haters are completely forgetting is that the man sits atop art exhibits open to human beings. In 2005, the Man sat atop a three story maze and viewing structure.
Celebrate all you want. Fortunately, nobody there this year will go to sleep at night with the smell of burning human flesh or the screams of arson victims or their loved ones in their minds.
Think about it for a minute. Art is art, expression is expression. Arson is arson. If it puts lives at stake and you somehow think that's cool, reevaluate your position. If you don't like Burning Man, JUST DON'T GO!
there are 40000+ people set to attend. rules kinda keep people from getting hurt.
setting something on fire because you don't like the festival that you've voluntarily chosen to attend 1 dangerous and 2 so incredibly self centered.
you don't like it? don't go. or start your own damn event. that would have been a better us of the money that people are trying to raise for his defense fund.
I'm sure glad we've solved world hunger, poverty, war and the ills of man to get this bent out of shape about a group of people who base their beliefs on not following the rules who get shafted by one of their own doing just that.
Dear Telecommuting Capitalist,
I wonder if that's what cows tell each other.
They should have used the stunt as a creative opportunity. For example, created a large Hunter S Thompson sculpture or Paul Addis sculpture, and burning that. There are so many creative ways to deal with the situation besides just callin' the cops, and burning the man again at a later date.
The playa's response to the situation was just SO BORING.
This post gives Paul "the douchebag" exactly what he wants. Shame on you guys for feeding this attention whore's ego.
"Yeah this really shows how Burning Man is just a big corporate monster at this point. The whole idea was do whatever you want."
You're confusing Burning Man with "Do What You Feel Like Day" on the Simpsons.
For those of you who have never been to Burning Man, don't knock it, 'til you try it.
Freedom of Expression is one thing. Putting people in danger in the name of personal expression is not acceptable. There are dangerous elements in Black Rock City both natural and unnatural and there are people working their to protect each and every person out there. It is their personal sacrifice. Respect that.
It's not about rules, it's about human beings being able to police themselves. Because of this "prank" or "expression" or whatever you want to call it, BM will now have more scrutiny, something we have been trying to avoid since it began.
I know a few burners and I'll have to see what they think of this.
To me, BM just seemed like a big party in the desert to either get drunk and stoned, or a big party in the desert where you go to mess with people that are drunk or stoned.
When you get a critical mass of people that like performance art, or consider themselves performance artists you are going to have some nutjobs.
I think they should now change the nature of how and when the man burns. Make it a challenge to be the most ingenious and inventive person to get past the security measures set the man on fire.
After reading Paul's own statement, I decided to donate to his legal fund. After living in SF for 12 years, I moved away a year ago. The best thing is that there's a lot less Burners where I live.
He called it - the mindless religious abeyance to ANYTHING is revolting. Wake up people.
And go donate to his fund - he should be lauded for trying to wake up the sheep.
Yeah, every year someone tries to pull pranks--some more innocuous than others. One year kinda way back someone stole the man's head and replaced it with a plaster googly head (googly eyes, f*cked up teeth and tongue sticking out.).
Couple of years ago we were working on the base of the man and snuck a metal sculpture of the devil inside. The idea was that it would remain standing when everything else had burned away. We were so giddy having succeeded, but the debris was still taller than our sculpture! Hah.
I can also see the appeal of burning the man pre-burn, but the problem is that in recent years, attendees have had access to the base which supports the man. I'm not there now, so I don't know, but I assume this year is no different. So, burning the man without proper precautions is just plain stupid. How did Paul know that the accellerants and fireworks hadn't been loaded in?
I agree with telecommuter. Also, Burningman is an experiment on multiple dimensions--one of which is community. Since I've been attending I've seen them ban access to the hot springs, ban coming and going, ban handguns, ban driving vehicles (other than art cars) ban fires in camp, ban fires not in special burn areas and the list goes on. Most of those rules came into being because of specific incidences where people did something relatively stupid which becomes increasingly dangerous when both the volume and density of people increases, as it does as Burningman each year. "Hey, I'll build my camp out of hay bales and use open-flame tiki torches to illuminate it at night." Duh.
Now I imagine that next year the base under the man will not be accessible by the general public. Thanks, Paul.
What a fucking hypocrite. Well, in addition to being an asshole and arsonist.
Paul: "Doing so requires the ultimate in what Burning Man used to represent: personal responsibility and individual liberty."
Personal responsibility, eh? So now your friends are raising money to help your legal expenses for you. How are you being personally resposnible at all here?
Paul: "You have nothing to offer the event other than your fucking money and obedience."
Oh, money is bad, then? Guess I'll keep mine away from your fucking legal fund, then. You should really appreciate that.
Paul: "We could give a fuck less what you all think of us for doing this."
And I could give a fuck less what it's costing you and your friends to have done so.
Sure, an' he was just arsin' around mates.
He shouldn't have done it, but he didn't deserve to be arrested. Americans have a kind of punishment mentality staight out of the dark ages. I guess that's why there are more people in prison in America than any other place in the solar system.
Big shiney balls - amusing.
Risking peoples lives - reckless, Assholeish.
If he was on the team to make the man one year, he should know how much work people would put into making it.
He's like a little kid who smashes other kids sandcastles down.
As to the 'do whatever you want' mentality, I don't reckon that's really got anything to do with it. This guy is a playwright and actor - ITS FOR HIS OWN PUBLICITY! Getting his name out there, creating controversy, its fucking marketing!
How much more commercial can you get?!
And it's working! There are people out there stupid enough to give this guy money!
Hell of a lot of attitude going down here. As has been said several times: if you don't like Burning Man, don't go. I'll add that if you aren't there, what happens at Burning Man is no skin off your nose.
Another repeated point is that there's a world of difference between being a self-policing community, and having every individual feel entitled to do whatever he or she wants. The former's interesting. The latter's impossible.
To listen to some of the commenters here, you'd think the Burning Man was a spontaneously generated natural object. It wasn't. You want to talk about people doing what they want? What they wanted was to build a giant figure of a man, admire it during the event, and burn it in a spectacular bonfire at the end.
The Burning Man figure was their work. They should have had control of it. Paul Addis stole that away from them. I don't care what message he was trying to convey. It wasn't his statement to make.
damn, such vehemence towards someone who clearly understood what the founders of Burning Man had in mind when it was started. Just look at two of the "10 principles of Burning Man" from their website, which include:
radical self-expression & leaving no trace (which he was clearly trying to do, literally!). They also state that "being a spectator is discouraged", which seems a bit bizarre, in that they want everyone to stay around to the last day to watch the "burning man". It seems to me he was trying doing exactly what they espouse.
More power to him.
Will nobody think of the goat?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4497408.stm
Yeah, yeah, Burning Man is about Art, wild expression, doing what you want, making a statement, etc., but I still think the guy is an asshole for purposely trying to destroy something that a lot of mostly cool people are enjoying. There's something about not taking your "radical self expression" to the point of ruining other people's good time.
But hey, he radically expressed his desire to disrupt the event and the Burning Man people radically expressed their anger and distaste by nailing his ass with heavy legal prosecution. Actions have consequences.
Apparently, the fuckworth hadn't been to the event for a good ten years anyway, so he was trying to affect something he was no longer familiar with or a part of.
For those of you who have never been to Burning Man, don't knock it, 'til you try it.
You buyin' my ticket, paying for my gas and making sure I don't lose my non-vacation-time-granting job for going? Kthx. Some of us are anti-BM for the same reason folks get a burr in their ass about Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses: the goddamned evangelism, the oh-Burning-Man-is-like-nothing-else-in-the-world-you've-got-to-go-ism.
Respect the fact that some of us can't afford it or just don't care, and fuck off.
Since I've been attending I've seen them ban access to the hot springs, ban coming and going, ban handguns, ban driving vehicles (other than art cars) ban fires in camp, ban fires not in special burn areas and the list goes on. Most of those rules came into being because of specific incidences where people did something relatively stupid which becomes increasingly dangerous when both the volume and density of people increases, as it does as Burningman each year.
You've made Addis' point for him, I think: Burning Man has jumped the shark. It's gotten too big and too dense to afford to keep the original spirit intact. Sadly, it's also bred its own form of fundamentalism -- the event is sacred and must be preserved at all costs, even if it means prohibiting everything that made it interesting. Reasonable people would do the math, shake their heads and move on, hopefully seeking out (or creating) opportunities for free expression and hedonism in their own back yards, with their own neighbors and fostering an actual, permanent community -- as opposed to a temporary Vegas/Disneyland in the desert that pays lip service to "green thinking" while continuing to be laughably unsustainable. I hope they do.