Did you get denied entrance to an ARTCAR this year?

[theCryptofishist]

Some friends and I (plus several other people around us) tried to get on the big yacht... I can't remember what night, maybe Wednesday... and were told it was a "private party". That didn't seem in the spirit of Burning Man to us, but whatever.

Yeah. The "private party" was a gift to the people that helped with funding so they could bring the project out to the playa to begin with. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

We didn't really care, we just thought it was weird. What if everybody did that? Sure would make BM an... interesting... experience. Most people there contribute to something... I thought the philosophy was to share, not to exclude. I can't imagine the camp I was with not allowing people on our art car... that's the point, get on it!... in fact, our driver had a rule that we couldn't get on the art car unless it was more than 2 blocks away from camp, specifically so other people had a chance to ride.

MVs are like white elephants, they can bankrupt you. I dislike them, for reasons I'm not going into, and Benzai, I'm impressed by your rules and the ability of the camp to abide by them. But I "get" why they have limited ridership and why there might be private parties for fundraisers.

I was going to say that I was proud of myself for not asking for schwag when I donated to Ein Hammer, but then I realized that missing the event meant that I had no souvenirs of it, and sorta wished that I hadn't.

[Mister Jellyfish Mister]

I built an MV my very first year in 2004. I read and read here on eplaya to make sure I was not making common mistakes and it worked out pretty well. The only rule I had was that the MV was powered by the Space-Time-Serendipity Drive so you could not tell the pilot where to go. I never told anybody they could not get on, and that eventually broke the transmission, but I did not care. Radical Inclusion was more important to me.

This year, my experience with large MV's was thus:

* I got barked at to get off a flat platform below the driver who wanted me off his vehicle. OK.

* I was denied entrance during a dust storm by a gatekeeper of a double-bus who then told me he had do pee. "Let me get this straight..." I said. "...you are excluding me AND you want to pee on the ground where I am standing?" "That's right.", he replied. What he didn't know is that I would later that night be taking my shift as Rotwang at my Ein Hammer art installation where I told the story at every opportunity into a microphone with a PA that was heard far and wide.

* On two separate occasions, a make-shift large MV with minimal rope lighting that suggested it might, just maybe, be a boat, parked at Ein Hammer with their poorly chosen music playing full blast. I'm sure many passengers dismounted and participated in my "show". On both occasions the MV refused to turn down their music as though they were trying to compete with the very installation they had come there to see. I teased them with Germanic insults, to no avail. Whatever, it's Burning Man and just one glance showed everybody they were trying to compensate audibly for what they lacked visually.

On only two occasions did I get a ride on smaller art cars this year, both of which were a result of my doing special favors to assist the owners. It was great, as I could participate, ride, and feel a part of the mobile art rather than just sponging.

I believe the main reason that Honorarium Grants are seldom awarded to Mutant Vehicles is that they tend to get built anyway because people want to build them so badly. This does not, however, exclude them from the DMV requirement that they provide a service other than just visual stimulation.

I'm tired. Tired of stripper poles. Tired of function over form. Tired of a lack of whimsy. Tired of people shouting "wooooo" for no apparent reason other than to exclaim "Look at me! I'm up here and you're all down there!". All of you people that use the word "party" as a verb: get off the art car and go make an ice run for your camp like you promised to do at the beginning of the week!

Rant mode disengaged.

[C.f.M.]

As I megaphoned at several passer-bys, "SPRAY PAINT AND A PICK-UP TRUCK IS NOT AN ART CAR."

[spectabillis]

people thought I was a cop, all the time

you took their stash, right?

[Kinetik V]

As I megaphoned at several passer-bys, "SPRAY PAINT AND A PICK-UP TRUCK IS NOT AN ART CAR."

Could you record that and play it back on loop mode? Seriously, I know where the Western United States supply of Krylon spray paint ends up.

(My exception is for DPW, let them drive anything they can get started!)

[ZaphodBurner]

Then as the week went on and stories began filtering through, like nightvision cameras and armed police pushing through dance floor crowds just to be intimidating, my paranoia increased.

My camp saw that Thursday night at the Tower of Babel at 10 o'clock. The place was packed, everybody was dancing and three white thirtysomething alpha-male cops with body armor and weapons just sort nudged people aside as they wedged through the crowd; the weren't going anywhere, though, just lurking in the crowd giving off the Big Brother Is Watching vibe.

I'd never heard of Burning Man when I was in the Marine Corps, but would have hoped that as a free adult American I would at some point be able to cut loose in the middle of bumfuck nowhere Nevada was booze, whores and gambling is legal, and not have to worry about Officer Hardass trying to intimidate everybody around them.

It didn't work on me because they couldn't arrest me for anything, but, I thought "Fuck you. There are child prostitutes being raped in Reno any night of the week--right now--but, Government Officer Hardass--who probably calls himself a conservative-- has to make sure I'm not getting myself high out in the middle of the fucking desert.

[Dephect]

I felt the increase in police presence in BRC this year as many others have, I was out there early and barely saw any except two on the way in, I had a trailer come unhitched coming from Fernley so I chained it down and crept to Empire going 25 mph with my hazards on. Passing by 2 BLM rangers on the way in who passed me numerous times but never pulled me over. I saw a few here and there but they would wave and smile instead of giving off a poker face I am going to throw you in jail look like most of them had later in the event. Starting Monday I had numerous BLM rangers patrolling through my camp and noticed that the attitude and those select few "nice" BLM rangers earlier have been outnumbered by the poker face ones. One night I was chilling in my tent per say and heard one walk by, I think it was the trailing footsteps and the radio giving coordinates that suddenly blared that gave it off.

However, for those who decided to partake in mind expanding substances and whatever changes your state of consciousness that the government cant tax, BRC is still a city, and you don't walk down the street smoking a joint or doing bumps in the open back in the default world, you keep it secluded to your own private area. Private is different from public. Believe it or not people are permitted to have personal space at Burning Man. I feel no anger towards anyone who tells me this is a private area. Which did happen this last year. But back to the point, don't do fucking drugs out in the open, keep it in your personal space, keep it to people you know, or don't bring it at all. If you cant practice those two rules then don't complain about getting busted.

[Shambala]

So you don't like the police and you want to do drugs in private? What does this have to do with being denied entrance to an art car?

[AntiM]

One of the members of our fire conclave has access to a large art car which picks up the drummers, the fuel masters (whee that's us) and the conclave and delivers us all out to the great circle en masse. As we were headed to the last stop to pick up the performers, a group of people dancing in the street screamed over a megaphone STOP, WE NEED MUSIC. They then proceeded to abuse the driver as we pulled away. We were on a schedule, there was no time to stop on a residential street and play for them. Just bad timing. I am certain they tell about the jerk art car who wouldn't stop for them that evening.

LOL, funny tangent story: the pirate ship stopped to pick me and MyLarry up. One of the drummers looked at the fuel cart and said, "There's no room for your cart, you can't bring it." Uh, dude, it is the FUEL for the performers. No one needs your drums if there's no fucking FIRE. How about we unload your drum? YOUR unneeded cart with a generator and cooler? Or that stupid bike which one performer tried to bring into the circle and was told to take it right back out? We compromised, Larry shifted their stuff around and then sat on the back "porch" holding the handle to our little wagon as it raced behind the giant pirate ship. Cute. I had my feet dangling out the back, which was odd and fun. When we got set up, new stilt boy told us he brought the genny so "we could have lights". Fucker, I don't want a genny next to me. If more lights were needed, the shin could have told us. You just wanted an excuse to bring in your wagon of cold drinks. Not next year, bub. We will light up brightly with batteries and solar.

[gyre]

Why would a fire circle need electrical lighting?

[AntiM]

Why would a fire circle need electrical lighting?

Exactly.

[Cheyenne]

9 arrests for an event with 50,000 nut jobs!!!! You lot should be proud of yourselves...

Download festival in Derbyshire, England (mostly metal, rock, runk etc) had 80,000 and over 100 people arrested.. and that was considered low by British festival standards...

Although most of the time, if a festival actually gets a license in the UK, and someone is found with Class A's on them, then they are just confiscated and handed over to the police with no further warning or being kicked out..

I bet those bouncers were having a whale of a time!

[andrewgray]

9 arrested in the event because their drunk or use drugs?
You know what, let's imagine if we make the event in a very big charter yacht, sailing on the sea, so there isn't cop or anything can harm us.

[theCryptofishist]

9 arrested in the event because their drunk or use drugs?
You know what, let's imagine if we make the event in a very big charter yacht, sailing on the sea, so there isn't cop or anything can harm us.

It's my understanding that hte sea is a very dangerous place. Even without somali pirates.
9 out of 50,000 is a very small number. A very, very small number. If the cops were going to go after everyone that they saw acting sketchy, the numbers would be 2 or 3 orders of magnitude bigger.

[Casanova]

i was denied from that biggest ship on the playa really wanted to get on that ship

so was I, they said it was a private party only. lame

[Phinneas]

[quote="Buckaroo_Benzai"]Some friends and I (plus several other people around us) tried to get on the big yacht... I can't remember what night, maybe Wednesday... and were told it was a "private party". That didn't seem in the spirit of Burning Man to us, but whatever.[/quote]

I had a very different experience with the giant yacht car on Wednesday night -- they were allowing anyone, including me, to board -- but logistically, passengers could only board when it stopped and withdrew a ladder in the back so its passengers could first de-board. It was so friggin' HUGE, inside and out!!! Anyway, I wouldn't assume that an MV is acting exclusive all week based on one run-in when they might have already had plans.