I'm Big in Japan Pt. III

Got a couple poems up at the Railroad Poetry Project, an upstart ezine over there in England paying tribute to those responsible for my ruin, the Beats.  The two poems selected by editor Jade Willetts feature two of my favorite things to write about: the struggle of the working class and the forfeiture of one's dreams, and the hardscrabble life of the derelict and delinquent.  You can find those poems here: http://tinyurl.com/3u7buex.  My stuff starts around page 55, but you should read it all, because it's really good shit (even if it is poetry).  (My Berlin friends might recognize the impetus for the locale of the paper mill.)  Again, thanks to Jade for seeking me out and asking to feature my work.  (And for referring to me as "Joe Clifford, the accomplished American writer" in his introduction, which may stretch the tenets of reality, but it's still nice to read.)

You never know what you're getting with these new e-journals, and a lot of times the layout looks amateurish and low rent, but I have to say Jade and Co. have done a top-notch job.  All you Beat-flavored writer friends of mine (and I'm talking to you, J.J.), send 'em your best.

*

One of the coolest features of Blogger, the engine that hosts this goddamn thing, is that it not only let's you see how many people are reading what you write every day, but also where they are from, which posts are proving most popular, what days consistently garner the biggest crowd, etc. (http://tinyurl.com/6dkqkjn).  Which is a great way to kill a Monday evening when you're latest short story is rounding out to shit.  It's pretty remarkable, to me at least, that anyone outside of my wife and closest friends would so religiously read this blog.  (But you read it, so I write it.) But what really gets me is how many folks outside the US are fans.  I've broken these numbers down before (http://tinyurl.com/3cm6tda), as well as charted my international appeal in the marginally popular "I'm Big in Japan" series.

So there's no reason to traverse the same ground.  Except that every time I check, there is one post that is read, every day, all over the globe: "Burning Man II" (http://tinyurl.com/3bekcl2), which is, far and away, the most read, most successful blog post I have.  Not Part I.  Not the woefully disappointing Matrix-esque overkill Pt. III.  Part II.  Now we're not talking astronomical numbers, not like Stuff White People Like (http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/) or Hyberbole and a Half (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/), which get millions (or at least hundreds of thousands) of hits.

I have, like, 45,000 hits on this blog so far, over the course of like 250 entries, but those 3 days I spent writing about Burning Man account for nearly 1/20th of those hits.  Pretty strange.  And it's every day.  From from all over the world, people reading that one post, "Burning Man II."

Most of these posts are ones and done.  I pick a daily topic, write a few paragraphs, post it on Facebook and Twitter, and then go blast my pecs.

I'll check the stats at the end of the day, and since early September, no matter what I've written, "Burning Man II" is either the first or second most read entry for that day.  So my question is, why does this one post (with the original "Burning Man" http://tinyurl.com/3bnunoy not to far behind) resonate so goddamn much?  It's like every day someone is forwarding it to a few friends, who forward it the next day, and so on.  And while this isn't enough to be remotely considered viral, it's so fucking consistent.  Just yesterday, I had readers  in Bulgaria, Russia, and Micronesia read that post.  Now I wrote that back in, what, late August?  And since, like, the second week of September, with all these daily readers, no one has left a comment.

Which has me worried.  Every time I open my door, I half expect to be ambushed by Leeloo and thrown in a VW bus and sacrificed on the altar of a Phish concert.

Maybe I am overreacting.  But this is a direct appeal to all you in Bulgaria and Micronesia and Timbuktu who keep reading my posts on Burning Man.  Are you friend or foe?  Please write a fucking comment and let me know.  Tell me who you are and why you and your comrades keep reading that one post.  I'd like to know so I can keep an eye on you so I can serve you better.

Jumping the Shark with Bad Trilogies

So I owe you all an apology for scraping the barrel last week.  After I wrote that first Burning Man entry (http://tinyurl.com/3bnunoy) and it proved such a hit, far and away the most successful post I've had (in no small thanks due to Dr. Sean's tireless promotion), garnering over a 1,000 hits on that one post alone, I went back to the well, wondering how I could manage to top such a critical boon, mined some genius, and came up with Burning Man Pt. II (http://tinyurl.com/3bekcl2), which while not quite on par with the original, in terms of readership, may be the superior post, at least in terms of its writing.  Sure, it has the turtle kid and the porta-potty flowchart, which is almost like cheating, they're so good, but Pt. II manages to improve upon the original, taking the story and characters in a new, exciting direction, and since it was a one-note joke to begin with (dirty, stinking hippies), I promise you, it was work.  Either way, whether you are a fan of the original or the sequel, let's just agree to agree: both are awesome. Problem is, I set the bar so fucking high, I was like Nigel, already on 11: couldn't go any higher.

But I'd set out to write a goddamn trilogy, so I had to write a part 3, and the conclusion was a huge letdown.  I knew it when I was writing it.  I didn't even write much of the damn thing myself, resorting to the ol' gimmicky "reader's letters" (which were actually the best written part of the post).  There are only so many variations on the words "dirty," "stinking" and "hippy," y'know?  I should have just stopped after 1 & 2, but I had a successful franchise left to milk, so like Joe McCarthy or Chubby Checker's seventeen follow-ups to "The Twist," one-note bands whose appetites for the big time had been whetted, desperate to have a hit again, I abused my own world (More on Revenge of the Jedi and Lucas's further tinkering later).

Pt. III was a critical and commercial flop (though we did quite well overseas in Micronesia).  It was pointed out by many, including Esther Martinez, that I had...jumped the shark.  Which is itself a tired phrase.  Except...

When was the last time you watched that Happy Days' episode?  Until Esther and Co. brought it up, I of course knew of the expression like everyone else.  You stick around too long, take a good idea and milk it to shit, etc.  But I really had erased the clip from my memory.  And with good cause.  It's fucking terrible.  Here it is, just so we are all on the same page:

I was a big Happy Days's fan growing up.  One of my more vivid recollections is talking to Ron Lamontagne after Religion Class about Ron Howard's guest spot return, having left the show years earlier (Ron and I were both very excited.  We lived in a small, shit farm town and, obviously, there wasn't much to be all that excited about). Seeing as how the infamous "Jump the Shark" episode signaled such a low point, I figured it had to have happened, like, in the last season, long after Richie was gone and Cousin Roger had moved in (I always wondered why they didn't just bring Chuck back), just as they were gearing up for the debacle that is Joanie Loves Chachi.  But as you can see in the above clip, Richie was still very much a part of the show, so this fucking thing went on for years after jumping the shark.  Actually, this episode (according to Wikipedia, 'cause I ain't doing any more research than that.  Which reminds me of a conversation I had recently with local writer Sean Craven [http://seancraven.blogspot.com/] outside a Peet's about writing historical non-fiction.  "I'd love to write historical non-fiction," Sean said.  "I just need an assistant.  'Cause there ain't no way I'm doing all that fucking research") was the season premier.  Of Season Five.  In 1977.  The show ran until 1984.  I guess when you look at it like that, my artistic transgression with Pt. III wasn't that bad.

Anyway, it got me thinking of the worst Part IIIs of all time.  Again, without doing research, here's what comes to mind.


Matrix Revolutions 


Part II of the Matrix trilogy is god-awful.  Part III is so bad, that it makes you think back to Part II and go, "Maybe Part II wasn't so bad after all."  I read somewhere that the only lasting cultural contribution of the two Matrix followups is that it officially got George Lucas off the hook for missing the easiest sure-fire, slam dunk in cinematic history (the Star Wars' prequels).  Matrix II is fucking dreadful, painfully awkward and clumsy, poorly paced (except for the freeway chase), and the Zen-tinged dialogue that was forgivable in the the original because the rest of it is so compelling is not so forgivable this time around.  The Waskowskis get lazy with the same "twist" at the end, this time with Trinity instead of Neo on the receiving end of the kiss-bringing-back-to-life Deus ex Machina moment, which serves to cheapen both sequel and original. Yet for as bad as Part II is--and, yes, Part II sucks, something awful--Part III manages to somehow lower the bar and suck worse.  I sure as shit am not going back to watch this movie to give a more detailed lists of the reasons why. Like Inception (http://tinyurl.com/3fovefr), I've already wasted all the time I will on it.  Best I can recall, they aren't even in the goddamn matrix for most of the movie, but underground and riding mechanical elephants or something, and Jada Pinkett talks way too much, and Keanu has his eyes burned out or something by one of the Lord of the Rings elves, and, really, who gives a shit? This clip pretty much sums the whole mess up.

Rocky III


This kills me to include.  For years, it was my favorite movie.  Of course, I was 12. When you watch this homoerotically tinged sequel, only two degrees removed from what I consider one of the finest American films ever made, as an adult, its flaws are glaring and painfully embarrassing to watch.

This is the exact point in the Rocky franchise where Stallone embraces (pun intended) the cartoonish over the gritty and real.  Cartoonish can work in Sin City. Rocky?  Not so much.  (It would be almost 20 more years before Sly achieves redemption with the underrated, solid Rocky Balboa, giving a fitting farewell to a beloved American icon.)


Spider-Man III


You ever want to know how fucking important writing is, look no further than this celluloid fuckbomb (which might rival that Wakowski indictment of sure-thing, fuck ups).  Part I was written by Stan Lee.  Part II, Michael Fucking Chabon.  Part III? Sam Rami and his brother, Ivan, the very definition of "precipitous drop-off," rendering one of the best superhero universes in dire need of a reboot in just over two hours.  The best criticism of this movie--I wish I could remember where I read it--went something like, "In the jazz scene in Part III, Tobey Maquire (as evil Peter Parker) looks like a 3rd-place contestant in a Hitler look alike contest."  Ouch.

Let me know which ones I missed.  Y'know, in case I ever need to fill space with some reader letters...

Burning Man Pt. III

We usually don't post on Fridays, so this will probably be Candy and Cigarettes' last post on Burning Man. Which is probably good since I've spent more much time talking about dirty stinking hippies than I'd planned, and after a strong original and perhaps even stronger sequel, I worry we're broaching dangerously close to Godfather III territory.  So to keep things fresh, in yesterday's column we invited readers to offer their views on Burning Man, pro or con, not so much in the name of expanding the conversation but as a convenient excuse not to have to write so goddamn much ourselves (seriously, I write this fucking thing practically every day. You have any idea how much that drains a person?  You only get so many words a week; when I am done writing these posts, I'm reduced to a series of nods, grunts, and moans in my remaining personal communications).


If you weren't among the thousand or so to be reading the last couple days, here is what you missed: http://tinyurl.com/3bnunoy. And http://tinyurl.com/3bekcl2.  Or "Dirty Stinking Hippies" and "Dirtier Stinkier Hippies: Back on the Playa."  Honestly when I wrote these two posts I expected to catch more flack from the granola sect, since it seems like so many people are so in love with this goddamn thing; I figured hordes of hairy hacky sackers would be descending on my house in the hills like a plague of locusts in knitted beanie caps.  But by and large, the response has been mainly supportive, and the insults I have received have been fairly mild (if patchouli scented).  So either the hippies can take a joke, or they've just been too busy with "the burn on the playa."  Whatever the case, glad everyone has a sense of humor, and thanks for the extra hits.


I asked yesterday for both camps to defend their positions.  And the response was overwhelming.  I mean, they just kept pouring in and pouring in.  I just now finished reading them all (exhale).  And with so many terrific entries it's really hard to choose.  But choose I must.


So first up on why Burning Man doesn't totally suck balls, we have Carolyn Keagy, who writes,

Despite my years in recovery and therapy there is still that dark hateful addict and vicious critic in me that revels at destroying the joy (willful misconceptions and mistruths as I understand them) in someone else’s life so that maybe, just maybe, they can see the world the way I do and for a single moment I won’t feel like some aberration of nature.

And, know what?  That is part of why I enjoyed Burning Man when I went last year:  radical self-expression.  I can sit there with my megaphone, stone sober, trying to lord my sharper wit over the masses of blissfully happy and mostly naïve burners.  I can be that asshole heckling them for their poor wardrobe choices, or if I feel like being particularly braying on peoples’ nerves I can remind them that “radical self-reliance”—one of the core 10 principles—is possibly a major hindrance and social exclusionary factor of Burning Man, ultimately contradicting another fundamental tenant of radical inclusiveness.  All that gear is expensive, which means individuals of lower socio-economic--and may I point out often minority--status are therefore inadvertently excluded from this festival, which may as well be a glorified country club for those with enough financial resources to afford it (who I like to remind everyone is almost exclusively white). 

I wasn’t raised in the dirt camping, despite my father’s big-game hunting habit; I fucking hate camping; it is a distinctly middle-class activity and most of my experience with it was the required camping trips of my high school, Maybeck.  This isn't to say I was not raised in a penny-pinching derivative of the Great Depression manner that spurred on middle-class values; I just prefer to be comfortably indoors with a book (and these days a furry companion as I am starting to believe the last worthy male died under the auspices of Friedrich Nietzsche).  

I find it very difficult to pretend to be normal when I know that being the gifted sick kid with behavior and addiction problems isn’t exactly average.  Ennui and angst are currently my two favorite words. This year I am passing on this dirty hippie ritual of self-indulgence and celebration of unbridled hedonism as a lifestyle to care for a sick pet.

Yet, honestly as I sit here, debating back and forth taking my small friend into the vet to be put down, I know I can turn to these squishy lumps of unquestioning kindness for support.  I know that if I put Milo down before Sunday I can drive to the desert with ticket in hand and a goodbye letter for him.  I can put that goodbye letter in their temple and watch it burn, hopefully taking some of my personal sadness with it (both the man and the temple are their reconceptualization of the Buddhist practice of mandala-making as far as I can see—making something ornate, extravagant, and intimately challenging only to destroy it in a remembrance of the impermanence of life and everything we hold dear).


In this way, Burning Man is a double-edged sword.  I avoid going there because I strive to be clean, but battle constant physical pain and withdrawal from prescribed medication.  Burning Man provides me an image of rich temptation wherein I might be able to escape the physical plight that ails me if I could just be a functioning addict or alcoholic.  In this sense, it is tantamount to evil incarnate for me.

However, on the other side there is something there that is willing to take my ire, pain, spite and maybe ameliorate and transform it.  It cannot do it on its own; it is dependent on how I approach the experience.  With that said, never forget that humans cannot escape their humanity, and when backed into a corner I have never known an animal to not become defensive and survivalist—often bringing out the worst in us.

So with that, I don’t know if I have made any sense, but I am going to go take my cursed Oxycontin, and give my beloved Milo a dose of prednisone that only makes him hate me more... And ultimately question if the best thing I can do for him is end it early, or let him try to fight on however he sees fit, and know that when I fall over crying over this tiny creature it might be a burner who catches me.

Many good points.  And it's hard to not to be empathetic when it comes to small, sick animals.  A few months back, our 8 lb. poodle, Lucky, had a seizure in the middle of the night, and we were at that vet so fucking fast, willing to spend whatever it cost to make him well (turned out the seizure was because I feed him fresh beef all the time, which has too much salt.  But I've stopped doing that.  I mean, I still feed him beef, usually high-grade steak, but now I don't add any extra salt).  And I especially like the part about how Burning Man (or the aptly abbreviated "BM") panders to the financially secure who cash in on privilege under the guise of self-discovery, and is a racist event that hates black people.  Re: self-expression, believe it or not, I really am all for it. And I like that Carolyn can feel like less of an oddball surrounded by so many other odder balls.  And if Burning Man really were just that, I'd be more likely willing to overlook its racist, classist, eco-unfriendly, douchy shortcomings. Still, if Carolyn can use the event to get over the loss of something dear, I'm happy for her.  But I also have to believe similar pockets of relief are available for less than the $300 - $400 price tag, and probably somewhere indoors and with less venereal disease.  (Plus, it still doesn't explain nor excuse those goofy hats.) And while I love the last line of Carolyn's editorial, as purely a literary turn, I don't entirely buy it.  It reminds me of the exchange between Carl the Janitor and Richard Vernon in The Breakfast Club.  

In the comments' section to yesterday's post, Duane S. of Texas cites the same scene, only earlier, with Vernon's saying how the thought of "these kids running the country keeps him up at night."  But when I read Carolyn's last line, I think what follows is more relevant.  (I'll be paraphrasing.)

"Think about it," Vernon says, "when I get older these kids are going to be taking care of me."

To which Carl responds, "I wouldn't count on it."

I like the idea that in her time of need, someone falling believes a burner might be there to catch her.  But I wouldn't count on it.  Not because they are "bad" people.  But because they'd be too high, horny, and self-absorbed to notice.

For obvious reasons, I have to say I side more with the "con" position, here offered by Jarret Cooper (http://www.jarretcooper.com/home.html), who writes, 

Okay, let's just begin by saying that Burning Man, for me, sounds like a reasonable attempt at describing my personal "hell on earth." To say I have no inclination towards attending the event is a bit like saying I have no inclination towards pouring salt in my eyes while setting my pubes on fire and jumping off a ten-story building. To each his own, have fun, whatever.

Five years ago I saved an article from the SF Bay Guardian (that "hell-raising," "ass-kicking" free paper of ours) wherein the post-Burning Man letdown was described ("Nobody told me about this – nobody mentioned the aftershocks," a first-time burner tearfully exclaimed on the phone last week. "I want my mommy.") This was eye-rolling enough, but was followed by a sort of manifesto in which the authoress subtly skewered all non-BM-attending types as the timid sheep they are, by listing "the social habits of the 'real' [quotes in original] world, as seen from the vantage point of Burning Man", here reproduced with [my] comments (italicized) added because my boss is out today and I'm bored:

1. Even the most stylish hipsters, mavens, divas, and superfreaks look funky, but frighteningly clean.

(Clean equals frightening. That is just so cool and mellow.)

2. It is not socially acceptable to pick your nose in the presence of others.

(No shit. Are you three years old? I'll bet the old fuddy-duddies frown on eating it too, but don't you let them harsh your buzz...)

3. People are subdued, and not inclined or encouraged to draw out neighbors, peers, or entire rooms with spontaneous performances. There's no unsolicited intangible gift exchange, aside from the occasional compliment or well-put-together outfit.

(Maybe, just maybe, the average passerby doesn't really give a shit about you, let alone posses desire to be "drawn out" by your "spontaneous performance." There is a yawning gulf between challenging and just plain annoying. And if you want to exchange gifts so badly, I have a wish list on Amazon.)

4. People keep to themselves and their friends and don't generally walk around giving thumbs-ups and "woo"s and feel that there's something to celebrate.

(God, what's wrong with people? I mean, you'd think that ordinary folks walking around the city weren't constantly looking to feed their egos and get in people's faces. It's soul-crushing, is what it is. I want my mommy.)

5. People make an effort to blend.

(See above. Those stupid people! I'll bet they're all looking at ME now!)

6. People don't have to consider the unpredictability of the weather in every action, as most nighttime activities "worth doing" are enclosed and separated from the natural world.

(And if you don't say this in overly solemn, pitying tones, it just reads as common sense. Thank God I can hear this woman's patronizing, smug voice in my head as I read this.)

7. People don't hug strangers, and if they do, it's weird, and grounds for arrest.

(No. Fucking. Shit. And God bless America for keeping your smelly ass at a respectful distance.)

8. Art is nowhere near as relevant or important or revered as it should be to everyday life on earth.

(Debatable. But I'll bet YOURS isn't, huh?)

9. The world is composed of 95 percent spectators, and those of the 5 percent creators and participators who aren't accepted in the mainstream are generally doomed to a misunderstood life of ridicule and financial instability.

(Bingo. Maybe, just maybe, declaring yourself a "creator" and "participator" and walking around with the back of your hand nailed to your forehead in perpetual misunderstood anguish doesn't make you an artist. Or more accurately, doesn't place you above ridicule and require that your life be funded by taxpayer dollars.)

10. People absorb entertainment rather than create it. Commerce, not community, is the basis of diversion and recreation. Gimme.

(Ouch. That "gimme" just lays in my gut and burns. I don't think I'll ever be able to absorb entertainment again without hearing "gimme" in the back of my head, and realizing what a mindless, sucking parasite I am. On the other hand..."community" is not the basis of recreation? So friends never get together to enjoy each other's company -- it's all a false front for "commerce." Yikes. I guess if that's how my life worked, I'd have to go to Burning Man too, if only to find true community. You know that all the interpersonal relationships formed at BM are built on solid ground. Me, I'm going to stay home, indoors, clean, and crab-free...)

And with that, let's close with a little John Bender, who despite being a first-class burnout, never would've been caught dead at Burning Man.  (It's more an event for the Andys of the world.  And, yeah, my parting shot really just was burners are nothing but frat boys in disguise with worse headgear, looking to flaunt their privileged birthright and party every chance they get.  And self-righteous partying?  Don't get any better than that.)

Burning Man Pt. II

So Candy & Cigarettes had, far and away, its most successful post yesterday, chronicling the dirty hipster annual rite of self-discovery and narcotic/carnal bliss, Burning Man.  In case you missed that post (and are too fucking lazy to scroll down): http://tinyurl.com/3bnunoy.  We're closing in on a 1,000 hits on that single post alone, and it's still climbing.  Very excited.  Part of the post's success comes via my friend Sean Kenniff (http://www.etrethecow.com/), who stoked the...fire (sorry)...by linking the post on Burning Man's Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/BurningMan).

I was out most of the day, only able to check comments, traffic, e-mail and responses remotely, on my phone (in-between blasting my delts and rocking with the WJ's new drummer, Mr. Hart).  When I got home and saw that Sean had posted the blog on Burning Man's FB page, I went there, and immediately felt bad.  I mean, I hate humanity, sure, but primarily in the abstract.  On an individual level, I tend to like the fuckers a great deal.  Once I read some responses by real people, my disdain softened, and looking at the goofy bastards with their ill advised facial hair and tall Abe Lincoln fuzzy hats, I wondered, why did I have to be so mean about the whole thing?  What had these dirty, stinking hippies ever done to me (besides making me compost and sort my garbage into 12 different containers, perpetuating the "organic" scam that has my mother-in-law harping continuously, and exposing me to their beaded crafts)?  Really, what the hell do I care if new-age hipsters want to head into the desert to dress up like Thing One and Thing Two and do yoga and display their crappy art?  It's not like they are hurting anybody.  (Unless you are this guy I used to know, Beau Daddy, who got really fucked up at Burning Man a few years ago and ran over a tent full of people and received a life sentence.  Seriously).

A little while back, I was accused of being a bully (in my writing), and I thought of that.  Pushing around "burners," why that's like pushing around one of those weird little kids who love turtles too much.

Then I read this article: http://tinyurl.com/3usvovx on the SF Gate.  And the author makes some very valid points, like how Burning Man is just a little bit hypocritical in preaching its Earth Mother/anti-capitalism ideology, when the event costs as much as a plane ticket to Hawaii, is corporately sponsored, and the grand finale proves a textbook exercise in colossal waste (don't get much more wasteful than building something really really big just to watch it burn).

The author, Cameron Scott, doesn't resort to name calling; he remains respectful. He's simply illustrating how ecologically unfriendly Burning Man is.  Of course, I don't give two shits about that part.  In fact, being so wasteful and environmentally irresponsible almost makes me like Burning Man more.  But look at the comments posted beneath Scott's article.  Man, these fucking burners are mean!  They call for Scott's firing, call him a moron, tell him to stay away and how the playa is better off without him.  Mean burners.

What happened to inclusiveness and the right to express different points of view?  I thought Burning Man was about "kindness" and "community"?  Scott is on your side.  He only wants for a Greener world.  He's merely encouraging you to embrace the spirit of what Burning Man should be all about instead of the frivolous, decadent, morally bankrupt excuse to party that it has become.

Of course, like I, Scott hasn't actually been to Burning Man, which invariably prompted a slew of "You have no right to criticize Burning Man if you've never been" responses.  Which is kinda weak.  I mean, I've never been to a NAMBLA meeting, have no intention of ever going to a NAMBLA meeting, does that mean I can't criticize little boy fuckers?

Which begs the next question: did I really just compare Burning Man with pedophilia?  Yes.  Yes, I did.

Sorry.  Probably shouldn't have done that, might even come to regret it (probably should've used "war" as a better example), but c'mon, it's such a stupid argument. There are plenty of things you don't need to "experience" in order to criticize them. Do I really need to list them all?

I don't need to occupy physically the same space to know I wouldn't like hanging out with some people.  I can read and hear the way burners speak, like the secret language D&Ders used to have, only here it isn't "elf needs food badly," it's "see you on the playa!" and "enjoy the burn, man!" and know I wouldn't want to experience anything with these people.  (Except maybe the zombie apocalypse, because watching them try to get zombies into a game of hacky sack would be pretty funny).  I am not sure the legality of cutting and pasting comments from Facebook.  Plus, it's not really necessary.  You can go to that goddamn Facebook page I was telling you about and read firsthand what I am talking about.  Guys named "Rene" with an accent over the "e," or who make up their own nicknames, like "Jester" or "Jazzy," and all the goddamn wishes of "brightness" and "light-filled journeys," in between the pandering for rides and/or gas money.

Still, I am not a confrontational guy.  Don't let the muscles and tattoos fool you; I'm a sensitive mutherfucker.  And I am glad that privileged, upper-middle-class white hipsters have finally found something just for them.  (God knows they've suffered long enough.)

So here's what I'd like to do for the rest of the week on C & C.  I want to hear from you, the readers.  It's open solicitation time.  Instead of stories only about Joe, we are opening it up to stories about Burning Man.  Pro, con, whatever.  They can be essays, comments, anything (except poetry, because, y'know, it'd be poetry). Seriously, if you love Burning Man so goddamn much and think I'm using trite, tired cliches, the ol' "sabermetric geek living in mom's basement" defense, I welcome the discourse.  I am not above humility.  I'll even correct your grammar for you so you look smart.  Or if you just want to add your impressions of why Burning Man sucks, I'll probably run your piece first, even if it's poorly written.

Please send all submissions to joeyclifford@hotmail.com, and put "Burning Man" in the Subject Line.

Now, in closing, I submit Prosecution Exhibit C.  Here is a picture of an actual flow chart found at Burning Man (confiscated by our staff).  Shit cracks me up every time...

                                         (Click on pic for a better view.)

Burning Man

Well, it's that time of year again, when the teeming, crafting hordes load up the veggie-fueled caravan and make like Tom Joad in reverse, heading back to the dust bowl...

For the sake of full disclosure, I freely admit: I don't know what the fuck actually goes on at Burning Man.  I mean, I've never been there.  Best I can deduce (from the endless slew of Bay Area "burners" who won't shut up about it): a bunch of dirty hippies get together in the desert to take lots of drugs, have sex with strangers, display their shitty art, and not shower for a week, as they have deep discussions about the need to return to a more primal existence, before lighting some big wooden sculpture thingy on fire, which takes on religious significance as being symbolic of some kind of transcendence. What kind of transcendence?  Beats fuckall out of me.  How can I speculate on why people would want to spend a week stinking like hobo and shitting in scrub brush?

Burning Man would be bad enough if it simply existed somewhere far away.  Like the Tea Party or pirates, an abstract I only had to encounter when I clicked on a specific link to a Yahoo story.  Or if I still lived in Connecticut.  But I live in the Bay Area, where Burning Man is like herpes.  The shit is everywhere.

I am a grumpy old man who doesn't like fun.  I know that.  So feel free to keep that in mind as you read this.  But I used to like drugs. Lots and lots of drugs, and even back then, you couldn't have paid me to go to Burning Man.  (And considering you used to be able to pay me to do just about anything, that's saying something.)

My first encounter with Burning Man came via this guy, I think his name was Kevin, who was roommates with this girl I knew.  Kevin wore lots of flannel, smoked pot non-stop, repeated the same story 80 fucking times.  And had a soul patch.  I guess the only vital detail of that description is the soul patch, eh?  I'd just come from CT, and knew more about the GOP and finishing school than I did about Burning Man, so I tried to keep an open mind.

"Oh, man," Kevin said, "you being an artist, man, you'd dig it the most...man."

Sure, I said, lay it on me.  I was an artist, and trying to open my mind was sort of a prerequisite for the grand journey of self-discovery upon which I thought I was embarking.

We sat in his filthy Bernal Heights' home, cluttered with dirty hippy crap, hardened old coffee cups, sixteen cats and giant stinky dogs, furniture that smelled like old people, the cold fog drifting in, as Kevin explained the magic of Burning Man, how a bunch of jackasses, most of whom probably also had soul patches or were dating a guy with a soul patch, or at least knew of a guy with a soul patch, climbed into a junky RV or van, where they pooled together change for the gas to drive to the desert to meet up with a bunch of other soul-patchers to partake in a spiritual awakening via a sharing of their "art."  And I guess this is where he lost me.  The art part.  Because, like I, Kevin also considered himself an "artist."  But whereas I tried painting trees that looked like trees, people who looked like people, and didn't suck, Kevin was more of a...crafter...gluing shit to paper, macaroni and bird feathers.

"Because, you and me," Kevin said, "we're the same.  It doesn't matter how 'good' you are.  Art is all about what what's inside your soul.  Rembrandt, you, me, it's all the same, man: art."

No, Kevin, it's not all the same.  Rembrandt is better than I.  And I sure as fuck am better than you.

Christ, I hate all that "art is equal" bullshit, drives me nuts; it's fucking commie talk. Like anything else, art is subject to hierarchy, quality and standards.  Crime and Punishment is better than Aunt Edna's self-published Homemade Jams of the South. Art is serious shit.  You work at it, you don't play at it.  Crafts are for Kindergartners and untalented girlfriends named "Lisa."  Just because you glue twigs to milk cartons when you are feeling "expressive," it doesn't make you an "artist" any more than giving yourself a paper cut makes you a surgeon.

Of course, I wouldn't have said these things to Kevin.  I would've just nodded, maybe said, "Oh," or "That sounds cool." Because at the time I was trying to shed my repressed strict Christian upbringing, and I was just a shy farm boy in the big city.

This would've been 19aught92.  I've lived in the SF Bay Area for the better part of the last twenty years, and Burning Man, instead of going the way of the pet rock in the '70s or breakdancing in the '80s, goofy fads like rap/rock fusion that enjoyed far more airtime than they deserved, Burning Man has only gotten bigger.  And if you live in San Francisco or any of its surrounding boroughs these days, good luck trying to escape it.

The worst part about Burning Man--I mean, besides the obvious part about the people who go there calling themselves "burners"--is how it's attained a religious-like status, is regarded as something profound; and admitting you have no interest in the process renders you an unevolved cretin.

"You've never been to Burning Man?  Why haven't you gone?  You have to go.  You have no idea what you're missing.  It's nothing like you think!"

Yeah.  It is.  I know exactly what's it's like because you people won't shut up about it.

And soon, the "burners" will be back, like goddamn grackles returning from pillaging sunflowers, posting their fucking pictures of guys with Dr. Seuss hats and pierced, dopey girls in pasties, standing beside some crappy junkyard sculpture, looking smug, like they've unlocked the keys to the universe just because they're not wearing pants.

Burning Man is the emperor's new clothes of new-age spirituality, an excuse for the pseudo artists, tattooed hipsters, and Ani Difranco wannabes to feel like they are doing something important with their lives because instead of fucking strangers and getting high in their rooms they are doing it in the sand.

Maybe I'm being hyper critical of something I just don't understand.  So if I'm overshooting the boat here, have gotten the particulars wrong, please feel free to write and explain what it is I am missing.  But that's a tall order, because when I look at videos like the ones below, I swear to God, it's enough to make me want to be a Republican again.

(* And to all my friends who are at Burning Man.  I am not talking about you guys! You guys are, like, way cool!  And your art is AWESOME!  I'm talking about...those other people.  And it's not like you're going to read this anyway.  They don't have the Internet [or electricity, or running water, or working toilets] in the desert.)