Welcome to Dr. Paradise's Burning Man Page
Well, the *potential* Burning Man page. When I'll have time to scan photos, tell
stories, etc, I can't guess...
I started tuning into Burningman maybe sometime around 1990 and visited a small gathering
in a lot between two buildings in San Francisco. It seems like it was a much
smaller Man than they bring to the desert, but it was a pretty cool little gathering.
Then in 1992, when it was still well under a thousand people, dj Goa Gil and I,
and a handful of the SF trance dance community camped with the budding BM scene,
and threw the first all night dance event there, Goa Gil DJ'ing and with Paradise
Video shining on the side of a truck! What an experience; and oooohh, what a sunrise
that was...
Then Burningman kind of went haywire for several years as it exploded with newcomers, and
the rampant exploration of chaos that is probably inevitable in a scene like that.
Unfortunately lots were injured, and at least one person died during these dark
ages of Burningman. So I waited it out.
In '97 I started going back, this time with my children who were 4 years old,
and my one year old baby girl. You think Burningman is hard? try it with kids!
But we survived! Barely. And even had the energy to make projections in another
all night party.
By '98 the Burningman trance scene, now called "The Community Dance", had changed
dramatically, now with many dj's and vj's. To get their time in, I was squeezed
into a 2 hour slot... Disappointing, but not unexpected.
Links
- The Official Burning Man Site
- Don Davis' excellent personal review of BM98.
- Gregory Sams' sociological commentary of BM98.