Funny, I thought it was interesting. I would never attend Burning Man, but I can appreciate that it's good for the soul to step outside of your routine and commune with a different group of people. And I appreciated the contrast from the apocalypse the MSM reported.
IтАЩve met Nick. Nice guy. But I expected to read more about his fianc├йe, who I know from тАШMostly Weekly with Andrew Heaton,тАЩ the courtship and proposal. I couldnтАЩt care less about Burning Man.
It provided a drastic contrast to every other article I've read about the Burning Man "fiasco" and did so with somebody who was actually there.
That's real journalism, and this is the only outlet I've seen that did real journalism on the subject. I learned a lot and am grateful for this article.
Oh come on, it was nice to read about communal showers without the author droning on about the degree of equity afforded male, female, trans, cis, bi, questioningтАж. participants. It seems the only concern among them was making sure to wash off that awful sweat/sunscreen smell after a week of 100-degree weather. I donтАЩt share the authorтАЩs fondness for тАЬmind-expandingтАЭ chemicals and my extreme experiences donтАЩt include camping in an area so desolate and inhospitable that even bugs avoid it, but hey, to each his own. Dehydration and sunburn aside, it was probably a better тАЬextreme experienceтАЭ choice for him than say, rock climbing a sheer cliff with the risk of falling into a canyon while his mind was expanding.
IтАЩm on board with the whole premise though. It strikes me as a sort of Woodstock without the great music. In a country of increasing regulation, mandates and tribalism, IтАЩm not surprised that 70,000 people showed up to let their hair down and take their clothes off for a week of uninhibited frivolity. The press may have described it as a mud pit but at least mud can be washed away, unlike the governmental and work place constraints most of them likely went there to escape.
As someone who has been to the event a few times, I was reading a bunch of news about it and really thought it was a major disaster. I appreciated this story because it cleared up a lot of disinfo about the event such as rumors of an ebola outbreak and flesh-eating parasites. Maybe it is more interesting if you know people at the event and were worried about their safety. Nice to have someone clear up all the disinfo!
If thatтАЩs the only takeaway from this piece, that MSM is a self-serving, self-absorbed creature hungry for the mass тАШlikesтАЩ, fine by me.
Of course, I was more interested in the tribal police smashing up the тАШpeaceful environmental protestersтАЩ along the entrance road, who somehow see themselves as a privileged class.
It was vaguely interesting after skimming past the self-stroking prose of just how superior a drug-fueled (trust-funded?) life of art is and the name-dropping of the fianc├йe...I said vaguely! And then I got to the word тАЬmulitverse.тАЭ
It said to me, "I'm a drugged out 60 year old who sent time at a drug fest. Aren't I cool?".
Call me narrow minded but I don't tolerate drunks or people who use drugs. They disgust me. That may seem harsh but if you watch a movie where the actors are smoking marijuana, they think they are so cool just because they take mind altering drugs and demean those of us who don't.
Somebody has to work and support the economy and the freeloading drugies.
Nick Gillespie is an editor at large at Reason, the libertarian magazine of "free minds and free markets," and host of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie.
A two-time finalist for digital National Magazine Awards for his work on "UPS vs. FEDEX: Ultimate Whiteboard Mix" and the documentary series Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey: How to Fix the Mistake on the Lake and Other Once-Great American Cities, Gillespie is co-author, with Matt Welch, of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America (2011/2012).
тАжтАЭFor the past 20 years, Gillespie has been a writer, editor and intellectual godfather for Reason, the movementтАЩs leading journal since its founding in 1968." The Daily Beast named him one of "The Right's Top 25 Journalists," calling him "clear-headed, brainy...[and] among the foremost libertarians in America."
Gillespie served as the editor in chief Reason.com and Reason TV from 2008 through 2017 and was Reason magazine's editor in chief from 2000 to 2008. Under his direction, Reason won the 2005 Western Publications Association "Maggie" Award for Best Political Magazine. Gillespie originally joined Reason's staff in 1993 as an assistant editor and ascended to the top slot in 2000. In 2004, Gillespie edited the book Choice: The Best of Reason, an anthology of the magazine's best articles.
Sorry Ann, I just don't have any tolerance of someone who promotes drug use. We have a huge drug problem in this country and having a prominent person extol the use of drugs is too much for me.
prominent people extolling the use of drugs, best you not watch Bill Mahrer on the Joe Rogan show or you will go bonkers. . Bill is 67 and evidently doesn't realize that instead of making him look cool, he looks and acts like an immature teenager.and an unfunny one at that. Indeed,at times he seems desperate to ward off aging.
On his Man Cave show, Mahrer drinks and smokes during the entire hour long show until he appears disheveled and glassy eyed- not a good look. Plus he is not funny - indeed a think his nemesis Donald Trump is far funnier.
At least it appears that this was a one time thing for Gillespie not a way of life. - .
I expanded my mind once many years ago with LSD. It really did have a positive affect on me. It did open up my mind and I saw the world as a metaphor for the first time. But I did it once and that was enough. I find a great book or a great poem or a great movie to have the same effect on opening up awareness and I never needed a drug to enjoy nature. The last time I saw Timothy Leary he had to be carried. He seemed to possess the mind of gourd. That can happen to anyone for many reasons but I certainly saw it as many years "responsible" psychedelic use. There was no one inside his body. Not everybody can afford to "drop out". That often takes a trust fund or friends with cash to spare. Food costs more that drugs do these days and you have to find a way to function and get food. Someone has to feed us. Pot is now legal as I think it should be. Alcohol and alcoholism doesn't make for a sharper mind but they have always been legal. So there are lots of ways to damage our brains. But the libertarian ideal that we can do whatever we want has always come off as arrogant and narcissistic to me. Life isn't easy. Love ends up causing us grief. Losses are hard to take. Aging is hard to accept. But I choose things like baseball as an escape from the weight of responsibility. I drink coffee every morning and it wakes me. "Woke" is not a part of my vocabulary nor is it a threat to me. It's a political ploy. I write and I'm an actress but as you get older you realize life is about your friends and family as we face the inevitable. We have to be there for each other. And I think you have to have a mind grounded in that reality to do that.
The psychonaut Terrence McKenna observed that he considered heavy psychedelic use to be participation once every four or five years. Psychedelics, though ultimately sold as such, were never the answer, only the key.
To what?
Every "more is better" self-medicating gin head, chocaholic, bong fiend, junky and prescription addict, to survive, ultimately has to admit to himself/herself/itself, that inside us, is a living force that informs the fact of the universe and the lines of human moral demarcation, violation of which, opens the doorway to hell. Human damage often leads to addiction and turn about, addiction furthers it. For many, American reality political/financial and personal has slipped squarely into the pathological. Human damage seems to have gone exponential. As proof I point to the sudden appearance of the encouraged and "available to all" euthanasia centers in EU/WEF controlled Europe and Canada. The messy equation of the troublesome human solved through the logical extension of materialist financial philosophy. Everything reduced to replaceable robotic disposable thingdom.
(Trigger warning!! I'm about to use the "C" word.) The 60's was about Consciousness (my capital) and the expansion of Consciousness. And we all know that Consciousness scares the sh!t out of the "man". That fear blew Fred Hampton and MLK into the next world, did its best to bomb Vietnam into the stone age and created the so called War on Drugs in order to build the prison industrial complex and the surveillance state eyeball watching you through this screen. And, gift that keeps on giving that it is, powers the ongoing prison culture Black on Black gang murder in our crumbling industrial cities. The latest jump in Consciousness is the leap in tech/communication that has pretty much made political/financial chicanery transparent to reality. Hence, the assault on free speech, thought and freedom. Picture Klaus Schwab or Steve Schiff and then think of the old slaver restrictions on literacy and education that helped hold Blacks in thrall before the American Civil War. Again: Marxist "woke" is the lipstick on a pig called totalitarian finance.
Acid in a rain storm and making love in the mud (wow kapow!! do I remember her) vs. being so drugged and crippled you can't stop staring into a screen long enough to hold a human conversation? The dynamic of human emotion and the heart frozen inside an electronic ice storm. It no longer matters who did what. It only matters what WE do now.
I don't have a dog in the who gets stoned fight. I hit 39 years clean and sober this month. Reality: Some people can successfully drink and smoke. I can't. (I have too much fun.) What I can do is live in my own skin and as we're all witnessing, there are a lot of stone cold sober people who can't. It's time to remember who WE are. To get strong, clean and clear. How we live our lives, what happens here, matters.
I don't disagree. I generally agree with the Libertarian idea that people should be allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies. However, most of these drugs are still illegal. If it's legal and purchased at a legal US business, cool. However people that use illegal drugs are funding the the most disgusting things. If you buy illegal drugs, you are supporting cartels, murder, human trafficking and the worst atrocities committed by mankind.
I agree with you. I to generally agree with the Libertarian philosophy. There are no simple answers to complex problems. Having said that, I think we should legalize all illicit drugs and have government run dispensing stores.
This would take the profit out of drug sales because the drugs would be free. It would run the cartels out of business and stop the drugs gang warfare, which take thousands of lives a year, in the inner cities.
I agree it has be federally legalized, but with harsh enforcement of criminalizing illegal drug activity. I read a fascinating article in the LA Times (they occasionally put out good journalism, despite their bias) not too long ago about the consequences of legalizing marijuana in the state. It actually benefits the cartels!
I'm with you on that. Have generic of each drug (Coke, Meth, Heroin, etc.) with ample warning labels. Any off-site sales or resales is harshly penalized.
For anyone out of control on the streets, its 30 days in the dry-out rehab facility. Oh, you don't like to do30 days in detox-rehab? Then don't get high on the streets, that simple.
тАЬ Somebody has to work and support the economy and the freeloading drugies.тАЭ
Just pointing out the discrepancy between what you wrote and the reality of the situation. The author works and supports a lot of other people working (his staff). You made it sound like he didnтАЩt. Considering the cost of attendance at BM, the overwhelming majority of attendees also work.
OTOH, youтАЩre correct that we have a drug problem, but it cuts across all classes. Locally I have found out that the police where I live have stopped arresting for certain drug offenses because most of the rich people in our gated community are a lot of the offenders. If the cops only went after the poor blacks and ignored the rich whites, it would look bad. Also, the inhabitants of the gated community are very influential on top of being rich and they will make trouble if approached, so they have to be ignored for political reasons. So now the police donтАЩt go after anyone. Fentanyl, I believe.
I have no stats to back this up but I would believe the vast majority of drug users are hopeless junkies which is a drain on society. Not all junkies are rich Bidens.
Joe Biden was there. Played lead guitar for The Beatles. Right after giving Jimmy Hendrix a lesson. Flew home from Viet Nam just to attend. Had to pilot a beat up Huey copter. He's now in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The vote was tied, but at the end of the show they turned off the lights and had a recount...it was unanimous.
Did you see the masculine energy...her picking up him...her proposing...her running 31 miles...what happened to men getting down on a knee and proposing...
After being more in my masculine, I welcome him to take my role back. It's a hard dynamic to reengage when you have been driving the bus so to speak. I prefer to be the passenger!
Love The Free Press but.....
****yawn****
Funny, I thought it was interesting. I would never attend Burning Man, but I can appreciate that it's good for the soul to step outside of your routine and commune with a different group of people. And I appreciated the contrast from the apocalypse the MSM reported.
IтАЩve met Nick. Nice guy. But I expected to read more about his fianc├йe, who I know from тАШMostly Weekly with Andrew Heaton,тАЩ the courtship and proposal. I couldnтАЩt care less about Burning Man.
I feel like it was a decent further expose of our shit media, which is why you are here.
This past week has been a yawner. Stories fit for Vanity Fair ... except for the Brown's essay.
Lol, with these kind of articles I always wonder if I missed the point or is it just stretching the mundane to a breaking point.
It provided a drastic contrast to every other article I've read about the Burning Man "fiasco" and did so with somebody who was actually there.
That's real journalism, and this is the only outlet I've seen that did real journalism on the subject. I learned a lot and am grateful for this article.
Lee Fang wrote on it
I liked both articles.
Much better article too.
Oh come on, it was nice to read about communal showers without the author droning on about the degree of equity afforded male, female, trans, cis, bi, questioningтАж. participants. It seems the only concern among them was making sure to wash off that awful sweat/sunscreen smell after a week of 100-degree weather. I donтАЩt share the authorтАЩs fondness for тАЬmind-expandingтАЭ chemicals and my extreme experiences donтАЩt include camping in an area so desolate and inhospitable that even bugs avoid it, but hey, to each his own. Dehydration and sunburn aside, it was probably a better тАЬextreme experienceтАЭ choice for him than say, rock climbing a sheer cliff with the risk of falling into a canyon while his mind was expanding.
IтАЩm on board with the whole premise though. It strikes me as a sort of Woodstock without the great music. In a country of increasing regulation, mandates and tribalism, IтАЩm not surprised that 70,000 people showed up to let their hair down and take their clothes off for a week of uninhibited frivolity. The press may have described it as a mud pit but at least mud can be washed away, unlike the governmental and work place constraints most of them likely went there to escape.
Great response!
at least he didnt do BM by "zoom"
As someone who has been to the event a few times, I was reading a bunch of news about it and really thought it was a major disaster. I appreciated this story because it cleared up a lot of disinfo about the event such as rumors of an ebola outbreak and flesh-eating parasites. Maybe it is more interesting if you know people at the event and were worried about their safety. Nice to have someone clear up all the disinfo!
A "major disaster" is what happened in Hawaii. Voluntarily participating in an event is not a disaster.
Well said. A little perspective is always nice.
However, we are now living in the post-truth world, either reality is possible, perhaps both realities are possible.
If thatтАЩs the only takeaway from this piece, that MSM is a self-serving, self-absorbed creature hungry for the mass тАШlikesтАЩ, fine by me.
Of course, I was more interested in the tribal police smashing up the тАШpeaceful environmental protestersтАЩ along the entrance road, who somehow see themselves as a privileged class.
Different laws on the Res.
In the desert, restricting someone's travel is life threatening.
Yup. Facts before feelingsтАж
but... "if its not about a topic I care personally about, than its not worth publishing" is that what you were trying to say?
an FP intern somewhere: тАЬBurning man Bad, checkтАЭ
I agree. This seemed a pompous letter to self.
It was vaguely interesting after skimming past the self-stroking prose of just how superior a drug-fueled (trust-funded?) life of art is and the name-dropping of the fianc├йe...I said vaguely! And then I got to the word тАЬmulitverse.тАЭ
It said to me, "I'm a drugged out 60 year old who sent time at a drug fest. Aren't I cool?".
Call me narrow minded but I don't tolerate drunks or people who use drugs. They disgust me. That may seem harsh but if you watch a movie where the actors are smoking marijuana, they think they are so cool just because they take mind altering drugs and demean those of us who don't.
Somebody has to work and support the economy and the freeloading drugies.
There are many people who smoke pot regularly or have a drink after work and are very productive members of society. I know a few!
If anyone needs drugs or alcohol to feel "cool", that says it all doesn't it?
It's not to feel cool; it's to have fun.
I'm sure everyone has their own reason to consume alcohol but my opinion is they're just excuses, one can do all of that even better without it.
All of those junkies defecation on the streets and passed out in San Francisco don't look like they are having fun.
Obviously, not everyone that uses recreational drugs is a junkie. But I agree street-shi**ing is not my idea of a good time!
Californians seem to think it is a good time because they and their governor have done nothing to stop it.
Nick Gillespie is an editor at large at Reason, the libertarian magazine of "free minds and free markets," and host of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie.
A two-time finalist for digital National Magazine Awards for his work on "UPS vs. FEDEX: Ultimate Whiteboard Mix" and the documentary series Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey: How to Fix the Mistake on the Lake and Other Once-Great American Cities, Gillespie is co-author, with Matt Welch, of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America (2011/2012).
тАжтАЭFor the past 20 years, Gillespie has been a writer, editor and intellectual godfather for Reason, the movementтАЩs leading journal since its founding in 1968." The Daily Beast named him one of "The Right's Top 25 Journalists," calling him "clear-headed, brainy...[and] among the foremost libertarians in America."
Gillespie served as the editor in chief Reason.com and Reason TV from 2008 through 2017 and was Reason magazine's editor in chief from 2000 to 2008. Under his direction, Reason won the 2005 Western Publications Association "Maggie" Award for Best Political Magazine. Gillespie originally joined Reason's staff in 1993 as an assistant editor and ascended to the top slot in 2000. In 2004, Gillespie edited the book Choice: The Best of Reason, an anthology of the magazine's best articles.
He's still an arrogant man-boy that dyes his hair to match his all black outfits.
I'm sure there are many women out there asking, "How did I let Nick Gillespie slip through my fingers."
Sorry Ann, I just don't have any tolerance of someone who promotes drug use. We have a huge drug problem in this country and having a prominent person extol the use of drugs is too much for me.
Lonesome. If you admit to having no tolerance for
prominent people extolling the use of drugs, best you not watch Bill Mahrer on the Joe Rogan show or you will go bonkers. . Bill is 67 and evidently doesn't realize that instead of making him look cool, he looks and acts like an immature teenager.and an unfunny one at that. Indeed,at times he seems desperate to ward off aging.
On his Man Cave show, Mahrer drinks and smokes during the entire hour long show until he appears disheveled and glassy eyed- not a good look. Plus he is not funny - indeed a think his nemesis Donald Trump is far funnier.
At least it appears that this was a one time thing for Gillespie not a way of life. - .
I expanded my mind once many years ago with LSD. It really did have a positive affect on me. It did open up my mind and I saw the world as a metaphor for the first time. But I did it once and that was enough. I find a great book or a great poem or a great movie to have the same effect on opening up awareness and I never needed a drug to enjoy nature. The last time I saw Timothy Leary he had to be carried. He seemed to possess the mind of gourd. That can happen to anyone for many reasons but I certainly saw it as many years "responsible" psychedelic use. There was no one inside his body. Not everybody can afford to "drop out". That often takes a trust fund or friends with cash to spare. Food costs more that drugs do these days and you have to find a way to function and get food. Someone has to feed us. Pot is now legal as I think it should be. Alcohol and alcoholism doesn't make for a sharper mind but they have always been legal. So there are lots of ways to damage our brains. But the libertarian ideal that we can do whatever we want has always come off as arrogant and narcissistic to me. Life isn't easy. Love ends up causing us grief. Losses are hard to take. Aging is hard to accept. But I choose things like baseball as an escape from the weight of responsibility. I drink coffee every morning and it wakes me. "Woke" is not a part of my vocabulary nor is it a threat to me. It's a political ploy. I write and I'm an actress but as you get older you realize life is about your friends and family as we face the inevitable. We have to be there for each other. And I think you have to have a mind grounded in that reality to do that.
I agree. Well said.
The psychonaut Terrence McKenna observed that he considered heavy psychedelic use to be participation once every four or five years. Psychedelics, though ultimately sold as such, were never the answer, only the key.
To what?
Every "more is better" self-medicating gin head, chocaholic, bong fiend, junky and prescription addict, to survive, ultimately has to admit to himself/herself/itself, that inside us, is a living force that informs the fact of the universe and the lines of human moral demarcation, violation of which, opens the doorway to hell. Human damage often leads to addiction and turn about, addiction furthers it. For many, American reality political/financial and personal has slipped squarely into the pathological. Human damage seems to have gone exponential. As proof I point to the sudden appearance of the encouraged and "available to all" euthanasia centers in EU/WEF controlled Europe and Canada. The messy equation of the troublesome human solved through the logical extension of materialist financial philosophy. Everything reduced to replaceable robotic disposable thingdom.
(Trigger warning!! I'm about to use the "C" word.) The 60's was about Consciousness (my capital) and the expansion of Consciousness. And we all know that Consciousness scares the sh!t out of the "man". That fear blew Fred Hampton and MLK into the next world, did its best to bomb Vietnam into the stone age and created the so called War on Drugs in order to build the prison industrial complex and the surveillance state eyeball watching you through this screen. And, gift that keeps on giving that it is, powers the ongoing prison culture Black on Black gang murder in our crumbling industrial cities. The latest jump in Consciousness is the leap in tech/communication that has pretty much made political/financial chicanery transparent to reality. Hence, the assault on free speech, thought and freedom. Picture Klaus Schwab or Steve Schiff and then think of the old slaver restrictions on literacy and education that helped hold Blacks in thrall before the American Civil War. Again: Marxist "woke" is the lipstick on a pig called totalitarian finance.
Acid in a rain storm and making love in the mud (wow kapow!! do I remember her) vs. being so drugged and crippled you can't stop staring into a screen long enough to hold a human conversation? The dynamic of human emotion and the heart frozen inside an electronic ice storm. It no longer matters who did what. It only matters what WE do now.
I don't have a dog in the who gets stoned fight. I hit 39 years clean and sober this month. Reality: Some people can successfully drink and smoke. I can't. (I have too much fun.) What I can do is live in my own skin and as we're all witnessing, there are a lot of stone cold sober people who can't. It's time to remember who WE are. To get strong, clean and clear. How we live our lives, what happens here, matters.
Good for you. What you did took guts. Congratulations.
Thanks, a great essay.
Hey, thank you!
Sorry guys!! I didn't mean to be so long winded.
I don't disagree. I generally agree with the Libertarian idea that people should be allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies. However, most of these drugs are still illegal. If it's legal and purchased at a legal US business, cool. However people that use illegal drugs are funding the the most disgusting things. If you buy illegal drugs, you are supporting cartels, murder, human trafficking and the worst atrocities committed by mankind.
I'm not so sure that LSD supports drug cartels. But I could be wrong.
I agree with you. I to generally agree with the Libertarian philosophy. There are no simple answers to complex problems. Having said that, I think we should legalize all illicit drugs and have government run dispensing stores.
This would take the profit out of drug sales because the drugs would be free. It would run the cartels out of business and stop the drugs gang warfare, which take thousands of lives a year, in the inner cities.
I agree it has be federally legalized, but with harsh enforcement of criminalizing illegal drug activity. I read a fascinating article in the LA Times (they occasionally put out good journalism, despite their bias) not too long ago about the consequences of legalizing marijuana in the state. It actually benefits the cartels!
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-08/a-series-on-the-fallout-of-legal-weed-in-california
I'm with you on that. Have generic of each drug (Coke, Meth, Heroin, etc.) with ample warning labels. Any off-site sales or resales is harshly penalized.
For anyone out of control on the streets, its 30 days in the dry-out rehab facility. Oh, you don't like to do30 days in detox-rehab? Then don't get high on the streets, that simple.
тАЬ Somebody has to work and support the economy and the freeloading drugies.тАЭ
Just pointing out the discrepancy between what you wrote and the reality of the situation. The author works and supports a lot of other people working (his staff). You made it sound like he didnтАЩt. Considering the cost of attendance at BM, the overwhelming majority of attendees also work.
OTOH, youтАЩre correct that we have a drug problem, but it cuts across all classes. Locally I have found out that the police where I live have stopped arresting for certain drug offenses because most of the rich people in our gated community are a lot of the offenders. If the cops only went after the poor blacks and ignored the rich whites, it would look bad. Also, the inhabitants of the gated community are very influential on top of being rich and they will make trouble if approached, so they have to be ignored for political reasons. So now the police donтАЩt go after anyone. Fentanyl, I believe.
I have no stats to back this up but I would believe the vast majority of drug users are hopeless junkies which is a drain on society. Not all junkies are rich Bidens.
No less than the paeans to "Woodstock" we've had to endure over the years. How many claim to have been at that disaster of debauchery?
Joe Biden was there. Played lead guitar for The Beatles. Right after giving Jimmy Hendrix a lesson. Flew home from Viet Nam just to attend. Had to pilot a beat up Huey copter. He's now in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The vote was tied, but at the end of the show they turned off the lights and had a recount...it was unanimous.
His horse naturally won at Saratoga too. After all, heтАЩs where he should be all the time.
Go Carly, go Carly!
I'm sure his fianc├й is impressed :-)
Did you see the masculine energy...her picking up him...her proposing...her running 31 miles...what happened to men getting down on a knee and proposing...
I think first there has to be a man.
Be nice.
After being more in my masculine, I welcome him to take my role back. It's a hard dynamic to reengage when you have been driving the bus so to speak. I prefer to be the passenger!