Author Archive: scott.kay

BM2011 Part 2

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Having walked the dog and am winding down for bed I thought I would add a little more to my story. In the previous chapter I might have seemed harsh on Christine, but I appreciate a lot she took on.

Meeting the Past

While out there one of my missions was to make as many connections as I can. Mostly people from the web site I manage www.gayburners.com where I am having a great time connecting with people and groups.

One of the camps I exchange mail with occasionally is the Down Low Club. It is a place that tends to be popular with a segment of the population. I reposted a half-ass article today in the Huffington Post that talked about it and other camps relating to the gay community of BM.

I took Christine with me to meet the guys who run the operation of the camp. While there I flirt with the local ginger guy only to have him call me by my real name; which a lot of people don’t know within Burning Man itself. Turns out this guy was a guy I was in love with 25 years ago whom I literally thought was dead.

Mind fuck is the words that come to mind. I had trouble going back to the camp because of it. It was good seeing him in the end and I never really knew if he felt the same for me back then. At least he never offered that information.

On the last day I went back to him after all the other experiences I had and just talked with him a little while re-affirming that it was a joy to have reconnected … at Burning Man of all places.

The burner world is a small world

Burning Man 2011: My Burn

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Every year has been so different. This year, different took another dimension. I had the fortune and support to bring a piece of art to Burning Man that did not go over so well, but it was the journey that mattered. I have to tell myself that because there is no way I am going to let all that energy mean nothing.

Getting to Burning Man was at the expense of my sister who really is responsible for the logistics and transportation. I ended up having some stupid HUGE money issues and she generously helped me out. If it were not for her I would have never made. She was an 11th hour add. Burning Man kindly offered me a ticket to help bring the project  to life and I brought Christine on board and thank goodness I did.

In the previous 2 years I stayed with large camps surrounded by friends. This year a small group of friends, many of us linked through Facebook alone, created Area 69. It was a small collective of people and I had my dear friend Freddy was there. Overall we had a really good camp but there was way too much complacency and drama for any burner camp – that always bring a cloud over things.

I had no agenda when I went and I think having Christine there allowed me to go there with fewer expectations. My attention to her was enough that I was able to let go and embrace this time with friends and family. Christine and I have been the closest of all my siblings much of your years growing up. We both have changed so much. Her and I had a hard time connecting steadily, but we had our shining moments.

Burning Man 2011

This might be a part 1 of whatever because there were moments and experiences that shine and some that burned emotionally. It was all enough that left me with some powerful shifts in my identity that I talked about in my personal blog.

My camp was a challenge and as much as I love some people there were moments of extreme pain. It was the magnetic pull of someone’s expectations bringing me into an uncomfortable position several times over and both of us trying very hard to come to a meeting of minds and hearts.

Whatever I am made of, puppy dog tails and sticky snails, I am who I am. At Burning Man I get a chance to add dimension to that and by being completely removed from the default world I get to see the raw definition of me – good or bad – and get to dissect it. When I am able to pull off an undesirable piece of that I am fortunate.

Being there with Christine I was challenged and questioned myself pretty deeply. I was forced to reflect and consider my ability to communicate effectively. I found after some time that as much as she contributed and made things happen her demons were forced on me over and over. Almost every conversation came with some wildly snarky comment spoken under her breath like there was a small leak in the filter that is between the mind and the mouth. I actually wondered if I heard what I was hearing. There was one moment, a funny moment if you were looking at this from the outside, where I honestly thought I was hallucinating her comments. Let’s just say that involved a brownie gifted to me that I will explain in a later post.

Being there with Freddie I was challenged more by his boyfriend whom I have had some issues with. My challenge was to appreciate him more and support Freddie in his love for him. I got to see they really love each other a lot. Although I think Mike makes some bad decisions when it comes to people, I cannot deny how much he loves Freddie and that is all that matters. I learned to appreciate Mike more.

Other members of the camp were like the background characters in a sitcom because there was a lot of dimension from this crew. All were generally lovely people and I think we were connecting for the most part. Whatever drama and stress mostly washed off the backs of most people there. I think we did our best to make a nice camp.

Some people have made it clear they don’t want to camp with each other again. I am remiss that Freddie was so turned off with the drama that he is turned off with the idea of doing a camp like this again. I asked him and Mike to be part of my camp next year and neither are interested. Sigh…

There is sooooooo much more… my dog is demanding to go outside and I need to go to bed soon. More to come…

back from where…

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I have not written anything here since coming back from Burning Man probably because I really have not completely landed. When I try putting the puzzle pieces together I am finding they did not really fit.
When I sit here looking at the screen determined to write something there are too many things trying to get out at the same time. I will, for your information, be writing more on my burner blog talking about my actual experience out there but these pages are for me. My burner blog is on this site too here.
Anyway, this may sound cliche, but I am back and changed down to my soul. There is this vein of anger I am missing and left somewhere and the way the universe works I pity the soul that may have taken that energy into him, her or other. Not trippin’ either. When you read the burner blog maybe you will understand… if you do.
I did come back determined to put a foundation under my feet. There was an unexpected upheaval in that plan when my wallet was left in Reno. It basically forced me to put life on pause a moment longer and make some evaluations. In that I updated my portfolio site called StudioSK. I don’t want that any more… I am sick of technology and am burnt out on it.
The burning desire to be creative and put my art out there kinda got a kick in the groin too. My art piece Final Passage was a ship wreck. All the work and all the energy I put into the piece itself was a total failure. I did take away the journey as the win in this case, because the people I was able to work around and I hope I learned something. In fact an idea for my next art piece can be very exciting.
One big issue is the problems I have had with my birth father. This is a demon that haunted me a long time and 2 years of therapy only took me so far. The anger that was inside of me and the pain of struggling with the life of being with him in my formative years was more damaging than I ever imagined.
Without sounding crazy, which some people think I am anyway, a woman named Gigi and a man named Coop helped me strip something out of me that left me softer. It left me more fluid. It took away a lot of anger.
No. My sails are unfurled and I feel like I am in the sea. I root out the people who cause pain and I refuse to acknowledge their attempt to pull me down. I look into your projection of pain and your false empathy and let it roll right past me. I am like the wind and you are the trees and I will become water and you will be the rocks.
I am rediscovering my spirit and I will not let you take that away from me. Let me tell you your spirit is important too. When you try to steal mine you are losing a bit of yours.

Another Day

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There are a lot of days that come and go when it feels like I am literally falling into a whole. Today was like that, seems like it is happening once a week, but something always makes the landing just soft enough to to keep from getting a bloody nose.
I know I have a lot of things going on and I get a lot of good things happening, don’t get me wrong. I am grateful for every day and really have been taking a lot in the face just to get from getting up in the morning and going to bed at night.
I hope a change in energy will allow me to have a change in focus over the next couple months as I get ready for what may well be my last Burning Man. I can keep making art and I can keep involving myself with some local burner crap but I think it’s time to let go. Everything that was fulfilling got light shined onto it in the last year and the dreamkillers won.
Digressing
Well, there are these days when a lot of things are going on and somehow at the end of the day I still feel like I got beat up. Today I was home until noonish and then went to go see Harry Potter by myself. Then I had a date with a guy I met on the train yesterday who is 22 years old. He was cute, sweet, nice and very interested in me. We met today and I was not feeling ‘it’. I hung out and suggested we get some dinner and he kept tooling around, playing on his blackberry and for some reason keeping me from getting food. I ended up just walking away…
Dating? Ugh… at least not that way. I had no idea what the hell I was doing with that kid and I am just over this stupid idea of trying to date again. I am 4 freaking years out of practice… is it supposed to be hard?

Aftermath

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Before I left Las Vegas I thought it was a good thing for me to “help” some local members of my Burner Community who I saw as being treated unfairly. This started somewhere around September 2010 and I just could not get the local support I needed, so I went to Burning Man themselves for help and ended up with egg on my face.

The people who stood up and offered their support were only the people directly or indirectly affected by the issue. Meanwhile, most of the community would only talk in whispers about the issue and really no one had the core to stand up say that this was wrong.

In the end I think I have come to terms that it is all perception. Yes, I think the women affected were being treated unfairly. The spin the offenders were making around the issues and their close association with Burning Man ended up really making the whole thing into something other than what I was trying to convey; admittedly I could not have communicated it very well.

I do like someone’s answer to me why my words were falling so short and their lies and misrepresentations were so much louder: “The greater the lie the more believable.” When I went to the Burning Man Leadership conference in April a letter written by one of the offenders was read out loud and gave the details generally accurate, with some conveniently placed assertions what were just fiction.

  • the independent group of people who read and analyzed the complaint basically sided with my argument and I thought suddenly I had some weight to say; let’s make peace now
  • later that day I talked to one of the owners of Burning Man about it and I was told that: “I understand your intention, but your approach was all wrong” …it was echoes by a couple more people at the conference from my region and I had to reflect on where I went wrong… I still have not figured it out
  • after the conference Burning Man basically said …tough shit, you people figure it out on your own.

Las Vegas does/did not have a way of handling community issues. We had Napoleon at the helm and no one at the wheel. I left that community in May 2011 for San Francisco feeling very disenchanted with Burning Man.

During the conference and the section on community conflict resolution a majority of the leadership offered “shunning” as a solution. It seems there is a generation of Burners who’s only solution to community issues is ignoring them.

“Shunning” was such an offensive term and concept. It reeks of ambivalence instead of reaching out and making sure that some effort in conflict resolution is really there. “Radical …” whatever includes self-expression, self-reliance and apparently only if it is stoned, high on ex or tripping on mushroom; don’t mess up our high.

Shunning took place in Vegas a couple of times and in one case I was not aware until later. In another case it was related to the three women being excluded from the community.

It was not my battle and apparently what I was supposed to do is let those people stand up for themselves. In the end I am left feeling very dis-enfranchised with Burning Man when once I felt like it’s biggest cheerleader.

There is NO DOUBT that Burning Man is a life changing experience and without drugs, without sex, without booze, without the never ending raves, it has a heart at it’s core that beats strong for the right reasons. It brings inspiration and it brings community.

I can’t say if it is missing something and I can’t say it the organization itself is wrong. I do not agree with some of the leadership who have made their own rules that are, in my perception, in direct opposition with the 10 principles we opt in with when joining this THING.

I left Vegas feeling a lot of resentment to that community as a whole. While many showed support in private more cowed to hang out with the popular kids and rush to become part to the click and get the nice pat on the head. In the end the shunning and the lies generated by this were never really addressed to my knowledge, just quietly swept under the rug. I was sad beyond words to leave so crushed under the wheels of some people and not have my pleas – real pleas for help answered.

Side Note: I was maligned so heavily through that conflict and harassed on a level you could hardly imagine. Some person posing under a pseudonym Jill Gee was posting that I was mentally ill, that I sold drugs, sent email to my mom and other people I know making all kinds of claims. She was using ip masking and it is curious that the person who I suspect was making those posts was taught ip masking by one of the people who were caught up in all this fallout too.

1964

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I have shared a lot on this thing. This is my personal journal. I have also sorta faded from posting as often as I have because it feels like writing here results in more negative drama than I would like. I am trying to focus more on positive things.
Right now my stress levels (as mentioned multiple times already) are through the roof! I need to find a job. I need to find grounding. I need to find myself again because I have tried wearing so many hats that none of them fit anymore. Going to school for 2 careers only led to confusion. Trying to please other people has led to disaster. Looking for greener grass has led to anxiety. Past regrets and mistakes have become this creature always at my back scratching me and cutting me.
I’ve known I had a problem with anxiety that went back to 1996. I can almost give you the date when something inside of me cracked and the fissure kept growing for a long time. I had a lot of things to help me hold it together, mostly my optimistic youth and a lot of friends I loved and counted on. But something happen when those things broke too.
My interpersonal relationships are hard to maintain and I feel like my connections to people are lost in something related to this feeling of Chaos I bring with me all the time. It is this perception that I somehow instinctively see the cracks in people and examine them to death and sometimes bring it to the attention of that person thus bringing that chaos into their world.
In 2009 I lost a good job to this issue and I went to see a doctor eventually and was given a medication to help with it. It has been a great equalizer and over time the medication has evolved but the anxiety has too. It has become much worse and came with depression that occasionally put me in a hole from time to time.
I am dealing with this mental illness and I have never said anything about it before in the blogs posted here. It is anxiety and depression and I am dealing with it. It has made some of the irrational decisions I have made, bad choices, and kept me from finding comfort in my own skin. My weight issues have been holding me back and my age are all feeling like bricks on my shoulders.
No one is out there who can help me and I try to help myself. That whole Burning Man principle Radical Self Reliance has been my credo and I refuse to need anyone to exist. I rely on someone and I can bet that person will let me down anyway.
I am writing this posting to talk about this subject here for the first time. It was years ago someone told me they were impressed with how much I put out there and how honest I am. I have been lying to anyone except family who has been reading this because you don’t know what is going on.

  • I suffer from severe anxiety; to the point where it is literally debilitating and cause me to freeze up, lock down and shut off more than panic attacks. I have been in treatment with a doctor for more than a year and a half.
  • I suffer from severe depression where I sometimes drop into a hole and can’t see out.
  • I take a mild medication to keep it under control; Wellbutrin and Clonapan.

When someone recently made a lot of angry posts publicly claiming I was mentally ill it hurt pretty deep. There was truth in it, but this is a world where using those words is a condemning as telling someone you are a felon or a child molester. There is this shroud that because you have issues that you have chosen to deal with that it is your fault.
I am a good guy. I have a good heart. I have courage and I have character. I am brave and I believe in justice. Your baggage cannot be my baggage and visa versa.

All around me are…

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In my life there are certain energies that I think I have exuded. No matter where I move in the world and no matter what changes I make in life there are constants. I am certainly NOT saying there is anything special about me, but over the many years of my existence:

  • when I come into a person’s life or when I have become a part of an organization I feel like I bring chaos; let’s define chaos. My presence seems to force change and I think that is an energy I bring. Sometimes it is good, a few times it goes the other way.
  • there are a lot of people I meet and realize they are vampires. Time vampires… energy vampires… and none of them really stay around very long or I keep them a safe distance away. (I know someone is going to project this statement on themselves, but let me assure you these people are NOT reading this page. It would require them to invest and not just suck away.)

There is more and somewhere along the way I learned to cow to other people and become gum on the bottom of people’s shoes while any attempt to stand up for myself or for someone else has left me feeling like the asshole. I am so fucking over feeling like roadkill in life.
In the last couple years I have fallen down so often while trying to fix myself that I have lost who I am entirely.
I went to school to learn how to cook and I went to school to improve what I can do with design, web and art and I am not doing any of them with any great success. In fact choosing a couple of careers has left me with none in the end.
Take a job in a field you like doing as a hobby and you will see resentment for that hobby unless it is a passion that has a return. Unless you are successful then, like me, you end up feeling kicked – down – and that all that money for school was a waste. I left the Art Institute of Las Vegas without skills I needed to find work. I was shuffled through classes and passed without the basic knowledge needed just to move me and other on.
I know I have a responsibility myself as a student, but all along I thought I was leaving with what I needed and that magical B.S. degree would lead to great things…. absolute horse shit.
That’s another consistency in my life – delusion. If it is not the case of the ‘grass is greener’ then I also always fall for glitter being thrown in my eyes.

  • glitter includes when I left the Air Force and was promised that people would want to hire a veteran …  like it was some red carpet to success … meanwhile I hear that they don;t want vets because they are too rigid
  • glitter includes going to college and getting a degree in a field and thinking there was work afterward…

All BULLSHIT. All of it BULLSHIT… BULL – FUCKING – SHIT ….

…so there ya go.