Author Archive: scott.kay

I have neglected you. I’m sorry.

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2009: Me in Center Camp

There was a turn of events that began somewhere around 2016 or 2017 that started changing how and the ways I was interacting and engaging the Burning Man community. I slowly was becoming more and more of an outsider. I have questioned myself if it was my own doing or was I reacting to something else. I got involved in community leadership too fast and took on more responsibility and ownership than I ever needed or should have. That’s on me.

My last posts were around 2015. At least here and not so much on my personal blog.

What I would like to do is fall in love with Burning Man as an event again. Because, right now, the idea of wading into the community at something I did not create gives me such a sense of anxiety it is paralyzing. Covid may have added to that manifest, but it was there before.

What I need to do is feel trust within the Burning Man Organization. So much has happened over the last 14 years. As much as I have tried to be a force for good, some people have put me in a different bucket or just do not see me at all. I have tried to do the good fight with standing up for people who were not being heard, and have not lived up to my own standards; which might have been skewed anyway. I have seen and heard terrible things from them. And I need to learn to let it go and move forward.

I have missed the last 2 years at Black Rock City. I needed a break in 2020 which was planned. But that turned into 2021. And if you saw the things that happened in 2021, then you have to know it looked amazing. Now I am waiting for the aftermath.

  • Covid infections?
  • LEO blowback
  • MOOP recovery… who is cleaning up after this?

But, I just stared at the live cams that were there and was in awe. I nearly backed up the car last week and just left.

My future in this community is still some very soft clay. I am sitting at the wheel waiting to see what life I can make with it. Thank you for reading this if you did…

Regrets P1

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I have been thinking about an entry like this for a long time. Truth be told, I have been stuck in a place that has recently been making it harder to move forward with. They say, if you are looking back at your regrets you can’t be looking ahead to your future. And at my age my future is not the longest road left to travel.

But there are some points in the road that are places that I wish with all my heart I could go back and make a different decision. The truth is also, I might not be the same person I am now had I gone a different way. The person I am today is basically good and loving of other people.

My Military Service

Scott in the Air Force

The best single decision I made in my life was joining the Air Force when I was 17 years old on Nov 17th, 1982. I woke up one day, having never considered it before, and enlisted. By the following summer I was off to basic training. I loved my life there, even if it was hard, because I was a gay guy. But the regret comes when I decided to leave and took an early out in 1989 after 6 years. I should have stayed. I should have buckled down and been focused on my future, but I was too stupid to know what an amazing and good thing I had.

Bad choices were an ongoing theme of following my feelings and not what was really best for me. From a kid who grew up not really dealing with his feelings well at all. I had a lot of unhealthy life choices throughout my life and that was a big one.

That time for me was monumental. It was also my first time dealing with mental health issues. I was in a place where I was alone and felt so untethered as a young queer guy in Germany. It was the era of Ronald Reagan and the slow burn toward the end of the cold war. AIDS was in full bloom but I was miles away from it.

I knew the rules. They had to prove it. I lived my life. No harm. No foul. I left thinking the world was my oyster.

(Note: I wrote the above portion a month ago and it made me so wound up I had to step away. Anytime I take a dive into my own brain I really end up feeling very shaken in the end. It has also left me questioning a lot of personal choices and doubting my own feelings.)

My Relationship with my Sister (Lynn)

In spite of the very many things I wrote about in the past. In spite of the few short-sighted attempts to make some kind of reconciliation with my biological sister, I wish I had done a lot of things better with her growing up. We started off really really bad when I accidentally hurt her when we were super young.

Quick Story: I was around the age of 5 and she had to be around 2(?) when we were in the front yard of our house in the San Fernando Valley. Me, my sister, my mom and dad, were in the front yard. Someone tossed a ball and I had a bat to swing. When I did swing… I can still hear the words in my head… “I got it.” I swung the bat and Lynn ran for the ball behind me and the bat hit her right in the mouth.

I can still feel that story today. BUT, that is one of many things that happened between her and I over the years. One of my asshole friends whipped out his dick in front of her because he thought it was funny. I told him I did not want him too, but he goaded me into it. Major peer pressure from him and one of my other friends. I felt like a real asshole about that.

So, there were a lot of bad decision moments. She has every right to hate me forever. I have, about once every 5 years I bet, thought maybe we could reconcile and talk over coffee. I think when hell freezes over that could happen.

I was further deluded when my bio-dad and his sister somehow started a relationship again that was a good sign for us as well. The reasons to NOT reconcile have mounted over the years even if we have not talked. She seems to think a falling out with my dad had to do with money. And a falling out with my mom was on the same platform. When the truth was money was only the impetus that there was a problem and I had to step out of the way. Ugh.

(I have no images of me and my family at all. Is that weird? I have the pieces. And not one with the four of us.)

My Parents

If you spent any time I this blog you know there is already a lot there on this subject. I will say that with my mother’s decline of her health starting in 2019 that a lot of things have changed for me. I thought my dad was the blame for a lot of this fucked up dialog in my head. I learned that my mom had a lot to do with it too. Now I regret the place I was at with both of them. But, I do not regret that I had to get away from that toxicity. Check out: Jack, Category: Family Drama, Catergory: NFM (Not For Mom).

Not BEACUSE of my parents. Maybe because I had no structure growing up and any healthy role models. Maybe because I was a Queer kid in a world that did not understand or embrace queer kids? I was a tough ass kid to have as your kid. I was a pain in the ass.

I grew up around an environment always charged with sexuality and phonography. My dad made porn movies as a hobby, had a porn collection that was always accessible. My own life as a kid, I was surrounded by kids AS A KID willing to experiment. It was the 70’s baby. It can make for a fucked up adult.

My parents never had the time to be parents. Whether it was putting food on the table, like for my mom. Or, it was hiding in a safe space with his creative work on top of a full time job, like my dad. He took great care of himself and was able to retire at age 55.

I will be lucky to ever retire. So, in some ways this nut (me) fell off the tree and down the hill into a pile of dung. Wah-wah. That one, is on me. The relationship we are left with today is up to me as well.

Other things

  1. When I was a kid, in the 6th grade, I was hanging out with some wild kids who lived in a creepy house ON Quartz Hill in Quartz Hill, California where I would one day go to High School. We killed a rabbit with a rock. I was about 10/11 at the time. The kid I was with was actually named: Leroy Brown – yes for real. He had some crazy brothers and they were a wild bunch of kids
  2. When I broke up with Adolfo, I thought it was the right time and reasons. I loved him so much. I would have gladly spent the rest of my life with him. We started making some bad decisions and those started mounting with sex and finances and I thought it was the right thing to do. I wished he would have fought to keep us together, because I thought at that moment he was also done with me. We were both wrong.
  3. When I left Las Vegas for California I was trusted by a friend in Vegas with money and I fell on some real tough times and I never paid him back. He said it was just money and forgave me, but I still have not forgiven myself. It was someone whom I really looked up to and was a real amazing paternal figure for me. I can’t redeem myself in my eyes and therefore I cannot redeem myself in his eyes.

4. I was a bad friend to a woman I knew really well in Las Vegas. I let three women from the community get into my head and took on their drama that was not mine. It made me look at people I cared about in a way I did not want to see them. Melissa was a woman of tremendous presence and while she could be a tough-cookie she did not deserve what ultimately ended up happening. Our friendship was lost. I missed her terribly and I said some super shitty things. She is, rightfully so, done with me.

5. I pulled back the curtain on Burning Man. I got involved too quickly and my sense of self-importance grew out of proportion to the facts. It has poisoned my belief in the culture handed down from the governing body of leadership, but it has also not dampened my core belief that there is a vital message at its heart that is very important. You can learn more about my Burning Man Life on the back section of this blog. (As of today: very out of date.)

I tried to short note some of the baggage in my head above. The things that I am hoping I can pull out of my head and let go of. Or I can find a way to restore and repair if at all possible.

Money has been a factor that has popped up in my life a lot as a catalyst for change or growth. I only started actually managing my money in the last ten or fifteen years with care. I still make barely enough to survive. And, in spite of my household income being what it is, I have to live off of what I bring in. I am paid okay but I am still having a hard time making ends meet. And this is nuts!

Just a couple words

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The title of my biography will be: “Never Good Enough”

I have been accused of being self centered and making some things about me. There have been suggestions that my ego was the controlling force in my decisions. There were times it was true. Honestly, if there were things I wanted to explore and experience there were a lot of times I just created it. Instead of waiting for someone else I just did it. And if someone wanted to go on the same ride, then I was hopefully doing it right.

I great up with my dad telling me I was worthless and had not value in life. He said those exact words more times that I can count. I was never good enough and never doing the right thing. I was crashing through life with a man who wanted me to smile even if I was dying inside.

I was a fat kid once I got into my later teen years and heard about that a lot. I had a 38″ waist when I was sixteen. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school I lost weight and got into a much better look just like all those high school hottie films.

His words followed me into my adulthood. His words haunted everything I tried to do. When I did fail I was proving him right every time. Each time there was a tiny hint at failure, he was right.

In recent years I discovered that my mom’s voice was part of that too. While helping to manage her and my step-dad for the last 2 years, I discovered she was using a lot of the same language too. Her words, even though they were fueled by fear and loneliness, were tearing apart something inside of me. Nothing I did for her was good enough, and then I began seeing her differently.

I had me mom on a pedestal, one she never deserved to be on. She was a working mom. She survived 3 shitty… I mean shitty… husbands. Like really shitty. She was a survivor and in the end all the wear and tear from the men in her life turned her into someone I realized I did not like very much.

She and I, if we were ever really close, I cannot tell you when. She kicked me out of her house when I was like 13 or something like that. I had to go live with my dad. And from the previous paragraphs you can see how well that went.

I am such a damaged human being. But. I am more aware of who I am, who I want to be, more than ever. I feel helpless in my life for the first time ever at my age, with few job prospects, but with a lot of demons.

I have a shopping list of life regrets I need to deal with. I will. I will. But, I have been on a very special road for being a better me over the last 2 years. I need to keep going.

Drifting

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I am trying to figure out if writing here is something that will be helpful. To raise this thing from the dead and put my thoughts on the internet as if anyone gives a shit seems a little narcissistic. I do not think that is who I am, speaking in present tense, though I cannot say that was the case at other points in my life.

I did figure out he name of my life’s story recently while I was reflecting on my relationship with my family. My immediate family (those by blood: mother, father, sister) is a tragic shit show. It is amazing how much I got wrong and how much of a disaster it evolved to in the long run. Under the category #familydrama I detailed some recent misadventures specifically with my sister and mother.

Family Shot: Me, Dad, and Uncle on my moms side
Family Shot: Me, Dad, and Uncle on my moms side

The thing is, that I have for a long time put much of my family issues on my dad, and it is only within the last year where I started to see how wrong I was. He has with absolute certainty earned a place in the shitty-dad hall of fame, but it turns out there were more players in the game than I thought.

The fact that my family life is so screwed up had a lot of factors that came from all directions. I was a queer kid and I was an out and proud queer kid growing up. I was more out than I remember, because apparently I was making proclamations when I was merely 13 as to being gay.

My parents were not prepared to deal with a queer kid. The world was not ready. I mean, we are light-years from those days now and I see parents bringing their queer-kids in the store I work at all the time and I am amazed at how much the world has changed. (Granted, I am talking about the Castro in San Francisco of all freaking places)

It is impacting me a lot. I had to step away from my mom because it was becoming too heavy for my shoulders. My sister has stepped in. It was to my invitation and went very wrong in the end, but I was more shoved out of the way then let drift out of their lane.

At some point there is a need to self preserve and get into a safe place, but it is also isolating. My Uncle Dave, Aunt Chris and Aunt Nancy and I have not talked since I was pushed out of the way. I worry heavily that they think I abandoned her, but I did not.

My mom and I may not ever have been very close. She kicked me out of her house for being an asshole kid (oh, I was!) and sent me to live with my dad who was never home. And when he was, I wanted nothing to do with him.

But, the thing is, my memory is really bad. The story that was written was skewed by time and the fact I can remember so little about my own freaking life. I remember a lot of trauma and exposure to things a kid should never have had to navigate.

The regrets and sadness I still carry are all monkeys on my back to this day. Not the hours of therapy that I went through, not one, has made it easier.

And today. When I think of those three family members (dad, mom and sister), I have so completely lost that connection that I miss it. I have learned a valuable lesson. That the hope it will all change is pure delusion.

When I think if family on the next level, I cannot help but think about how much some of my step-sibs have been there being supportive and positive through the hardest times with my mom and their dad. There was have been a lot of screwed us situations, but they have tried to do better even though there were times when mistakes were made.

People’s true colors were seen. I took care of their dad’s funeral arrangements, obit and his final tasks as best I could with my mom and because of her they got nothing of him. Not a single fiber of his legacy.

Bob, my step-dad, was a challenging soul. I mean, he was… a good fit for my mom. And you see it in the end.

And it stings to look back and wonder how things could have been different. If you are looking backward you are not looking to the path ahead. Staying in the present is the key, right?

I am deeply unsettled and deeply injured by the way this road has gone. One time I went to a workshop called “Faggots and Their Fathers” and all I remember is sobbing my head off through it. I mean, gross-face snot sobs. And I am still damaged from it all.

See also:
– #Things that haunt me

Seattle

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We came to Seattle to check it out. In reality we have been considering moving here and are still not 100% sure about it. However, I am feeling a little better about the idea. I think moving here will require some boxes ticked that eye a long term transition. For me anyway.

If we move, it is likely somewhere I will have to retire at. C has a longer life and is not going to be stuck anywhere, but building a nice home where ever we go will allow us to build roots and set up life for a long term.

Considering the last 9.5 years together and if the road offers at last that much time still that would be awesome.

Family

As for the drama with my sister that seems to have cooled, but who knows? The moment I take my eye off the ball it will likely swell up again. In the last month I decided I had to walk away from a toxic family dynamic which many many people seem to be in a similar spot.

A big common thread with unhealthy family seems to be the queer kid. Having a queer kid in a family means the kid is not necessarily going to follow you safe, heteronormative family dynamic. That is scary for parents and tips the expectations of family members thus driving anxiety and disillusion of ideas that make some people angry > which is a reaction to fear.

Fear of the rejection of their hetero normative values and fear for the kid who is afraid of being rejected by the family and the over all support system.

Basically, for me I am evaluating things much differently. I have literally been trying to justify my life to parents and siblings that I was at odd with. The reasons I walked away from my sister 30 years ago is different from the reasons I walked away from my dad 20 years ago and finally me mom a month ago.

However, there is a thread running through it all tying it together. My failure to be what other people thought I should be like, or who I should portray myself as. I grew up a queer kid and am still a queer adult.

Whatever…

I might read this again later and wonder what I was thinking. I am using this blog as a tool to put this drama out of my head and live at peace a little. I am sitting in my Seattle hotel room with an amazing view thinking about life.

Pineapple under the sea

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I have not heard from the Sherriff’s office since Friday and the email I tried to send them bounced back. By all eyes so far, their claims have no legs. To be blunt, it is just harassments from my family proving that their toxic lives are not a good fit for me. I have chosen a different path and cannot see myself in my parents.

The video above has resonated with me so hard since it first came out. Chester Bennington was someone I felt a weird connection to, his voice, his vibe, his being. When he left our world that one hurt.

His voice, his song is the soundtrack of soul crushing pain in my head. It happens more than one would think, but I am hardly the lone ranger on that. The song feels like it pushes back on the angst and anguish as if to cast light on it.

This version is particularly fun because …well, it was fun to watch.

This week on Blossum…

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I got a call from the Sheriff office in Tehachapi, California with a claim of elder abuse. And, I was accused of stealing money from my mother’s accounts. I am not sure who was filing the complaint, but it sounds like it was Lynn and maybe backed by Sallie. So, the worst joke ever is still being performed…

Re: money –  I am sending them a PDF print out of the check register I used to manage her money. It is fairly detailed and should answer where her money went. My mom’s income along with her husband before his death just covered their debts. When he died and his income went away her needs also increased and the caregiver’s got to be more expensive. We were trying to save enough money to get her into an assisted living facility in Bakersfield when my involvement ended. 

Re: her car – Her license has been expired about 2.5 years now I think. She crashed it several times before and took out a street sign at McCarthy and Crest when it was decided between her and I it was no longer safe to keep it. We asked the finance company to collect it. Not to mention his driving record that included driving into a building in Lancaster. 

Re: senior abuse – Her care has never been so good, really. Her house is cleaned by her caregiver, medication managed by Roxanne, and she is ferried to the doctor any time she needs. She is always fed by the same hired caretaker that was doing a really good job. I got accused of being abusive when I told my mom and my sister and her husband that I wanted nothing to do with any of them. I have the email demonstrating that exact thing. 

Conclusion:I am glad to answer general questions. But under the 5th Amendment I am not going to incriminate myself if at all possible. I feel like providing you some general information about the situation and myself that I can show you I am interested in seeing this whole thing through and done. The actions of these people are purely vindictive and they are using the authorities to harass and make me look bad, 

Much of the above was in the email I sent to the Sherriff. I have to say that these people are the low of the low. But, I am not sure they are self-aware enough to see much of anything. I had to get away from that. Ugh.

And the rest went on to…

I am a U.S. Veteran and a community leader in the Bay Area and beyond. I believe in doing what is right and when my sister elected to take over my mom’s finances I was willing to give them any information they needed to move forward, but at the start there was hostility. Also in email, which I have. 

I do not need my mother’s money. Which is why I did not take money from her to manage her household and provide care to which I was entitled to as the person managing her home. All I ever asked in return was a small amount to cover things I got for her or her household, gifts to others and that was all rounding off to $1k. 

Taking care of her and my step-dad was simply the right thing to do. Especially since none of the other 6 kids in the family were not present at all. It was because Sallie and Bob (step-dad) alienated all of them. 
My mother did not raise me. She tossed me out of the house when I was a kid. So the California law that might imply I was required to care for her does not apply to me. 

I was so stressed out from this for a couple days. Grateful to a lawyer I spoke to who talked me off the ledge. She was amazing and helpful!

The last 2 years…

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When 2019 started it rolled into a year where there were growing medical problems in my mom’s household that demanded attention from family. I had started some personal projects that were not going well, my head was not in the game, and I was really feeling like things were not going my way. Who knew?

To begin with, 2018 was a shit-show for much of the year. My relationship was starting to show stress and all my projects were just fucking hard. I was really experiencing some burnout and the universe was trying to tell me to just stop. I did not listen.

So everything for my mom and step-dad turned to shit quickly and they ended up in hospital. Eventually they ended up in hospice care and it was unlikely they were going to survive as late as Christmas 2019.

My mom and step-dad eventually came out of hospice and needed more care. Neither could take care of their finances and my mom may well have come to a point it was no longer safe for her to drive or manage some of her basics. So changes.

I managed their bills for 2 years. There was no family around to do anything, or at least there was no will to jump into that fire, by anyone but me. Granted, there were offers from the step-sibs but it would have been a bigger mess. I did this with a sense of duty to a parent, that there was no one else, and not a sense of much more.

The ‘rents

My parents were people who should never have had children. The same could be said for my step-dad, so you can see there are some personalities at work here that were very much in their own reality. There was a history of abuse, parental irresponsibility, sexual deviation, and just shitty behavior in general.

My dad (the biological one who is referenced in this site a few times under #jack) Jack was a well known artist who did absolutely amazing work as a cartoonist as his second job. His parents were Ray and Voneta, and he had a sister named June. There was nothing I could find by talking to relatives that indicated my paternal grandparents were anything less than ‘normal’.

There is the exception that my grand-dad was an alcoholic, a point my father was sure to make that I understood when we went back to his family home after his parents were both passed. My grandmother Voneta had intense eyes I can remember as if she sat across me today.

Her dad, my great grandfather George, his 2nd wife was Mirdle, were amazing. I have nothing but great memories of them.

My mom is Sallie. She is also still alive even though in the last 2 years we were sure she was not going to survive. She said on a number of occasions that she was not long for this world. There was a point about six months ago when I started to realize she was going to out-live me.

She worked hard in her life and had a less than pleasant life and I think when she retired she thought she was leaving all of it behind. The thing is no matter what, changing your environment to avoid your own miserable personality is not going to change that fault in who you are.

She became an alcoholic and was so bad that I was forced to simply walk away. Yes, she eventually became active in AA, but there was a point where she drifted away from that foundation. Instead of it being called out and urging her to return to meetings, she drank copious amounts of Old Miluakee and convinced herself it was okay. I found a bottle of wine hidden in the house when I was there not long ago.

There is a personality to an alcoholic that is selfish and self serving. In my adult life today I am surrounded by them. And many are rooted in the 12 steps and practicing being a healthier human and I never saw that in my mom. It was getting worse by the day.

Her parents were genuine, salt of the earth, true and green as they get Irish folk. The matreiarch was Phyllis (aka Phylligumbo) and her dad was Charles N.. I wish I got to know them better, but I was genuinely blessed to have known them. My mom had four brothers and a sister. My mom was the oldest of them. What a bunch of characters. I can say that not one of them seems to be a clone of the other, but all her siblings were their own people.

And the last player in this is my step-dad, Bob (Robert). That man was one of three men to marry my mom and the third man that was just a shit on so many levels. Yes, a classic alcoholic, with little or no sense of other people around him that mattered.

He had a sense of humor that was sometimes funny, usually inappropriate, and often unkind. In the last year of his life he was always in a diaper and confined to bed. Much of that last year the dementia was so bad I was not sure he had his faculties at all. He died abruptly in October.

Bob had siblings that were just as wildly different as my mom’s siblings. Linda was amazing, kind, and giving. Dennis was about as lost as Bob. Jay was a good man, but I did not know him hardly at all. His wife and I sometimes talked and he had to have been awesome to have such a kind wife like Ellen.

Sib’s

My bio sister is Lynn. She and I grew up oil and water. Our parents played us against each other our whole lives. I blamed my dad for that most of my life, but in the last couple of years it became clear how much my mom was involved in that as well.

Lynn probably grew up as close to normal as she could, given the crazi-ass family dynamic we had. I have no idea what her thought on all that was, but looking at her success in life is satisfying in a way. She managed to raise some very beautiful kids and get them into college.

We have not really spoken in 30 years. We had a huge fight that had been boiling on the stove like a pot with a lid locked on it that channeled an entire childhood. I was ugly, mean and filled with emotion. It is a time in my life I regret.

I failed her as a big brother. I have 3 landmark points in my life with her that seem to define a lot:

  • when she was about 2 or younger (not really sure), I was swinging a bat to hit a ball. She yelled, “I got it” and ran face first into the swinging bat. It hit her right in the mouth. That moment is frozen in my memory. I was 5 or 6 at the time.
  • one of my friends was being a dick and we were all alone in the house. He wanted to do something that was on the level of supreme asshole and I told him “no”. He jumped in front of her with his dick out and it was such a shit thing to do. I am not sure if I ever talked to him again after that. I honestly do not remember.
  • once when I was driving her to her dentist appointment, or was it for her braces, we talked about me being gay. She told me she wished I was not gay. In that moment, for her, I wished the same thing. For myself too, because it was a different world back then.

I have steps too! Bob’s kids, husband #3, had five kids. They had 2 different mothers, because Bob.

  • Sean (mother #2) was the youngest. I had known Sean his entire life at one point. He married his first girlfriend he met when they were like 12 or 13. She is an amazing woman. He and I have not talked in so long I could not tell you.
  • Jennifer (mother #2) is the most troubled. Can’t say much about her because everything I write sounds a bit judgy and bitchy. There was a short time when she and I were fine, but she has a lot of baggage to deal with.
  • Christine (mother #2) is the one I grew up with and we maintained a dear relationship much of our lives. She was very important to me and still is, but I worry about her. Her husband, John, is perfect for her. He is amazing, strong and more man than most men I ever met.
  • Rob (mother #1) on the surface seems the least scared by his dad, but he seems to be the best at self preservation. He was simply not willing to jump in the path of the bus Sallie and Bob was driving and probably the best for it. His wife is such a cool chick.
  • Tracy (mother #1) is an amazing woman whose journey feels like the most relatable. She is caring for her mom now, they struggle with each other, but she is surviving. In my eyes she is a super hero.

That was a lot about a few people none of you know about. I think writing this tonight was just something I needed to do for my own mind. I want to write about this nonsense.

Of my own immediate family, I have decided I needed to walk away. Just in the last week or so I realized that all that venom was more than I could handle any more.

There were some events that got me there. But looking around and seeing where my mom was in the scheme of things made it vital for me to step away. Especially with my sister entering the picture.

The venom I was getting from Lynn and her husband Tom was not deserved. They were hanging on to a mislaid past. A past I have mostly let go of. It is also a past I have been working on for a long time. I have not caught up with all the stories I have written over the years on this blog about that. I could catch up.

For now. I want to channel this stuff out myself and free myself.

Music Rules!

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I have a special place in my heart for DJ’s and music. And I am blessed with so many that have crossed orbits with each other. It began in my life in Las Vegas with my Burning Man community there.

I know a good many Vegas DJ’s whom I adore like no one’s business. I will write something about them soon. I feel like this is long overdue.

Considering NO ONE is reading this blog there is no real news flash here, but I will start giving it a shot.

Today’s focus is on a couple DJ’s who came to me through Pandora.

Ticon

Not one person.

Ticon are Filip Mårdberg and Fredrik Gilenholt, a Swedish progressive/psychedelic trance project. With a deep background in the technoscene they started playing around on their computer in 1995 and this step brought them along many paths they hadnt dreamed of. The experience aquired along the way has switched the scene from the amateur thing of the beginning to the standard of today; an acclaimed production with an exquisite feeling for sounds and percussion. – from last.fm

1987 is the first piece I heard that gave me a DJ boner. But they had a lot of other cool pieces that caught my attention.

Our relationship is complicated

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It has been a while since I cared for this blog. This one or the layer above it which is just personal stuff. I have slowly started trying to test the layers and start looking at it again. There was a cathartic release in the past, especially for someone like me who feels more and more focused on what is good for me and what is not.

Me at the last Burning Man Global Leadership Summit in 2016.

Clearly to me, starting in 2019, I started seeing my relationship with Burning Man as complicated and unhealthy. I was ready to walk away cold 100% and not look back. But I was invited to participate in something profound for the future of the community and jumped back in.

I have actively been someone who stood in front of the room, or spoke up, or volunteered, or created for the community over the years. Leadership was a natural part of who I was my whole life, but never have I been in a place with so many people willing to strip a person down who dared to do.

Burning Man Global Leadership Summit 2015

And the willingness of people to take my successes and try and make it their own has astonished me. People I trusted and felt I could count on just gutted me with their own ambitions they could never have carried out on their own.

And finally the lack of guts in Burning Man organizational leadership. Survival of the org was all important, but evolution was so hard. Any change in the culture was at the end of a sharp stick.

Then when I was asked to be part of Burning Man Culture Direction Setting as a project, coming in at Phase 2, I thought I was going to get a chance for magic. The leaders in the community wanted the same thing, BMorg was listening!

Me leading a Burning Man gathering called Theme Camp Speed Dating

We finished Phase 2 in April this year and when we did I saw some great changes on paper, but I left feeling like this cooling off period to the fall and seeing these changes implemented is still in the air.

The voices of people from the Org were still the same on some levels and I finished the last meeting by leaving a little early and feeling defeated.

There are people, including the CEO, whom I have had a lot of belief in. There were some members of the founders whom I knew were never going to evolve. It was part of being gay at Burning Man and being seen the way we were that made me sad.

There is a part of Burning Man in Black Rock City like in a lot of cities where LGBTQ people accumulated. In this case it used to be called the Gayborhood. We really had to fight to get some recognition that the Gayborhood was more than a collection point, it was a zone of safety for the vulnerable.

I tried to start a new relationship with Burning Man with this program and I am feeling like it may have been a mistake. While some important changes will be coming, if implemented, it is merely a scratch on the surface. In the end there was little culture rescued. There was no real change.

Burning Man was not cancelled for 2020, but Black Rock City IRL was. The culture is fairly sound. It involves putting a lot of heads in the sand. It involves a lot of self-negotiation. Figure out what you can live with and what you can’t. And there I am.