Tweet
Paul Addis, the man accused of arson at Burning Man, the massive fire arts festival, committed suicide on Saturday night.
From the Reno Gazette-Journal:
The charred remains of the iconic Burning Man effigy after Paul Addis burned it early at the 2007 event.
Paul Addis, a longtime Burner and artist fed up with the way Burning Man was being organized, died after he jumped in front of a moving BART train at Embarcadero station on Saturday night, according to multiple Bay Area news reports. He was 42.
Addis was convicted of felony arson after setting fire to what festival-goers call “The Man” on that early Tuesday morning [in 2007].
Burning Man is an annual gathering in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada which attracts over 50,000 attendees and has spawned a worldwide subculture of smaller regional events and year-round communities. The event is based around ethics of a gift economy and radical participation, and has its roots in anarchic gatherings created by groups like the Cacophony Society and Crash Worship (whose descendants Flam Chen were profiled here last weekend).
Its central ritual is the end of week burning of a massive effigy of a human figure. Addis short-circuited this ritual in 2007 by setting fire to the icon on the event’s first night. Reports differ on the circumstances of this action, with Addis claiming warnings were given and attempts made to clear the area while other eyewitnesses tell stories of helping endangered, inebriated people away from the flames. Addis was arrested, convicted of destruction of property (a felony), and spent two years in jail.
Burning Man offers a place where some people (those who can afford it) come to explore the nature of identity, creativity and social interaction free from the constraints of mainstream capitalist culture. Yet as the event grew, this experiment in temporary community naturally adopted rules. Steven T. Jones, the San Francisco Bay Guardian reporter who has chronicled many Burning Man events, cites an accidental death in 1996 as the beginning of the end of the event’s true lawlessness.
Addis, a Cacophonist who participated in Burning Man’s early days, had infamously (but more harmlessly) pranked before by attaching a pair of testicles to the sculpture in the late ’90s. He grew bitter at the changes to his beloved community and styled himself a direct action hero who would reclaim the free spirit of the event by making good on an annually recurring rumor — that the Man would Burn early. Addis seemed to identify with larger-than-life figures like Hunter S. Thompson, who he played in a one-man show.
In his book Tribes of Burning Man, Jones describes Addis’ motivation for the costly prank:
Addis seems to believe that big gestures like torching the man can prompt people to rally for change. “In any situation, it only takes one person to make a difference. I firmly believe that.” Beyond just taking back Burning Man, Addis wanted to reclaim the country from the screwheads and war mongers, to end the Iraq War, and help “rehumanize” the returning soldiers.
As he announced grandly, “We’re taking it back, that hulking retard known as America.”
There’s no more divisive figure in the Burning Man subculture than Addis. A lengthy profile of Addis’ life and death by Whatsblem the Pro on the Burning Man commentary blog along with the heated comments that follow offers a glimpse into the kind of debate which erupts any time his name is mentioned:
A lot has been said and written about Addis burning the Man. Any casual observer would find it easy to very quickly conclude that Addis was seriously disturbed, deeply criminal at the very least, and possibly even criminally insane. Certainly his actions generated a huge amount of rancor, but to what extent was his early burn a product of criminality and madness, and to what extent was it a coherent social and/or artistic statement … and was it relevant? More to the point, did Addis get what he deserved?
Though the profile is a fascinating one worth reading in its entirety, it’s still unclear what to make of Addis — was he a prankster in a culture built around pranksterism who went too far? A troubled man who never escaped the consequences of his troubled actions? A misunderstood artist or a dangerous narcissist?
One of the Black Rock Rangers, volunteer conflict mediators who keep Burning Man safe. Despite their presence, the event is patrolled by multiple law enforcement agencies.
All of this would be simply an interesting sideline from the history of a quirky minority except that I think the case of Paul Addis highlights issues faced by Occupiers and all activists who dream of creating new forms of society or ways of living. The early Occupy encampments resembled Burning Man’s atmosphere of radical inclusion (without the festival’s high cost of attendance) and faced similar challenges when their community attracted the passionate but troubled and the most damaged among humanity. How should a community bent on existing outside the mundane world, or bent on remaking it, respond to such individuals?
Addis’ rebellious rhetoric also resonates to this gonzo journalist on multiple levels. His desire to take back society is one that can be heard among many an activist gathering — but it echoes both those driven to make change and the seductive words of provocateurs who seek to undermine a movement. The arson serves as a reminder to consider the effects of direct action — while some feel that he struck a blow against a work of art turned corporate logo, his actions disrupted the event for many artists who’d exhibited their work around the effigy at the city’s central core, not to mention the event’s builders who spent the rest of their week with tools in hand instead of celebrating. In some ways Addis’ actions resemble temper tantrums I’ve seen in Occupy, where burnt out activists that are frustrated at the slow pace of social change instead lash out at perceived flaws in the social change movement itself.
Finally, the action and its response highlight that no place is truly autonomous from society. Most societies would have reacted punitively to the destruction of others’ artwork, yet Burning Man’s organizers claim they were forced to respond in the way they did — pushing for a felony prison sentence — in order to placate the law enforcement and governmental agencies on whom the event depends for its continued existence. Jones’ Tribes quotes Burning Man Executive Project Manager Ray Allen:
Part of putting on the Burning Man event means maintaining good relations with Pershing County so that we can continue to have the Burning Man event on [Bureau of Land Management-controlled] land within that county. Good relations means cooperating with criminal prosecutors. … Refusing to press charges for a felony arson that threatened human life would not bode well with the government and law enforcement agencies in Nevada that support our event.
During their height, residents of the Occupy movement’s camps wrestled not only with how to respond to police intrusions, but also with how to respond to infractions against safety and social norms by its own members — when, where, and how was it appropriate to voluntarily involve the police?
While event organizers may justifiably argue that their hands were tied, it’s easy for this journalist to look at Addis’ tragic end and see that from one of the freest places on earth came another victim of the police and prison state.
Update, 9:25pm PST: SF Appeal reports that a memorial for Paul Addis will occur on Friday at a Day of the Dead Festival:
His longtime friend Amacker Bullwinkle, a Palo Alto artist, said a larger memorial is in the works for December, but on Friday his group of friends–comprised of cutting-edge, alternative Bay Area artists–are creating altars for Addis at Garfield Park in San Francisco’s Mission District. Friday is “Dia de Los Muertos,” or “Day of the Dead,” and a festival of altars and other holiday rituals will take place throughout the Mission and at the park …
Bullwinkle spoke about Addis’ eccentric, out-there personality, which she said often lead to misunderstandings with authority.
“He had a very colorful career, with very colorful friends,” Bullwinkle said.
Correction 11/3: Though ‘arson’ is the act of destruction of property by fire, I incorrectly stated that Addis was convicted of arson rather than destruction of property. The article has been updated. Thanks again to Steven T. Jones.
Photo of the 2007 Burnt Man cropped from an original by Miss Karen. Ranger photo cropped from an original of Ratha Grimes. Both images are licensed on Flickr under the Creative Commons.
35 Comments
Our community needs to stop celebrating people who commit suicide, particularly in such sociopathic ways.
Thanks, Kit. I’ve been thinking about Paul Addis this week and trying to take the whole situation a little more seriously than I did when he prematurely set the man on fire. For those of us in the Bay Area who see Burning Man turning into Disneyland for upper-crusty punks*, and particularly for me, who grew up in Pershing County, the idea of someone being convicted of arson for burning Burning Man, was the height of hilarity and boo-fucking hoo. I lived in teeny tiny Lovelock (one of the nearest towns and the Pershing County seat) until I was 12. My mom was the police dispatcher back in the early 1970s so I can just imagine what rural law enforcement thinks of Burning Man. When Paul Addis was arrested, I couldn’t imagine that he would actually be convicted and sent to prison for two years. And it definitely never occurred to me that he had put other people in danger, but clearly that’s true. It also appears to be true that he had some serious mental health issues and, no matter what you thought of him, it’s very tragic that he decided to jump in front of a BART train.
I have such mixed feelings about Burning Man. I have a hard time imagining people flocking to a hostile desert in the middle of nowhere; when I lived there, all I wanted was to get OUT! The art is astonishing but there is so much money and creativity spent on something so fleeting. I know people whose entire livelihoods are based on building art for rich trustafarians to drag out to the desert and destroy. That replica of Wall Street that was burned at the last BM cost $100,000. Seriously? That made me want to scream. How many people can you feed for the money spent at Burning Man? To me, unfortunately, it mostly boils down to radical self indulgence.
There is a lot of crossover between Occupy Oakland and the burner community – for better and for worse. It saddens me to think that the burners turned Paul Addis over to the police state in order to keep the peace. Perhaps their experiences at Occupy made them a little more radical.
*h/t to Boots Riley in one his new songs; I don’t think he was talking about burners. :)
Kit, you’re doing a fantastic job of producing a chronicle of a phenomenon that by definition, defies understanding.
There are not many who can remain level-headed enough while in such close contact with masses of people engaged in no-holds-barred consciousness raising, to communicate anything worthy of that nuanced reality.
Someday you’ll probably have as much trouble explaining all this, as those of us who witnessed the 1960s.
Thank you.
I’ve been involved in the Burner culture for over a decade and started as a starry-eyed idealist about it and its ability to change the world — based on its ability to change MY life at the right time and place. I’ve been more involved with it locally but I’ve also attended the big one a few times (though I wasn’t there in 2007).
Over time I’ve moved toward a more realistic view. It’s a powerful engine for personal change and to me an inspiring experiment in alternative society, but like so many such experiments in history it’s only open to the privileged. The Burners Without Borders experience post-Katrina shows that the skills and strength the event builds can create powerful positive change in the world, but it’s hard to get Burners to look outward from their place of privilege to get them to relate to what’s going on in the streets. Burning Man has been hurt by economic collapse, but most of its people are ovarall too removed from the effects — upper-crusty punks as you (& Boots) say — to realize that the police state affects them too.
Thanks, this complement means a lot.
Despite their important differences (some of which I’ve discussed above in my discussions with HFC), I see real parallels between the personal consciousness raising of Burning Man with the more global consciousness raising attempted by radical activists.
This work of yours is provocative of exactly the discussion that we should have about how exactly a free society operates. People show up, even those who want change, carrying many of the problems of our society and culture between their ears.
Every movement has come to a moment of having to deal with an old consciousness and common sense that needed reflection and review. That successfully worked when that reflection was paired with social action. The civil rights movement had to grapple with white privilege and what it means to have black power. The women’s movement invented the term “consciousness raising” and the notion that the personal is political. This is not an inclusive list, but points to the issue.
Thanks, TarheelDem. That’s exactly the kind of discussion I want to provoke. We learned hard lessons from Occupy’s camps and hopefully thinking and talking about this stuff now means the next time we try something like a long term occupation of space we have better answers for what to do.
Most def. I meant to be more explicit in thanking you for making these connections – especially around privilege and how it plays out in ways that we have been conditioned to either ignore, or become so angry or disillusioned by that we stop engaging with each other.
Thanks for this, Kit. The problem of disruptive influences is a red thread that runs through not just #Burning Man and, as you and others point out, Occupy and other anarchical, non-hierarchical, revolutionary or perhaps, just non-standard ways of organizing a bunch of humans. People talk about various models — 12-step programs, or Quakers, or GA’s, or Mondragon, but I don’t know how they really work or how they would work scaled up past a self-selected group.
I am little and female and, now, old. I am vulnerable. Radical activists frighten me, both physically and ideologically. There are a couple of them who post here from time to time advocating revolution — a thing I heartily distrust, as, in my observation, it just clears the way for more talented vultures.
I crave a society that has at least enough rules so that I know where the dangerous places/people are so that I can avoid them. Other people want different levels of risk — higher, lower. An inclusive society would, to my mind, have a safe place for all of us, and would not scorn those with different risk preferences.
Jesus Christ. Get over yourselves, people. By the way, Paul was not convicted of arson. He was convicted of destruction of property. Give Paul some peace. He was so tormented with depression the last four years of his life, much of what I had to deal with. Why can’t the BM community try to get it together and move on at this point? It’s been nearly 5 years. No one was harmed—nor did Paul want to harm anyone. And Larry Harvey and he BM community could have done a more constructive and creatv thing with Paul’s acts other than press charges and send Paul to the slammer for this. What about community service? Something else? Two years in prison—for catching something on fire in the midst of the entire playa being on fire? Don’t get me started. Burning Man is dead.
Thanks for sharing.
Yeah neither answer is the right one, is it? From one perspective, Burning Man is a conspicuous and wasteful display of wealth and from another perspective the event taps into a rich tradition of self-destructive ritual art I find fascinating. I’d like to think there’d still be a place in the world for something like it, and I’m more concerned with what we could do if we diverted the billions Bank CEOs have stolen or SuperPACS wasted on both sides of this farce of an election than I am in on what we could do if we diverted the money from an artist, even an (overly?) extravagant one like the guy who burned Wall Street. At the same time I recognize it isn’t a simple either/or on some level.
It seems like we’re coming at this from very similar places, so thanks again for the thought-provoking discussion!
You are welcome, thanks for reading. Organizing people in more humane ways is definitely one of the questions we need to answer to make a society that’s healthy and has a safe place for all of us, as you suggest. And any change we achieve needs to be in such a way that we don’t merely replace the old vultures with new ones. There needs to be a place for Paul Addis and a place for me and you. There even needs to be something for the vultures to do too, but damned if I know what it is.
Respectfully I think there’s a place for radicals and a place for people with less radical leanings in that world. When I look at Occupy Austin, for example, I see the street activists & gonzo journalists like myself who are willing to risk arrest in nonviolent direct action. I also see others like Occupy Austin’s End Corporate Personhood working group who are working in a much slower, more deliberate, yet equally important way to make real change — mostly through organizing people and petitioning governments & institutions.
I also think ‘radical’ is a word maligned in a similar way to ‘anarchist’ or ‘socialist.’ I identify as an occupier first, but perhaps as a radical, because I can’t identify with what I see as the conventional definitions of ‘liberal,’ ‘conservative,’ or even ‘progressive.’ But to me, radical change begins by getting people talking directly to each other, in thought provoking discussions like this one (and ideally similar dialogs face-to-face). Thanks for being part of it.
(I duplicated your repeat comment, FYI)
I think Paul Addis was a figure who demanded attention, even in the method of his tragic death. I tried very hard in this piece to present a balanced perspective and not demonize him, but focus more on the issues raised by his actions. As cultures grow, their social norms change (and generally become more strict) and Addis’ actions and the community reaction to them starkly highlight these growing pains.
The Burning Man organization stands in the unenviable position of being the legal ‘leaders’ of a semi-autonomous movement, forced to create an interface between the event’s purported freedom and principles and the restrictions of the ‘default world.’ It’s clear to me that Addis was a victim of that interface between law and culture.
Thanks for pointing that out about the charges. I will double check my facts and post a correction if need be.
Thanks in general for sharing your comments & for reading.
For those interested in more Burning Man history, a friend shared this oral history of the event tonight. I haven’t had a chance to delve into it but it looks detailed & interesting.
I hear you. I’m an artist and I think there ought to be millions of dollars for art, all the time. I think ritual is very meaningful, too. It’s very difficult to figure out where the line is. Something like the All Souls Procession is so much more inclusive; you just walk up and you’re in the parade. You don’t even have to dress up. BM reminds me of TED in a way – amazing, inspiring, stuff you would never have thought of. People learn new things and take them out into the world. But then privilege kicks in, because those people (me included) tend to feel like they have some magic truth and in actuality, they don’t really have a clue. Listening skills might be the very best thing we could all learn. And empathy.
Well, yes, I suppose this is what I mean. I resent being told to get over myself. I have no clue who Paul Addis is/was, although I am sorry for his death. Suicide is a powerful statement and some recognition is respectful, IMO.
But I think you miss the point of Kit’s essay and the comments here. I know nothing of Burning Man other than what I read from Kit in the last week or so. What I am speaking of the the larger issue of safe spaces for all. IMO everyone needs safe spaces, from people like Paul (whose space wasn’t, it seems, safe enough for him to live in, for whatever reason) to me to families with small children and people trying to raise food. These are all activities that require a lot of exposure in certain areas, and IMO, as a counterbalance, some security in others. Different people need different mixtures at different times. We are in need of a new way to organize ourselves into a working society just about now, and I think that less regulation is probably better than the web of laws, by-laws and customs that govern us now.
I am in Toronto. My Occupy appears to have died and I don’t know why. I had high hopes, but occupyto.org.
I am looking for a different way to have a society, as this one sucks in many ways (esp vampire squid-wise), but I don’t want to exchange a banker bully for an artist bully. So we are talking about stuff here. Think of it as a case study.
yeah I pretty much agree with everything you said here. There was even a Ted x Burning Man which is well worth looking up on Youtube.
Whoa! ‘Respectfully’? I’ll have you know am not *that* old, young man!! Of course there is a place for radicals, and I do not even consider being arrested or being a street activist all that radical (BTW, I used the term ‘radical activists’ b/c *you* did, in the title). What I find un-mutual, destructive and off-putting is the folks who want *everybody* to do, think and act just like they do, and who will intimidate, bully or otherwise hijack the process to suit their idea of what is *truly* radical, or Occupy, or Republican or Real Catholics (the stories I could tell…). And *every* organization seems to get bogged down in this. And to successfully organize our human society, we need to know how to deal with ‘disruptive’ ie, non-normal influences.
Clearly, tossing them out is stupid, they are, by def, creativity and innovation. But they can be very destructive. I would note here that art and direct action are not the same, but that is a discussion for another (long) time.
But what do we do when direct action becomes violent? When members of ‘us’ are intimidated or shouted down by others of ‘us’? When some of ‘us’ physically attack or harm others of ‘us’? This has to be addressed if we are to build a society in which we all can live and fulfill ourselves.
I agree with what your comment overall. You raise some weighty questions which of course have no simple answers but are the kinds of thing you debate late into the night (at Burning Man, in an Occupy encampment, over beers etc). Hypothetically, the question here becomes something like ‘What should Burning Man have done with Paul Addis in absence of the intervention of conventional law enforcement or mainstream legal structures?’
As for art vs. direct action, I also agree about crucial differences — and the artistic counterculture (like Burning Man) does not usually directly affect direct societal or political change. Sometimes, though, it inspires that change. My thoughts on this are largely taken from Ken Goffman (R. U. Sirius) & Dan Joy’s Counterculture Through the Ages, a book many in this thread would probably enjoy.
So, why is it what Paul did that, radical or dangerous might I ask you? And if so, isn’t radical a good thing being it’s Burning Man and all? Isn’t being “radical” what Burning Man is supposed to be about? The thing that cracks me up about Burning Man is that shit is on fire everywhere you turn. When BM “participants” purchase their tickets, and as you mentioned, Kit, (those that can afford it–ahem) people agree to terms and conditions that they themselves are putting their own lives at risk because of the nature of Burning Man: in other words, fire, and blowing shit up. So, were ‘participants’ of Burning Man really in danger due to Paul’s actions?
Yes that is certainly a perspective with some merit. For those unaware, the tickets to Burning Man are printed with a waiver warning participants they could face serious injury or death by participating in the festival. And as trileene rightfully points out, there is a LOT of fire — people dance with it, vehicles artworks and entire encampments belch fire from flamethrowers, and of course art gets burned all the time.
Despite these waivers, maintaining insurance for these events is nightmarish. My local regional version of Burning Man has struggled with this, especially after prospective companies combed the website reading about all the crazy stuff we do (like Poofy, the tiny remote controlled car with its own flamethrower).
One of the things that has divided Occupy Oakland most dramatically was the inconsistent application of “justice.” OO ended up modeling the system we were supposedly trying to tear down. OO called out and shunned/excommunicated people of color more frequently, way out of proportion to their percentages in the group. OO tolerated or even defended bullying behavior by certain people, even though it was quite clear those people were driving a lot of others away. People familiar with real restorative justice offered to intervene and in some cases, that offer was accepted. But mostly it seemed like the cool kids put peer pressure on enough people to get their way. So we are at about a junior high level in terms of being able to work this out. We have a long way to go.
I wish I could say that Occupy Oakland was an aberration and that I had not seen this kind of behavior in other Occupy groups, in other activist groups, in all sorts of human gatherings. From what I can tell (as an observant outsider), this kind of kyriarchical behavior tore apart Occupy Boston and it certainly has been present (and sometimes successfully fought) at Occupy Austin. Power-over is insidious. We do have a lot to learn!
Yes, I’ve heard that from a lot of people, especially in bigger cities where you got a bigger, diverse group of people who didn’t know each other before Occupy. The good news is that in just a year, we have all learned a lot about ourselves, and each other. :)
*sparklehands*
This is one of he most self-contradictory, stupid and meaningless things I have ever read here.
As an apologia, of whatever this apologia is supposed to apologize for, or make some excuse, for um, something? Utter Fail.
If one cannot accept that Burning Man is simply a full on freakmo display of priveledged cool kids and nothing else, and also one insists that Burning Man is some kind of Occupy simulacrum?
That one, that ONE, is an idiot.
Appreciate this post, thanks for wading into it and bringing a few more along.
These are complex issues, and as a participant in (un)Occupy, I do know the surface we scratch in trying to make change for ourselves and imagining the implications for change of the broader culture knowing personal change is monumental on its own.
Thanks!
These issues are complex. Hopefully the more people thinking & talking about them, the more possible solutions we invent.
Sometimes I think art is the only worthwhile thing we as humans create. Other times that view seems impossibly elitist and distant from hardscrabble reality.
If however the logical path built on the understandable sentiment that every dollar spent on art is frivolous– that as long as one mouth remains unfed or one need unmet in the world, there will always be a better use of resources than to create art– were followed, I don’t want to live in the world that leads to.
I actually like and appreciate the deliberately ephemeral nature BM art, it celebrates the moment and our relationship with eternity.
I wouldn’t want to live in a world without art. Even if we outlawed it, outlaws would still be compelled to create it. BM is a manifestation of that urge. It just happens to take place in a little bubble where Facebook interns make $70K and spending a chunk of that on plywood that ultimately you’re going to set on fire doesn’t seem like a big deal. It would be wonderful if we could make a world where making art and appreciating art was not such a privilege – or at least was not considered to be so frivolous (except for the rich).
BM blows shit up.
How poetic!
This frame misses a very significant point. It imagines that first Burning Man was popular … and then Paul Addis appeared out of nowhere to present an esoteric challenge. That doesn’t appear to be how it worked at all.
Before it became the plaything of rich hipsters, Burning Man was the physical representation of how Addis and those like him approach the world. As this article notes, Addis was there pretty much from the start. So why did it take decades and the onslaught of tens of thousands of mainstream participants looking for little more than an excuse to have a weekend of drug-addled sex in the desert before the *original* concept behind Burning Man became viewed as disruptive to the “movement?” If Burning Man is true to it’s stated reason for being important – the financial cost to participate alone is enough to justify the Man Burning on minute one. An orgy of capitalist greed to celebrate alternatives to the Capitalist Man … you can’t make that shit up.
I think we see the same with Occupy. It was AdBusters and the anarchists from Anon that created the impetus for anything to happen at all. But it became popular. As soon as the idea demonstrated potency, it was overrun by pretty much every failed liberal activist on the planet and instantly festooned with an almost unrecognizable wash of tinsel and worn-out tropes. The establishment shut down the original camps while embracing the ones filled with Democrats and operating as an extension of the party … and then enlisted Democrats from establishment-approved “Occupy” groups to undermine from within the ideas of anarchists who originally created the movement. By this point, Occupy is little more than the same old Democrats we’ve always seen doing little more than Democrats always have. I don’t think a group starts “existing outside the mundane world” simply by using a GA stack meeting format to communicate a mundane approach.
My question is how those with the vision to step outside the box of status-quo power structures to imagine and personify alternative approaches to activism and society maintain the authenticity of a movement’s core purpose when their actions attract a mass of hangers-on who generally have little experience or comfort operating outside a box very narrowly constrained by the dictates of the status quo?
The issue for a movement like Occupy is not how to address the “problem” of a Paul Addis archetype. The question is how to maintain viability when the ethos of those who started the movement begins to be construed as something that needs to be “responded to” by those who have latched on to it as a vehicle to serve their own objectives.
Thanks for this piece. As I followed the Occupy movement I saw the way that some groups could grab the media’s attention by doing the things that the media love, like break things and set stuff on fire.
One of the challenges of a “leaderless” movement is to how they interact with the media. Without a narrative, the media will assign one, or the “other side” will assign one.
The lack of specific spokespeople and leaders helped Occupy in the beginning because it couldn’t be put in the usual box. Also, we know what the right does with leaders, they investigate and destroy.
And the media are more than happy to consume that destruction.
For example you can imagine how the late Andrew Brietbart would harass and official Occupy leader? He would be shouting in his or her face, “Stop Raping People!” I shutter to think.
Why am I never surprised to see mental health issues and radical artist or anarchist in the same sentence?
I have corrected this piece based on your comment. Thanks.