dBMblog
Get Found on playa 2012


Scotty G


Pablo / DJ GrapeNuts


Moontroll / DJ Playaduster


Erik / Boogie Universal


Orbit

Kai
Dusty kisses!
What Burning Man Means to Me * By Brock Blatter

The Boogie Universal Pyramid Project crew at Green Man 2007 (Brock on far right)
This is a lengthy bit that I posted on the eplaya, the burning man bulletin board. It was in response to some troll who posted a question like "isn't it all just about sex?" hoping for someone to either agree or disagree so he could argue with them. I didn't take him seriously but started to write something about what the playa (and eplaya) mean to me, and this is what came out.
The playa is the place we've been told about since we were five - a place created by wishing. If you wish hard enough, believe strongly enough, you'll find what you need on the playa. You may not find what you want, but you can find what you need. As with 'manifesting', wishing is a creative force when it spurs action. We wish out loud, we wish by working and creating. People who are wishing and believing and creating so hard tend to bring the best of themselves. Nearly everyone on the playa is too busy having fun and creating their favorite reality to bother being hateful. We mostly leave behind the day-to-day crap that leaves us feeling dragged down and pecked to death by ducks. We shine.
That means, of course, that we don't all shine in the same way. Some people like to be tough bastards. Some people like to work their asses off building things. Some people like to take drugs. Some people like to have sex. Some people like to groove on the infinity of possibility. Some people like to engage with music. Some people just like to hang out with good people who are also having a good time. Some people go to be amazed by the art.
The eplaya, on the other hand, is a place people go to talk about this other place. Some people are new and have real questions. The regulars here tend to be a bit crusty, helpful to a fault if you show evidence that you have put in some effort already, snarky to an extreme if you just want someone to hold your hand and do everything for you. And snarky in general just for the fun of it. The regulars here hang out and talk to each other ALL YEAR LONG, the average newbie posts a question or two, maybe is asked to stand up for themselves and show themselves as serious, and maybe they get their question answered and maybe they go away scared. Beggars are not treated kindly. I think a general feeling is, if they can't stand the snark they can't stand the playa and we're better off without them. There are enough people out there putting their heart and soul into this other place, the real playa, building it on wishes and dreams, that we don't really need a few more tourists.
But they'll come anyway, some of these tourists, and they'll have fun, they'll have the greatest party ever, they may even get laid. Some of them will have moments of wonder. Three kids I might have written off as frat boys joined me in conversation one night last year. One of them admired my hat so I gave it to him (it had been given to me earlier that night). He was so amazed and thought it was so wonderful to get a gift like that that it made me feel great in turn. I gave it to him because it's just a hat but he turned it into something wonderful for both of us.
Read more meditations and interpretations on Burning Man from the dBM/Get Found crew in our About > What is Burning Man pages!
20 days
In the past week, many necessary details have fallen into place and camp dBM is creeping ever closer to manifesting on the playa. I easily convinced my business partner that we need to purchase a PA for our upcoming gig and for future performances, so this week I will picking up a bumpin' ass soundsystem to hype up the dBM dome (it's a tax right off, of course :o)! Grapnutz got the green light from Erik - the mastermind behind 2007's Boogie Universal Pyramid Project -- to "take whatever Boogie gear is in his garage" Really!!!??? Aaaah yeah! more…?
Boogie Universal Pyramid Project 2007 : World Premier of Moontroll's documentary video!
In 2007, Boogie Universal, a volunteer collective based in Bellingham, Washington dedicated to "building better community through music," decided to take their good music, good vibes and good peoples to Burning Man. The project that we organized around was the construction of the Boogie Pyramid, a 40 foot-tall performance/gathering space made of recycled billboard vinyl, rivets, grommets, cable and a galvanized steel mast. There was much amateur engineering and high school math skills involved as we tried to figure out how this prototype would work. Over 30 people pitched in with dozens of hours of labor, free welding work, generous use of a secret farm field construction site and good cheer.
But building the Boogie Pyramid was only one part of the story. Boogie Universal also met weekly to plan a myriad of camp logistics: food, Leave No Trace, transportation, camp theme, entertainment in the Pyramid, camping, furniture, costumage, generators and power production, booze, camp wellness, showers and grey water evaporation â the list goes on and on and then on some more. We hash through all this for hours -- impossible to say how many hours went in to this project, this dream, this folly â actually, we probably don't even want to know.
But many of us found an odd sense of satisfaction in focusing our free time on an endeavor that is ridiculous, a mission that that made no sense. I got a surprising jolt of inspiration in spending precious time, resources and energy on a project with aspirations that lie outside of normal boundaries: we won't make any money doing this. There is no fame and glory to be earned in all of this, no job promotion nor merit badge.
So why did we do it? Why work to set up an enormous 35,000 watt sound installation in a 3,600 square-foot pyramid a thousand miles away from home in the middle of a desiccated lake bed in Nevada? Hard to pin down the reasons, and I'm sure each member of the Boogie Universal collective would provide a different answer.
What is it that draws one to Burning Man anyways? An infinite amount of answers, all correct.
Anyways, this 19-minute movie documents much of the process, from backyard brainstorm to construction to transportation, erection and execution. Things didn't turn out exactly like we had planned, but that was part of the magic of our experience, and I hope this video succeeds in sharing the love we had for the Boogie Universal Pyramid Project at Burning Man 2007!
More videos from DJ Playaduster at www.destinationburningman.com. Feedback: [email protected]
Boogie Universal's Electric Mayhem

The Electric Mayhem, staying out way too late the night before the race
A bunch of his playa refugees from the Boogie Universal, along with partners and new friends, participated in the Ski to Sea race on Memorial Weekend. The race starts in the snow at Mount Baker east of Bellingham, Washington and traverses 85 miles over 7 legs before reaching the saltwater of Bellingham Bay 7+ hours later. None of us have run the race before, even though it is an annual ritual in this corner of the country, and we aren't the kinds of peeps that get really in to endurance racing of any kind (unless you count all-night bike riding on the playa at Burning Man!)
Here are some photos & video of the team, Boogie Universal's Electric Mayhem, in action:

(Click below to see action shots of the whole team- who knew Burners could move so fast?!)more…?
get disoriented

New podcast from DJ Playaduster, wildcrafted from audio field recordings taken live from Black Rock City 2007, available for download or stream over at the Podcast page!more…?
moontroll & ramona mayhem's 2007 reports now online

Check out the latest additions to the What is Burning Man page : Field reports from Burning Man 2007 as told by Ramona Mayhem and Moontroll. You can grok them right here...
more…?Hey Broke Dudes!
hibernating....

Life's been a whirlwind for the Three Broke Dudes upon returning to the Default World. There was barely time to process our experiences in the desert before we got swooped up by the flow of our routines...
This blog is gonna be pretty quiet through the winter. This whole website is due for an overhaul to reflect the fact that we did indeed make it to Burning Man this year, along with Bellingham's kick-ass Boogie Universal crew and the ill-fated Boogie Pyramid. Did I mention that it collapsed in the first giant dust storm on Thursday? Turned out to be but a simple wrinkle in our plans: we rolled up the wreckage, set it to the side, dug some sand out of our ear holes and partied on. Took the Boogie out underneath the stars, and we're probably all the better for it.

Did I mention that the Three Broke Dudes became the Four? So many tales to tell...


While there might not be moment to moment updates and reports as during the months and weeks leading up to the Burn, we are working with the raw materials that we collected on the playa -- photos, audio field recordings, video, stories, sand, soulsauce reductions -- and plan on sharing what we craft with our friends, fellow Boogiers and Burners and random wanderers to this here website. In other words, Edubious, moontroll and Hekter will be writing stories, making movies and slideshows, mixing podcasts and the like over the dark nights of winter and posting them here and there across the digital spectrum at destinationburningman.com. This blog will make note as to when something is new, and tell you where to find it too (right now, there is a short docudrama film that moontroll made to give respects to the dust storms and double rainbow being hosted on YouTube right here; he's hard at work on another film following the rise and fall of the Boogie Pyramid and Edubious is halfway done mixing up his musical response to his first Burn in podcast form...stay tuned.)
We also invite you to share your creations, memories and tall tales from the Green Man on this website. Contact us at [email protected] with your ideas, links to your Burning stuff, hallucinations, music mixes, whatever...
Stay in touch!

Moontroll's Return
more…?Edubious' Return
Safety Third : A Public Service Announcement
Desaggulation

So the Boogie Universal crew was unanimous in our resolve to keep plugging away on the Boogie Pyramid project and get it in shape so it is a worthy addition to Black Rock City. We're gonna be on the Esplanade and 9:00, and we want to be proud of our contribution. The first erection of the Pyramid revealed several structural flaws, which Erik, Chad, Robin and I got to fixin' last night in a work party that went until dark. We added some "bonus cables, restrung a few seams, incorporated more stakes to pull out the bottom and other nips and tucks, and finally got to raise it half-way to see how it looked in Version 2.0. It was promising, and I feel less anxiety regarding the status of our dream project.
We've got two more work parties scheduled and hope lots of fellow campers will be there to further the makeover work.
I think it is going to work out excellently, just like Erik predicted.
Nappy Dugout
First Erection : Massive Mast
Universal Freek Delight & Pyramid Parties
more…?Burning Boogie Rising : Update (32 days, 1 hour, 1 minute & 17 seconds until the Burn)
Boogie on the Esplanade?
Boogie Pyramid work party #1
Hamsters Unite!
"There are countless ways to participate and contribute and be a part of this thing"

(photo by veo_)
So I couldn't pass up the good deal. I went ahead and bought us a 15,000 watt generator AND a 6,000 watt generator. I think we'll be pretty well covered for anything we want to do...more…?




















Notes from the unfolding adventure