How did we get here?

*April 2004:* Larry Harvey came to Seattle for a speaking engagement at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. He was impressed by all the things/art/events of our community, and invited Randy & Amani to San Francisco to talk about helping the Burning Man Project *the BuMP* build out their concept of the Burning Man Regional Network.

*June 2004:* Randy went to San Francisco in June & met w/BuMP

*July 2004:* Static Factory Media contacted regional contacts, David Peterman and Dave Martinez, as well as Senior Rangers Corprew and Riff Raff, met and decided to create initial crew.

*August 2004:* Brain storming commission was chosen in August, weekly meeting commenced. We asked ourselves and each other, “*What* are we doing? *How* are we going to do it? *How* do we figure out what the community *wants/needs?*

*September 2004:* Randy & Diem went to Decompression in SF, and met again with the BuMP to discuss direction of the committee.

*October 2004:* we spent about half of our time figuring out what our role is, how to share information with the community and involve all who want to participate.

*November 2004: *We are finally ready to take this thing public.

*This is where YOU come in! *

Who Dat?

The original version of this site contained a page introducing the crew that got this ball rolling. Seems a shame to totally abandon it, especially after all the hard work diem did putting it together. So here it is, somewhat buried on this page that virtually no one will ever read anyway…

Morgan Hammer and Bevin Keely inadvertently joined the Flight to Mars on their first
visit to Black Rock City in 2002, having been roped into helping with an ancillary art car you may have known as the Buddha Bus. Inspired by the madness and the sanity of the place, they dove into the process of its production and have been mired in collaborative art projects and creatively costuming themselves ever since. They are hoping to keep this shit going strong for the little being they brought into the world this summer, and all of the other burning spirits who deserve a place to be free in their own hometown.

Born before Interstate 80, raised in Eisenhower’s shadow, nobody can figure whether he was dropped on his head in his youth or if he just couldn’t deal with conventional thinking. As if to atone for his sins, he decided to “help” fellow Burning Man participants by becoming a “Ranger” which gave him access to their bright and colorful costumes in addition to satisfying his urge to sin on a more regular basis and with better whiskey.

Another activity that has gotten him into many compromising situations has been his relationship with a secretive and highly selective organization known as “Johnny and the Playa Cruizers”. He has inhaled enormous amounts of paint fumes and heavy metals while engaging in their arcane rituals and thanks to his ability to stand in one place without drooling on himself he was selected as the camp’s “Johnny” in 2002, the significance of which is still being hotly debated.

100% Pure Riff Raff aka Geoff Morris

Born and raised in Vancouver, WA, Kay Morrison moved to Seattle in 1995 to attend Seattle University. After failing miserably at the academic life in 1997, Kay took to backpacking Europe, large scale direct action protesting, and the nonprofit sector. To this day the love of nonprofits lives on (the other two having lost some clout over the years), and Kay currently works at a nonprofit technology organization in the Central District.

The WTO protests, a gay man from Long Island, and a plastic lizard named Flicker are the elements that brought Kay to the world of Burning Man in 2000. In 2001 she found her tribe in the Space Virgins, and remains a die-hard Virgin to this day. You will frequently find Kay behind the bar at many events, as she loves to be close to the Whiskey (the official Space Virgin beverage), and loves to get people drunk.

Amani Ellen Loutfy is a person. She’s under pressure to write a bio for herself, and isn’t quite feeling up to task. She’s a writer, emcee and general freaky participant. Mouthy, opinionated, driven and difficult to deal with, she’s compassionate, loyal and loving. Your standard human. She’s passionate about community building and jazz.

Aurora Queen is a rockin breaks dj. She likes it when people shake their asses. She is not affiliated with any theme camp and is a secret undercover agent, that’s why you’ve never heard of her before.

Randy Engstrom is a glutton for punishment. He is hell-bent on organizing communities of artists around a shared goal. He actually likes writing business plans. He developed the Stronghold Arts Collective and Static Factory Media, and claims Arson Island Resort as his greatest clusterfuck. He likes hip hop and Megaphones, cold beer and political discourse. One of his best qualities is that he’s naive enough to actually try to change the world. Contrary to popular belief, he does not hate trance music. He simply doesn’t care for it. But I’m just saying…

Dave Martinez, aka diem, is one deluded Latino. With a penchant for wearing bunny ears at the drop of a hat, he is one positive man who loves his community. Arriving in Seattle on April Fools’ Day 2001, and spending time slinging pizza and selling kilts, his boss gifted him with a ticket for this “Burning Man” thingy……

Since then he hasn’t really slept. With incredible amounts of help over the years, he created massive and in turn the regional, critical massive. Peterman, his arch nemesis co-regional with the superior ass, invited him on board to be co-regional in November 2003.

‘If John Wayne and Johnny Rotten were both still alive, and they got in one of those transporter pods from the remake of /The Fly/ and were somehow genetically interwoven, and as soon as the weird hybrid emerged, it was set upon and dressed in black, then you might well have Corprew. Or you might have Cyndi Lauper. That’s the kooky thing about genetics; you never know what you’re going to get.’
–Andrew
Solberg

In the mountains above Taos, NM, Corprew had strange dreams that led him to leave New York and make his home in Seattle. Eventually, those same dreams led him to Burning Man. The other things that came about from
following these dreams were horribly bad ideas. He’s been involved with the Rangers since 1999 as ‘Ranger Zeitgeist,’ and has been doing an on-playa radio comedy show for them since 2000. Since about then, he’s been organizing the rangers locally, but now there’s a local council that allows him to devote more time to his twin hobbies — grad school and napping.

David Peterman (that’s Mr. Peterman, to you) is one of the last people you’d expect to find at Burning Man, yet there he has been, every year since 1996. In those years he gave a voice to the insolent playa chicken, upset a great many people with an MTV-related prank, co-founded the village of Hushville, took way too many pictures, was tricked into accepting the role of Seattle Regional Contact in 2002 (partially pawned off on Diem in 2003, sucka!), and has rarely slept past 6 a.m. on any morning on the playa. His musical tastes are firmly rooted in old-school punk, and he believes that anyone who likes that electronic stuff is obviously hopped up on goofballs.