> Go to ANY of the parks in Portland and I am sure you will find people drinking, smoking pot, using crack etc...... <

Yes, of course -- it's a city.

But how many places do you find that people congregate in numbers greater than 20, at the same time each week, making noise, spinning fire, drinking and smoking and snorting stuff until midnight or later?

> Whatever parks and rec are blowing up your ass is bull... <

Not entirely. They showed up the first weekend, and at the first complaint they will show up again, in whatever numbers necessary to enforce the law. I would never make that complaint, but eventually somebody will.

Just as when dealers or hookers routinely work a small area, sooner or later the law will turn out and round up the usual suspects. And if ordinary citizens get a bug up their collective ass and complain, the law will make the underpass and other places a "no burn zone," and enforce it for long enough to make things difficult and unpleasant for burners.

Behaving outside the law, even for such a trivial thing as burning, is not comfortable for most people. And renegade burners are not representative of the whole community of burners.

While many admire and applaud renegade behavior, very few are willing to put themselves in jeopardy by actually doing it. So if the law isn't changed, burning will become something only outlaws and criminals do. That's unfair to the larger community that simply wants to burn and spin.

That's why we tried to change the law.

We'll continue to try.

At one time there were no skate parks and skateboarding was not considered a legitimate form of transportation. Skateboarders were renegade by definition. Then the law was changed and skateparks were built and skateboarders can legally use bike lanes now. That transition, from outlaw to citizen, can happen for burners, too.

There are still renegade skateboarders because some people will insist on making their lives more exciting than other peoples' lives, but they have to really work at it to get busted today.

There will always be renegade burners. But there are other kinds of burners, too.

Do you really NOT want us to work for that?

Re: renegade burning...


Tony, we had a fun time at your campout last fall, and I was wondering if you'd want to do it again? At that location or here in the city, at some point yourself or myself or someone makes contact with the 'authorities' (fire, parks, police) and we start to build up a rapport. On some level they want to know that if they talk to 'us' then word will go around to fire performers in general. If it turns out that they can't inform us of their wishes (no open flame or burning for the time being), then they won't necessarily see any reason to talk to us. "if you can't keep your people in line..." goes the argument.


Promoting fire performance under that particular bridge at that particular time sends a message that we are unwilling or unable to work together, and that we're unwilling to listen and respect the people on the other side of the table.

Relating to that property where the campout was - if we start discussing a fire arts campout for the fall, and they say, "we want you to have safety and permits and a fire extinguisher and $150 worth of insurance" and we can't afford that at the time, would you really want someone to go down and 'do it renegade', ruining the chance to work out a future agreement for all?

Well that's different, that's their private property, right? The _parks department_ is the private property holder for this property. Fire performers could perform on the street leading INTO the area, and not really have to worry cause it's CITY PROPERTY. Big difference. We're in a long, slow dance with the Parks Department to clarify and establish what can be done next with the event, and they wanted the fire people to

a) back off, stop spinning
b) leave the drummers to determine if the drummers by themselves are responsible for the trash and drinking, their main concerns
c) come to them with a coherent plan, probably involving a different location.


If we are unable as a community to step back for a bit, together, then instead of them being able to get a 'read' on the continuing drum/drinking party every sunday, they are going to zoom in on no-safety no-permission fire performance and be unable to examine the rest of the issue.


And HissMeow, while I might not have appreciated how he said it ('sucks' never does anyone favors), I can understand how he read your posts as focused on what was _wrong_ instead of what to do next. It's a language thing, and separate from actual people. "it's not what we say it's how we say it". Hope that helps.

;-b