Piss Clear: Black Rock City's favorite alternative newspaper

1998 I remember when...

... I could stand in the middle of camp and talk to everyone without yelling.

... it took the whole city to raise the Man.

... all the Black Rock Rangers had guns and you felt safe.

... you could assume that nobody would do anything stupid, instead of assuming that no matter how stupid something is, somebody will do it.

... nobody even knew we were using the hot springs.

... Spike the dog fell in the Fly Hot Springs and died.

... we went to Burning Man to escape the city.

... the largest sound system on the playa was our boom box.

.. there was only one radio station, and it operated out of the back of a moving truck.

.. to get to Burning Man we had to carry the school bus twenty miles through four feet of snow.

... there was no Burning Man website.

... there were no television crews at Burning Man.

.. there were only 600 people here but it seemed like more of them were naked.

... they only cleaned the porta-potties once during the whole weekend.

... you could drive in Black Rock City.

... Flash would have to give away hamburgers at McSatan's in order for people to eat them.

.... you could bring weapons to Burning Man, and use them... safely, of course.

... when the fire lingham was only one eight-foot tower, and actually seemed quite dangerous.

... that cool espresso truck from Davis, California came to Burning Man.

... people placed sexually-explicit personal ads on the bulletin board in Central Camp.

... Rave Camp consisted of only two cars and a sound system.

... when Black Rock City was still a one-newspaper town.

... you could actually get a cocktail at the Cacophony Cocktail Party.

... Burning Man parties in San Francisco only happened once a year, instead of once a week.

÷ compiled by Stewart McKenzie, Adrian Roberts, Danger Ranger, Lisa Hoffman, Lizard Man, PF, Swirly Rat Jr., and the Space Cowgirls