Didn't you ever run around the backyard with your friends with a stick dressed up as Captain Video?
Posted on 04/29/2016 9:06:29 AM PDT by McGruff
For many, the end of the world might seem daunting, but for these festival goers a post-apocalyptic world in the middle of a Californian desert is a form of escapism.
At least this is the case for Mike Orr who is known as 'Sweet Lips' at Wasteland Weekend - the annual four-day festival that allows lovers of the Mad Max movie franchise to see what it is really like to live in a society where civilization is crumbling.
'It's the end of the world,' Orr said of Wasteland which attracts thousands from across the country. 'You get to do whatever you want to do.'
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Each year, attendees of the event are required to be decked out in costumes while at the festival's wasteland compound with organizers designing elaborate sets complete with Mad Max-style cars. Festival goers also drive out to the event in custom-made vehicles.
Orr, a life support aquarist at a public aquarium in Las Vegas, said he first learned of the festival through a former partner and their first year going, they decided to build a car.
He said he has worked on cars casually, rebuilding engines, but he described the competition to outdo himself by constructing a junkyard monster better than the previous year as an 'addiction.'
'It's an obsession,' he says in a documentary by MEL Films during last year's festival. 'But more than that, it's a passion. I'm married to this... even though I said I'd never get married again.'
In his first year at Wasteland, he acquired a '79 Camaro. For a week, they worked on the car, customizing it with a mermaid figure head taken from an underwater sunken pirate ship at the aquarium, and a harpoon made of air conditioning and heading duct work as well...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
What are you doing this weekend?
SoCal version of Burning Man...
Bloody nuts. I thought the mad max world was a hellish vision of the future, not something to seek out.
I do not quite get the modern habit of young folks wanting to live in an imaginary world. Kind of like the comic-cons, where thousands of folks show up dressed up like super heros.
What is it with this need to escape reality, it seems so different from the world I grew up in, and I am 52.
I guess every generation has a hard time understanding the ones coming after.
Now that’s a single property convention I could support.
It’s “Thunderdome” not “Thunderdrome” :P
“I do not quite get the modern habit of young folks wanting to live in an imaginary world.”
They’ve been raised on hours of it daily from day one. “Raise up a child as he should go, and his path shall not depart from it.”
Going camping with my Trail Life Scout troop. So, just like this, but without the cars.
I'm just kidding, of course.
Barely.
Of interest to preppers? If for no other reason than to see how ferals view, and prepare for, the apocalypse.
Get my ‘69 El Camino tricked out with a rocket launcher, and I’ll be there. LOL
Yes. Drome is from the Greek word for course (dromos), dome is, well, a dome, and is from the Latin word for house (domus - hence "Romanes eunt domus" ;-p).
Hippodrome (horse racetrack), Rollerdrome (rollerskate facility in my hometown), Palindrome (racecourse for Alaskans), Thunderdome (two men enter, one man leaves).
“I do not quite get the modern habit of young folks wanting to live in an imaginary world. Kind of like the comic-cons, where thousands of folks show up dressed up like super heros. What is it with this need to escape reality, it seems so different from the world I grew up in, and I am 52.”
The same reason kids want to do it. And the same reason people look at books/movies/shows. Reality for most people is pretty boring and they want to experience new things. Playing is like acting out scenes and being in a book together.
Currently, the most acceptable way for adults to escape reality together seems to be drinking and acting stupid. Is that really better than pretend play?
I’ve been to Burning Man many times and it felt like being in an endless show where everyone is part of the entertainment. Unfortunately in recent years it has become more saturated by mainstream adult “play” - drinking, drugs and sex.
“What is it with this need to escape reality, it seems so different from the world I grew up in, and I am 52.”
I escape reality 3 nights a week playing World of Warcraft. In that world I am a panda chick Mage who casts spells and calls her water elemental pet Chastity.
Oh, I’m 55.
I don’t know which would be fun. This or a Trump rally. Hell why not both. You only live once.
They should move it to Venezuela.
Palindrome = funny!
Didn't you ever run around the backyard with your friends with a stick dressed up as Captain Video?
At least this year the “no water” part of Mad Max’s world is true.
Ah yes. The restaurant at the end of the universe. Coming soon to a kitchen near you.
But then, what would an 8 year old care back in the day?
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