Yes well i probably fooled you with the previous post, i decided i want to try to turn It into a full length novel (assuming i can find the time to write it) so i'll just do a quick and dirty summation of this years burn.
Most of you are quite aware that i'm a Burner. This was my third return to Black Rock City, and it was very much as unique, different, wonderful, and difficult as any of the previous migrations to what has become my defacto home.
For those of you who aren't sure what burning man is, I encourage you to visit the Burning Man website, www.burningman.com. My description of it, as are any other descriptions of it, will always come short, as there exists no other place like it on Earth, or very well in human history.
Burning man, at its simplest, is a participants created festival, art show, and city that self assembles its self every year in the black rock desert, about 90 miles north of Reno, NV. The end of the week long event culminates in the burning of "the man," a 50 ft tall statue that resembles that of a man. The event ends two days later following the burning of a temple and disassembley of the city. The event is over 20 years old now.
This year's theme was "The American Dream." Participants are encouraged to design their camps, art, music, and creative talents around the theme, although this is not necessary. The layout of black rock city is in the shape of a donut, with streets going around the center. in the middle is the center street, called the Esplanade, which include the largest and most interactive of every camp there.
Every year ive brought more and more people with me. My first year i more or less brought myself, although i did meet up with my freind drew and drop him off, cutting himself out of the majority of the journey. Last year we caravaned up together, and met other NM burners up there. This year i brought three freinds with me, and met up with about 10 other NM burners and about another 10 freinds from Denver. We camped with the Purple Palace camp. The owners of the Palace, Dizzy and Mojo, have turned a double length city transit bus into a three story purple party machine. It's pretty fucking huge, and damn fun to party on.
I took my work vehicle and trailer (we're allowed to do that with our vehicles at work) which was probably not the best of ideas, and while we didn't have to pay for gas or upkeep on the car, i wont do it again, as it pushed the entire rig to its limits on capacity. Thankfully we didn't have any mechanical problems, although it did completely wear the tires on the trailer out, and i'll have to replace them as soon as i can get a chance to.
Our trip started on Saturday august 22, when i finally was able to get our entire crew packed into the car around midday. After a stop at a lotta burger in the valley, we headed straight for Las Vegas, NV, where we were due to stay overnight. The drive took us about three hours longer than i had hoped it would due to the decreased speed of my rig. Because we left so late, we didnt get into vegas untill around one in the morning. We promptly passed the fuck out. We got up and cleaned and after a bite to eat and a much too long stay at the walmart getting food in our coolers, we hit the road.
After two pit stops for gas we made it to Fallon, NV. Fallon is about 40 miles east of reno, and is mostly a farming community. after more running around gettng more gas, filling our 40 gallons of water tanks up, and a stop for some breakfast, we headed straight for BRC.
We hit the gates of BRC about an hour after sunrise. We had to wait in line for about an hour, and after a few miles of driving in line, the first of what would be an all day dust storm started. Burning man is held in a dry lake bead, and the ground, which is called the playa, can be packed hard or be a gnarly layer of a inch or two of very fine alkaline dust.
after about an hour of figuring out where we would set up, we began setting up camp. It went up fairly fast, and thank god for that, as the wind began to pick up just as i was begining to sledge hammer in the first of my 2 ft long stakes. The stakes worked hella well at keeping the carport structure i had gotten earlier in the year down on the ground. we had set up my large tent inside the tent to try to keep the dust down. we set up a kitchen and chairs, and had ourselfs a home for the next week. I didnt set up the shower untill the next day, when the wind had subsided and i had a chance to rest.
Wind kept the dust storms raging all that day, and kept the larger camps from finishing setting up. It wasnt untill two days later that the larger camps were all up and functional on our side of the event. At almost 3 miles in diameter for just the main streets, conditions on each side of the playa are often quite different, with one side windy and the other side clear and perfect.
Tuesday through Friday were a succession of various missions, adventures, explorations, dramas, and straight up fear and loathing in las vegas style crazed debauchery. While it is a non stop party, there is always a moment where you can find a serene center, a place where you gain the fuel to really progress over the next year, and a moment where you know that humanity is worth a shot, that we do have something fucking meaningful going on here.
Of course these moments are always shattered by what is commonly know as the "Yahoo's". The Yahoos are a reference to the mud people in Gulliver's Travels, the people who wallow about in the dirt, fighting over shiny rocks. At burning man, these are the non participants, the frat boy types who only go there to see some tits and get drunk. They're the users of the system, the takers, never the givers. Im sad to report that they were extremely prevelant this year, leaving massive amounts of Moop (trash) and leaving some pretty shitty vibes all around. I have an extensive amount to say, even to the point where i may start a department of no yahoo's, a project designed to deal with the yahoo menace. Personally, i believe that yahooisim is the single largest threat our world has to face, as they are the creators of religous strife, wars, abuse, and overall shittyness in our existence. but thats for the novel.
Our crew was able to take in some amazing art this year. There was the Flaming Lotus Girls bronze flaming fire sculpture, the "bummer," a giant 3 story hummer, which i hurt myself on (i fell down about 6 sets of stairs exiting it), a giant tetris installation (about the size of a football field), the skyscraper, a 10 story metal skyscraper built out there, and of course the temple, which was truly an amazing work of art to just be inside. there were many others but these were the largest and stick out the most in my head.
I was able to watch the man burn from on top of the purple palace this year. While most people were partying, it felt like a solomn occasion personally, as this previous year has been one of the most dificult in my adult life. many very long relationships ended, but new ones came and took their place. There was a wind storm that lasted into the night, which delayed the burn by a few hours. It was burnt, finally, and we all went on to party. I ended up going to bed early, i knew i needed to have some energy the next day in order to tear down the camp. It took about 2 hrs for me to fall asleep as we were only about 50 feet from the green gorilla lounge, but they were pounding out some fucking insanely good music, so i didnt feel like i missed out on the night of partying.
We finally got camp loaded up and ready to go by about midday the next day. A cold front had swept in and it was decisivly colder on sunday. Im pretty proud of my crew, they did a great job in helping cleaning, packing, and getting their shit done. I'd camp with any of them any time.
we decided, finally that we had had enough, and didnt need to wait and see the temple burn as we had planned. I think that was a good thing, we all left something behind in that temple, and its often very difficult to see something so sacred turn to nothing.
Its ok though, there will be another one next year.
Our exodus into reality wasn't half bad this year either. It only took us about 4 hours to get to the nearest Jack in the Box, where we feasted like a pack of hungry wolves. We tried to get a room there in Fallon but were turned away. I almost felt like Joseph and Mary, heh. The last place was pretty shitty towards me, so I dumped the 13 bags of trash and carpet we carried off for the rest of the assholes who left their garbage at their dumpster, which really wasn't cool of me to do, but they pissed me off with their attitude. Karma bit me as one of the bags ripped and doused me with some unknown liquid. Good thing i was already filthy.
We made it to Reno and after trying about 10 hotels, decided to just park in the lot of the one we had already had a reservation at. Unlike last year they didn't like us sleeping in the lot, and we were woken up at 6am by a security guard who guided us to another lot across the street. Ironically we had the same issue last year, as a cop kicked Cetta and I out of Long Beach. Cetta was passed the fuck out, so Okie, Myself, and Carla went inside to eat.
We were supposed to go see Claude Von Stroke at some after party, but the promoter was acting like a douche bag and was unable to give us a time or tell us where he'd be playing, so we ended up passing out again. we slept through the night and left for Vegas. the trip back to Vegas was ok until we got to Goldfield, which is some sketchy hick town in the middle of nowhere. Outside one of the buildings is a tee pee with a fake man hanging from a noose. It was hella fucking sketchy, so we went through as fast as possible. the cops in the small towns were looking for blood, and they freaked us out again in Beatty, when a trooper pulled over the car behind us, and gave us a big scare in the process. they'd been going about 27 in a 25 zone. Damn good chocolate in Beatty, stop at the really big gas station on the north end of town if you happen to be unlucky enough to go through.
We did another night in vegas. Honestly, Vegas is like the first ring of hell, and the last damned place any soul should return to after a week of dusty bliss. I think the close accommodations was way too much as two members of the crew started having a cat fight all day. None of us wanted to be there, San Fransisco would have taken a lot of the edge off. Because we had gotten up too late, however, we decided to wander around the strip until the sun went down and the temperature cooled off. The fight continued through the day but got better when someone got her smoke on. we had sever over heating issues the rest of the drive through Kingman. it was pretty shitty getting out of Laughlin, where we were barely able to make 30 mph over the mountain passes there, and Laughlin itself was a good 15 degrees hotter than the surrounding ares like Vegas and Kingman.
I let Carla drive after Kingman, and i slept the rest of the way home. I'm super grateful that she's able to deal with pulling a trailer (she has horses) it helped me out quite a bit. we made it back to burque around 9am on Thursday morning (i think)
This is a pretty banal and g rated version of what really went on. I deleted the nudity, drugs, madness, visions, and all around crazyness that went on. I mentioned only two of the wonderful and beautiful people I encountered. While these things will eventually be written about, whats most important is that most of us were able to take something vital out of this experience. While I had my long list of complaints, this city is something, at its core, substantially and quantitatively different than any other in human existence. Most cities form around shared defense, trade routes, water, basic physical needs. This one is formed out of the creative need. its very intangible what this all means, right now, but its effects, I believe, will be felt for many generations to come.
(thanks to Carla for the pics)