too hot, too dusty and way too loud (1/2)…

I have never been so happy to see the wreckage of the closet that is my apartment. I just carried 24 beers, two boxes of wine and probably 50 pounds of dusty burner crap up the four flights of stairs to my humble abode. I am exhausted, elated and completely manic. It feels bizarre sitting on my bed alone after being surrounded by 75 000 of the craziest mother fuckers on the planet.

Burning Man as a culture is a hard thing to put your finger on or describe in any way besides an exercise in hyperbolic self-expression. It is difficult to define a society that is constructed of countless other societies. Burning man is the Hajj of  anti-conventionalism. It is climbing the Himalayas of creativity.It is a pilgrimage in its own right and its significance, however uncouth, unholy and unwashed cannot be ignored.

I was asked “was it everything you expected it to be?”. the short and sweet of that is no. it cannot be expected. it is impossible to fully experience burning man. It’s too big and too faceted for one person to even scratch the surface so expecting anything of it would be pointless.

Burning Man as an event has no nationality. I met people from all over the world at Burning Man who came specifically to wear their furry boots and underwear while walking on stilts, talking shit and blowing bubbles (seriously). From what i observed BM culture is as infinite as the playa is dusty. Its a big fuck you to consumerism, conformity and conventionalism. It is to look a person in the eye and be all like “this is who I am and fuck you if you don’t like it”.  Where Woodstock was built on peace and love, burning man is built on getting drunk and drive by shooting guns at targets and blowing shit up. BM has no focus and it has no meaning. Its idea is to bring what you have, show it off for a week and then burn it or take it with you while expecting nothing in return.

Before i get into a Synopsis of my experience i would like to talk about the people that made the experience what it was. My burner family. I made the voyage to BRC with three of the most amazing people I know. Ms. Sally O Mally, Grand Pubah Spencer and Playa Princess Adrienne Elizabeth. When we arrived we joined the illustrious Camp Pillow Punch coordinated by Amy and Brian Weiner.

I have known Sally for only a few years and she has quickly become one of my favourite people in the world. Sally is a truly unique and beautiful soul. She has a knack for talking and relating to people and everyone that meets her instantly falls in love with her. How could you not? She is the full package. Beauty, brains an acute sense of humanity. Sally IS Burning Man. It is an environment where she thrives and I was honoured to be able to share my first experience there with her.

THANK GOD FOR SPENCER!!!! Spencer is someone you can always depend on to get stuff done. He drove our 30ft beast there and back like a pro without a word of complaint and when we got there he showed me how it was done. Spencer also likes to drink like i do. A lot. Me and him and the slutty blue tube were the drinking dream team. Mixing drinks on the dance floor at Roots Underground and bike cheersing smash to pass was one of my favourite moments. Spencer kept me alive with his delicious meals and amazing driving and my experience wouldn’t have been the same without him.

Adrienne Elizabeth. The Playa Premadonna. Another full package. She has her masters in Genetics… AND PARTYING!!! She kept it real while keeping it clean in both senses of the word. She barely drank but she was out every night partying like a rock star and was a vision while doing it. I really enjoyed getting to know Adrienne more over the festival. Adrienne has a sense of youthful wisdom about her that is refreshing and energizing. Adrienne’s life is and will continue to be a beautiful success story.

I was a very fortunate Virgin Burner. Not only did I not have to stick it out in a tent in the middle of the blazing hot desert for my first year but I was fortunate enough to be taken under the wing of the incredibly organized and generous Amy and Brian Weiner. I just met the Weiners at BM and instantly felt accepted by their tribe. Brian brought all the supplies needed for a kick ass theme camp as well as a ballin’ art car that he was kind enough to let me ride on throughout the festival. Amy is not only a knockout but she is also one of the funniest people I met at BM. The girl knows how to put a costume together and have a good time. Her and Brian are an amazing team and I am very grateful to have met them and be a part of their camp. Camp pillow punch killed it. Princess, Doug and Flo, Kris, Fabricio, Gypsy, Dr. Gonzo and everyone else were an amazing part of my experience.

The trip down was the only part of my “Vacation” that i would have deemed relaxing. Because Adrienne and I were not on the insurance for the RV (and for our lack of 30ft vehicle driving experience) the only thing we were expected to do was sleep, mix drinks, and prepare ghetto canapes. I am amazing at all of these things. We stopped at Subway in the morning for some breakfast sandwiches and i ran into the 7 11 to grab some smokes. I was pleased to see that they not only sold alcohol but CHEAP and GOOD alcohol. Naturally I bought an oversized bottle of Carlo De Rossi Chablis to get our morning started off right. I was drunk and then hung over by 1pm.

We said goodbye to showering when we left Chiliwack but were pleasantly surprised when we pulled in to an RV park the first night. Not only did they have a beautiful shower room with great heat and water pressure but they also had a hot tub and pool. This was much needed after a hard day of drinking and sleeping.

As I floated on my back in the cool waters of the pool i wished upon the first star that I saw. I remember hearing that tingly sand against glass sound that the water sloshing against your inner ear makes. It sounds like a thousand tiny distant wind chimes tinkling in the wind. The vertigo of being weightless on my back sent waves of electricity through my nervous system. I remembered hoping that my burning man experience would lift me out of my current slump while I watched one star turn to many and dusk into night. When it was time to close the pool we all mad our way to bed refreshed and slept soundly. We rose early swearing to return to this unlikely oasis on the way back.

We stopped at a hot springs along the way. It was crawling with Burners and locals. One guy i will never forget. He regaled us with his tales of redneckery growing up in the small town not far from the springs. One of his opening lines was “Shot myself once” he pointed to a cigarette burn like scar on his stomach “Didn’t work, won’t do that again! Best part was was all the purdy nurses at the hospital that pumped me full o morphine”. He wen’t on to tell us about the time a cop beat him up with a flashlight because he called the cop a pig and told him that his mother was a “Lot lizard, twenty five cent gutter slut, trailer tumble weed” he seemed to understand why he got the beating. Something about this man was strangely zen. He explained to us to never think that you are bigger than you are or the great spirit will put a voodoo hex on you. Good advice. He asked us “Why would you ever want to go to that Burning Guy thing when you could sit here in the Hot Springs and drink?” It would be hard to explain to a man that had never left his county what would await him in Black Rock City so we just left that one alone.

Another day of driving passed and just before we rolled onto the playa we saw a few cars parked on the side of the road and a woman walking away from them. She was wearing a towel and had clearly just been in some sort of water body. We slowed down and she said “Hot Springs!”. We pulled over and descended the hill to see the most beautiful hot springs in the world. The springs were offensively named “Squaw Bath” and they were surrounded by fresh mint plants and Sunflowers. We arrived as the sun was setting and there were a few people just finishing up. They left us a few joints that Spencer and I anxiously smoked. We had both been whining about how much we would like to get baked. We smoked and drank and sat in the beautiful springs which were almost a little too hot until we had to leave.

and then we were there

Upon entry of the playa everyone around you is welcoming you home even if you have never been there before. It was around midnight when we approached the seemingly infinite winding line of tail lights heading onto the playa. Sally and I were crafting our light up parasols with some fibre optics that we bought at Michael’s and listening to Burning Man radio. The man on the radio was walking around interviewing people in line. Every once in a while he would say “if you are listening to this in line up now honk your horn!” and sure enough everyone would start honking. There was a sense of hysteria in the air, an “are we there yet???” feeling of impatience. My burner family kept dropping hints that something was going to go down when i got to the gate and before i knew it i was rolling around ass naked with 3 other BM virgins completely covered in playa dust. When told to strip i was pretty reluctant. i’m not super comfortable with being naked in front of other people but I have never regretted anything I have done only the things I haven’t so i went for it. It was cold, dusty and pretty embarrassing but what better way to welcome the playa then roll naked in it. That was my first experience at Burning Man and it was pretty uncomfortable but something i wont ever forget. Virgin burners be warned: if you come to BM with me next year i WILL make you roll naked in the dust.

The road to the play is lined with signs that together form poems. There must have been hundreds of them.

When we finally rolled into new home at 6:00 and Detroit we were pretty tired. Spencer and I went on a short art tour and then headed off to bed. We had a lot of set up to do in the morning.

Monday:

Around 9:00am we got up and started putting together what would be Camp Pillow Punch. I was a little nervous because I knew I was about to meet a lot of people. I cracked an ice-cold PBR, put on my combat boots and opened the door to a beautiful sunny day. Sally looked at me and laughed… probably because of the beer and she immediately took me around to meet people she had met from previous burns. Everyone was lovely and hardworking and we had the camp set up in no time complete with complex Alluminetti arrangements and of course our pillow fighting ring. In addition to this our camp also sported some carport/tent structures that would be our chill out space as well as our kitchen. I can’t stress enough how fortunate I was to be a part of this camp. Anyone who knows me knows that I am much more likely to fly by the seat of my pants then plan anything so I probably would have been screwed. Once the camp and pillow fight ring we set off on our bikes to see what the first day of the burn had to offer

The first thing i noticed about BM is how happy and beautiful all the people are. Burning man isn’t something you do because you have nothing better to do. Everyone who is there is there because they want to be and they have something they want to bring to the experience. Naturally I got pretty drunk the first day. We were having a blast riding around and seeing everything when we noticed some pretty crazy clouds looming on the horizon. No one I talked to had ever experienced rain on the playa but that was about to change.

Imagine a huge wall of dust flying towards you at 60km an hour and then imagine rain drops the size of blueberries slamming into the ground. Thats what rain is like on the Playa. Adrienne, Sally, Spencer and I were in the middle of nowhere riding through the downpour. The mud grew thicker and thicker on our tires and we were beginning to feel a bit stressed. Because of the serendipitous nature of BM we no doubt came upon a rather large TeePee (or Wigwam if you will). We ducked inside and chilled out for a while and drank some beers. We were later joined by a young lady, her son Loki and an older man named Steve. I am unsure of the relationship between the young family and the older man but they acted like family members. They were from Gerlach which is the closest town to Black Rock City. Gerlach is a town of only a hundred or so and they informed us that only about 10 of the locals attend the festival every year. We were fortunate to meet 4 of them. The young lady brought with her a texas mickey of tequila and poured our already drunk asses one of the stiffest drinks i have ever had. We hung out and drank our drinks (i believe i finished not only mine but Adriennes as well as to not be rude… and because i’m a fiend for the sauce) until the skies cleared. We stepped outside and were awestruck. Stretching across the playa was the most enormous and beautiful rainbow i have ever seen. It was in fact a double rainbow (seriously) with multiple layers of purple underneath the lower rainbow. It was absolutely amazing. i have never seen a double rainbow before nor have i seen a rainbow from end to end. Because the playa is so flat and so vast you could see the whole thing. Up until that moment i was unsure about how i was feeling at the event. I knew i was where i was supposed to be but was still processing the harsh environment and the limitless stimuli. Standing there with my haphazard burner family and our lovely and unlikely newfound local friends, looking at the most beautiful thing i have ever seen awakened a feeling of belonging within me. This is the magic of burning man. Synchronicities abound and if you make the right choices and have the right attitude and open your self to the limitless possibilities you will see and experience things that are not possible anywhere else. Adrienne took a photo that really captured the moment and it may be my favourite picture of all time.

ANYWAYS how could this day get any better right? Day one seeing the most beautiful thing i have ever seen in my life??? not bad. We said goodbye to our Gerlach friends and did our best to drive our bikes back to camp. We made it pretty far but the mud was so thick that we had to get off and walk. By this time the sun was getting low and it was time to make some dinner. We ate and headed out on a night excursion. The plan was to take it pretty easy. We had a big day and were all pretty hung over from the tequila drinks. We checked out a few stages but nothing was really catching our fancy so we pulled up at the Pagoda in the middle of the playa and had some drinks. Conversation was great there. We talked and laughed for hours until deciding to head out.

Monday was art car night. Because not everyone was there yet none of the art cars were full and being with two really attractive ladies helped getting on whichever one we wanted to. We told ourselves around midnight that we were heading home but we kept getting abducted and boozified by these monstrous contraptions until we were in the deep playa. One of my favourite cars was the one shaped like an old Wagon. It was reminiscent of the video game Oregon Trail. We were tickled to find out that the cars name was “Jimmys got dysentery”. Not only were these guys rocking the finest in glitch hop and dub step they were all moustache clad and VERY attractive. Everyone knows how i like a good moustache… JGD took us out to the large glowing, dancing woman and we stood in awe of her for an hour or so before deciding to head home… finally. No more art cars… straight home. So we hopped an art car that seemed to be going the direction of centre camp (this one was a huge dick shooting fire into the sky), drank some more, ended up further away from camp then started the long, drunk trek home.

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Because this article is getting very VERY long and I am eager to post SOMETHING on Burning Man i am going to make it a two parter. At 3000 words and probably only about half done i run a serious risk of losing interest if i make this any longer. Stay tuned for further BM stories including but not limited to: the most amazing line up ever at The Entheon Village, Dickwiches, the Apres Ski party, the White Procession, Temple of Boom, Golden Dragons and of course the burning of The Temple and The Man.