Copyright 2002, All Rights Reserved
A letter to my lawyer
Becker--
You wretched shyster scum. I'll snap your SPINE like a female mantis in a week or so, that is, unless you wise up and clear the fuck out of all known hideouts...Burning Man is over, and when the smoke clears from the Playa and my aching synapses, I'm comin' for YOU, because I have one clear memory left from BTB [Before the Burn], and that is of you, my twisted so-called Friend and Advisor, dumping me off with the Dutch speed freak [velocity, not pharmaceuticals] and his '74 VW pop-top microbus [into which he's lashed a turbocharged Porsche 6-banger, a killer sound wall w/Bazooka subwoofer, and maybe 100 blue/white medical LEDs scavenged from endoscopes which cast a sheen of light on the road under the perimeter of the bus] in Eugene...who turned out to be Very Cool, but the "chocolate" you gave us to keep us going for the twelve-hour hump over the Southern Pass from Oregon to California was laced with many grams of our friendly mushroom so WE WERE DOSED AT 12000 FEET as we began our descent into the desert for a week of "Burning Man"--and we didn't even know what the fuck Burning Man WAS--
What follows is a random synopsis of events I think happened from that point on. Most is recreated... though I did have audio tapes and lots of stills, the Black Rock Desert dust is hard on equipment...the most reliable source was ironically the most primitive: my scrawled notes. As my ‘editor’, I insist you forward it on to the usual suspects. As my friend and associate, when I find you, I'm gonna kick your lily ass--I suspect you've holed up with the yoga-hippie chick for post-Burn recovery, if you ever made it Down There, but you hafta come out from the Pleasure Dome sometime...
Christ! [Or as my Brit friends might say, in a similar fit of pique, Cunting Jesus!, which we inscribed at an undisclosed location near Death Valley on our merry way to see Phish in Las Vegas, but I digress] I'm still thinking like I'm on the Playa, madness and nakedness in all directions at all hours, Amsterdam and even Bangkok lame/dilute/weak imitations, pedaling in stoned and tripping on my $4 junker bought and painted esp. for Burning Man, to some random camp--not specifically the Pleasure Dome, but maybe Lesbian Love Rumble, the Illuminaughty, the Mutaytor or Alien Love Nest--and I'll detail these and other entities which appeared and vanished in the seven day Experience which is Burning Man below, but a bit of Set and Setting first, with the obligatory tip o' the hat to Kesey and Leary, may their souls forever trip the night fantastic--
You assured me that Jens is a mechanical genius, a veritable McGuyver (sp?), able to launch and track a satellite with nothing more than a slingshot and a police scanner wired into a car battery--
And so he was. We had walkie-talkies, scanners, recorders, various microphones, solar panels, cameras--and the growling turbocharged Porsche lurking in the back bay of the bus. Trust me, vintage microbuses abound on the highways here in the freak-friendly northwest, but these are plodders, all. NO ONE expects to get their doors blown by a rusting orange hippievan over the pass--Jens delighted in clogging the slow lane, letting a few folks get frustrated as we wound upwards, then jamming it down and shrieking by, LEDs painting an electric flash on the retinas of startled drivers, pot and cherry tobacco smoke billowing out the back--
Which brings us to the first little snag in the festivities, motherfucker. Jens, the mechanical-fucking genius, had a burned out License Plate Bulb, so somewhere east of Ashland (where the Toyes of Smoke 2 Joints fame reside) we were pulled over, shrooming and holding maybe half a dozen felonies between us. I'm not at all certain how we maintained composure...
Cops always start out polite: the reason we're stopping you tonight, sir, is the your rear plate light is burned out-- which means, effectively, we pulled you over Because We Can--and somehow they didn't see me jamming things into my pockets, maybe because I removed my wallet at the same time, ready to flash ID, my Policeman's Benevolent Assoc. card and a Hugs Not Drugs sticker on the credit-card caddy--
But they didn't give a fuck about me. They ran the plates and Jens through their checks and he emerged as clean as a baptized babe. He's a legal alien, got his green the hard way, a decade-long marriage to a Very Bad American Woman. The cops bade us a good trip to Black Rock City, and we rolled.
The Black Rock Desert lies at 4 thousand feet in the northwest corner of Nevada. The descent over the pass is treacherous at night, but a waning half-moon under clear skies set the rocks along the road aglow with silver fire. We actually had to stop to convince ourselves they weren't capped with snow at the end of bleeding August. So the trip down from the mountain and the mushrooms was unspeakably peaceful and beautiful. Jens kept asking me what Burning Man was and I kept saying things like think Summer of Love meets Mad Max meets techno-anarchy, white witchcraft and pagan/goddess/gaian/phallus worship, set off by every genre of art, music, bodypaint, and other sundry self expression and crowned with an hour long blast of just-short-of-nuclear pyrotechnics that make Walt Disney look like a fucking pansy--
And he seemed to understand, despite the drugs and the language barrier. Face it, native speakers have a hard time with me, but this Dutch bastard truly seemed to be meshing with my karma--but the truth was, I didn't really know. I'd read a lot, I'd visited the website, but I figure reading about doing major brain surgery on yourself and actually wielding the laser/scalpel are different things.
One thing I'd gathered: I would be transported, transformed, transmogrified, achieve transcendence, even. I feared the Hype, the inevitable letdown. But before we'd even arrived at the mythical-and-only-temporary Black Rock City, the energy and tension began to build, the rising curl of a tsunami that would crest and crash multiple times over the week, one psychic orgasm pounding after the other--
We had a brief and potentially nasty run-in with a local proprietor in Gerlach. As the sun began to show behind the black mountains we pulled in to the last place for eighty miles that could recharge our propane. A huge military truck with an armoured personnel carrier in tow was parked across the street. Military equipment, land and air, are common sights in the remoter regions of the desert west. But I thought it odd that the carrier had several gun turrets open, evil black muzzles poking through. Turns out it wasn't military. The aged bearded freak in charge gleefully told us he was on the way to The Burn, the truck held hundreds of gallons of fuel, water and booze. The personnel carrier was a WWII-era British Ferret, the black muzzles were water cannon to cool the naked beautiful people prancing in the Playa, and the Ferret itself would tow a full-service Tiki-bar behind it--
The three of us talking there apparently looked odd to the station owner, who pulled up suddenly in an immaculate yellow pickup, stomped on the brakes and demanded to know what we were doing with his propane tank. He mellowed and smiled when we told him we were waiting for him to open. Ten minutes later we were fully gassed, propane, gasoline, and nitrous, the latter courtesy of the Ferret-freak, promising to find him on the Playa and we headed for the last narrow stretch of macadam which the downloaded map told us ended at Black Rock City. Grinning madly, puffing on freshly rolled cigarettes, mine laced with sweet Humboldt juicy fruit, I took the wheel and raced into the vortex, the vibes touched off by the Ferret-freak rising with us, Jens swearing in Dutch and the now-dead Entwistle beating bloody fuck out of Naked Eye live as the sun broke over the hills and we looked for the first time upon Black Rock City.
Two signs posted along the entrance read:
For those who have attended Burning Man, no explanation is necessary.
For those who have not, no explanation is possible.
The City appears on the 400 square mile dry lakebed of nearly white, hardpack alkali dirt. At one end is the entrance and the airport. The airport, like the city, is temporary. Ultralights to turbo-props fly above the Playa at all hours, even now on Day one. Skydivers became so common you ceased to look up at them unless they landed right in front of you, forcing quick brake-and-pedal response on the bike. But that was what I saw first: Planes and skydivers, and what appeared to be just a few tents in the brilliant distance.
But the Playa is so bloody flat you can't see past anything. We would soon discover those few tents were several thousand people and maybe half of the structures, vehicles, and alternate dimensions which ultimately would make up the City for six nights hence, until the night of the Burn. We rolled right up to a gate and were stopped by a smiling nymphet in gold strap-sandals and little else, nipples and navel and clitoris pierced and connected by a fine gold chain. She played with the chain while she gave us printed matter, which for obvious reasons we didn't even glance at until later. But we learned that camping rules were Leave No Trace, be discreet if you plan on doing drugs, no money could be used to purchase anything, except ice and coffee. Everything else you obtained in Black Rock City was either a gift or a trade. I figured once we got in there cash would be changing hands, but it didn't. People gave us food, water, wine, drugs, trip toys...our neighbor Arvid laid another solar panel on Jens for repairing his truck.... it was incredible. You just carried stuff around you could give. On Day two I was having my 10 a.m. spliff when I noticed a young dude walking towards me, shirtless, unshaven, bandana wrapped around his head. I offered the spliff as he passed. He stopped, grinned, took a huge hit and released the smoke slowly through his teeth: Thanks, man. Just what I needed. I'm camping just over there why don't you come by wait fuck it I just got back from Peru and I've got somethin for ya--
And off he went. I shrugged it off as a typical drug conversation then zow he was back on a bike and carrying a large plastic cup, which he offered to me immediately. Peruvian cactus, man, about half as strong as peyote, we just blended this here, drink up--and pow, my second trip of the burn, this time mescaline, which fueled Huxley's Doors of Perception--
But back to the quadruple-pierced masochistic beauty who greeted us-- that is definitely the Second Thing I noticed about Burning Man after the crowded airspace: clothing is optional, and in the dry white heat of the Playa, most people Opt Out. Nighttime attire, we would learn later, consisted of layering, the layers to be shed to expose truly bizarre costumes and nakedness as physical activity increased (read tripping/dancing/biking/bungee-jumping/or maybe climbing on the back of a fire-spewing dragon lumbering across the desert--) in short, the place reeked of sex, naked dancing, drinking, drug taking, biking, eating, a fair amount of public sex acts, including a two-guys-and-two-girls multiple-orifice fest just beyond the guests seated at The Pufferfish on our first night on the Playa, and an hour long/nearly motionless tantric love-fuck in front of two thousand people in central camp at high noon between a couple who appeared simply to be madly, blissfully in love--
And at this point, we still didn't know what we were in for, but the energy was as big and boundless as the burning sky. We drove in at 5 mph, the maximum speed near the camps to keep the dust down, and found a fairly remote spot to set up and try to get on top of the weirdness that was closing in around us--
We pitched camp by parking the sliding door of the bus away from the prevailing winds. They reached 70 mph at times, and though the desert dust was fairly hard, a fine grit blew constantly, punctuated by the occasional 300-foot dust devil blasting through and grabbing dishes, cups, poorly-pitched tents and debris and carting it a mile or so away--
In this, the Ninth Burning Man, the City was laid out as always--a gigantic concentric wheel with spokes radiating out from a huge (think the entire University of Illinois campus huge) central hub. The Central Hub is the actual Playa. Each year the theme changes and the flavor of the Burn is altered accordingly. This year the theme is The Floating World. At the center of the central hub stands The Man. 150 feet tall, constructed of wood, The Man is perched atop a Lighthouse, upon and into which you can clamber about and explore. By day it is unimpressive... a bland stick figure.... but at night it is outlined in electric-blue neon and a green laser beacon as fat as your arm blasts through the desert night casting solid green beams at 90 and 180 degrees. After a few hours, you quickly learn to navigate along the spokes and circles, and if ever you get lost, simply head up a spoke toward the Man and find your street--
The whole week you gaze up at the man in all manner of consciousness and you know one thing--that that fucker is gonna BURN--
People are camped in the areas beyond the central hub. Camps range from single tents to multi-semi-truck extravaganzas with bars, bands, film, fire dancers. like the Damsterdam a club where you have to check your soul at the door and must do whatever the bartender tells you to do, in a window facing the busy public street, prominently lit and labeled WHORE, to get your soul back and leave--
And rereading this I can see that any attempt to logically tell the beautiful phantasmagoria that was and still is Burning Man is futile...it's like trying to explain transcendent sex to a lifetime nun--so I'll just rattle on, trying to hit the high points and stressing the underlying peaceful anarchic lawlessness of the place...the police were there, but largely a non-issue.
So here we go--
Burning Man is an experiment in temporary community. It has police, fire and public works. Public works includes portapotties and watertrucks that drive by a few times during the hot desert day, blasting its airhorn to announce its approach, trundling slowly and spewing great founts of cold water out the back. As the truck approaches, people rise from their camps where much of the day is passed, (the real action at BM is at night) stripping off their clothes and jogging behind until thoroughly soaked, cooled and refreshed, 19 year old thoroughly shaved beauties running laughing alongside me, other men, older women, and some folks whose gender can best be described as indeterminate--
It has an airport.
It has coffee and ice for sale, but everything else is gift or trade. You are responsible to bring your own food, shelter and water--at least 1.6 gallons per person per day. You are not permitted to enter unless you can show the Greeter that you can provide for these basic needs.
Most people bike. Vehicles are not permitted once you set camp, unless you have a DMV (Dept. of Mutant Vehicle) permit from Black Rock City...and they are not kidding when they say Mutant. No minivans here, pantyboys, think back to the above-mentioned Ferret....and that was nothing. Buses, trucks and cars are welded cut hammered and bent to create fantastic sailing ships, submarines, octopi, jellyfish--all manner of strange craft and creature which pertained to the sea, the Floating World--and these vehicles were permitted to blast along the central hub at jackrabbit speed, stopping suddenly to disgorge or pick up passengers. There was a giant yellow rubber duckee, the vehicle that appeared, through computer controlled glow-wire, to propel itself by massive hands grasping and pulling it along. Fire-throwing capacity was popular. Pirate ships, sea monsters, the Deathguild vehicles (these guys were the living/breathing embodiment of Road Warrior, studded leather and crazy chases through the Playa, machine guns firing blue flame and flame throwers arcing beautiful napalm....) Some of the vehicles, particularly the large ships, had bars, with massive sound systems, smoke bombs, strobes, etc., effects, and booze, bongs, X, nitrous. You name it, it was out there, and you'd get a bit as a gift or in exchange for a cigarette, a brownie, etc., or even once to my utter delight, a lovely naked girl sat down next to me handed me a joint and asked if she could kiss me in exchange.
Needless to add, I bartered for more.
Don't ask me how no one got hurt. I don't know. Despite the craziness, the explosions, the skydivers, the endless dark expanse of the playa at night, foot and bike and Mutant vehicle traffic all buzzing and crashing around the desert on drink and drugs and the sheer mental psychic energy of the place--
Art was everywhere. Gigantic moving sculptures. Billowing tapestry. Burning metal gardens. Mind-blowing psychedelic displays generated by I don't know what technology. Film (like at Lesbian Love Rumble, a large white enclosed canvas tent into which no male was allowed. Various footage of lesbians and the like was projected from within the tent. The entrance was guarded by an adorable woman in a fur coat and a thong. She sweetly explained the LLR was for women only so we asked her what she had for two straight guys. Her smile broadened and she pulled out the Rolodex and started flipping through the various sex-oriented camps--) and painting and dance...all of it happening at all hours, slightly subdued during the day.
There were 45 or so (temporary) radio stations, some typical rock and jazz and techno, etc, and others broadcasting nothing but bootlegged live Pink Floyd, or maybe Burroughs narrating the hotshot sequence from Naked Lunch [a poison fix, usually strychnine, given to a known addict-informant for liquidation purposes. Strychnine is preferred because it resembles heroin in taste and appearance] or Terence McKenna waxing philosophic on the mechanistic soul-herding elves you experience and communicate with after smoking a single hit of Dimethyltryptamine--
And through it all, the gifts. Chocolate covered strawberries. A cool water shower. Glowing hula hoops. A beautiful chillum carved from an Oregon coast volcanic rock. Mushrooms. A huge phosphorescent skunky north-slope bud. A valium. The Peruvian mescaline-cactus drink. An acid-etched gaian pendant that I'm wearing as I type. Kisses, hugs, and outright sex. These are some of the things I received. I gave away a lot of joints, apples and sips of water as I had little else to trade. I didn't really have the balls to offer kisses, etc., but when requested I usually yielded them up. But if your batteries died way out in the darkness, someone would proffer a glowstick to get you home, or they'd toss your bike into their monstrous mutant sub and Dive!Dive!Dive!, complete with warning claxon and water-whooshing sounds, plying you with glowing blacklit gin and tonics until the sub finally rolled up to your camp--kindness, rampant human kindness. Most strangers you met offered at least a brilliant smile and maybe a jolly Holy Fucking Shit! as a greeting---and people simply having fun, checking out the art, the fire, the madness, and most of all, Each Other....Burning Man is a place where beauty is manifest and the people are destiny. Hugh Hefner? A punk, a poser in the prelims, the double A league. Burning Man is utterly rife with Spectacularly beautiful men and women in all form of dress and undress. Body paint is de rigueur, underwear and the majority of pubic hair verboten. Teeny fur or leather or lycra skirts, translucent dresses, or nothing but a bit of body glitter, the people on the Playa are there for each other to look at, to strike sparks and communication---
This went on every night until Saturday. The Burn itself is truly impressive, I mean, they fucking napalmed that thing, a fire so intense it created a flaming funnel cloud that seemed like it could kill us--and I'm leaving out so much, Critical Tits (the topless all-female version of the Bay Area bike protest Critical Mass), the evil sadomasochistic clowns that sporadically erupted into your space, leering and wreaking whips-and-leather havoc, sculptures, the four young women who set up their tents, shower and open-air dressing room right behind our microbus and ended up partying naked with us a lot throughout the week, the Bay area hipsters who invited me to come stay on their boat this summer, the beautiful Northern Coast girl who 'found ' me after a few days-she'll be manicuring the harvest this fall and invited me to the farm to house-sit with her. You can write all day and have me at night, she said, as she handed me her address and numbers on a scented sheet--
And that is where I am headed, Becker. I'm a bit ragged and need to hunker down and sort it out. So I guess I'll leave you alone. You're safe, for now. You have your darling hippie goddess, and I have mine. I've done the best I can to give the flavor of Burning Man, which has indeed changed my life, and I can only add one thing:
I'll Never Miss It Again.
Peace, you evil bastard. Watch your back. Because I will come out eventually.
--GB
