Why I Sulked

It started, I suppose, before my time, when firearms and motorcycles were banned in 1996, and reached its peak in 2004, the last time I went. That year, the preliminary literature, suddenly—astonishingly--promoted Burning Man as “kid friendly” despite the ever-present back of the ticket promise that YOU RISK SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH BY ATTENDING BURNING MAN.[1] When we pulled in at midnight on Sunday, we endured a van-search—for stowaways—that’d make a narc wet his pants from envy. As the 2004 week ground on, I felt besieged by the so-called default world, the very thing we seek to escape.

For example, on Thursday, a woman woke me up at 9 am, not to share sex, food or drugs, but by talking on her satellite phone. I crawled out of my tent, eyebrows dusty, a little bleary, and beheld her there, wearing a terrycloth robe and slippers, sitting calmly in a cushioned Adirondack chair outside an impossibly shiny behemoth RV, a scene so suburban and blasé that for a moment I thought it was satiric performance art. But this woman kept chatting away like any oblivious tool with a cell phone in a strip mall café about how Neat It Is To Be Here. I was amused, then incredulous. After twenty minutes, I bailed, biking in to Center Camp to get ice before the heat really hit, where some massively uninformed kid offered me $20 for my place in line.[2] Later that night, the police made Jiffy Lube (a recurring Playa fixture renowned for supplying literally buckets of condoms and lubricant-packs to anyone—just grab a handful—as well as for the casual gay hook-up: Get In, Get Off, Get Out) tear down from its roof a giant wicker rendition of male-on-male sodomy. A mother-with-young-child had complained the sculpture was obscene. This is peculiar, because “community standards” govern these issues. By Black Rock City standards, sodomy--straight, gay, or otherwise--is barely a beige fiber in the tapestry.[3]

Had I witnessed the event, I no doubt would have suggested to Mommy, with deadpan concern, that she gather Jr. and juice boxes and flee back to suburbia, preferably before a roving Death Guild patrol kidnapped her and her child for a slow, Satanic sacrifice, under the kliegs in Thunderdome.

Sure, these are trifles, and I certainly had better options than sulking. I should’ve made a joke about the sat-phone to the woman then cooked her breakfast. I should’ve gifted my place in line to the uninformed kid. I should’ve simply ignored the fact that Jiffy Lube and/or Burning Man, LLC, didn’t tell the police to stick it, pun intended, regarding the wicker sodomy sculpture.

I concede the’04 festival had its moments. Like smoking salvia divinorum in a geodesic dome with carpets and pillows and candles and my friends Jens and Shalom watching out for me…(I’ll try to get to that later, but don’t fuck around with this stuff, not before talking to me or someone else who has been there...I’m still processing that trip, three years hence, truly terrifying, shamanic-level experience) and making ice cream at 2 pm on the Esplanade with Ben and Anita (who met at Burning Man in 2002 and are getting married this year--Congrats, kids!) and serving it up to every parched (and amazed and delighted) Playa person who emerged from the dust; finding Eli, a kindred spirit I only see at the Burn, who wasn’t apparent when I first turned up in his camp. Upon inquiry, a tripped-out dude in dusty black leather and dreads smiled and pointed to the van at the end of the shade structure. He spoke with a Brixton accent: “He’s in there—pop your head in and say hi.” The grin should have warned me. I slid back the door, and there was Eli, kneeling with a tiny video-camera, filming a guy shaving (what I assume was) his girlfriend’s pussy. Engrossed, neither of them even looked up. Eli, however, without missing a second of filming, glanced over from behind the viewfinder with one smiling eye: “Hey! Great to see you Gurn. I’ll be right out,” and he was, with a hug, a joint, an offer of DMT (which I declined, because of the salvia the night before)--and a copy of the video on a flash chip.

But despite the obvious link, to me Burning Man could be neither the purifying flame seen by the yoga-tarot chick nor the one I sought for myself. Indeed, I’d stayed away for over a thousand days, and intended to keep staying away, because even in Black Rock City, I could no longer see the edge of the envelope--my favorite place to be.

Next: Despite everything, a Return to the Burn.

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[1] Thank the lawyers, most of whom know such a disclaimer is actually pretty worthless. There have been several deaths and many more injuries at Burning Man over the years, but earlier attendees understood that the Black Rock Desert is dangerous just to hang around in, all by yourself, before you add several thousand libertines toting firearms, explosives, motorcycles, flamethrowers, ultra-light aircraft, and an equally impressive arsenal of drugs and alcohol. It’s ostensibly an arts festival, sure, but that label never came close to covering it.

In any event, lawsuits are no longer unthinkable, and now Burning Man exists as a relatively new (about 15 years in most states) type of entity dreamt up by the corporate lawyers, the Limited Liability Company. I can create one for you, too, if you ask nice.

[2] Burning Man, recall, is a gift economy, so offering money for anything is not only verboten, it’s rube-level ignorant and crass. These writings assume you know the basics. If you need a primer on the event, go here, and for my own first impression, here.

[3] In other words, in a community where public nakedness, sex, bondage, etc., are commonplace, U.S. Supreme Court cases ensure the sculpture could not possibly be deemed “obscene”— thus it’s protected under the free expression clause of the First Amendment. Jiffy Lube had every right to tell those cops to fuck off, like they did in 2001.