Hi,
Burning Man Festival 2005, Nevada Desert, USA.
Um...Wow...Goddamn..I really, really, really don't know how I'm going to relate you what I have just been to, and thru!
It was truly a most unique, extreme, intense, emotionally charged event I have EVER been to. Extreme and Intense on every level conceivably imaginable. And it was a 10year dream coming to reality. I first heard about this festival from my mate Mick Long back in 1995. I think he showed me an article from a student Uni newspaper, which, along with the published photos, blew me away. I remember saying "I don't know how, and I don't know when...but I'm gonna go to that party one day". This was it, this the day, the year, the moment.
My brief way of explaining this festival is this: It is an extreme arts and culture and social experiment festival set in some of the harshest conditions our planet can provide. It is an opportunity for people from all walks of life, from the extreme fringes of society to mainstream mums and dads (and kids!), to come to a space where they can let loose from all of their social constraints and be the person they want to be, and express themselves how they want to, without judgment, for an entire week.
This event has been running for 20 years now. Every year, for seven days, there is a gathering of people to a bare, barren, extremely hot and glaringly bright stretch of desert where nothing grows and nothing lives. Every year at a spot where there is nothing, a tent city is built and a population grows to 35-40,000. The nearest town or supplies of any kind is a 90minute drive away, and even then the towns of Gerlach and Empire have populations of around 350. Reno, the casino city, is 3 hours away.
So, for seven days of the year, Black Rock City, as this place becomes known, becomes the 4th largest city in Nevada. Once the festival has finished, everyone packs up, taking out all that they brought in, and leave the site as if there was never a festival, or a city ever existed.
People from the extremities of society, artists of all manner and description mix with folk from the mainstream, exchanging ideas and experiences. It is also a place where a community is built in the way communities should work, and used to work once upon a time.
There is a total non-commercial aspect to the city - there is nothing for sale, you cannot buy or sell wares of any kind (but of course in all communities there is a 'black market'), with the exception of ice, and in the centre camp, a coffee stand. The idea of this is that its a barter and gift community. It harbors all the functions of a real metropolis. It has a Cafe (serving delicious beverages and offering space to relax and to enjoy the work of talented artists and performers), a dressed-up ice sales concession (CampArctica) to keep festival goers, drinks, perishables, and alcohol cool and fresh, DMV (Department of Mutant Vehicles), a Recycling Centre, a Municipal Airport, a daily newspaper and a radio station. It's a communist and socialist dream come true.
This is a small quote from the website: "Burning Man is much more than just a temporary community. It's a city in the desert, dedicated to radical self-reliance, radical self-expression and art. Innovative sculpture, installations, performance, theme camps, art cars and costumes all flower from the playa and spread to our communities and back again. Burning Man is an experiment in temporary community, and one that is radically all-inclusive."
Right, now that I've got that out of the way, and hopefully you've gathered some vague idea of what I'm on about, I’ll try and tell you about the actual event happenings.
I was booked to go to this festival with The Green Tortoise Backpacker Bus Company. Realistically, It was the only way I could partake.
I rocked up to the Hostel at 8pm, and it was buzzing with people getting last minute stuff sorted out. There was to be 180 passengers on 5 buses going out there. The Green Tortoise buses have been kitted out as 'live-aboards' with sitting and eating areas being convertible to sleeping areas for 37 people, altho crammed in like sardines. It was the way it was to be for the overnight drive west thru California and out to the desert. Other than a stop for supplies (read: alcohol), it was non-stop to Black Rock City, arriving at the most perfect time possible, just as the sun was rising over the desert mountain ranged horizon. Welcome to Burning Man!!
As I mentioned, this place is stark and barren. It's also 4000 feet above sea level, so arriving at 6am, it was also baltic cold, about zero to 1 or 2 degrees celcius, zero humidity. This wouldn't last tho. Once the sun had risen just a few degrees above the horizon, the degree of temperature rose dramatically. By 9am, it was over 30 degrees celcius! Beyond this time, it's impossible to sleep in your tent - it's like a freakin' oven! Average temperature? About 40-42 degrees celcius, zero humidity. And that was the average, it got much hotter at times.
The Green Tortoise crew had already been here a few days and set up the enormous shade structure that would be the kitchen area and community space to retreat to in the heat of the day (or if you were having a bad trip), but our first objective was to set up our tents, before it got too hot. Then it was time to make some new friends and go exploring!
But where to start??? If you can picture this, the entire, freakingly enormous, city is built up in a circular clock-like fashion, with 'streets' in spreading out from the centre at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock etc, right thru to 10 o'clock. Then 'cross-streets' ran in concentric circles, starting with the inner Esplanade, with the Centre Camp, and streets labeled A thru to H formed bands around from 2 thru to 10. Each letter street name had a nickname as follows, which will give you some more idea of the extreme fun, and lunacy of the place, and linked in with this years theme: "Psyche: the Conscious, the Subconscious and the Unconscious"
A: Amnesia
B: Bi-Polar
C: Catharsis
D: Delirium
E: Ego
F: Fetish
G: Gestalt
H: Hysteria
And in order to find your camp, you were directed to set up at a particular address. For instance, the Green Tortoise camp was at the cross streets '6.30 and Bi-Polar' !! We were practically 'inner-city', while the outskirts of town were at 10.00 and Hysteria...
Okay, so before I even got here, I was given some trinkets and necklaces and other odds and sods by my first couch-surf host in Oakland, just so as I'd have something to trade/barter/make friends with in this non-cash gig. He'd been to Burning Man twice before, knew what to expect, and also, his sister was moving house and had to get rid of a lot of her junk. I said I'd be glad to take some stuff along.
So, looking around the camp, I spotted a group of girls getting dressed up for the day in brightly coloured tutus and lots of other frilly stuff. I sauntered up to them, and with a big smile, offered them up my trinkets "Good morning, do you girls need some extra things to decorate yourselves with? Take what you want, its yours". From the U.K., these girls, Fay, Daisy, Nicole, Caroline, Sheba & Sarah and the guys in their campsite, Martin, David, Tom and Simon, became my best friends over the next 6 days - we were practically inseparable.
Day 1 is just a blur now. We started off with a few welcoming beers at 10am, fashioning an esky cooler out of a bag of ice inside several plastic shopping bags. Then, in the heat of the day, decided it was about time to check this place out. Most of the exploration was on foot, not yet having acquired a pushbike - the most useful and effective way to get around such an enormous site. Armed with a water bottle and camera, and with my arm still in a sling, we all set out, seeking out "The Man".
One thing I learnt very quickly here, was the everything took soooo much longer to get so, see and/or do, because there is sooooo much 'stuff' to distract you along the way. Whether it be some drastically outstanding mutant-vehicle-art car or bike, or some woman or man or gender-neutral/indecipherable with some outlandishly over-the-top-but-perfectly-acceptable-here costume, or someone wearing nothing at all - itself a not-uncommon sight - it was a sheer visual-eye-candy-feast for the mind and imagination. Topless female hula-hoopers-with-glitter-and-sequined-faux fur-silver-coloured-knee high-boots, cross-bearing Jesus-in-a-loincloth impersonators, and stilt-walkers-in-giraffe-outfits - the phrase "Anything Goes" doesn't begin to explain. And that was just some of the stuff that's semi-easily explainable in words!!
Away in the distance, we finally saw The Man perched atop an enormous circus tent.....3 stories tall!....
....with a tripped out maze of at least 100 individual rooms with unique artwork/sculptures/installations in each one to look at that you had to negotiate before you could even get to the centre, where a staircase led you to the 2nd level upon which you could look down on all the other folk struggling thru the maze you just struggled thru yourself! the 3rd level offered a stunning vista of the entire Black Rock City. To back down, you could either take the stairs again, or use the shortcut - a fireman's pole!....But then you still had to find your way thru the maze to get back outside......And this was just ONE of the literally thousands of tents/theme camps/bars/clubs set up here.
other highlights of Day1 include:
* The Deep End club: walking around in the late afternoon, I stumbled upon this club at around 9.30 and Catharsis - a thumping deep house-y bass alerted me several blocks away to the daytime-only outdoor dance venue - hundreds of clubbers grooving away to some sexy deep house tunes, some up on high podiums showin' off their booty, just as the sun is on its downward spiral to the horizon.
* The Canadian Kissing Booth: On the Esplanade at around the 8 o'clock address, my eye was caught by the "Canadian" part of the sign. Upon further inspection, i found out two girls and a guy were giving away free kisses to any, all and sundry who wanted a kiss. Sure, why not! "So how does this work then?" I ask, "Is it a little peck on the lips or what?". Cindy, from Calgary, then informs me "We'll take your lead - you start the kiss, and we'll follow" (!!!) Okay, so I start the kiss, open mouth, a little tongue...and then full French....and she's going with me all the way, for a good minute or so before I have to come up for air!! The other girl, Cathy, also from Calgary then says "So, you wanna try me out? And then you'll have to kiss Cindy again and tell us who's better". I can do that! And I did....and for the record, Cindy won out. I had to confirm my results tho of course...just to be sure! The guy there was also giving out kisses, but I had to turn him down - not my type!.
By this time of the day, I had been on the go, all thru the heat of the day, and was beginning to feel it. Despite this being the first night of the festival, once I had eaten dinner, I was calling it quits. No partying for me tonight. I needed a good sleep, and was out like a light 'til the next morning when the hot early morning sun forced me out at 8am.
My couch-surfing buddy from Seattle, Sean, was at the festival also, and, just tooling about on his pushie, found me on the 2nd morning at the Green Tortoise camp. And I had managed to find a loaner bike as well, and figured this was as good a time as any to get back on a bike, despite my arm still being slung. Now I was able to explore far and wide, and we ventured far out into the extremities of the site.....Man, this was even bigger than I originally thought.
The "Dream Catcher" piece was a giant purple coloured head sculpture, half buried in the earth, with an opening in the back, so that you could walk inside, standing fully upright, where at certain times, an elderly gentleman would sit and listen to you talk about your dreams, and interpret them for you.
Further out, was the "Temple Of Tears". Designed in a Japanese, Buddhist style, this was an enormous installation, painted maroon, and was a sweet, quiet place of contemplation and remembrance, where you could commemorate loved ones who had passed away, leave messages for them on the woodwork. This Temple would then, on the final night, be burnt in a celebratory memoriam to all those loved ones, a massive bonfire to send those messages onto the 'other world'. This place was a favourite of mine, as no doubt it was to so many other Burners.
My afternoon was spent checking things out on my own, dropping into various bars, where, for absolutely no exchange of money, I could order whatever I wanted, so long as it was what they had. In one instance, all the bar was serving was chocolate martinis.
Another bizarre installation: way out in the middle of the desert, miles from the hubbub of the main city, a huge aluminium ladder, straight up, 180 feet straight up. No safety net. If you fell you were f***ked. And a queue of about 15 or so people waiting to climb it, just for the hell of it. The view from the top was supposedly amazing. If it wasn't for my arm being in a sling, I would've been up there in a shot.
This is a place, the place, to put yourself into situations or positions you've never been before, or are likely to be again in the future, just to see how you'll cope - to test yourself, your nerves, and your body when at the extremities of your mind (and beyond) of what you've ever thought you would do. That 180foot high ladder is a perfect example of that.
And with those extremes, comes extreme trust and faith in the people around you - complete strangers, but a trust and a faith that is a testament to the people that attended, and the vibe and feeling that place generated in those people, in my experience there, was completely repaid. I felt as though I was completely safe the whole time, and that I would be looked after if something went wrong.
Another extreme here, along with the heat, is the dust and the dirt, and the fact that there are no 'traditional' showers to wash yourself - the best you could do is give yourself a bush shower - a bit of soap and water from a bucket, clean the important bits, and you'd be done. Except, that is, for the water trucks the periodically pass the campsites, spraying water from a tank to keep the dust down on the roads. Whenever these came past, you would see a gaggle of people running behind it soaking themselves, perhaps with a bar of soap in hand, trying to cool down or clean up.
I hadn't bathed in 2-3 days. In fact, I didn't know anyone who had .All I had managed was to brush my teeth twice a day. I was dirty, dusty, kinda smelly, and I was also stinking hot. I saw the truck, and I sprinted after it, dousing myself, shorts and t-shirt and all. It was only afterwards that I thought I should've just stripped off and gone after it naked like most of the other folks. So, dripping wet and thoroughly satisfied, I went back to my tent and changed into my sarong, wearing it around my waist, sans underwear.
Shortly after this, back at camp, I was chilling out, and just thinking about what I would do next. Then, this guy on a bike, with a chariot trailer dressed up with a golden throne cycles into camp, wearing a gold cape and a tiny little cap with the word "TAXI" printed on it. "Anyone call for a cab!!?" he shouts. It was his gimmick that he would cycle from camp to camp and just offer people rides to anywhere they wanted to go - that way he would see parts of the site he wouldn't ordinarily go himself.
No one piped up, so I said "I'll take a ride".
"Where do you wanna go?"
"I don't really know - somewhere I haven't been yet - what do you charge, what do you want in exchange for the ride?"
"I'll tell you what, my fee is this - you need to answer a question, and you have to complete a dare."
"Okay, what's the question?"
"What do you want to get out of this Burning Man Festival?"
I told him "I just want to be a part of, and participate in as many different experiences as I possibly can, that i wouldn't necessarily do in 'the real world'. Now, what's the dare?"
"The dare is, I have a blindfold in my pocket. You have to wear the blindfold while riding in the chariot, and are not allowed to remove it until we get to our destination"
"Okay", throwing caution to the wind, "Let's do it". There must have been about 15-20 of my campmates in the area at the time watching this, and I just waved to them and said "I'll see ya later".
With that, I was whisked away on a 20minute ride, way out into festival grounds, without any clue as to where I would end up. My 'Taxi' took a whole heap of random left and right turns, did a few 'loop-de-loops' and 360degree circles to mix it up a bit, taking me thru several different theme camps and art sites, giving me a full aural kaleidoscope of sounds, and finally pulled up. I was then, still blindfolded, led by the hand thru a huge crowd of people, a band was playing in the background, and then was sat down on a bench. "Stay here a moment. I'll be right back, the dare isn't over yet, so leave the blindfold on". I'm guessing we're at Centre Camp.
Totally going along with the dare I did as I was told. I get talking to two young girls, not more than 8 or 10 who are here with their Grandmother!
"Excuse me mister, are you blind?" they innocently ask.
"Well, I kinda am at the moment!!"
My Taxi comes back about 10 minutes later and hands me an Iced Chai Tea as a 'reward' for my trust and honour in following the dare to the letter. It tastes great! Still wearing the blindfold, I am led back to the chariot and taken on another ride, finally getting dropped off at some chill out tent with mellow jazz playing on the stereo.
"Okay, you can take off the blindfold now"
"Where am I?"
"Honestly, I don't know myself. I just heard this music and thought this is as good a place as any to drop you off! See ya round."
And with that, he wanders into the campsite "Any one holler for a Taxi!!"
Just one example of that trust factor I mentioned earlier on.
I didn't return to the main Green Tortoise camp for the rest of the day, or evening. In fact, I ended up getting home at around 3am!! Only once did I briefly return to my tent, sometime after dark, to get some warmer clothes on, jeans and a sweater. It gets kinda chilly if yer nekkid in the desert after dark! Those folk who saw me being taken away blindfolded kinda told me they thought I must have been kidnapped or something coz they hadn't seen me since, and the following morning at breakfast were full of questions as to what happened to me in the ensuing hours. It was a crazy day and night.
When I was dropped off by the Taxi-dude, I decided to embrace the whole nudity thing and wore my sarong around my neck like a cape. When in Rome, do as the Roman's do and all that. Being miles from camp, I was without wheels, and so was on foot. All I had with me was my water bottle, camera, sandals and sarong-cape. I was in a part of the site I'd never been before, probably about 3 miles away from Green Tortoise.
I was intrigued by the "Camel-topia" camp. Who knows what that is....I didn't see any camels at least... They had a thumping bass dance-electronica sound on the amplifier, and a MC revving everyone up. Within a minute of arriving, I had a cocktail thrust into my hands. It was a Gin and pineapple juice and something else concoction. I hate Gin. Who cares, it was free, so I drank it. They were having a modeling-fashion show. Anyone who wanted to could get up on this makeshift catwalk and model their outfit. The winner would be decided by audience cheer. There was some crazy shit out there. One, incredibly hot, woman announced she had a necklace she wanted to model.....And that was all she was wearing, the necklace, apart from her knee-high boots. I can't remember if she won or not.
Three or four bars (or five???), and many, many hours later, probably close to Midnight, I found myself at a bar called "Blunderland". All lit up in neon lights, it looked like a Mushroom lying on its side, half buried in the earth. You could walk in thru the stem, get your drink, and crawl thru a space into the 'head' of the 'shroom where you would find hundreds of cushions and pillows and duvets, a massage table, and mellow tunes...the perfect chill-out zone, particularly if you were on something a little stronger than just alcohol (I wasn't).
The next bar I hit, well, that was something else!! I don't even recall the name of it now...It must have about 3am, and I'd been wandering by myself, enjoying the moment by moment events I had been thru, having an absolute ball, for well over 12 hours. By this stage I was stupid drunk. But even still, even I was shocked at the next turn of events! But this is Burning Man, a place of extremes, a place where you have to expect the unexpected.
There were 2 bartenders on duty, one male, one female, and maybe 15-20 people in the bar still, happily chatting away, with some nice blues on the stereo.
"Can I have a drink please?" I slur.
"Do you have a cup or glass for your drink?"
"Um, no"
At this point, the female bartender turns down the stereo, and shouts out to everyone in the pub, "Hey folks, this guy doesn't have a glass!!"
Then, all in unison, they all shout "If you don't have a glass, we get to spank your ass!!"
"Um what?"
"Buddy, we're trying to reduce waste here, trying to encourage recycling. If you want a drink but don't have a cup, we'll give you one...but the penalty for being a Bad Burner and not having a cup, is that me and my friend here have to give you a spanking".
Like I said, This is Burning Man, I was embracing whole-heartedly the concept of the extreme nature of the festival, pushing the boundaries....and also, I was stupid drunk, and wanted a drink, so I complied. I stood up on two bar stools, dropped my pants to bare my ass and presented it over the bar....
Next, with the girl on one side, the guy on the other, I had to receive 5 slaps on each cheek - and not some piss-weak slaps, they were full-blown, full-power spanks.
"BAD BURNER!!" The bar crowd shouted - SPANK! "BAD BURNER!!" The bar crowd shouted louder - SPANK! "BAD BURNER!!" The bar crowd shouted even louder - SPANK! "BAD BURNER!!" SPANK! "BAD BURNER!!" SPANK!.
Damn, it hurt. I had a strong tingling sensation on the old derriere, and no doubt it was a shade or two of red as well.
"Now, Sir, here is your cup, we have two spirits on offer with one mixer - Gin or Bacardi Rum, with Cola. Now honestly, I couldn't think of anything worse than those options - I hate both Gin and white rum - I should have asked what they had before i endured the spanking. But I thought, "hey, what the hell, it oughtta take the pain away somewhat. "Rum and Coke thanks".
I stayed for a couple more drinks, taking in the satisfaction in that time in participating in the "BAD BURNER" chorus several times while watching the unsuspecting punter cop a spanking over the bar.
I saw one camp with the theme title "Freaks Beyond Boundaries", and thought "That kinda sums up this party in 3 very succinct words".
Through all this adventure, I'd also been spending quite a bit of time with the English crew, and in particular, Fay. We'd become pretty close, and spent a lot of time getting drunk, and talking, talking, talking about everything under the sun, and exploring the various campsites and installations. The Temple of Tears and Dream Catcher sites were revisited, and emotions, inner most feelings, and topics of the heart were discussed. I'd taken a fancy to her quite a bit by this stage, but was politely declined when I asked her for a kiss. I can't say i wasn't disappointed, but we were pretty close for the duration of the festival. Romantic hopes dashed.
Those you familiar with my bike-activist antics in Vancouver should be familiar with the monthly Critical Mass bike rally. Well, they had it at Burning Man too....with a twist (of course!)
There were two, in fact - Critical Dicks and Critical Tits, the concept basically being to ride the rally naked, or with the Tits, at least topless. The Dicks rally was early on in the festival and attracted about 100 riders. The Critical Tits rally, however, with more of a theme of Female Empowerment, and Celebration of the Body, attracted some 2500 women, and the attention of practically the whole Festival. It was also a prime opportunity to get all costumed up, with body paint being the number one fashion choice.
The English girls I had befriended were taking part, and once they had fully body-painted and decorated themselves, asked me to photograph them on the ride. Here I was being employed to photograph topless women for the afternoon! To be honest tho, by this stage, you get kinda desensitized to the whole 'naked, topless' thing, and it seemed quite a 'normal' thing to do.
It was quite an event, having this many women all riding together from one end of the Esplanade to the other, from 10o'clock to 2o'clock, the whole ride being lined with festival goers clapping and cheering them on, with the whole event taking about an hour. They had an after party also, where they were waited upon hand and foot by male waiters, being hand-fed grapes and the like, generally being treated like Goddesses and Princesses. Afterwards, they were all saying it was one of the most amazing events of their lives.
Amazingly, it was now already Day 4. I remember saying midway thru the first day "Wow, we've got 5 full days ahead of us here, this is gonna be so much fun!"
Some other bizarro sites I spotted on Day4:
* A camp offering "Free Blow Jobs"....below the sign was an air hose to pump your bike tyres!
* "The G-Spot: If you can't find it your not cumming! - Well, there's a little truth to this one...this camp was directly next door to the Green Tortoise, and I hadn't even noticed until Day 4!!
* The "Naked Twister" camp - they soaped up a giant Twister mat, and twice a day they had Naked Twister games. I played once, with 6 other guys and girls, and was 2nd person out. The winner got a free drink, but that was really only a token prize, coz anybody who wanted a drink could get one at the bar.
* In the middle of the Playa (the name given to the huge expanse of desert the Festival site was on) - a lone telephone box, with an old dial-up telephone, with a sign saying "Telephone to God". Pick up the receiver, dial 0 once...one ring then "Hello, God here". Some dude had a hook up to his campsite and pretended to be God on the other end of the line. Classic. I told him he was 'full of shit'.
The last 2 nights of the Festival was when the fun really started tho...as if we weren't havin' a blast already.
This was when the obligatory recreational drug use kicked in. Come on, we come all the way to the desert to the most mad-arse freakfest on the planet - we gotta get at least a little psychedelic!!
Our good man Tom had been doing some asking around and happened upon some disco biscuits and acid tabs. Tonight was gonna be fun. Oh, and did I mention that superstar DJ Paul Oakenfold was on the decks at one of the clubs?? Tonight was gonna be fucking awesome! So, come evening time, everyone got funked up in their best disco frocks, and we all went out together to see what they night would bring us. A few start-up bevvy's in the camp, and then we were good to go. We hooked up with another party crew within the camp, but of course we lost that crew of 10 in about 15 minutes.
The energy tonight was palpable, you could feel it in the air, this was the night before the big night. We were well and truly into the 2nd half of the festival now, so if you hadn't partied yet, now was the time, NOW OR NEVER...well, there was of course tomorrow night....
Out into the night, into the masses of brightly coloured and frocked pretty young things, the massive art-fire structures with Kuwaiti-war levels of fuel being spent in the name of art, spat out of huge monstrous steel dragons and open-jaw like configurations, fire dancers and ravers. Madness. And then I dropped 1/2 a tab of LSD. Then someone bailed on the E they were gonna have, so I took 1/2 of that. Then a little while later I took the other 1/2 acid tab. I was can-dee-flippin'. WOO! I was also kind of co-looking out, along with Daisy, for Fay who was on something for the very first time in her life. This could be a funny night.
Paul Oakenfold was amazing. In fact everything was amazing. Of course it was, I was melted! Our group seemed to disintegrate thru the night, and before I knew it, it was just me, Fay and Daaaaaaaaisy traipsing all over the place, stumbling from bar to another, relying on Daisy's alcohol-detector super-hero wristband, coz of course she was dressed up as Burning Girl!
The next few hours flew by in a fit of continuous, hysterical, uncontrollable, giggling laughter. I haven't laughed so hard or so much at so little in such a long, long, long time. Either the drugs were very, very good, or we were very, very funny. Or maybe both. No, I think it was the drugs...
Several bars later, including one we got kicked out of, coz Daisy was trying to concoct cocktails behind the bar herself (well that's how I figure it from the story they gave me - I was off to the men's at the time), we found ourselves talking to this sweet old, short, heavily-bearded mid-western lumberjack mountain man named Andy who was running a small bar, until practically the break of dawn. Philosophy, religion, Native American traditions were just some of the topics up for discussion at 5am. By which time, it got very, very, very cold. Remember, we were at 4000ft altitude desert. And we were pretty much clear at the opposite end of the site from where our camp was, literally a 2-mile walk. We needed to get back fast - hypothermia ain't funny.
Thankfully, an early morning-cruising Bat Mobile styled art-car stopped and gave us a ride back to camp just as the sun was rising over the surrounding mountain ranges. We would get a maximum of 3 hours sleep before it then got very suddenly too hot to sleep..
Day 5 was pretty much a write off...as you could probably imagine, just chilling out in camp in recovery mode, only one weary 2-hour return journey into the towns of Empire and Gerlach for some supply (beer, munchies) refills was about as strenuous as it got. The stores there were cashing in on the Burning Man phenomenon - t-shirts, calenders, mugs, caps, bumper bar stickers, videos and DVD's, you name it. As the festival itself was non-commercial, this was an ideal moment to souvenir some memorabilia. i am now the proud owner of a DVD and a t-shirt. Another little oddity of the town of Gerlach was the giant statues of Dr Seuss' The Cat in the Hat, and Shrek....I suppose they need something to get the tourists to stop...
Back at the Festival, it was back to lounge-mode for the rest of the afternoon, but then.....
The night of the 5th day.
This was the night of the Burning of The Man. This was the pinnacle and grandstand moment of the whole freaking party. This was the reason we existed for this whole week. If last night electric energy levels were high, then tonight, well you could power Las Vegas with the energy being put out the fine folks of Burning Man tonight.
As the sun went down, the energy levels got higher. 8pm was the appointed Burning time, and by 7pm there was a throng of thousands upon thousands circling The Man, with some 800 fire-dancers, along with dozens of drummers and other entertainers keeping the crowds enthralled with their tricks and moves, the beat from the drums building up in intensity as the hour 8pm descended upon us.
I'd left my camera at camp last night, knowing the night I was going to have, but tonight there was no way I wasn't going to capture this. I'd been waiting 10 years to witness this event, and what the hell, for good measure, I might just take another E tonight and live it up. This was intense. An announcement is made, a hush falls over the crowd, then all of a sudden a succession of showers of fireworks set off at the feet of the Burning Man lights up the night sky, followed by more from the ribcage, the heart and the head AND THE MAN IS ON FIRE. THE BURNING OF THE MAN HAS BEGUN.
What a sight, what a sensational moment. The crowd roars its approval in cheers, whoops, hollers and whistles, and the drummers drum on as the crowd watches, watches and waits, for what seems an eternity, for the man to fall. It takes a good 20 minutes or so - a couple of false alarms as The Man, tilts and teeters and wobbles, but then finally HE FALLS!
More cheering as we watch the largest bonfire I have ever seen burn before my eyes. I'm in raptures, this was AWESOME, AWE-INSPIRING and FUCKING UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING!!!
Our E's have kicked in by now, and there's a certain urgency to hit a club...but first we have to check out the THUNDERDOME to watch a re-enactment of MAD MAX 3 complete with operatic introduction, apocalyptic-industrial soundtrack and last-man-standing rivalry between the two combatants of each round.
En route to the Thunderdome, Dave reveals his genius invention. He has a water bottle backpack filled to the brim with tequila, a container of limes in one pocket and a salt shaker in the other - TEQUILA SLAMMERS anyone!!!! This just gets better and better!!!
Once again, drug and alcohol induced madness sets in, and 1/2 the crowd splinters off into couples, gets lost or disappears. It's down to me, Fay and Caroline this time, altho Fay begins to feel not-quite-right tonight, and Caroline needs some personal time.
So here I am on BURN NIGHT at 2am, pilling off my tits, on my own. WHO GIVES A FUCK
:-) !!
'Lets go exploring' my drug-addled brain says to my weary feet. 'Lets jump on an art-car' my feet reply.. (they seriously did have this conversation by the way!!) And so I did, hopping first onto a giant Pirate Ship...
followed by a converted stretch-bendy-bus, which was doubling tonight as a funky-house dance music groove train.
Back at Centre Camp at around 4am, there was a 60's style acid-psychedelia tinged blues/funk band playing, wiggin' out on extended feedback and effects laced guitar jams....ala Hawkwind and early Pink Floyd - just the perfect soundtrack for where I was at at that point in time, along with the other scores of folk in the centre-camp, and thousands elsewhere.
Finally, weariness got the better of me at around 5am, and stumbling back to camp, I got completely lost for the umpteenth time this week. Other times it didn't matter that I was lost - this time I just wanted my bed, but for the life of me could not find my camp, and when I did it was by pure fluke and accident.
Day 6 - Final Day
One of the most common casualties of Burning Man is people's feet. Just getting around in sandals the whole time, without showers or baths or moisturisers and other common personal body maintenance products to help out, your poor old dirt and dust-covered feet get dry and scaly, and, painfully, cracked. This was commonly known at the camp as "Playa Foot". By the time I noticed this happening, especially around my heels, on about day 4, it was too late. One kind soul of the camp, Alicia, saw my predicament on the final morning, and helpfully pointed that not 30 metres away at the G-Spot camp, was a wading pool in which you could dip your feet in cool, soothing water. HOW COULD I NOT NOTICE THIS BEFORE?!?!?! This was actually typical of what could, and did, happen at Burning Man...
Alicia was another sweet soul of a girl at the camp that I became close to over the week, and as I nursed my poor, sore feet, in the pool, we sat and chatted about life and the way of the world. While this festival is amazing in oh-so-many ways, it is also draining, physically, mentally and emotionally. Tears are not uncommon, and I was glad to be able to be a shoulder to cry on for Alicia that morning.
The Green Tortoise plan was for the camp to disembark the Festival immediately after the final burn - the Burning of the Temple of Tears, due to go off at 8pm that night. So that meant it was pack up time. Everything had to be good-to-go before sunset.
So, this was it? Over already? Wow. It just seemed like yesterday that we arrived...but no, my feet could pay testament to the fact that we had been here 5 full days now.
Tom, Sarah and I went for final afternoon's stroll around the city, hoping to find a chill-out space which, under a pyramid shaped tent was laid out a wide open space of turf-grass...pretty much the only 'green' space in the whole city, where you could lie down, sip a glass of wine or have a beer, and relax to some rare-jazz grooves, or something to that effect. But it had been packed up already. That was the theme of the day. Everywhere we looked, theme tents were de-theming (is that a word???) themselves.
It was very odd not to see The Man standing up presiding over all of the events and activities going on in his midst. It was stranger still just to see how the bonfire of the night before was now a small pile of ashes and wafts of smoke sifting up through the air.
We did happen upon a Tom Jones tent tho, which played nothing but...well, Tom Jones tunes, but its kicker was that the walls were completely lined with panties and bras, many of which were apparently donated by Burner Girls. Indeed, if you were of the female persuasion, it was a condition of entry that for your free drink, you had to donate yer smalls, perhaps even the ones you were wearing at the time!! One last little moment of Burning Man madness and debauchery!
My final afternoon I spent napping on the Green Tortoise bus. I was knackered. There's been a lot partying the past few days for this 30-year old...am I getting old???? A little 1-hour kip turned into 5 hours, and when I awoke, the sun was almost setting for the final time on Burning Man.
As mentioned way back in the piece, the final night was the burning of The Temple of Tears. This was honestly one of the more beautiful art pieces, an enormous Asian style, Buddhist influenced temple made of pinewood and painted a lush maroon-red colour. For the whole week people had been visiting this space and leaving messages, poems, notes and eulogies for loved ones since passed on. So the burning of this would be a very spiritual cathartic moment for all those people, myself included.
While last nights burn was built up as the most celebratory experience ever, with energy levels thru the roof, tonight’s energy was of a calmer nature, but it was still very evident. Once again thousands of people flocked around, and with a fitting sombre choral aria starting proceedings, the fireworks were set off and another amazing burn was under way.
We would have loved to have hung around for ages watching this burn, soaking up the powerful atmosphere of the place and moment, but we had orders. We had to be back at camp by 10pm in order to hit the road back to San Francisco. So, we stayed until the bulk of the temple had collapsed in licks of flame and fire, and slowly ambled back with the crowd to our camp.
I have to admit I was very, very weary by this time. 6 days is probably about enough time to stay here. Despite the length of this blog-entry, and the amount of stuff I got up to and saw, I reckon I probably only saw maybe a maximum of 10-15% of what was out there. It's incredibly difficult to convey just how big this is, but even if i'd spent a month here, and tried to see every little thing, and visit every theme camp on site, I'd still miss stuff. As it was, I had a freaking amazing time, loved every minute of it, but 6 days in one hit was enough, but I would definitely not rule out a return visit.
Back onto the sardines-in-a-can confines of the Green Tortoise bus, I was out like a light again, barely conscious of the 2 or 3 stops we made overnight for piss and gas requirements, and then when I next awoke, we were cruising over the Oakland Bay Bridge, with the early morning fog-enshrouded City beckoning. And that in itself was every bit as surreal a sight at that moment as anything I had seen in the past week.
