Chapter 4: Bloop!

The first decision anyone has to make once they've decided to go to Burning Man, is whether or not to go alone or to go with a camp. When I say "alone," I don't necessarily mean without another person, but rather I mean without the infrastructure a camp has to offer. Although some intrepid souls like the experience of going truly solo or in a very small group, many people prefer to hook up with a larger group of folks. I'd venture to say most do this, though I don't know for sure; there are gazillions of camps, it's just that they're not all registered as theme camps. More on that later.

The advantages of going with a camp are many, the most obvious being that you share the costs of food, water, shade, grey water disposal, etc., whether through dues or simply through coordinated group buying. Considering that you have to pack in ALL the water you will need for the duration of your stay - 1.5 gallons per person, per day, which doesn't include showers or dish water - it's nice to know that that bit is taken care of.

My initial plan was to go solo, believe it or not. Not only was I considering that, I was considering doing it with Ro, too! [n.b. - This last fell by the wayside pretty quickly, although I hope to take her in the future now that I know what the score is] Once I started researching in earnest - reading the survival guides, reading the thousand fold threads on tribe.net - I realized that it might be best if I went with a camp. Since I hadn't gone basic, boring, plain old car camping in a good 20 years, it seemed that jumping headfirst into extreme survival camping in a desert 1000 miles away from home might not be the best plan.

A marvelously random (or not random by some folks' estimation) series of events led me to the proverbial doorstep of Bloop! In March, I volunteered at the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival, where I met Christo and Lola, who invited me to an after party which I attended. A few days later, I was surfing the net looking for a photographer from SEAF whose work I'd admired. One of the hits I got was his profile on Tribe.net. Well, his profile led me to Christo's profile, which led me to Lola's Profile, BOTH of which were BMan oriented. Interest in BMan piqued. A day or so later, I was laboriously avoiding the scintillating topics of Trusts & Estates and Employment Law by surfing Tribe some more, and I decided to see if Hampshire College had a tribe. It did. And whose name did I see on that tribe? None other than Lola's! That fact alone - our shared experience at one of the U.S's weirdest, most hippie-liberal colleges - gave me the cojones to email Lola to say "hi and thanks for the party and hey did you know we both went to Camp Hamp and we were two years apart?!"

At this point, the BMan idea was still nascent, but it was evolving quickly. Within a week or two I emailed Lola to ask her if I could pick her brain about going, and she said she was glad to talk, and why didn't I come to a meeting of their camp and see if it was a good fit. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Bloop! was a first year camp. Christo and Lola were veteran burners as were some other members, but they were starting the camp from scratch. All I can say in retrospect is "DAYUM." I had no fucking idea until later how much effort it took to create the infrastructure necessary to make this work. They were hampered, too, by the fact that 2/3 of their members were virgins, and thus had no clue what was needed. Man oh man, I am in awe of them.

We were attempting to be more than just a group of folks camping together; we were trying for theme camp status. The benefit to being a theme camp is that you actually get space assigned to you (as opposed to arriving and finding an open spot), you get listed on the map, and you get early admittance. There is a process to this, however, which includes much doing of paperwork, filing of grey water and waste disposal plans, and so on. Most importantly, however, you have to have a THEME. This basically means some sort of interactive, community-oriented thing, whether that be an art project, a bar, the provision of a service...

Bloop!'s theme was - and is - fun. Pure and simple. We had a booth in front of our shade structure, from which we gave out kisses, misted people, and proffered cards and buttons good for hugs or kisses or snuggles. We also blooped people, which involved putting a dot of purple on their forehead bindi-style and offering a blessing such as "May you find what you seek on the Playa." Silly fun.

We also had a stargate that Perfect made for us, complete with green lasers, as the entrance to our camp; a bunch of home made hula hoops hanging on our camp sign for passers-by to play with; and "the Alter-Ego project." This was a project where a person would strap on a live-feed camera and mike, and go out into the neighborhood and interact with people. The catch was that he or she had to take directions from an operator back at camp, doing or saying what the operator said to do or say. It was SPECTACULAR idea, that due to a couple of unfortunate changes in circumstance, didn't really get off the ground on the Playa. We tried, but just couldn't make a go of it. We'll be doing it again, with some technical revisions this time... MWAHAHAHAHA....

Other than that, though, our camp was a rousing success. People DID have fun being "assaulted" by Christo or John or Ross or Bill wielding stop signs and a bull horn. People stopped and smiled and chatted and laughed. Sometimes we gave them drinks. Sometimes they joined in and blooped people with us! Plus, our shade structure was immensely inviting: it was strung inside with christmas lights, and housed 10 REALLY comfy, REALLY big lovesac type beanbags, two sofas, two futons, two hammocks, and an armchair. Every single morning, we awoke to the presence of people we didn't know, snoozing blissfully in the beanbags. THAT is a Burning Man success! And people regularly told us how cool our little camp was and then were astonished to find out that it was a first year camp populated largely by virgins!! We worked our asses off to make it a success, and it was 100% worth it.

The other piece of our success was the fact that ours was a low drama camp. By some camp standards, we were small - only 26 people. Our goal was 30 members and we hit that, but lost a couple of folks at the last minute to health and monetary issues. Thirty is kind of a magic number for a camp: many more than 30 and the divisiveness and drama factor grows (as do the admin concerns), while many fewer than 30 renders the dues unaffordable, and the workload untenable. Part of the low dramaness is likely due to the fact that we were largely virgins and had no fucking clue what we were getting in to. As I said, there were only a handful of vets: 9 to be exact. Of these, only four were really instrumental in the formation of the camp; the other five came on board toward the end of the prep process. As a result, there weren't a whole passel of know-it-alls to gum up the works. So too, people generally didn't own their particular areas or projects with such vehemence as to cause strife and create drama.

Even out on the Playa, we got along swimmingly, which is not always the case in BMan camps. The extremes can really work against you out there and if you're not in charity with your mates, then things have the potential of being really ugly. But somehow, we WERE largely charitable with each other. Sure things tweaked each of us here or there, but ultimately, we all took a very burner attitude and called it good. I couldn't get down on one person for forgetting to bring a dust mask when I forgot to bring shampoo. We all left something behind. We all fell down somewhere in our planning and packing. We all felt crappy and grouchy at some point out there. We all had a hangover or simply too little sleep at least once. Somehow the picky shit didn't grate the way it would've in the default world. Maybe it was a virgin, thing. I don't know. Maybe it was that we each had the freedom to ride away from the grouchiness and take refuge in the quiet of the deep playa.

In the end, our camp spent a lot of time together. Most of us ate breakfast and dinner together. We tended to go out at night in pretty large groups (8 or 10 people, though those groups generally splintered off at some point just due to sheer size; six is about max for staying cohesive while romping the Playa at night). We hung out in the late afternoons and took our siestas together. With very few exceptions, we all pitched in and took cooking shifts or ice duty or clean up or trash hauling. When one of us was lacking something, someone usually had a spare to give. When one person needed something out of the ordinary, another either had it or figured out how to manifest it. We shared our Gatorade. We shared our sunscreen. We shared our Pringles and Jerky and Goldfish. There was no miserliness out there.

Was our camp perfect? No. There were small dramas: a couple not getting along here, or someone not doing their share there. And everyone hit an emotional wall at some point, cause that's what the Playa does to one. But DAMN we were a good crew. Silly, playful, bawdy, goofy, sexy, dorky, fun.

Christo, Lola, Perfect, Rossy Goat, President Bill, Shura, Christina, LingLing, Saxon, Gato, Danni, Jonathan, Bruce, John, Joshuahhh, Annapurna, Heather, Ben, Dishy, Hottie, Danna, Cool, Sean, Brian, Scotty, Doug, and Kara....

I walked in knowing none of these people any more intimately than I know my postman. I walked out with 25 really good friends who I care for and trust. Not bad for a week's work, eh?