Chapter Six: There's No They. There is Only Us.

I was walking back from the Portapotties one night, late in the week. Ahead of me were two guys having a conversation about the amount of distance that lay between the o'clock streets. Specifically, they were talking about how hard it was to find camps based on their addresses: did 4:00 and Chance REALLY mean 4:00? Or was it closer to 4:15? And really, where WAS 4:15? One had to guess its approximate place along the street.

I was with them: it WAS hard to locate camps according to their published addresses. UNTIL. Until one of them said "They really should mark the streets with the quarter hour too..."

That stopped me in my tracks. They? THEY should do this? Which "they" would that be?

It was a moment of real clarity for me. Before BMan, the conversation would've likely passed unnoticed by me; at best, I'd have nodded and agreed. But there, on the playa, at an event that expects self reliance and participation from every person in attendance, those words were utterly dissonant and out of place.

Now I don't cotton to the whole Burnier-than-thou mentality that I see on Tribe.net and hear tell of from people I know. I am just too old for that kinda shit. Really. But man oh man, at that moment, I was sorely tempted to walk up to those guys and say "If you want quarter hour signs, then make some and put them up. It's not THEIR responsibility to do that. There is no "they" out here. There's only "us.""

And it's largely true. Beyond the basic infrastructure (the city layout, portapotties, burn platforms, center camp, airport placement, and so on) and a some "public utility" camps (Lamplighters, Camp Arctica, Black Rock Rangers, Medics, etc.) there is only "us" out on the playa. You can send and receive mail - real USPS mail - on the playa via the BRC Post Office, a theme camp. You can fly into BMan via the BRC Port of Entry, the playa's airport & aviation theme camp. The playa hosts several radio stations and a couple of newspapers. Three bike repair camps, two 12-step camps, and an aluminum recycling camp: all there because some folks saw a need and created a camp to fill that need. Radical self reliance + participation.

And yet, I found that the playa frequently provided for unexpected needs or desires, not as a flip side to radical self reliance and participation, but as a by-product of it. Where so many are so well prepared, there is bound to be excess, and somehow, that excess seems to make its way to those who need it.

I bore witness to this in a big way one afternoon late in the week. RossyGoat and I were out riding around, looking for a place to get some bodywork done. We didn't have any luck at TempleWhore nor at the HeeBeeGeeBees, so we were going to go up to Sunscreen camp and get a sunscreen massage. As we were leaving the HeeBeeGeeBees, I remembered that Vietnamese Iced Coffee Camp was right next door in Avalon Village. I asked Ross if he minded a brief detour for an iced coffee; needless to say, he didn't. So we searched Avalon, and finally found VICC, but they were running behind.

"We're not going to be open for another half hour," one of VICC guys told us. "The person bringing coffee isn't here, and until he shows up, no iced coffee. But when we get it, we'll be serving in Quixote's Cabaret around the corner."

Well, crap, I thought. I'd wanted a vietnamese coffee SOOOO badly. And then I remembered that we had an extra pound of ground Charbucks at the camp. So extra, in fact, that Christina had offered it to Espresso Camp that very morning (they didn't take it cause they need to grind their own).

"We have a pound of coffee back at our camp that we're not going to use. It's Starbucks...," I said, with a shrug. "Would that help you guys out?"

It would, and it did. Ross and I rode back to our camp and got the coffee while the VICC crew set up at Quixote's. We got the first brews, and OH MY GOD WAS IT EVER GOOD!! But the deliciousness of the coffee was almost secondary to being able to help them out. Because of Ross and I (and our whole camp by extension), at least 5o people got iced coffees that wouldn't have otherwise.

A lot of folks call it "playadipity:" the notion that the playa will take care of you if you find yourself in need. And it's true. She does. But of course, the playa is us.