One week from tonight is SeaCompression and I have yet to write a thing about this year's Burn. I don't quite know why; 's probably a combination of things. I came home to a job that started days after I returned. It was my second Burn, so I wasn't seeing with beginner eyes. And it was a difficult year, plain and simple.

It was hard to leave the playa feeling so jumbled, yet I was never more grateful for a bed and shower than the night we pulled in to Lakeview. The ride home was so very ugly; the bed and shower were the only positive aspects until we reached Pdx. In some ways I'm still reeling from that drive, but that's not a topic for this space. That one stays locked up nice and tight.

I just feel like this year was wasted, y'know? All the prep, all the excitement, all the work and effort and cost, and it was a let-down.

To begin with, the first two days were HELL in a bucket. We set the chute up in a major dust storm on Saturday. It took much longer than expected because the design changed - we raised it by 10 feet and put 8 foot poles around the edges to lift it off the playa floor. We had no electric and very limited water for the first 24 hours we were there, as the coordinators of those things... well, bygones, eh?

Sunday was just as bad, though the portapotties arrived on time, and the water (24 hours late) arrived shortly thereafter. Mid day we were hit with MASSIVE dust storms again, which eventually started pulling out the side poles. We attempted to tie the chute down to the Penske van, but it was clear something needed to be done differently. After about 8 hours of holding the damn thing down by hand - at one point we had around 20 people holding on to the chute to keep it from pulling more poles out - and much discussion about options, it was (wisely) decided that we should lower the chute. So Sunday night, after dinner, we took the whole thing down, and set it ALLL back up. It was tiring, but necessary. And wise, ultimately, because we had several more big, multi-hour storms later in the week.

Of course, all this meant that many of us didn't even SEE beyond our camp boundaries until LATE sunday night, and by that time, most of us were too tired to do much beyond wandering out to the esplanade to see what was taking shape.

Bold and BLove and I were among the MOST overworked that Sunday night, but we did drag our sorry asses ALLLLLL the way across the playa to the Big Round Cubatron, which is STILL my favorite installation piece. I could sit in front of that thing for hours if the desert floor weren't so damn cold at night. It's really THAT wonderful.

Monday was much nicer - no major storms, moderate temps - so we got the rest of the place set up and organized. Bold and BLove and I decided to take a ride over to visit the DFTs to see Jonathan and Dad and Buttery. I got less than a block when my seat fucked up and my chain slipped. I lost it. Right in the middle of Arctic and 6:30 and I'm crying like a toddler. I was just so done. Yes, it was only Monday. Bless BLove's heart, he went and got his tools and he fixed my bike up for me. Unfortunately it was already SOOO dusty that there were little drifts and my skinny tired piece of shit couldn't manage them well. I realized that within a couple of days, I'd have to give up riding. Still, we made it out and about, saw the DFTs, then rode out into open playa for a bit. After a while, Bold and I split off from BLove and hit Center Camp just to check it out.

The rest of Monday was pretty mellow. The remainder of our camp arrived and got settled in, we had dinner, and took off into the night. Bold and I ran around with Tombro, who showed us how to REALLY work the backroads bars. My only real complaint about it was that my contacts were gummy and icky. It took another day or two and I switched over to my dailies; the eyedrops weren't helping and I got sick of having halos at night.

We came home, hung out with folks, and settled in to watch the eclipse. Once it was full, I toddled off to bed, saying "Ok, the moon has done its creepy thing. I'm going to sleep." I don't know how long I was out, but I awoke to Bold unzipping the tent and telling me I had to get up cause the man was on fire.

"On fire?"

"Yeah, he's burning!"

"Oh shit."

I hauled my cold and extremely tired ass outta bed and we tromped through the Virgins' camp and saw that he was, indeed, ablaze. Such a bizarre thing. I wanted to cheer it on, and yet, I couldn't because it was arson. More importantly, there was the very real potential that this little "stunt" could awaken the wrong interest in BMan, putting us on the radar of people who wouldn't think twice about shutting the event down.

So yeah, that set the tone for the week. Things were tense for me. The energy in camp was weird; there were some interpersonal dynamics that left folks feeling excluded and although we had no more infrastructure problems, the stability of the chute and our tents was always on our minds.

On top of all this, I got whomped with a bladder infection. I won't recount the clusterfuck that THAT turned out to be, but suffice it to say, it took me outta the game for a couple of days. In the midst of that, Bold decided to play a lil kickball with rebar and broke his toe. End result? I couldn't ride cause it hurt, he couldn't walk much cause it hurt. Sucked to be us.

We did manage to get out and see a lot of the installation art. And there were some really beautiful times - getting caught in the massive dust storm at the Temple of Forgiveness, riding out the rainstorm in the booth and being rewarded with a double rainbow, giving out snap peas on Friday, having a Margarita at Monticello on Thursday Afternoon, wine, cheese, and prosciutto on Burn night, riding on Leo's bee, Temple Burn.... Cherished moments, made all the sweeter because they were so few and far between. And I made some marvelous connections - I strengthened old friendships, revelled in new ones, and enjoyed the catharsis of baring my soul to a complete Stranger.

All in all, I walked away from it all feeling very ambivalent. I know this is colored by Bold's experience, which was even less positive than mine. I wanted so much for him to love it unconditionally as I do, but this was a really hard year for everyone, doubly so for virgins. With the extra burden of me being down for the count and the constant wind which made sleeping difficult for him... well, it seems like he never really got his legs underneath him. By the end of the week he was so fried he told me he didn't think he could do it again. That's changed in the ensuing months, but he's still wary, I think.

Oh well. What will be, will be. Next year is a long ways off, and we've got a lot less time to burn (heh) thinking about it. So much is up in the air, what with jobs, money, the kiddo... I can't imagine not going back - the playa's in my blood now - but how it will manifest, I don't know.

Time will tell....

Re-Entry

Oh-Seven is history. I think that's a good thing, but time will tell. This year was markedly different from last year: many more downs than ups, challenges that weren't present in oh-six, campmates that, through non-action, created discord.

The tenor of this year's recap will be much less exuberant, but done with no less emotion. The playa giveth, and the playa taketh away. We love her no less for it.

Gearin' up for Oh-Seven

I was skimming the posts I've written and wow! It sure does seem like the Playa was a long, long time ago. Even the pictures seem like they're from a different age. So weird. I still find it hard to believe I was there, and oddly, the pictures don't help as much as I wish they did. To get the REAL flashback, I hafta sneak into my garage and open up my gear bins and breaaaaathe deep. THAT'S what I'm talkin' about. Heehee.

I'm starting to get excited about this year's burn. I can't wait to be back out there - chapped lips, dusty hands, 4pm heat and all. The funny thing is that it's really not about the place. Rather it's about a week of just being. It's an incredible gift. But there's something about the otherworldliness of the Playa - the isolation, the barrenness, the climatic extreme of it - that elevates that gift and turns it into something extraordinary. Granted, I haven't been to Critical Massive or Recompression or Xara or any of the other gear-up event, so I can't say for sure, but I have trouble believing that it's as easy to leave your baggage at the gate at those events. They're too close to home and too easy in comparison.

But to trek to the Playa, so far from any urban center (major OR minor), to pack everything you need to survive, to move - in my case at least - from a temperate marine climate lush with evergreens through irrigated plateaus, arroyo, and finally to arid ancient lakebed is really a journey. Among other things, I discovered that my emotional health was inversely related to the aridness of the land! Who knew?

This year will present some interesting challenges. Foremost is the fact that it's my second year. I have expectations now, which will be very difficult to leave aside. Yet, all my reference points will be different: different campmates, different location, different tent, different burn. Last year I went in with blind faith; that will be harder to do this year. Still, to drive through those gates with the expectation of having anything other than AN experience is to set myself up for disappointment. I'll have to chew on this one a while.

The other challenge is that my man Bold will be there with me. I'm extremely excited about sharing the Burn with him - CRAzY excited. But I hear stories of how hard the playa can be on relationships. I'm not super worried about that because although I believe those stories wholeheartedly - I've seen the effects myself on the relationships of friends - Bold and I have a strong, loving, forgiving relationship. We've weathered a lot together and we try to remain in charity with each other. Plus we're on the same page about so much and where we're not, we talk things out. Still, it's easy to get grouchy out there and when you factor in the intensity of the build-up and prep beforehand, well, irritability and flash anger and crankiness are probably inevitable.

The real challenge will be the man himself (Bold, not the MAN). He's fully into going, he's happily involved in the camp, he's active and psyched. I'm making the choice to trust that. I say this cause I remember last year, standing out there, looking at my camp and those around us, and thinking "I canNOT picture him out here." The playa demands that you drop your cynicism, drop your defenses, drop your excuses, and just BE. I had real trouble seeing him able to let go of his need for situational control enough to do that. I'm less worried about that now - he's changed a lot since moving out here - but there are many, seemingly innocuous things he's still unwilling/unable to take risks on. I guess I need to remember that I'm not responsible for his experience out there - he'll get out of it what he puts into it. I need to remember that his experience will be valid regardless of what he walks away with. I need to remember not to burden him with the experience *I* want him to have.

Ah... such an interesting few months ahead of us. I can't wait to see how this unfolds.

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.

Intermezzo #2: Stasis

The words are coming soooo slowly right now. I don't know whether it's because I've decomped fully, I'm coming down off a manic cycle, or the stress of impending Bar results combined with no job. It really doesn't matter, I guess. I'm having to pull each word out individually, like picking nits out of a squirming child's hair. But I'm doing it cause I believe it needs to be done. It's just taking longer than I'd hoped.

Sigh.

Chapter 5: Embracing the Absurdity

It doesn't really matter how much you read about Burning Man. It doesn't matter how many pictures you look at. It doesn't matter how many burners you talk to or videos you watch or tribe lists you subscribe to. NOTHING prepares you for it. Oh sure, you can have all the required AND recommended gear listed in the survival guide. You can have all the water and food and sunscreen you'll need to stay alive and healthy in the desert. You can even have the furry playa coats and boot covers cause you know that's what people do out there. But you just. Don't. Get. It. You can't get it. Not until you've been there.

But here's the secret - insofar as my perceptions went anyways: There's NOTHING to get. Really. I promise that I'm not being obfuscatory when I say this. There is nothing to get. The entire thing is utterly and completely pointless. It is pure absurdity. And that's what makes it perfect.

HUH?!?

Think about it: Wearing costumes in a desert. Cars shaped like fish and dragons and cupcakes. Life-sized games of Operation and Candy Land. Teeter-totters made from steel I-beams. Installing art that costs thousands of dollars and countless man-hours to create, only to take it down a week later. Building a 15-story free form structure entirely out of 2x3s at a cost of $250,000, using it as a dance club for a week, then burning it. At best this has most people shaking their heads quizzically asking "Why?!?" The answer to that is simple: Because. That's it. Just because.

I realized the truth of Burning Man while walking across the Playa the first Sunday night we were there. I was with some campmates heading toward the Man (though he hadn't been raised yet). In the distance, I could see center camp, and to either side, curving back toward us in a massive arc were the big Esplanade camps, many still being built. They were all awash in color and there was music swooping and diving over the playa. It reminded me of how Atlantic boardwalks look at night when seen from the ocean. But being in the desert, away from any semblance of civilization, lent an otherworldly effect to the scene.

While this immense, carnival-like vista incited childlike glee in me (much to the amusement of my friends, all of whom were vets), it wasn't until I stepped outside myself and saw us, as a group, traipsing across the desert, dressed up in frippery and fur, and alight with glowsticks and EL wire that the utter absurdity of what we were doing, of what this place was - it's very raison d'etre - hit me. Just Because.

It was one of those epiphanies where it feels as if the wrapping paper has been ripped off the package and you finally get to see what's inside. In a flash, I understood the fallacy of daily life: there always has to be an answer to the question "why?." Everything we do in this society, every move, every decision is calculated to get us to the next step (whatever that is). And we spend so much time calculating and deciding and moving forward, that we never get to enjoy where we are now. And once we're there (wherever 'there' is), we're looking for the next big thing yet again.

This is nothing new, of course; the Buddhists and Taoists have understood this for centuries. And I've understood this on an intellectual level for a couple of years now. But never have I understood it on such a deep and visceral level. As humans we DO need goals and purpose. But in filling that need, we've forgotten how to just be. We're so focused on purpose, that we've overinflated its importance. There must be space in our lives to exist, solely for the sake of existing.

Walking out there, that balmy clear night, I realized that Burning Man offers that space. Nothing happens out there for any reason other than itself. The the art out there exists for its own sake, not for critical acclaim, not for monetary gain, not for entree into some circle of society. It exists because some artist looked into his or her heart, had a vision, dreamed a sky full of ideas... and decided to make it happen. For no reason other than "because." What a fucking GIFT! So too with the camps. And the people. They are there just because.

And in this simple existence lies perfection. Something that just "is" can't be wrong.

This revelation literally knocked the wind out of me and I had to gasp for air. D'you ever remember - as a child - saying something so unexpectedly insightful or doing something so successfully that it caused your chest to fill with huge emotion? Like you couldn't open your mouth or do anything other than smile because if you did, you might cry or laugh or squeal or somehow EMOTE in a big uncontrollable way...? Cause that's how this felt. It's how it still feels.

Don't misunderstand me, though. Burning Man, on a "real" level isn't perfect. It's not some utopian idyll. It's a city, with all the good and bad that a city has to offer. But in concept... THAT'S where the perfection lies.

It's so funny now to see the looks people give when you tell them about the Playa. They don't get why you'd want to wear a prom dress with engineer boots and a glowing cowboy hat in a desert. You can see it on their faces: Well, that's just silly.

And you think, "Exactly."

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?