"Burning Man Sucks, Don't Go"

“Burning Man Sucks, Don’t Go”

My adventures in Black Rock City, NV

Please Note: This is not only an attempt to tell you about my journeys, but to chronicle them in as much detail as possible for myself personally. This isn’t something I want to forget.  The reason I’m sending out this incredibly detailed version is basically that I’m lazy and don’t want to write two versions.  So if you just want the jist…. Skim.. 

Tuesday:
        First off, I was up really late on Monday night, packing, spending my last computer time, etc. I was up until around 1am. Tuesday Morning, at 5:05, my alarm goes off. I was pissed. I smacked the snooze button and went back to sleep. At 5:10, the alarm rang again, and I was so tired I slept through it. Talk about a way to start my adventure, jeeez. My mom came in and turned off my alarm, let me sleep until around 5:45. We had some scones for breakfast, finished loading the car, and were out the door by 7 something. Picked up stamps at the post office and away we went! One loaded up van full of stuff we were sure we’d need (but you’ll hear more about that later) and our last bout of air conditioning.

        I slept in the car for a while, I’m not sure how long, curled up on the pipsy arm rest, since the car was so full I couldn’t lean my seat back, nor stretch out my legs. Unfortunately for my mom, she didn’t know how to change the cds in our borrowed vehicle, nor did she know where my cd stash was, so she listened to The Killers “Hot Fuss” for several hours on repeat. We all love that cd… but several hours of it was probably annoying. We stopped for a real breakfast at Denny’s around 10:30. I didn’t realize how much I really should’ve appreciated that damned grilled cheese. We drove around for a while more, I slept some, we listened to music, whatever. It was already becoming obvious we were sharing the road with our fellow Burners. Vans, Trucks, SUVs and tiny vintage trailers were cruising along the road with us, decorated bikes, carpet, and fuzzy costumes in tow.

        We got to Reno around 2:30, and decided to eat our last real food there. We got a hot fudge brownie Sunday and a peanut butter shake and split them, though we left a lot in that little Black Bear Diner (whoda thunk it was a chain?). Used our last real toilet for the week. Called home (where John & John [my dad & my boyfriend] were working on remodeling the master bath) for the last time, as after Reno there’s no cell phone service.

        And then we were into the last stretch to the city. We passed through a lot of beautiful land, and spent a fair bit of time driving through Native American tribal lands. By this time, the road was 90% Burners, all on our way home (I’ll get to that later too). I called out speed limit signs for my mom, as the police in the area are rumored to be aggressive and demand fines paid on the spot. We passed a crushed car with the Burning Man symbol spray painted on it that read “slow down” on the way there. There were also a lot of “Welcome Burners!” signs the closer we got there, local folks selling food, gas and last minute equipment to those on their way to the Playa. It was intensely exciting when we could first see the city, which was about ten miles away.

We made our way along the massive road into the city, driving slow with the other Burners, reading entertaining signs as we went in. My personal favorite read “If you were really green, you would’ve walked here!”. We got to will call and picked up our ticket. The woman directly in front of us was wearing nothing but her lacey underwear and bra. She was probably in her late thirties, and seemed totally comfortable in next-to-nothing. That was the point at which I realized that seeing pictures of the citizens of Black Rock City is NOT the same as being with them. It was going to take some getting used to. On our way back to the car, a man was calling out “I just need 221 more people to give me a dollar and I can go to Burning Man!”. We each gave him a buck. He’d obviously hitchhiked from god-knows-where to get there, with nothing but a backpack. What a trip.

After another slow drive and some more funny signs, we got to the greeter’s station. A man checked our car for stowaways, stubbed our tickets, and sent us to the greeters for an official welcome. We each received a map, a who-what-where guide, a bm sticker, a survival guide, a green guide, and a paper full of tips. We told the man we were first timers, and he suddenly went “wait, you’re not done yet!” and went off to fetch someone. Another greeter, a pretty young woman wearing a gold lame bikini with a matching cowboy hat came up to us, “Virgin?” she looked at me, grinning, “Virgins? Deer in the headlights number one? Deer in the headlights number two? BOTH virgins?!” my mom and I blinked and nodded slightly. She pulled us out of the car, instructing me to get my camera. I scrambled into the trunk to get it. “Okay, you got it! Here, take this hammer and ring this big bell here!” she had us each ring the bell and took pictures of it. (pictures will be inserted here eventually) This sound, we learned, would be heard all throughout the weeks, and we would later laugh, screaming “virgins!”. She gave us each a big hug, exclaiming “Welcome Home!”. That’s how I learned the standard greeting in Black Rock City.

        Apparently, you aren’t assigned a spot, you actually get to pick one wherever there’s room in the city. We cruised around for a while, and ended up stopping at Jungle & 6:30 (of course, we didn’t actually realize we were at Jungle & 6:30, but again, later.). The wind was blowing, but not too hard. It was around 4:20 by the time we parked (har-de-har-har), and we started to set up camp. We ended up putting our tent just next to our car, so we had some wind block (which came in very useful later in the week), and put our shade structure (borrowed from the amazing Sandy) just next to it. We had to fight the wind a bit to get set up, but we managed. We got our pretty sign hung up on our shade structure (the sign also doubled our shade, aren’t we smart?). No one was really around when we set up, but that was okay. We were on the very edge of the city, but that didn’t seem like it would be too bad.

        Our neighbors biked up while we were grabbing a snack, and came over and introduced themselves. Joy met us first, a tall blond woman who was a traveler with a home base in Colorado. Zoe (or Zoo) came up next, a short Asian Canadian who was super sweet. They were both happy to have new neighbors. They both played the didgeridoo, often in a strange way (Zoo really loves to hang from the trapeze while playing here didge).

We decided it was time to go see the city. It was still light outside, so we walked down to the Esplanade and walked about 6:00-9:00 (the streets, not the times, get tricky doesn’t it?). My mom took off her hat and stuck it in her pocket. It, of course, fell out while we were walking. I also lost a bag off my utility belt, which contained our precious sunscreen, chapstick, map, and hand sanitizer. We did, however, find a cool place to dance for a while. Some bees came by (well, people dressed up like bees) and we played ring toss with glow bracelets. The prize was a sort of sweaty bee hug. I gave a girl a bracelet I’d made. We decided it was getting dark, so we started to walk home. We got to 6:30 & Habitat, and were sure that was where we lived. We were, of course two streets down, but we were pretty sure that people moving in while we were gone had blocked our tent. Our landmarks, a pattern of squarish lights and a giant lit flamingo, turned out to be attached to art cars and were driving around the streets. Just before dark, with our sole flashlight, we decided to check Intertidal, just in case. We found our camp, which was, as before mentioned, along Jungle. Oh, this would be a good time to mention that our semi-circle streets are in alphabetical order, and that our other streets are the times, going from 10:00 to 2:00.

        When we got home, we organized our things a bit and my mom made some dinner. I spun glowsticks to the music next door for a while, just in the little courtyard that we’d created by our random assortment of campsites. Zoo danced while I spun, and we had a good old time. Then, exhausted from our early morning, we crashed around 10:00pm.

Wednesday:
        Wednesday is probably my fuzziest memory of the playa, but I'll try my best. Wednesday morning I woke up, as usual, around 7:30. We grabbed some cereal and scones for breakfast, and gave scones to Joy and Zoo. We walked into town, taking in more of the city during the day. Sadly, the Boutique was closed. It seemed to be closed, in fact, for most of the time we were there, which was sad because I would've liked to pick up some more costume stuff. We went to a cool art project where we each got to decorate a circle of cardboard and staple it to the building, decorating it. We talked to a nice woman in there (who, just so you understand the picture, was wearing merely a pair of panties, and was putting on sunscreen) for a while. She told us about a cool journal project with the Census (I'm telling you, Black Rock City is a REAL city. We do have a census) for recording first-year's experiences.

        We walked over to the Media Mecca, but they knew nothing about it. We found our way to a comfy room full of couches in the back, where a nice man named Jeff told us about the project. It's a study from UCLA, trying to figure out what Burning Man is really about. So, we talked to Jeff for a while, set up an audio interview, and each received a journal to write in.  A woman saw us and asked “Are you two mother and daughter?” and we said “yes.” And she told us that she loved to take pictures of mothers and daughters with her Polaroid camera, and now we have a photo of the two of us in the Census area.  Maybe at some point I’ll scan it and post it here.

       After that, we headed back to camp to get some lunch an a nap.  After about an hour, we decided it was time to walk back out to the Greeters to get a replacement map.  On the way out, we were greeted by a new neighbor (who I of course welcomed home) who walked up to me and handed me a necklace "This is for you".  It's a pretty metal pendant that has the Burning Man symbol in it, with "2007" printed across him.  (Maybe I'll stick a picture in here at some point) He was very nice, and gave my mom a necklace as well.  His name was Lance, and he and his daughter Alesha (I'm not sure how she spells it) were there.  She was doing airbrushed tattoos the next day, and he invited us.  I gave him a purple bracelet (which he wore for the rest of the week, he was wearing it when we said goodbye) and we hiked out, probably a good mile, to see the greeters.  We saw some women sitting in lawn chairs by the side, and asked them if they were in the greeter "break room".  They said they were merely waiting for their virgin, to see her face when she first entered the city.  We walked up to the actual greeters, and I immediately noticed something funny.  A distinct lack of clothing.  Now, in Black Rock City, it's fairly normal to have a naked greeter or two.  People walk around with no clothing on a lot.  But this was a gigantic row of completely nude men.  We walked up to one of them, and my mom called out "Hey, naked greeter man!".  Of course, about four of them turned, but the one nearest walked up to us.  We told him we'd lost our map, and he gave us each new information packets, motioning "shhh", not to tell anyone.  We chatted for a bit, and he explained that this was the Naked Greeter Shift (perfect time for those nice lady's virgin to come in, eh?).  The guy was probably at least 60, and was very tan and very hairy.  We each gave him a hug ("Naked Greeter Hug!") and hiked back to camp. 

       Then it was nap time.  By this time, I'd realized I was in goddamn Black Rock City, so I took off my shirt (I wore shirts very little for the rest of the week, in fact), laid down on a bit of carpet in the shade in my bra and pj pants and took a nap.  I got antsy, so I wrote in my journal for a while and wrote a couple letters (which I still need to send.  Whooopsie).  My mom got a little bit of sleep, but not enough.

When the sun dipped behind the mountain and gave the Playa blessed shade, we decided it was time for a real night out.  So we lit ourselves up with glowy stuff, grabbed a bottle of water, and headed out to the Esplanade.  We walked out, found a couple places to dance, looked at the cool stuff out there.  When we had to go to the bathroom, we went out along 3:00 to find a porta-potty.  Thankfully, it was only around 10pm, so it wasn’t too disgusting. 

On our way back, we found this awesome little comedy club.  They gave us tiramisu and strawberry slices, though we declined the wine.  A man named Pepper and his friend came up on stage.  Pepper’s friend gave a great speech about straightjackets and their history.  He had a regulation straightjacket with him, which they had bought online by lying and saying they were medical professionals (who are the only people licensed to buy such things).  “Why they sold it to us?  We’ll never know.”  It was a real straightjacket, and they called some volunteers onstage and taught them how to put it on pepper.  It came complete with pressure clips and a crotch strap (a direct quote from Pepper: “Let me adjust.  Now, I think today I’m going to be on the left side, and when I do this later in the week, I’ll be on the right side, kinda even it out a bit…” all of course while doing a little adjustment jig because his arms were already tied.)  There was no smoke, and no mirrors, the man actually got himself out of a straightjacket.  Arm over the head by slamming his shoulder into the ground as hard as possible, undo the crotch strap backwards, left handed, without being able to see, and pulling the whole thing over his head.  It was pretty phenomenal.  He got a lot of applause.  And I’m sure a lot of bruises.

Next up was a girl, Warrior something, who did a Playa-Logue about her first year.  Apparently she was recruited into a performance team by a gnome when she moved so San Francisco.  They lived in the stick house (which was made of sticks) out by the Hot Springs, because this was back in the day when you could swim in them.  And they were the “Guardians of the Hot Springs”.  And she told a great story about how White Trash Camp was right next door, and they almost accidentally shot her friend in the head (back in the day when they had guns on the Playa), and about how they did performance art for days straight in the stick house.  It was great.

            Then a man named Fat Pagan came in and did a song about his pets.  His cat’s name was Merlin, his dog’s name was Gandalf.  “He’s not my cat, I’m his human”.  Then Pepper came back onstage, complete with fluffy hair and black clown nose, and did a jig with the “Love Child”, a children’s play baby that was rigged up like a puppet.  They did a song about how much the baby loves to have sex, get high and get drunk.  And Pepper used his puppeteer abilities to make the baby hump half the people in the audience.  “He’s doing the nasty, on your head!”.  We skipped out after this performance, but it was pretty great overall.  I liked that club.  We never had the chance to go back, but it was a great place.

            We walked along the Esplanade some more, and found this great place called the Playa-Go-Round.  It was a lot like those carousels in parks, except that this was a big fuzzy disc with a post in the middle, and it had a couple pillows on it.  And all the people jumped on and then spun each other, and it was fantastic.  Two guys spun it super fast when it was just me on there, and I went flying off.  I landed on my feet though, so it was all good.  I got so dizzy, as did my mom, though she wasn’t on it half as long as I was.

By this time, I was pretty dehydrated, seeing as I’d been walking and dancing and being crazy for a few hours.  We wanted to get some water, but ended up walking all the way down to the Opulent Temple (Esplanade & 2:30).  Now, please understand that since I’ve heard about Burning Man, I’ve heard about the Opulent Temple.  And I’ve always wanted to go to what is one of the largest dance clubs on the Playa.  We caught the last set by a rock group (rare on the Playa), and my mom saw her first mosh pit.  The Opulent Temple has huge round screens that show funky visuals to go with the music, and there are two giant flamethrowers up by the DJ that shoot gigantic flames over the crowd.  It kept us all toasty warm.  I was exhausted and dehydrated, so we finished out that set and then listened to the first five minutes of the typical (which in Black Rock City means really good) Playa rave music.  Then we headed out to find some water.

We got to 3:00 and decided we'd had good luck with that street, so we went down until we got to the 3:00 plaza.  We asked bars along the way if they had any water, but none of them did.  So we went to the med station, where the men graciously gave us water, explaining that this was much better than picking us up off the Playa later that evening.  And as such the walk home began.

At this time, we hadn't realized that going out 3:00 & Intertidal and then going out to 6:30 was the really fucking long way home, so it was the path we took.  We dropped by the Porta-Potties once more, again, not too bad, it was only about 11:30.  Some people, as we were walking along the quieter outer road of Intertidal, came up to us, "Ladies with the lights!  Would you like some more?  We're going in for the night!".  They adorned us with their spare glowy stuff and told us about Spin Art at 3:00 the next day.  We thanked them and continued on.  Then this man came up to us and said "Excuse me, I don't want to bother you, but do you see that big shadow right there?".  There was indeed a disc of a shadow in the road.  Of course, we assured him that he wasn't crazy and that there really was a disc there.  "Now, where do you suppose it's coming from?".  The disc of shadow was moving, sometimes disappearing, about the road.  Suddenly, I looked up "well, it's from the flying saucer up there, it's going in front of the moon.".  Yes, we called this thing the flying saucer.  Some big white thing with blinky lights that sort of perused the outer limits of the city at night.  So we all ran out into the shadow of it and laughed and talked and suddenly, the shadow was gone.  This guy was really nice, and we chatted with him until we got to 6:30 (he lived at 7:30).  Made the time pass well. 

When we got home around midnight, we decided it was merely time for water and a rest, and then we would head back out.  Of course, once your head is on that pillow, you ain't getting up again.  So that was our night, early in as it may have been, our first night out on the Playa.  I guess my memory wasn’t as fuzzy as I thought!

Thursday:

Thursday was a different kind of day on the Playa.  We didn't know it at the time, but it would be our second to last there.  We woke up in the morning, had some breakfast, and went downtown.  We were going to get coffee on the way, but my mom forgot money, forgetting that coffee is one of the two things on the Playa you actually buy (along with Ice at the lovely Arctica).  So we went, uncaffienated, to do our Audio interview with Jeff.  We got there ten minutes early, at 9:50, and a nice man in a kilt and bright orange sunglasses went into the back to get Jeff.  Did I mention Jeff was a really kind, I will admit attractive, fresh out of college anthropologist from Nepal?  Well, now you know.  We'd woken him up apparently (he was out until 3), and he offered to take us out for Coffee.  He'd done an art tour on the Playa last night with his buddies from the Census.  So my mom got a chai, and he got an iced coffee, and I got hot tea, and we all helped carry soy chais for the Countess and her buddies at the Census. He also warned us of the storm due that afternoon.

Then it was time for our interview, so Jeff grabbed some snacks (moldy english muffins, peanut butter, peanut butter cookies, and something else I don't recall) and popped on a tape recorder.  I'm sorry to say we got terribly off track, but that's okay, and it was a good time.  We were there for two hours and didn't even realize it. During our interview the Countess brought us really amazing raisin bread french toast with syrup, which was very nice of her.   After the recorder was off, Jeff told us about his homeschooling for a year, and going around the world, and what it was like for him being a first-timer at Burning Man.  It must suck for the people in his position, always listening, never allowed to react. 

We went back to camp, neglecting to eat lunch, and prepared our stuff for the storm.  Then we headed over to Lance's camp, where Aleesha was already airbrushing people.  We chatted with everyone for quite some time, and eventually I decided to get tiger stripes airbrushed onto my back.  (A picture will go here eventually).  It took forever, but it was beautiful, and she decided we needed something "statement-y" to go with my tiger stripes, since the theme was indeed the Green Man.  We decided the best would be to put "Endangered" across my shoulders.  It looked kickass with my antenna, which had tiger stripes.  For the rest of the day, as I walked by, I heard people going "Holy shit, she's a tiger!".  My mom got airbrushed too, but if you want to know what or where, you'll have to ask her.

After this, we were planning on heading out to the Spin-Art, but the big storm hit.  A total white-out, just like in the brochure, complete with coughing, face masks and goggles.  Some new guys had pulled into our camp, I cried out "Welcome Home!".  They claimed to have been before, but weren't concerned about breathing the Alkaline dust, and were expecting to set up in the storm.  I explained that this was a bad idea, and we gave them dust masks.  "Is this stuff bad for you to breathe?"  We offered them our spare rebar stakes, and they declined, expecting that their 8-inch tent stakes would do the trick, haha!  The one man offered us an herb that is known to cause heart attacks, saying it merely "opens up your lungs".  What an odd, odd, couple.

We expected the storm to last about fifteen minutes, so after an hour we considered our options.  We decided it would be best to go down to the Cafe, we couldn't stay inside, the wind was too scary, and we didn't want to just sit alone in the cold.  So we started the long journey to center camp, barely able to see. 

I have to say, I wish I'd brought a camera, because the Cafe during a white-out is just like something out of Firefly.  And you all know how much I love Firefly.  Hundreds of us, some sleeping, some dancing, all wrapped up in what protection we have against the storm, covered in dust from head to foot, all wearing costumes turned the same bland shade by the insanity of the white-out.  The flags overhead were whipping, and in the center of the Cafe an impromptu band was playing simple instruments, and people were all dancing in their own way.  These two people were all wrapped up in a huge band of stretchy fabric, and they were dancing and pulling each other around the floor, as if they were on ecstacy (they may or may not have been).  And a woman was spinning practice fire-twirlers, as actual fire in the storm would've been dangerous.  One man had nunchucks and was swirling them around, and some people were fake fighting, almost as if they were hardcore dancers in a pit back home.  And there were two beautiful women with dreadlocks, sitting in front of me, who reminded me so much of a polaroid project from a small art community.  Lauren, you remember? (at some point I'll find the link and stick it here).  And it was so beautiful.  We were there for nearly 5 hours, in that Cafe, before the storm died down.  I walked off to watch a man named Mark Day (a Scotsman no less!) do comedy.  Look him up, he’s very funny.

My memory blurs a little after the storm, I think we wandered for a while, stopped, on the way home, at the currently empty Playa-Go-Round, realizing that we hadn’t eaten any lunch and were both hungry and dehydrated.  We lazed around for a while before finally getting off our asses and heading back to camp.  We realized we hadn't eaten anything in ten hours, and decided it was time to go home and get food.  When we got back, I took a picture of my dust storm ridden self, which I'll have to put in here at some point.  We were just too tired and hungry, so we pulled out the easy food and laid down to rest.  We laid on the beds for a while, mindlessly munching on little bits of food, swearing at each other.  I broke into manic giggles from time to time.  You know when you get to that point, that point where you go absolutely insane, and start laughing about nothing and swearing profusely at your mother?  Yeah, I was at that point.  So we laughed and said “fuck you” and “fuck this” and “fuck dust” and “fuck desert food” back and forth for a while (something about the place, the extreme conditions and the craziness of it all gives you a really dirty mouth), and I ate an entire box of wheat thins and fell asleep. 

I vaguely remember my mother trying to wake me up around 4am, trying to get me to go out and see the real nightlife, and me trying to get her to go without me, and falling back asleep.  You don't know you've hit sensory overload until you sleep for 12 hours straight (with no earplugs) in one of the loudest and most exciting places in the world.

Friday:

When I finally woke up, and before I even left the tent I noticed that it was completely organized.  No more storm-saved carpet on the floor, no more clothing everywhere.  My mom had obviously spent several hours cleaning while I was asleep.  I came out to have breakfast, and Jay (one of the new guys next door) was outside with my mom.  "Good morning Princess, you finally woke up!"  He talked a lot about French literature, and I got the feeling he was a very misguided soul.  He was looking for love on the Playa.  I'm sure he found sex, but he didn't know that wasn't what he was looking for.  I told him the "Heart in a Box" story from camp, and made him cry.  And then he went on and on about this French book, that I will have to read now, merely  because it changed his life so much, and he was so vague about it.  "The Red and The Black".  I'm not sure by whom.  I ducked inside for a moment to put on a shirt, for some reason this man made me nervous.  I don't think he was dangerous, but I still mentioned John a couple times so that he understood he wasn't to be after me.  "What was it that attracted you to your boyfriend?  Was it when you first met?".  Me: "Uhm, no, it was when I got to really talk to him."  He was so surprised! The idea that you could be attracted to someone from talking to them just shocked him.  Hence "misguided soul".  So we talked with him for a while and then he disappeared off somewhere, and my mom insisted that we sweep out the tent.  So we moved all of the newly organized stuff and swept out the tent.  And then, with our lack of water and food, we bickered for a while before begrudgingly deciding to go into town.

Once at the Café, we grabbed some coffee, walked around a bit, and grabbed copies of the local papers.  The Beacon, the Official Black Rock City Paper, often spreads lies, just like a real establishment-run paper in a real city.  Piss Clear, the Alternative Newspaper, calls them on their problems, just like a real underground paper.  It’s pretty amazing.  I cannot even explain to you how much Black Rock City is a CITY.  We heard another storm was coming in, this time with rain, and swore to ourselves as we’d left the carpet out.  We ran back to our camp, but got lost along the way, so hungry, thirsty, and pissed we arrived at 6:00 and Jungle, turned, and saw the Café straight down the road.  Which wasn’t exactly the most uplifting thing.  So we rolled up our rugs and put them into the car, and decided to try to ride out the storm in the safety of our own tent.  Haha, what safety?  We found out later that our neighbor’s structure had fallen down, and that Zoo and Joy’s tent had collapsed in on Zoo in the storm the day before (we hadn’t realized she was home), and that she was cowering in there the whole damn thing.  And then the wind had turned one hundred eighty degrees, throwing her tiny self into the other side of the tent. 

So we laid in our tent for a while, and in this storm it became truly covered in dust, we were breathing it through our masks.  In a moment of relative clarity, we decided to hike back to the Café, our automatic oasis in a storm.  So we hiked out, trying not to be hit by idiots driving their art cars in these conditions.  When we made it to the Café, we sat down on some pillows, and listened to music for a while.  My mom left to get herself a Chai, and after an hour I was wondering where she was.  A hot topless chick with a collar and a chain was being hit on by two frat boys, so I left my designated spot to find my mom.  I didn’t find her, so I ran up to try to get one of the few free cds the amazing violinist who was playing was giving out.  My mom saw me trying to get one, and as the woman asked “How old am I?” the correct answer to which would get you the last cd.  My mom screamed out “Somewhere between zero and a hundred and five!” and the woman tossed her the CD. 

We thought just maybe we’d be able to get out of the Café.  We hiked out, but the white out was so bad we couldn’t even see each other.  We huddled behind an abandoned art car for a while trying to get our bearings.  We didn’t even know where the street was.  Two people on stilts walked by, holding hands and trying to find shelter.  There were people everywhere, appearing and disappearing out of the haze of dust, with our eyes clogged with it in spite of our glasses.  It took us a while to find the Café again, though we passed some crazy people dancing in the storm on our way back.

Once we were safely back in the Café, we discovered that the white out was inside.  No one could see, we were all covering up, and no one could leave because of the storm.  We gave a couple unlucky folks masks and we sat down to watch the comedians.  The MC came in between acts, doing bits of comedy himself, and at one point had to do comedy with his eyes shut, as the white-out was bad and it had begun to rain (through the roof, of course, which was made of cloth).  He got us all to sit in the Café and say “Fuck It!” over and over again, the storm was so bad and we were all so pissed off.  Then he introduced the next guy, who’s mailing list I’m now on, though I don’t remember his name.  This man did three lovely songs, the first being “Burning Man Sucks, Don’t Go”.  And he explained “You see, if you’re in the office and Steve from down the hall says ‘you went to Burning Man, was it any fun?’ you’re supposed to say ‘No!  Burning Man sucks, don’t go’.  Because, you know what, we have enough Steves!  No more Steves.  And no more ravers.  And no more naked fucking hippies.  That’s right.  I said it.  No more naked hippies.  You know what, we have a little rule here at Burning Man and it’s called ‘Leave No Trace’.  Now you come in here with your bare ass and sit on our couches in the Café.  How’s that for leave no trace?  Bring a towel or something, it’s common courtesy.”  And he sang a song about Burning Man, and got us all to sing the chorus.  “Burning Man, Burning Man, used to be so cool, before they went and fucked it up, with all these stupid rules.”.  And then he sang a song called “Black Men Have Big Penises”.  With of course the second verse being about white men, and their small penises.  And of course, the final verse was about Ken Dolls, and their “no penises”.  We all sang along.  And then he sang a song about his own penis, and all the amazing things it could do.  It was hysterical. 

            After he went off stage, the MC came up, talking about this strange girl who’d been wandering around the audience for the last couple of acts.  She was dressed in camo and her underwear, with a full mask, and was waving a fake gun in people’s faces.  She then sat behind the comedian, on the stage, and messed around with her gun, at one point sticking it down her pants.  As the MC came up, she’d moved to the floor space in front of the comedian, and was pointing her fake gun at people and kind of humping the floor.  The MC explained that some people come into this space and use it for performance, and some people come just to fuck up other people’s performances, and this girl, who was (and I quote) “rubbing her koochie all over the floor”, was one who came to fuck it up.  “This is what happens when you overdose on ecstacy,” he continued, “now everybody who wants her to leave, please yell ‘get the fuck out of here’.”  By this point, the storm had subsided enough that my mom and I picked up, after our over five hour adventure, were clear to head back home.

            When we got back, we discovered that our (borrowed) shade structure had been ruined.  Bits of metal bent and broken, fabric torn, it was a disaster.  The storm broke a ziptie.  A ZIPTIE.  Do you know how much force it takes to break a ziptie?  So we sighed, pulled out the stakes, broke the structure into manageable pieces and packed it up in it’s bag for the dump.  My mom had to buy her amazing friend Sandy a new shade structure.  It was ridiculous.  And we went into our incredibly dust filled tent to rest.  I don’t remember much about this, but I think it was a lot like Thursday night.  Eat, swear, crash.  Except this time I didn’t sleep twelve hours.  And I was sleeping in a LOT more Alkaline ridden dust.  I remember waking up from time to time, breathing it, coughing, rolling back over and going to sleep.

Saturday:

            Around 2:30am, I woke up, having had around six hours of sleep, and woke my mom, asking if she wanted to party.  So we got up, got dressed, my mom grabbed some breakfast (though I wasn’t hungry), and we got out our glowy stuff so we didn’t get hit by the drunkards on bikes.  Tonight was the night to see the real nighttime scene.  By the time we left, it was around 3:15am, and we got to the Esplanade around 3:45am.  There was a Piss Clear Bootie Party (a mashup, bootlegged rock mix party hosted by the editors of our amazing magazine, Piss Clear) at Esplanade and 4:30 (again, the confusions of times and streets, this is 4:30 the street), so we went over there, but by that time it was a sparse crowd, and they were playing music not suited to our dancing mood. 

            We continued along the Esplanade, finally reaching the outskirts, 2:00, though from pretty far away we’d heard the music.  The Chill Dome was pumping with some amazing rave music, and I went in to dance.  The music got too loud for my mom, so she went outside, but I danced in the crazy place for a good half hour.  And people were going nuts, and the DJ was great, and there were strobe lights, and there were people on ecstasy, and guys and girls were pole dancing, and the music was so loud you could feel it rattle your ribs and I got whistled at and stared at as I danced.  It was a pretty great feeling.  Eventually I went back outside, not wanting to abandon my mother, and we continued the other direction along the Esplanade for a while.  We were talking about the upcoming Burn that night, and our need for water.

            This time, we were closer to the 9:00 Plaza, so we walked down to it, and to the med station, where my mom asked for some water.  The woman snapped at her, “Self Reliance!” and she explained that she’d been told that they gave out water to the dehydrated.  The man growled, “Who told you that?”, and my mom got pissed.  Incredibly, incredibly pissed.  I promise, you have never SEEN my mother this upset.  The desert will do that, it exaggerates emotions.  Just as dancing in a rave club made me totally ecstatic, a couple of meanies made her livid.  As we walked along to get to the Porta-Potties, she was telling the story angrily to everyone she saw. 

            Personally, I was looking in each open Porta-Loo and becoming terrified.  Someone’s ass exploded in EVERY SINGLE ONE.  I checked all thirty of the potties, and there was shit everywhere.  On the seats, on the walls, on the floor.  It was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.  Some people had just missed the toilet entirely.  Pooped on the toilet seat, or on the bench surrounding it.  That was the moment I vowed never to go to the potties after midnight ever again (little did I  know I wouldn’t have the chance).  We walked back to the Esplanade, and on the way my mom swore at the med clinic.  Only problem was, she said “Fuck You All!” in the general direction of the med center, which meant that she basically screamed at half the 9:00 Plaza.  I just kept walking, and eventually she joined up with me.  She was still livid.  Was for most of that night actually.  By the way, don’t ask her to tell you the story, she gets all worked up again.

            We walked along the Playa for a while, and three ambulances passed us, and we saw several drunks on bikes.  Now, I have to tell you, a hardcore drunk on a bike is a sad but funny thing.  They ride really really slowly, and eventually kind of stop and fall over.  And they lie on the Playa for a while and then pick up their bike, try really hard to swing their leg over the side, fail a half dozen times, and finally get back on.  And then they ride a little while and fall over again.  And then they sort of lie on the Playa looking dazed and smiling and waving at people.  I saw several of these bikers that night.  It’s just pathetic. 

            After seeing these drunkards, we decided we’d had enough of the “late night Playa life” and that indeed we preferred the before-midnight crowd.  We hit up some of the outer edge potties on the way back, which weren’t quite as disgusting as those near the Esplanade.  We got back to our campsite around 6:00am.  My mom tried to open the door to the car, and found that she had to open the power-opening doors manually, and that the lights were blinking on and off.  She tried to start the car, and it was flat dead.  By this time, I was in the tent, half asleep, lying on my dust covered bed, not caring that I was breathing Alkaline dust at an alarming rate.  My mom was extremely alarmed, and decided that we needed to leave as soon as we could pack up.  I told her that I needed sleep, but that I’d help her in the light.

            I woke up around 7:30, and the car was half packed.  It took us a while to pack our stuff back into the car without my dad’s engineer-wise packing skills.  The car, of course, still didn’t start, and we asked Jay about it, and he had a portable jump-starter, which wasn’t doing crap for the battery.  My mom was crying the whole morning.  I offered to go to see Jeff, to see if he could get us access to the press computers in the Media Mecca, but she didn’t want to be alone.  So we went to our other neighbor, who’s name we did not yet know, who had a satellite dish with the hopes of Internet.  My mom wanted to contact Triple A.  The guy came out of his camper in his boxers, and my mom, completely in tears, told him we needed a jump.  He brought his set of cables, tested our battery, and got Jay to move his van over so that we could properly jump the car.  After we jumped it, we let it run for a while and finished packing.  We gave away six gallons of water, and I gave some of the bracelets I made to Zoo and Joy and told them to give them out for me at the Burn.  We said goodbye to all our favorite neighbors, the ones mentioned above, and to John, who was the guy who helped us jump our car.  My mom said that John was a “good name” because it was the name of her husband and my boyfriend.  It was funny.  Lance and Aleesha told us that they were always in the same spot for the Burn if we should ever come back.  And as such we gave out hugs and headed off.

            When we left, my mom was sure she’d never go back.  She stopped crying somewhere along those back roads, as I talked to her, telling her she wasn’t alone, that I wasn’t going to leave her, that our car wasn’t breaking down, that it’d be okay.  And after convincing her that even if we did break down, some kind Burner would stop for us.  So we drove, and listened to music, and kept going until we got to Reno.  And we called my dad and told him what was going on, told him we’d left before they burned the man.  We were planning on staying in a hotel in Reno, but dad told us to just come home and he’d take care of us.  So we stopped in Reno (and the car restarted fine) and got some really bad Mexican food.  But let me tell you, it tasted great.  I was so happy to have a flushing, porcelain toilet and running water.  If was funny though, once we were out of the car and remembered what real air smelled like, the smell of Playa in the car was totally disgusting.  We hadn’t realized it smelled bad we’d become so acclimated. 

            As we were driving out of Reno, John called me.  He asked where I was, and I told him I was outside of Reno, driving home.  I assumed my dad had called and told him (they do work together after all), but no, he’d just called to hear my voice on the message machine (idn’t that cute?) and psychically called not only the day I left (two days early), but also during some of the little time I was in cell phone range.  It was nice to hear from him.  I invited him over that evening.  I think I slept a little in that bit of the car ride, but I’m not sure… I do remember arriving home though, smelly and dusty, with a car full of stuff to clean.

            And I took a shower, and it was blissful.  And we decided not to clean out the car that night.  And later John came over for just a couple hours, and the next day we cleaned up most of our stuff, and John came in the afternoon to help us wash the car.  And I had a little bit of time to decompress.  Before you ask, yes, I do want to go again.  I’m also fairly sure my mom wants to as well (and my dad.  In an RV).  My only regret is not finishing this log sooner, when it was fresher in my mind.  And because of this, I have one last little section.

Random Things I Want To Remember But Have Forgotten the Context and the Days For:

A man who’s penis was chained to his bicycle.

Jeff changing his name to “Japhy”.

Zoo running naked after the water truck for a shower.

Randy, who said he was in his 50s and still hadn’t told his mom he was going to Burning Man.

The “Spank Me” coupon we found on the ground.

The woman who walked up to me “do you need a hug?” and hugged me warmly.

All the kindness that spawns there, and the people who talk to you randomly.

The point at which nudity didn’t seem at all strange to me anymore.

EVERYTHING.

I'm going to BURNING MAN!

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I absolutely adore this video.