How To Enjoy The Burning Man Experience From The Comfort Of Your Own Home

Reprinted from http://www.burningmanseattle.com/stories-about-burning-man... It could be a copyright violation in the real world, in theory, but there are no such legalities in the world of Burning Man! Besides, it's absolutely hilarious... and strangely true!

# Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When they leave, follow them back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things.
# Pay an escort of your affectional preference subset to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig, dance close naked, then say they have a lover back home at the end of the night.
# Stack all your fans in one corner of the living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.
# Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.
# Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3 blocks away. Drain all the water from the toilet. Only flush it every 3 days. Hide all the toilet paper.
# Set your house thermostat so it’s 50 degrees for the first hour of sleep and 100 degrees the rest of the night.
# Before eating any food, drop it in a sandbox and lick a battery.
# Mail $200 to the Reno casino of your choice.
# Make a list of all the things you’ll do different next year. Never look at it.
# Search alleys untill you find a couch so unbelievably tacky and nasty filthy that a state college frat house wouldn’t want it. Take a nap on the couch and sleep like you are king of the world.
# Shop at Wal-mart, Cost-Co, and Home Depot until your car is completely packed with stuff. Tell everyone that you’re going to a "Leave-No-Trace" event. Empty your car into a dumpster.
# Spend thousands of dollars and several months of your life building a deeply personal art work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city. Hire people to come by and alternate saying "I love it" and "this sucks balls". Blow it up.
# Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various parts of your body. Forget how you did it. Don’t go to a doctor.
# Walk around your neighborhood and knock on doors until someone offers you cocktails and dinner.
# "Downsize" last year’s camp by adding two geodesic domes, a new sound system, art car, and 20 newbies.
# Lean back in a chair until that point where you’re just about to fall over, but you catch yourself at the last moment. Hold that position for 9 hours.
# Don’t sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of hallucinogenic/emotion altering drugs. Pick a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
# Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play a short loop of drum’n'bass until the embers are cold.
# Have a 3 a.m. soul baring conversation with a drag nun in platforms, a crocodile and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to tell if you’re hallucinating. Lust after Bugs Bunny.
# Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.
# Read "Dhalgren" by Samuel R. Delany. Read "The City Not Long After" by Pat Murphy. Cut off the bindings, throw all the pages up in the air, and shuffle them back together. Reread "The City After Dhalgren" by Samuel Murphy. Burn it. Read the ashes.
# Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or until you think you are going to scream. Scream. Realize you’ll love the music for the rest of your life.
# Spend 5 months planning a "theme camp" like it’s the invasion of Normandy. Spend Monday-Wednesday building the camp. Spend Thurs-Sunday nowhere near camp because you’re sick of it or can’t find it.
# Bust your ass for a "community." See all the attention get focused on the drama queen crybaby.
# Get so drunk you can’t recognize your own house. Walk slowly around the block for 5 hours.
# Tell your boss you aren’t coming to work this week but he should "gift" you a paycheck anyway. When he refuses accuse him of not loving the "community".
# Ask your most annoying neighbor to interrupt your fun several times a day with third hand gossip about every horrible thing that’s happened in the last 24 hours. Have them wear khaki.
# Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali’s more disturbing, but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.

Burning Man 2010

School Bus Retirement... continued!

Previously, we learned just what happens to that dear 'ol school bus, which used to take you to school in the morning, after its job is given to a newer, younger, hipper version. The workaholics continue to ply their trade in South and Central America (sometimes dying there); others are committed to continuing education, so they end up in South Dakota's Custer State Park, teaching tourists about Crazy Horse; the beach bums will go run their own surf camps in Costa Rica, and the ones who just can't let go of the adrenaline rush, join the Demolition Derby in places like Monroe.

Are there other options? Why, yes - some really are artists and hippies at heart, and they've got a place to call home in retirement too: Black Rock City in the Nevada desert! At least for one week out of the year they do anyway...

The Reel Mobile - we be jamming out on the Playa

The Space Bus - honestly, this one looks too much like a normal bus to be here!

On the way to San Francisco - can't tell if this was an Art Car or just somebody's way to transport everything to and from, but definitely a Burning Man vehicle!

Going out in a blaze of Burning Glory ... Man

Burning Man defies explanation - I feel words will absolutely, utterly fail to do it justice. Trying to get a grasp on it, without having gone, pictures will only mislead and confuse - the place is simply too enormous, too vast, too diverse to capture in any photograph. But, it is absolutely amazing. From the setting in the middle of a hot, barren, and foreboding Nevada desert, to all the very, very different people who come to witness it, to all the amazing and ridiculous art installations, and to its final culmination on Saturday and Sunday nights when the Man and the Temple burn - no matter where you turn, where you look, you never fail to be surprised, to see something downright amazing, never-failingly absolutely unique going on.

Just a few of the things that happened in Black Rock City - in no particular order, in no way suggesting that these are special, this is just what is likely to happen to you at Burning Man - normal parts of 'every day life' here, which make the place as unique and amazing as it is. I watched water burn, I rode a mutant city bus with a large ship installed on top of it, I walked a tight rope, I was shocked by one Joule of energy, which I had myself generated, I stripped off my clothes to do a dance in exchange for an early morning mimosa, I watched people fight in the ThunderDome, I climbed a tower that would've been deemed exceedingly dangerous to be climbed anywhere outside of Black Rock City, I found the fence in the middle of the night, then walked along it looking for corners, finally finding a movie theater in the middle of the desert, and settling in to watch the sun rise at a nearby bus stop ... where an hour later, a bus came by to pick us up, delivering the happiest moment of the week. I slept for an average of three hours a night, I inhaled an inordinate amount of dust from the air every day, I didn't shower, I watched my deodorant actually melt... I was ready to leave when Sunday rolled around, yet I was eager to go back as soon as we were confronted with civilization outside of Black Rock City. I felt free, unrestrained and happy the whole time there! I hung out with some of the most wonderful and interesting people you'll find anywhere on this planet...

We arrived late Tuesday night after a full day drive from Portland, Oregon. Our driver, the dominatrix (yes, that is her actual profession... seemed completely natural, unsurprising, and downright par for the course for this place) pulled up to the gate, presented all of our tickets and shared that she had two BM virgins on board - Laurie and I marched out, feeling just a little bewildered, each rang the gong, then proceeded to roll around in the dust, making a Playa angel and becoming one with the environment. A gigantic yellow moon hung low over us looking in on the spectacle, as an hour long cavalcade of cars was lining up for entry - on Sunday night, the wait had been six grueling hours(!). We found a parking spot on the outskirts of the sprawling Metropolis and wandered into the heart of town. Kyoto street to the center actually felt a lot closer than I had imagined, then rational thoughts ceased to be formed - we rode the Surly Bird around the Playa, passing a brightly lit Butterfly car and a preening Prey Mantis showing off the incredible detail its designers had dedicated to it. We saw The Man, holding its high and central position over the Playa. Laurie and I, the virgins, quietly tried to take it all in - I was absorbing the spectacle slowly, rationally, not feeling overwhelmed just yet, simply finding the scene around us astounding, ridiculous, bewildering. By the time we returned to the RV and went to sleep at 3 in the morning, the crowds had not thinned out at all, the music had not quieted down a single decibel, and the bright, screaming lights in the middle of this desert, a completely desolate piece of land for 51 out of the 52 weeks of the year, did not dim one bit.

The following morning, our happy Portland RV crew split up and we each went to our respective camps. I found Camp Caribbean, met Irina, proceeded to set up my tent ... which suddenly seemed awfully insufficient to house me and all of my things... a week's worth of food, water, clothing, and more. Irina and I headed off to explore the Metropolis in day light - and now, it really begins to blow your mind - there was just too much going on all around! The center of the Playa was closer than I had expected, but the encampment seemed to sprawl forever all around it. The landscape was dotted with insane art cars, incomprehensible, yet often gorgeous, art pieces ... camps that had their own decorations, their own entertainment options, their own food and drink, all of which they were ready to share with you. There's no money on the Playa - you bring things and you share them with the rest of the Black Rock City population, freely and happily. And in the end, free and happy were the strongest emotions that were on display here - you can do anything you want and you, and everyone around you, will be happy about it!

The Paradox in the desert - late Saturday night, the Man was set to burn! The biggest party in this week of partying over-indulgence, and its biggest oxymoron - we had all gathered to camp in this wild and desolate place, supplying all of our own food, water, power, garbage collection, and on this night, 50,000 people had gathered in the middle of the Playa, looking up at The Man, and surrounded by all the sites and sounds of civilization that you should never expect out here! The Man was surrounded by a ring of Art Cars, their music blaring loudly, their lights shining brightly, the drinks on board flowing freely. It was the one party that brought all of us together, making us feel like we weren't in the wild desert at all, but instead at an ornate celebration of our freedom, our freedom to incinerate the very symbol of the place that we had all come to see. Then the fireworks went off, blanketing the statue in their high-tech trails, making you forget about the desert setting that much more, until the flames were unleashed, and leapt up towards the statue, bringing with them a sense of wild nature here in the middle of the night on the Playa; consuming the giant statue in a matter of twenty minutes. The following night, the Temple followed the Man in its fiery course... but the Temple is the spiritual centerpiece of the Playa, and the setting was dramatically different - the Art Cars still patrolled in the background, but the sound systems were off, the lights subdued, the crowds relatively quiet... right up until the last of the Temple tumbled down onto the pile of ashes and glowing ambers, and a primal scream was unleashed... And then we got up and headed back for our camps and vehicles as it was time to leave. For those staying the night, the City remained vibrantly awash in light and sound, drawing in anyone still with the strength and endurance for another night of mayhem.

And finally, Evone, Steve, and I were in our U-Haul truck heading out of the City and on through the night towards San Francisco. Passing the entrance gates in short order, and then, thrust into a continuous traffic jam waiting, struggling to get back onto the paved roads, almost as if the real world was balking at letting us back in. For the three of us it went something like this: we'd pull up to the car in front of us and stop, waiting for it to move again. Which it would do some five to ten minutes later. Which was plenty of time for all three of us to fall asleep. Now, there would be some hundred feet of open dirt between us and the car ahead and either Evone would wake up first and get us up there, or one of Steve and I would wake up, nudge Evone, and we'd go. Rinse and repeat for some three hours until we finally hit the highway and were able to continuously move again, which seemed to help keep Evone focused and awake (while letting Steve and I simply pass out). The Denny's stop in Reno at 4:30 in the morning (along with every other car that had left Black Rock City that night) was a God-send!

Overall, what can I say about the Burning Man experience? In some ways, it did meet some of my expectations - I'm not entirely comfortable dealing with large crowds of people, and being thrust into a crowd of [mostly] strangers, fifty thousand strong, was a bit of a shock. On the other hand, in a lot of ways it exceeded a lot of my expectations - the over-riding feeling I got from everyone there was that of being happy and free, which was amazing, and made it easy and comfortable to get along with these thousands of happy and free strangers. The art, I also hadn't expected (how could you, really!?) - there's so much of of it ... everywhere and all around, it's incredible, astoundingly detailed and brilliantly designed, and all marvelously well fitting with the theme of the Metropolis (the Playa art tour was one of my favorite experiences of the week). As for all the expected downsides - the dust, the heat, the cold at night, the lack of showers? This didn't really register - maybe it was the lack of sleep (leading to lack of focus... or was it the alcohol that led to the constant lack of focus?), maybe I was just used to harsh conditions from places like Mongolia, Egypt, Nepal, Bolivia, etc, but I was able to take the harsh environment in stride... Not to say that I enjoyed the harshness of it - the first shower back in the real world, upon reaching San Francisco, felt like the most wonderful, healing, relaxing, profoundly existential experience, but, while there, I felt I could handle the intense conditions the desert threw at us. So, will there be a sequel next year? Much too early to tell - I'm intrigued about going back into that foreboding environment, meeting again the amazing people I had met this year, and finding more new ones... Then again, I might actually have a real job by next year, so will I be able to just take a week off? Will I want to go through the nightmare of logistics and planning again? What about the dust, heat, desolation, etc... conditions were actually far milder than normal this year? I don't know yet - I made up mind to go all of two weeks prior to the start this year, I'll probably let it go just about that long again next year!

Pictures... They still certainly fail to put anything into proper perspective, but that didn't keep me from taking lots of them. Instead of posting a bunch here, I'll just redirect you to the two photo albums already up on Facebook:

Click above for my main Burning Man album (or follow this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32264&id=100001212465813&l=ee701544cb)

And click this picture for an album full of just the Black Rock City art (link here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2078570&id=1046387715&l=a6da389a9a)

America's Pastime

I was going to write up a post about the baseball games I got to see a while ago, but then I forgot, then some more time passed, and here we are now, with me getting back to it: baseball, the great American Pastime! Not quite as great (or popular) as the NFL these days perhaps, but a nice relaxing way to spend an evening or an afternoon.

I've been to a good number of baseball games before - from San Diego to Seattle to Philadelphia to a lot of places in between (The new Giants Stadium in San Francisco is the best. Though Seattle's very own Safeco Field is up there too), but I had never seen either of the two oldest, venerable, most famous stadiums in the major leagues: Boston's Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play, and Wrigley Field, on the North side of Chicago, home of the green ivy and your favorite lovable losers, the Cubs. So, off I went planning my advance across North America, keeping famous baseball stadiums in mind:

Of course, my first North American stop was New York City

And they've got a fairly famous baseball team here too - something called the Yankees, at the New Yankee Stadium, shown here. I would've actually been more excited to see the old, more historic Yankee Stadium, but that had been replaced by this shining new stadium last year, so that's what we get. I would have been really, really excited to catch a game here (or even at the new Mets Stadium in Queens), but I happened to be in New York during baseball's All Star break, so no games for you! In fact, I even missed the hours for the tour of the stadium... So, enough with the Yankees then - on to Boston!

Boston, the city, I had visited on a number of occasions before, so I wasn't really inclined to do much sight-seeing, I did catch up with Mary Catherine (of Lake Baikal fame) here briefly, but really, my main raison d'etre in Boston was to catch a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, so on a beautiful summer evening, around 7 o'clock, I arrived at my Fenway seat and settled in to watch the Red Sox take on the Texas Rangers

Welcome to Fenway Park! Every game is sold out...

The Green Monster under the lights. I thought you'd be a little bigger, a little more monstrous actually, Green Monster? ('Green Monster' is what they call that big green wall over there, Mom)

My seats weren't very far from the Red Sox bullpen, so here's an action shot of the warm-ups

Unfortunately, the beautiful summer evening did not last, and around the fourth inning, the game was paused indefinitely due to rain. This was all a part of my Egypt hangover month of travel, where each new city I'd arrive in would greet me with rain and clouds after the interminable heat and sunshine that was everywhere in Egypt: Tunis, Naples, Rome, Paris, Bristol, London (of course), New York, Boston, Montreal, Buffalo... they each got me a taste of overcast skies and rain. I stuck with it though, waited out the delay, taking a chance to explore the stadium, and sample the local bratwurst offerings.

An hour later, the action resumed, and we all trooped back to our seats. Sadly, the weather didn't get the memo that we were all back, while the umpires were clearly inclined to try and get the game finished, so we were experiencing a little more New England drizzle than I felt I had really signed up for

The skies continuing to look ominous over Fenway

I put up with the rain for about another inning, and promptly packed up and headed out of the stadium - I'm all for catching a Sox game at Fenway, but getting soaked wasn't part of the plan. Fenway itself was really cool to see - it's certainly very small, very cozy, distinctly old school. The fans used to be known as the most knowledgeable baseball fans in America - as the ticket prices have risen sharply, the most die-hard, most knowledgeable fans have stopped being able to afford tickets, so while there still isn't an empty seat to be found in the house, I didn't necessarily think the makeup of the crowd was any different than what you'd expect at a baseball game anywhere else around the country.

And speaking of anywhere else around the country, a couple of weeks later, after a detour through Canada, I reached Chicago, home of the Cubs. I was once again here for just a single night, staying with Ellen, a new couch-surfing buddy, and we headed off towards Wrigley Field to catch an evening game against the St. Louis Cardinals (somewhat ironically, last time I had been in St. Louis, I caught a game there against the Cubs...).

Approaching Wrigley!

Ellen and I over by our 'seats' - all the games at Wrigley are sold out too, so we ended up with standing room seats, which was actually just fine by us!

National League MVP Albert Pujols taking a swing

'Beyond the Ivy' seats - Wrigley Field feels really small! Part of the reason is that the outfield seats don't go up very high, so the houses beyond the stadium, across Waveland Avenue, get a clear look onto the action

I accessorized in some St. Patrick's Day Cubbies attire and got a picture with Ernie Banks

We once again didn't make it all the way through the game... no rain this time, it's just that it went into extra innings, and we had a visit to Al Capone's old jazz club still ahead of us (which was awesome, by the way). Wrigley Field, I enjoyed even more than Fenway - they are both small, cozy and somehow feel closer and more genuine than most of the gigantic, new, corporate-sponsored stadiums, but Wrigley has a little more of a quiet, relaxed vibe to it than does Fenway. Maybe it's just the ivy on the outfield walls, or maybe it's because the Cubs are the lovable losers (last championship in 1908, next one does not currently appear to be imminent), while the Red Sox have become all smug, corporate, and expensive(!) after breaking through their own curse (read: cheapness of a former owner) and winning a pair of World Series titles in the past ten years.

And that, in short, was my America's Pastime baseball experience. Some day, catching a game at the two New York stadiums needs to happen, but I've gotten the two venues that I really wanted to see out of the way: Fenway and Wrigley! Oh, and I did pass by some other baseball venues along the way, but I wasn't quite so inclined to catch a game at either one of these:

Some fun decorations on the side of the Rogers Stadium in downtown Toronto - generally regarded as a particularly unattractive stadium... At least, I imagine, the CN Tower makes for a nice background

Seeing a game at Denver's Coors Field would be pretty cool actually (and ironically enough, the very same Chicago Cubs were apparently arriving in town just as I was taking off), but I didn't have the time - Seattle was calling by now!

And now that I'm back here in Seattle and not really traveling anymore, a whole new American Pastime has come calling: The Burning Man Festival in the Nevada Desert.


No, I've never been before, and I can't really describe it all that well - if you are not familiar with this particular form of insanity, you are best off just looking at their website and waiting for my blog posts afterward (no, not during!). Irina has gone the past two years, and she seems to absolutely love it, so this year I've decided to join her (and 50,000 of our fellow 'burners') - if she and I made it through Colombia, Israel, and Egypt unscathed, this is bound to go well too, right!?