~Burning Man~

[Schwa.]

ok, i've got some time

so we showed up to the fest right when the gates opened at midnight,

picked out our site, got our tents and stuff set up and headed out to

see what the desert looked like for the first time and man i wasn't

expecting anything like this. the place was soooooo big....about 2.5

km's across by my best guess but it was likely more. we went and checked

out the man and a few other places that we were gonna want to check

out the next day like water and stuff.

Monday we woke up with the sun (soooo hot) and set up our shade structure

so we wouldn't melt and then just sat around adjusting to the crazy heat.

By sundown we were ready to take off to the various art intallations that

were already set up and then around 2am scheduled to head out to the deep

playa to watch the lunar eclipse (which was amazing) After taking a bit

of lsd i realized this place is the trip out capital of the world.

Everything and everybody is glowing with various glowsticks and outfits

and costumes and cars and....well, just everything is glowing or

flashing....sooooo trippy. we hopped on an artcar (a car that plays

dance music and drives around very slowly while everyone on it parties)

and cruised around for about an hour just enjoying the sites and the

buzz of the whole thing. i spent most of my time just smiling the biggest

smile i've ever had and trying to absorb the immensity of the whole thing.

it really is like a city of 50,000 people partying at the same time. We

hopped off of the art car that we danced on for an hour and headed out to

the middle of nowhere to find out what all the blinky lights were and to

our surprise there were tons of art displays out in the desert that either

blew me away by their originality or sheer craziness. After all the site

seeing we headed out to the furthest place you can walk without leaving

the grounds and danced to a different art car crankin out some ac/dc and

led zeppelin. Finally the moon was eclipsed and the amount of stars

quadupled so that you could see the entire milky way perferctly, one of

the most, if not the most beautiful thing i've ever seen in my life...

even got a little emotional....not crying but just completely overwhelmed

by everything and everyone. While we were walking back from the very

very far out corner we realized that the man was actually burning early.

someone had climbed the man and lit him on fire with a road flare.....crazy.

they rebuilt the man and had him back up by wednesday. After we got back

into "the city" we were down to 2 people because its virtually impossible

to travel in a group because everything is so dark and glowy and confusing

and moving in 10 directions at once....anyway we hit up someones random

dance party (there are literally dozens going on everywhere) and boogied

until the sun rose over the mountains...so beautiful i can't do it justice

by trying to describing it. i do have pics of the sunrise over "the temple"

on the very last morning (another emotional endeavour) and it just about

brought me to tears. After walking about 20kms in one night Karin and I

decided to call it a day and went back to the site for about 2 hours of

sleep......day 1 over.

Tuesday:

Woke up to 100 degree temps at about 8am and got out of the tiny tent i was calling home for the week. Crazy amounts of water need to be consumed in the mornings I was finding because even during the 2 or three hours of sleep I was getting I was dehydrating. Got up and did the grueling walk to the porta-shitters and back and sat around listening to everyone tell their stories from the night before after we all got separated….most of them very much like mine in that everyone was just dumbstruck by the size and total involvement of everyone there. I have it on good authority that this was by far the most insane Monday night that Burning Man has seen due to the Lunar Eclipse and the “early man†burning.

After chilling and hearing the stories we took what would become our favourite way of killing time there…Bocci. This turned out to be a great way to meet random passers by that loved our balls. Everyone is super friendly and very willing to meet new friends. After some more siesta time the sun finally set and the fun began anew. This time Karin and Marie and myself set out by ourselves to explore in a different direction from the previous night. We ended up hopping on Garage Mahal’s artcar and cruised the playa for about an hour but Marie, being super exhausted fell asleep on the car. My memory is a little foggy of what happened to Marie after this aside from the fact that we got her back to camp. Around 3am Karin and I took a left down 7:30 from the Esplanade (the main drag) to use the washrooms. As I came out there was a girl standing there and so I just said hi and she returned my hello. While I was waiting for Karin, a guy came out to the girl that I said hi to and then he and I said our hellos as well. Karin then came out of the toilet and we grabbed our stuff and started back towards the Esplanade when we noticed that we were following the couple directly behind. The guy turned around to have a look and we ended up introducing ourselves. “Hi my name’s Jeff. Hey me too!†Then the other Jeff introduces his girlfriend. “This is Kerin…..HOLY SHIT!!!†So Jeff and Karin meet Jeff and Kerin completely out of the randomness that is Burning Man. My first Burning Man miracle. Tuesday was a lot less active but there was still tons of stuff to do and see. We stopped at several different dance parties and bars for drinks but headed back to camp around 4am to bed down and get some much needed sleep.

Wednesday:

More of the same for the morning but on this day we had plans to hit up a party at Camp Deep End for 11am so I was alternating water with my energy drink and red wine concoction and a little “fun†for the dance party. After meandering over to 9 O’clock from our address at 4 O’clock we arrived to find, at best guess, about 1000 people grooving to the most wicked music and completely getting down. Remember this is about noon and the sun is beating down at 100+ degrees and not one person is holding anything back…..soooo fun. The bar at the back of the dance floor was serving some of the strongest jack and coke mixtures I’ve ever had and the booth beside that was giving ‘bad advice’. Pretty funny actually, anyone can go up to the booth and they’ll tell you something funny and ill advised. QQC was going to go up to them and let them know that drinking super strong boozy drinks in the blistering sun was a bad idea, but he drank it instead ïŠ After dancing for about 2 hours and depleting my body of every last drop of moisture I reluctantly left the party with our group which lasted about 2 minutes when I split off to go my own way to try and track down our Bizarro friends from the night before. On my journey I met some wicked people from Sacramento that had erected a 30 foot tower so that passers by could get up above the madness and see it all and I have to tell you it never gets old. Everything is sooooo big and spread out. Awesome. They fed me some ganja brownies and water and I was off after exchanging information. I eventually found our friends Jeff and Kerin and visited with them for an hour but had to head back to camp to rest and rehydrate. More bocci was the ticket…..and then the sun went down. Cue more exploring, dancing and general wonkiness This night was a little less crazy because of the insane day party but I still danced my ass off and made it back to camp by sunrise (this was a constant theme)

Thursday:

Morning Same, you just can’t do shit in the morning when you wake up besides sit and drink water. Kieth and myself set out for an afternoon bike ride with bikes borrowed from our neighbour and headed out to the deep deep playa to see the dozens of art installments. We stopped at one of the most impressive art projects, two transport tankers attached to each other and balancing upside down on the nose of one of them. I don’t have pictures because with all of the damage happening to other peoples cameras I didn’t bother trying to break mine. Keith got some good ones though so if I come across them I’ll edit this thread to show this thing. It is really unthinkable until you see it.

Thursday and Friday nights were solo projects for me and by far the most fun that I had dancing. Meeting new friends there is like breathing or blinking. It just happens without you even thinking about it. After another huge walk and checking out as much of the deep playa art as my feet could handle. (unending amount of shit to see) On this night I split from the group at 9 o’clock (the address) and headed over to 9:30 to where the DJ from the Tuesday nights artcar said he would be….and sure enough he was, but wasn’t dj’ing. Another random meeting because he was supposed to be playing there the next night. He hooked me up with a cd of his and he and I and his girlfriend Strawberry danced until the wee hours. Completely exhausted I stopped at one of the random living room type chill areas for a 15 minute nap on the way home.….and woke up beside a threesome….Burning Man is awesome.

Friday:

Woke up late and LOVED IT!

Sat around doing the normal routine for the morning, cooking and drinking. When we broke up Thursday night, one of our group, brian, found some wicked party and arranged for us to get special admission to an artcar with a band playing music while we drove around and partied for tonight. It was a lot of fun but everyone was antsy so we jumped off after about an hour and were heading back to camp to reload with drinks and supplies and fun. Keith and I stopped by the Thunderdome (like the movie) and watched the craziness. People beating the shit out of each other with people crawling all over the dome screaming and cheering. Anyway, after that got old we headed back to the site and I lost Keith but I found a huge dome that had some sweet ass afrobeat pouring out of it. The bands name was Albino and after 1 song I realized I had no drinks or anything so I hauled ass back to the site which was only a few blocks from our home and reloaded and headed back to the dome and rocked out to this GREAT band for another hour. One of my best memories. I then went back to the site to tell everyone who didn’t want to come how much of a good time they missed. I then went to bed for about 2 minutes but with so much going on in my head I quickly jumped out of my tent, got redressed and grabbed a bike to go and see more crazy shit. I ended up at a camp called “Coda†where I met a group of super nice people and hung out with them for about 2 hours feeding each other drinks and drugs and getting more hugs than I could possibly count (can ya feel the love?) I even met a girl that I was dancing with in the airport on the way home. Anyway, I watched the sun rise over the mountains again (soooo beautiful) and then scuttled off to bed with another giant smile on my face.

SATURDAY!!!

Burn day. As soon as you wake up there is an unmistakable buzz in the air like everyone is thinking about the same thing (and they are) Tonight is the biggest night where both the man and the GIGANTIC 90ft oil Derek that they had set up would burn. We chilled most of the day to save our strength for the night and then we headed down to the man to get a front row seat for the festivities around 7. I can’t even begin to explain the energy in the air. 50,000 people slowly gather around the man until every person and every art car is surrounding the man. The show started with hundreds of fire spinners and dancers surrounded the man inside of our big circle and began the show of my life. They spun fire in all sorts of choreographed groups while a hundred or so drummers kept them going to the tribal beat. I really wished I could have been drumming in there (and the cool part is that if I pass an audition next year, I can) The dancing and spinning began to die down and all of the entertainers began to sit….the man was about to burn…..then the fireworks began. SOOOO COOL! They lasted for about 10 minutes followed by one huge ass explosion of fireball that completely filled my field of vision from so close. After the glow of the fireball ceased the man was engulfed in fire and the largest roar of cheering I’ve ever heard followed. Due to a slight breeze, the fire burned a little sideways and it took longer than normal for the man to fall, but once he did the entire crowd rushed the flames and began to circle the huge flames in what I understand to be the tradition. Karin and I headed for the toilets at this time because of sitting for 2 hours and drinking, but as I turned around a huge wooden star was being passed over everyone’s heads like some celestial crowd surfer and tossed on to the top of the pile of fire….and as I looked closer I realized that people had actually locked their bikes to this thing and so in went the bikes with the star. Funny ïŠ

This thing was pretty far from over too because the giant oil Derek was next and this was, as some of the old veteran Rangers (playa staff peacekeepers) said, was the most outrageous thing that Burning Man has ever seen. We went and got a pretty nice spot for the Derek but as it turned out you could have seen the fucking fire from space. After waiting for almost an hour and a half, a vintage WWII air raid siren began to sound and they cut all of the lights in the place. A large truck then circled the inside of the circle of people (which was about a KM across) spitting out a super thick cloud of smoke so as to block out the tower. I actually brought my camera out for this and I’m sooooo glad I did. I have 15 minutes of some of the craziest fireworks I’ve ever seen in my life which lead to the explosion of 2000lbs of propane and a fireball that lit up the entire sky as well as the mountains that surrounded the event. After the blindingness of the fireball was over the propane tanks that were at each corner of the tower spit four continuous jets of firre at the tower until 3 of them shut off. Then it was like the pressure from the 3 that shut down was transferred to the last one and the stream of fire tripled in length and went right to the top of the tower until it died with a scream and the tower burned until it toppled.

This was hands down the most intense and awe inspiring jaw dropping thing I have ever done/witnessed/been a part of in my young life. I don’t know if anything will ever come close again…..until next year.

All out pandemonium came after this with everyone wearing their craziest costumes with their brightest and fanciest glow shit on driving every glowing and music blasting art car, throwing every party (there must have been 100 separate parties going on everywhere) waking in every direction at once. I swear I was on the moon witnessing a mass landing of aliens from every planet all at once. Every bike was lit up with glow shit….fuck I can’t describe it besides to say its crazy. Pure crazy.

We partied the night away at various bars and raves and funk parties and art cars and fire spinning and……fucking crazy. That’s it. Crazy. Sorry, I just can’t do it justice.

Karin and I again managed to outlast the group and watched the sun come up on the Temple. A very spiritual place for many burners. This is kind of the church for the place where everyone who wants to, can bring items for loved ones who have died or anyone you want to remember or pay homage to with a spiritual message of some sort. For instance, the burned the rope that the guy that hung himself did it with, or a guitar was included for a musician who had passed before his time..etc…I sent up a message to all my friends back home who had passed away as well as a message of good will to all of my friends who were back at home that did not come to the amazing spectacle that is Burning Man. The sunrise just about brought tears to my eyes as it was by far the most beautiful of the week on the last day at the most holy of places on the playa. Serenity NOW.

We then headed back to Center Camp where we listened to some drumming for a bit and then headed back to camp. When we got there Karin and I were completely exhausted but Marie was just waking up (8am) so we hopped on some bikes and went to another morning dance party that was serving up bacon and bloody mary’s. They were out of bacon (booooo) but we partook in some tomato and vodka and had a very peaceful and relaxing morning. Just looking at people’s faces after the insanity that was the night before was filling me with the happiest emotions and I wore a ear to ear smile for the duration of my day…..and every time I made eye contact with someone they were guaranteed to have the same look on their face. No words needed.

After our little morning excursion we headed back to the site for one last time before packing up and heading back to Reno for some serious decompression and pool time.

I'm absolutely sure that i've only scratched the surface of my activities and adventures but so much and so many things are constantly happening that it is just impossible to capture it all. I have to apologize for the lack of pictures, but i'm more of a 'live it' rather than a 'capture it' type of person. That combined with the fact that everyones cameras were breaking because of the micro-fine dust meant that mine are few to none existant. There is a Facebook page going up that Keith will be filling with his pictures. He had a camera that handled the playa very well so he's got about 150 pics. I'll link that for you facebookers once i get word.

For about a month or two before the trip I researched and read as much as I could to get myself ready but nothing, and I mean nothing can prepare you emotionally for this adventure. You really have to live it and in doing so, become more alive because of it.

Highlights:

The People

The Oil Derek Explosion

The Lunar Eclipse

Burning of the Man

The Tanker Truck Intallation

The dozens of dance parties i hit up on my own

Art Cars

more Art Cars

even more Art Cars

lsd

even more lsd

monkey chants

morning coffee

bike rides

playa

boobs

even more boobs

meeting mine and karin's bizarro us's

glowing bikes

Albino!

even more Albino!

Karin and the inflatable sex doll (hilarious!!)

funny sayings

even more funny sayings

fire, tons and tons of fire

friendly strangers

BOOBS!

bocci

wearing a sarong for 8 days

mid day raves

millions of hugs and smiles

Edited September 7, 2007 by Guest

[captainsunshine]

Wow, Schwa! What an adventure!!

I really enjoyed reading this.. I've wanted to make it to Burning Man for about 5 years now, and reading your adventures makes me promise myself that I will be there next year...

Thanks so much for the report!! I bet your perma-smile hasn't faded yet...

[Schwa.]

I would love nothing better than to camp with you and bri and see what my face looked like for the first time.

[FairySari]

My favourite thing said by schwa at burningman:

my acid just refluxed.

[Schwa.]

close enough

[FairySari]

Edited September 7, 2007 by Guest

[backbacon]

Sounds amazing! Thanks for sharing.

[Cully]

glad you have landed back on this planet!!

[paisley]

wee hee hee!!!

=)

[scottieking]

WOW! That was an incredible rendering of what seems to be an indescribable event. Great report. I'm not sure I could make it back and teach after a week like that. Good on all of you.

[SmoothedShredder]

Thanks Schwa! I enjoyed reading your review. I sat in a chair when I read it.

[Birdy]

Wow Jeffy! I'm ridiculously jealous and ready to jump ship for 2008! Great review.

Next time i see you, i hope you're wearing that sarong!

[jay sanislo]

awesome read man!

[geomouse]

Sounds like an amazing time! Thanks so much for the relation, Schwa. Your words are more than enough to fill in any lack of pictures. I think you may have convinced many Jambanders to make the trip!

ttys

g

[Wassink Wild Card!]

Great to hear your adventures Schwa! I love that you wore a sarong the whole time, you rock!

[mousepad]

Schwa! Wow! I'll be there next year to get in on some of those hugs! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.

Hugs and Smiles,

Joni

[FairySari]

I finished uploading all of the pictures finally (mine and craig's)! There's some of the Big Rig Jig, the day at the deep end, our camp, etc...

http://www.flickr.com/gp/21293572@N00/86d58n

And hey Schwa, I'm pretty sure you have Thursday night and Friday night mixed up. Friday was Cirque Berzerk according to the guide, and the Camp Jub/Artcar ride was the night before that I think... but whatever, thats just a testament to the general wonkiness, everything crazy, everything running together...

I've been trying to put my prints in chronological order, and it's IMPOSSIBLE!

Edited September 9, 2007 by Guest

[Schwa.]

yeah, i'm not surprised at all. general wonkiness indeed

[paisley]

wow. great pics. you guys rule!

[Groove Fetish]

awesome report and pictures- would love to go one day too.

Ever since I heard of this through Velvet Have wanted to go.

This only makes it more so.

Thanks for sharing.

[phorbesie]

great review and pics!

[Sarahbelle]

man that sounds FREAKIN awesome!! I don't like extreme heat and not sure if I could handle it cause of that.. but I will live viacairously though U Schwa!!! woohoo. dude...

[The Chameleon]

[color:red]Read this right wing insanty!

Posted: September 7, 2007

1:00 a.m. Eastern

Driving down Interstate 80 through California's Sierra Nevada Mountains with my differential on fire, a slow rage started building in me.

Labor Day weekend traffic was wailing along at 5 mph, and I was looking at the backend of hundreds of Chevrolet Tahoes, Expeditions, Jeep Grand Cherokees, and reeking hippy busses that were burning a hole in the ozone up to the cerulean blue skies.

The stragglers from the Burning Man Art Festival – at which 40,000 tree-huggers pop peyote, smoke weed and destroy the ecologically sensitive playa in the Nevada desert – certainly didn't have any Eureka! moments in regard to the environment, I told my traveling buddy Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson.

These teenage dreadlocked navel-gazers were clogging up traffic on the freeway and slowing down our patriotic caravan of freedom lovers traveling to 27 rallies all across the country with a proud pro-troop message. We have dubbed the cross-country caravan the "Fight for Victory Tour," or "give peace through strength a chance" in our more casual moments.

(Column continues below)

Monday morning before the launch in Carson City, I looked out the window of our Holiday Inn Express, shocked by the sight of a '60s psychedelic painted bus. I assumed the contraption attached to the rear of the coach was some new-age bio-diesel thingamabob. It turned out to be a collection of rubber anatomically correct private parts. I'll let your imagination roam from there.

Our decorated lead vehicle was sporting streaming banners of red, white and blue flags, and Uncle Sam's image on each side with a sign that read: "We Don't Surrender To Terrorists."

I thought it was a nice compare-and-contrast for what is happening in the world today. Burning Man Festival (which builds a 10-story tall man that is set on-fire at the end of the week-long gathering – but this year had a premature immolation) versus hundreds of men and women who stopped their lives and interrupted their holiday backyard BBQs to turn out in protest of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who calls our troops "losers."

Move America Forward folks believe we are engaged in a life-and-death struggle against the Islamo-fascists who have been on a worldwide killing spree for dozens of years.

Our uplifting message that we are WINNING the war in Iraq delivered in Carson City, Sacramento, San Francisco, Modesto, Los Angeles and all the other stops along the way was enthusiastically received. Cheers of support rolled over the park for Debby Lee, whose son Marc Alan Lee was the first Navy Seal killed in Iraq, and Deborah Johns, whose son William stands ready for his fourth deployment back to the battlefield.

Burning Man attendees were rolling around in the desert dirt, celebrating the Flaming Lotus Girls and Serpent Mother's articulated flaming snake, dropping acid, cramming "shrooms" and dropping out of reality.

OK, so kids and old smelly hippies are entitled to their fun – but when the San Francisco Chronicle (and dozens of other newspapers and blogs) writes about a zillion words about their antics, while ignoring our heartfelt plea for the country to remain strong and united behind our troops and their mission, well, something is out of kilter in the cosmos.

Reality check! Gen. David Petraeus is going to deliver a report to Congress around Sept. 11. My sources say he is going to say something like this:

There is every reason to be optimist about the prospects for establishing security in Iraq.

Operation Phantom Thunder is the first coherent campaign to route al-Qaida strongholds at once. No more whack-a-moles. AQ in Iraq has been DEFEATED.

Smaller terrorist groups are on the run.

Kim Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, says that "the tide in Iraq is clearly turning, as the Iraqi people are voting with their lives to fight with us against the terrorists and militias. Now is not the time to give up the flight."

Let the '60s refugees and their rainbow-haired progeny roll in the mud and do in their Burning Man. The grown-ups of the world are setting fire to our patriotic spirit, winning freedom for oppressed Iraqis and killing a lot of Muslim extremists who would be more than happy to take them out into the desert night, douse them with gasoline and burn them alive, exactly what they did to Iraqi children whose parents supported reconciliation in Iraq.

Please join the Fight For Victory caravan. Come to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15 for the Gathering of Eagles and Eagles Up! push-back against the highly offensive "Die-In" by the International A.N.S.W.E.R. crowd.

Cities and locations are posted on the Move America Forward website.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57523

[Jay Funk Dawg]

Damn! sounds like an awesome time!

[captainsunshine]

I would love nothing better than to camp with you and bri and see what my face looked like for the first time.

Help me talk him into it!!!!!