One Hour at Burning Man Friday evening…
So there I am, having just been abducted by aliens with the messiah (trust me,
you don't want to know) and I'm wandering around in a post-abduction daze (the
aliens probed my mind with all kinds of strange instruments that emitted weird
light, did strange things, emitted odd noises). All kinds of freaks loom out
of the darkness in the most bizarre costumes and creations. A motorised picnic
table flies past, naked people hurry to and fro, there is a carnival
atmosphere in the air.
I see a lounge drive by and hop on. It is a huge motorised platform with zebra
carpeting, comfy sofas at one end and a bar at the other. I wander over to the
bar and sit on a bar stool as the lounge heads out from camp and towards the
man. The situation reminds me somewhat of a scenario Douglas Adams would
create. Or was that sofas you could only see out of the corner of your eyes?
Lemon Curry?
I'm dressed in a long floral dress and a huge hairy yeti hat, carrying two
marine distress strobes. I look at my neighbours at the bar, a topless woman
with eyes painted on her breasts who looks like she should be in a porno flick
and a guy with a big cape with thousands of flashing LEDs on it and a spangled
top hat.
As the lounge picks up speed I see the driver, a guy in a leather thong,
leather vest and leather cap, he must be in his 60s, he is guiding the lounge
with a weird stick like contraption (I later discover he is Pepper Mousser,
crazy allround nice guy).
Towards the man we go, a huge 40-foot high effigy with glowing purple and red
neon tubes as his veins and arteries. The music gets turned up, it is The
Aquavelvets (surf rock music, like the theme from pulp fiction) and people
start getting up off the couches and dancing. We all start to get into it, and
before long I'm stood on top of the bar, waving my strobes around and
hollering like crazy as we rove across the desert, picking up an entourage of
cyclists alongside as we hurtle towards the man. The lounge is now packed with
people, all going completely mental and we start to circle the man, everyone
staring out at us, wondering if we are part of their bad trip (if you were
tripping anywhere else but burning man, you'd start to wonder if a lounge came
past you with people dancing to surf rock). We're screaming and yelling,
totally living for the pure ecstatic moment of the fact that we are doing
something unique and utterly ridiculous. Round and round we go, gathering a
large crowd of people running with the lounge and dancing like there's no
tomorrow.Finally we break off from our orbiting and head out into the desert, away from
the camp and into oblivion (there are a few hundred miles of nothingness
before us, this is no small desert). The wind starts to kick up dust and we
can see nothing but the moon above us and our own little lounge, an island of
insanity and craziness in the vast, unending wilderness. People shine their
lasers into the dust and create patterns, it all gets frenzied, I realise I'm
having the time of my life - we're all horsemen of the apocalypse now, heading
for Armageddon and living it to the max.Eventually the crazy driver realises we're lost in the desert and turns
around, headed back for home. Finally we see light in the distance, and
head for a gathering of people out on the playa clustered around a strange
effigy. Upon nearing the gathering, the music is turned down and we begin to
watch the scene before us. There is a huge wooden goat in the middle, and
people on stilts and scary goat head masks are performing a ritual. It is the
scapegoat, and throughout the week, people have been placing pieces of paper
with their sins written on into the belly of the goat. It is time for the goat
to be sacrificed. The chief goat priest performs the final rite, throws a
flaming torch at the goat and retires a safe distance. Suddenly there is a
light as bright as the sun, fireworks go off, the goat is going up in huge
flames with a core of molten magnesium at its heart. The crowd screams and
yells like demented banshees. Burn, baby, burn, the crowd cries, feeling
absolved of their sins. As the goat collapses and the fireworks die down the
crowd surges forward and the drums start drumming, naked people write to the
primeval rhythms and start to celebrate the fire. Nearby someone with a
flamethrower sets light to a large tower construction and there's more
frenzied celebration.I jump off the bar, and off the lounge, and watch it disappear off with the
music still blasting, people still going crazy, someone else having already
taken my place at the bar, and head off to the tesla coil where 30 foot claws
of purple plasma are scything into the air, crating an unholy noise as they
tear open the fabric of matter. And I think to myself, life IS good.This was one hour of burning man. I was there for 8 days, and to write about
every hour would take a decade. I lived more in those 8 days than most people
do in a lifetime. I learned so much, felt so much, saw so much, did so much,
created so much, destroyed so much. Words never can be enough to even scratch
the surface of trying to describe burning man, it assails all senses and
emotions with a jackhammer and leaves no doubt that it is the ultimate event
on the planet. And now I must rest to assimilate and prepare to FUCK SHIT UP
on an even more hardcore level in everyday life. You ain't seen nothing yet.
