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this year my girlfriend, whom we will call carley.. because that's her name, convinced me to go to burningman. over the past year or so i've made other friends who have been numerous times and hearing their stories also convinced me to go. some of them are producers/DJ's and told me plenty of times not to go for the music. go for the art, experience, people etc... i took that to heart and was more or less prepared to not let my music snobbery run my life for the 8 days of burningman. so what follows is my little window into the dust, flames, fireworks, art cars, bad music, good music, naked people, hot chix, amazing art, high speed desert bike rides at night (my favorite) and of course the dust and the dust. cough cough hack hack... really.. i''ve been sick for 5 days (on the mend now though) and coughing up gnarly goobers daily. damn my 35 year old immune system.. and it's weakness to vodka, tequila, vodka and vodka, port-o-potty germs, lack of sleep, stress.. and fear and loathing in the desert.
we arrived late sunday night.. around 3am or something and it took a few hours to actually get in the gates. they make first timers (virgins) ring this bell or do some other silly thing like make dust angles and roll around then get spanked etc.. basically make you feel ridiculous. so the first pic is me ringing the bell. the lady made me straddle it.. i think she wanted me to actually wrap my legs around it but i was having none of that. i was tired, hungry, thirsty and not wanting to deal w/that shit. so, ring the bell then on with it.
the first night was a lunar eclipse. this was amazing and i'm really glad i was out in the desert when it happened. it was so bright then so dark. the moon looked like it was being overtaken by squid ink. it was really amazing. then a bunch of fire works went off which was cool but confusing because they save that shit for the night of the burn. hmm. the next day we find out some dood thought it a good idea to try and burn the man on monday in time w/the lunar eclipse. he was pretty successful and they had to rebuild the man (smaller). he got caught and charged w/arson. there're a bunch of radio stations there for the week. pirate ones. they interviewed a guy who took video of the arsonist and he said he was hanging w/the guy for a bit and the guy seemed pretty normal "until he took a piece of bologna out of his shoe and ate it". hilarious.
there's a lot going on out there. lectures, workshops, yoga etc. we were waiting for tipper to play one night and there was a lecture about evolution going on in the dome he was supposed to play in. then some throat singers came on. we left. an hour or so later he came played and i heard from a friend that it was really good. acid breaks etc... tweaky shit. too bad we were impatient.
the first couple days for me were just feeling the place out and roaming around. i guess a lot people show up on wednesday/thursday and then leave after the burn. so the place fills out a lot throughout the week. this is good as it gave me a chance to get to know the place a little and get my bearings. it's easy to get lost. the site is more than 2.5 miles across and set up in a 270 degree circle-like 'C' arrangement w/open desert and mtns around the camping areas (see pics) and this satellite image.
black rock city
we were camped a few blocks off the playa. there was a big theme camp down the road that was like an old west cowboy town complete w/saloon. they played house music all the time. someone said DJ Dan played there. it was always going off.
i heard good music one night. the night ELM guys played at the moontribe camp. b0t23 and Trichome. they both killed. also, it was the best sounding PA i have ever heard and it was so loud. i had to go back 30 yards to be able to handle the bass. the detail was amazing. separation between kicks and subs. it was one of those long throw systems... so people could hear it from far away... but if you drifted too far outside the grasp of the PA to the left or right you'd hear the party going on down the road that was playing something less inviting to my ears. it was my fav night and they played so much good music. insane.
i forget what happened on what day except for the big things burning. one day there was a dust storm for about 3-4 hours. it sucked and we had to take down the green parachute (see pics) because it was threatening to rip up big parts of our camp and send it to not in kansas anymore land. after we did that i sat in the rental truck w/the motor running w/the AC on. thank god for huge gas tanks. my tent has been set up in the back yard for 4 days now in what seems like a futile attempt at de-dusting it. that shit turns to paste when it gets wet. see the pics for the white out-like dusty episodes.
the art was my fav thing (other than hearing killer music on that insane system). riding around and just people watching and looking at weird art cars.. some clever and some lazy... and having iced coffee at center camp and chilling and forgetting what day it was and having no plans.. not much different than being in portland ;) you never know what you are gonna happen upon. ride for a while then ride for a while longer and before you know it viola there's a giant semi on top of another semi or monkeys dancing to a strobe light on a monkey go round (really amazing optical illusion though not captured quite so well on camera) this youtube vid is pretty good though there's people playing bongos.. there were no bongos when i saw it. watch the other vids on the tube for bongo-less version. oh, the thing was pedal powered. pedaling charged the motor/battery then it would take off once it had enough juice.
monkeys rule
the art cars can be cool but i like most of them from a distance.. at least the big ones.. the ones w/sound systems can kind of get into wars w/each other when they are parked in the same place. but the ones that shoot flames from a distance are cool when it's dark because it just looks like fire in the sky.
the stripper art car for jdg. women on stilts dancing on the hood of a big bus that has a window in the roof that they smack their butts/breastesses on. i guess the rule is "pictures are ok so long as you ask permission". so i wasn't about to go ask every hottie if i could take her picture for jdg. i guess i should have.. or maybe just made a t-shirt "hotties! jdg needs your picture!"  oh well. perhaps if there's a next time. suffice it say there are naked people everywhere of all shapes and sizes. jdg's naked lady quotient would be easily met in the first 5 hours of the first day.
word of warning. if you buy a used bike always get a new seat. there are 2 to 1 fully naked dudes of varying ages riding around on their sweaty dusty asses. i think it's fairly balanced though as the number topless women serves as some kind of counter weight. thankfully. anyway, it's not mardi-gras. i never got that vibe at all. people just do what they want, seem pretty comfortable in their skin and everything becomes more or less common place as there is so much going on and so many rides to take or things to go see. i did not venture into the Bureau of Erotic Discourse (B.E.D.). they had signs in the porto's. "want sex? it's easy just come to B.E.D.". clever. i guess there are no spectators allowed and if you show up you have to participate or leave. i didn't even see the camp.
my guess is i saw only small portion of the camps. it's just huge. 48+ thousand people. there's no way to see everything or hear everything. i just kind of surrendered to it and wandered and road my bike all over at night and when needed put my earbuds in and listened to some life saving tunage thanks to my ipod. i can hang w/just about any music for a while but after a while i need some sonic flossing of the ears. so, sorry tiesto or okenfold or whoever was playing bad MIA remixes/mashups, or clashing head slamming hip hop w/world music flutes and shit. sorry. ipod to the rescue! it's not all DJ's though. i saw people playing stand up bass and friggin banjos and shit. my friends said there were less bands this year but i heard some heavy heavy metal sort of "we are the death camp" camp type thing. I also saw an art car w/a big sticker that said "fuck your dance party". awesome.
so, the night of the burn... they burn the man after some fireworks. it collapses and then everyone runs around it. i did. it was fucking hot. not hawt but HOT! then we went over to the next thing that was to splode. it's something we had all seen during the week. a giant platform, oil rig looking thing that you could climb up and look over the playa. it was the tallest thing out there and it was surrounded by these big metal sculptures of figures that would periodically shoot or become engulfed in flames. they were all really amazing not just for their size but also the intense detail. (not to mention they were in the middle of the desert) . see pics.
so, the oil rig thing has 4 giant metal pipes around it and what we understood is they were gonna shoot propane/kerosene using compressed air up to 150 or so ft in the air and make a giant fireball. it was really well choreographed to music though i'm sure is less impressive on video. it started w/the "oh beautiful for spacious skies" etc.. then went through a mess of morphing weirdness including the muslim morning prayer. it was really jaw dropping and a generous display of tech know how and artistry not to mention the fact that someone brought it out to the desert for burningman. it dwarfed the burningman burn.
there was a very long fireworks intro which i edited out to make a smaller download (it would have been 500MB w/o editing)... so it might seem a little out of the blue or look like a bunch of people standing around waiting for the big flame up but it was the punctuation mark on the night if not the week for me. i can't stress how well the music and fireworks all went together right in time.. on beat even. less latency than a bad USB midi interface. before the fireworks they were warming us up w/a performance by a fire dancer and a band. the fire dancer was upside down hanging from a crane pretty high in the air. there were two actually. the first one had the fancy cirque du soliel rig and was doing twists and flips while twirling the flaming baton. it was impressive. she was really high and never stopped moving. unfortunately i don't have video of her. just this dude.
hanging firedancer 30MB
sploding fireball 45MB
so, overall what did i think? i don't know. i had tons of fun some days. camping was great. cooking over a little single burner and a grill was fun. the people i met in our camp were all great. so glad i got to meet them. a bunch of peeps from basterdized were in our camp so it was another faces/names to avatars which was overdue! i LOVED riding my bike around everywhere all the time with crazy glowing lights in the background and fire off in the distance and moving from one sound system/art install to the next or jumping on an art car and going where it goes etc etc.
i don't know how "green" it is. probably makes as much waste and uses as much gas etc as a small city (which is what it is). but what you take in you take out. i came home w/two smallish bags of garbage and two bags of recycling. we used one can of stove gas and only a little bit of propane for the grill. we had no generator but generators were everywhere and RV's too. i think it stays pretty clean considering. no cigarette butts anywhere. people put them in little cans or altoids cans and carry around their own little ashtrays. why can't people do that at the beach?
a friend in camp is a nurse and volunteered 2 nights at a medical tent. she said they had to scoop a few people up off the desert who were out of their gourds and there were a few art car vs. people accidents also someone committed suicide by hanging himself in someone else's camp (just what you want to come home to) and some girl stabbed her boyfriend (not fatally) so i think it's more or less like a normal little city for a week though i didn't see any fights or even tough guy shoving and stuff. most people seem pretty chill and down to have a good time. i can see how it'd get old or maybe become someone's thing that they do every year and make the whole year about what they are gonna do at burningman which i couldn't see myself doing... but it is a very different environment and i guess someday i may go again. everyone has their own experience which i like.. it's kind of up to you how much you get out of it or how much fun you have etc. so you sort of have to be an active participant.
anyway- enjoy the pics/videos. the fireball was the shizzy.
some pics are borderline NSFW:
all the pics fit to share
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09/12/07
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Roshi
Ahhh!
Just had a seisure from monkey video.
09/12/07
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ignatius
it looked way better in person. really cool install and it was pitch fucking black out there where it was.
09/12/07
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SenorFrio
Thanks for the wrap up! Sounds fun sans dust. Nice pics! The cupcake vehicles look rad! I need one of those!
09/12/07
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zfigz
sounds like you had a sweeet time...I first learned of Burning Man when I was 12 reading a book called "The Happy Mutant Handbook" (the book taught me a lot at an early age) and man ever since I heard about it I've been wanting to go...someday.
ignatius, so any pics not fit to share?? if so, please share...
09/12/07
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lysdexic
dying to go to burningman.. next year hopefully..
09/12/07
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DrexonField
Love it!
amazing pics
09/12/07
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adcBicycle
Wow, great story and photos.... really enjoyed this!
09/12/07
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quip
that looks mint. i really want to go and experience it. nice write up too.
09/12/07
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trash80
dude i was there too. i go every year, should of looked up trash80 at the info camp hehe
09/12/07
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ignatius
trash80 said: "dude i was there too. i go every year, should of looked up trash80 at the info camp hehe"
what? never heard you mention it and you always seemed to be around in the summers when i lived in san diego??? you live in LA now? say hi to colin and sara.
09/12/07
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trash80
yes well im called a skipper. i skip some years. first year was 99. ^_^
every year theres something thats a once in a lifetime. (ehem like the oil rig muhahah)
i will say hi to them, though i never see them (once every few months)
say hi to letsgooutside for me. haha
09/12/07
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fakeBlooper
i hope to one day make it to the burningman before adverti$ers/shitiness infiltrate.
09/12/07
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strangus
Nice blog man. I went to burning man in '98, I think there was about 24k people up in there. So it's basically doubled in less than 10 years. I wonder if it will ever hit the 100k point.
09/12/07
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astroid
loved this blog
09/13/07
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jdg
i wish i could get a tatto of a girls ass on my ass
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