Burn Him! Twice!

Burning Man is fast becoming a blur of dust, flashing lights, random art, bumpin music and good looking people. I want to try to get down some of my experiences this year before all I can say is 'Wow, what a wikked week' although that's pretty much where I'm at almost three months later.

It really started Monday night, just after the huge full moon popped out, when we passed the Greeters station. We knew that the rest of our crew (Dae, Mike and Norm from Calgary and Elesa and Mark from Edmonton) were already in there setting up. Even though it was dark we had no problems finding them since we had already decided what address we wanted to camp at (9:15 and Kelp Forest). Every year the city is set up in the same pattern, like a giant clock that goes from 2:00 to 10:00. And that is what the streets coming out from the center are named after, times on a clock. Then the inner rings are in alphabetical order, changing depending on the theme that year. This year was Green Man, so the street names were things like Arctic, Fresh Water, and Habitat.

We found them already mostly set up, including most importantly a line of booze about 15 feet long. We set up our tent and then moved all the stuff from the truck into the tent, since the plan was to sleep on an air mattress inside the truck. As we were doing the set up I started drinking the vodka like it was water, so not too sure what happened next, although my memory was aided by a YouTube post Dae found for me recently, but I'll get back to that.

We all went out as a group, something we did last year too, since after the first night it is hard to find everyone in the same place. I gather we were headed towards the Man, and stopped at some bars along the way. And we were riding the turtle, whom we dubbed Kame-chan (kame being turtle in Japanese). So we made it out to the man, pretty much right on time to witness something that I hear has never happened in the 20+ years of Burning Man - someone climbed up and lite the Man on fire. I hear that it is rumored every year that someone is going to lite the man on fire, but as far as I know no one has ever actually accomplished it.

So we are standing there, watching the Man burn, and everyone is freaking out while I remain calm and proceed to yell at everyone in a terrible Russian accent that everything is under control, they meant to do it, no one should worry. This I know I did even though I have no memory, thanks to the aforementioned YouTube video. We were standing right next to someone who was filming the whole thing, and I got my entire witty commentary on record. This person has since posted it on YouTube and Dae somehow found it and sent me the link. If you want to hear it I'm not going to help you along by posting the link, let's just suffice to say that it is out there in cyber space.

From what I gather that was a pretty fun night, although it did ruin me and I was unable to drink again until Thursday. Thankfully Elesa kept up the good work and drank enough for both of us.

The next night I was feeling a little under the weather, so Hitoshi and I took an easy night out together, and we spent the night rolling around on Kame-chan. We spotted a stage in the middle of the Playa, surrounded by these 12 foot high pillars that shot flames outwards and towards the stage, lighting it up from above so you could see it from far away. When we got there we saw it was a stage for people to do fire performances, anyone could get up. I encouraged Hitoshi to get up there and spin staff, I just love watching him.

After that we ran into our friend Sailor near the roller disco, and he said since he was wearing short shorts he had to get into some skates. I sat on the side lines while Sailor busted out some moves to the 70s tunes the dj was playing. Then out of nowhere Hitoshi gets on some inline skates and is doing jumps and turns all over the place. Just one more hidden talent I didn't know about. It was so much fun, Sailor grabbed some orange cones and was making jumps and the dj is yelling out praise for him. After that we got back on Kame-chan and parted ways with Sailor. It was a pretty relaxing night, even after which I needed yet another day to recover from the vodka fest.

By now I can't really remember exactly how the rest of the week went, just the highlights. I know we didn't have much dust the first or second day, so I was starting to question rumors that this was to be the dustiest BM in years. However by Wednesday any doubt I had was all blown away. The dust storms were not only crazier, but lasted much much longer than previous ones I had experienced, sometimes lasting a few hours. For the first one I hid in the truck but soon realized if they were going to last so long I was going to be stuck at camp forever if I did that. We did miss a few events due to the dust, including the Billion Bunny March. Although Hitoshi did get on his super cute bunny costume (which he built to fit over his stilts) and bounced around for a while making the neighbours poke there heads out and cheer. Even trying to avoid them doesn't always work, since they spring up out of nowhere. On the day of Critical Tits Elesa and me found ourselves stuck in one for over an hour, an experience I'll never forget.

Elesa and I decided that we would do Critical Tits together, which is bascially around 1,000 girls riding bikes wearing no shirt. We went to a work shop to get body painting done first, and then went out to meet up at the Man. I was feeling a little shy because there are people who just stand there with these massive cameras taking pictures and video, so I appreciated that it was a little dusty giving me an excuse to wrap a scarf around my head and put on my goggles. I figured my boobs might end up on the internet but at least not my face! (Sorry Grama, I hope you see the logic!).

So we set off, all in a huge line. I didn't know who was leading or what our planned route was, all I knew was at the end all the girls go to this big Goddess party that I had heard about. Well, we were about 5 or 10 minutes into our bike ride when a pretty massive dust storm hit. We tried to keep going, not knowing what else to do, and following whoever was right in front of us. The dust got so bad at some points we had to completely stop, and soon we realized there was almost no one in front of us, nor did we have an clue where we were. We waited a while, then a bike/art car driven by about ten cyclists drove by, calling everyone to follow them. We did, with maybe 20 or 30 other girls, all the way to the end of the world. Literally, we were on the most outer street, on almost the most outer ring, at least a 20 minute bike ride from camp in good weather. We went in a bar that said yes when i asked for vodka and cran, so I decided this place was alright. When Elesa asked what they had they said anything, and when she asked for a Baileys on ice we realized that 'anything' meant vodka and cran, which was all they served.

Now that worked for me, but we wanted to get to the Goddess party, and the dust seemed to be dying down, so we decided to give it another shot. Well, we were about 20 feet from that bar when the dust picked up again, and for some unknown reason instead of going back we pushed on. When I think now, I have no idea why we didn't stop in someones camp for shelter; we were compelled to keep going. We were covered in an inch of dust with nothing to drink and only a vauge idea of where we were. I think it had been at least 45 minutes or an hour since we had started and we were exhausted. Finally we stopped and said 'ok this is insane, let's turn down this block and head home'. As we were driving, the sky started to clear and it even started raining just a tiny bit, which was unexpected and nice. And then we saw dozens and dozens of bikes lined up in front of a camp, and we realize that we had found Camp Adoration! We couldn't even believe it, we locked up our bikes and headed in.

This camp is set up and run by guys, but no other guys are allowed in. The idea is a place where all the girls can go after the ride to be adored, and well basically pampered in all different ways. First thing we did was get a vodka snow cone, and then line up for a foot rub. There was so much going on in there, massage, yoga, dancing, several bars, and guys everywhere just waiting on girls. In short, it was heaven, especially after finishing the most grueling bike ride I'd ever had. We ended up getting foot massages right when the sky cleared and a full double rainbow came out, which I just stared at while munching on a yummy snow cone (crazily enough, as I write this I am looking at a full double rainbow outside my window, and these are the only two times in my life I can ever remember seeing that).

After our feet were clean and happy and relaxed, we got some more drinks and started to look around. I won't get into too much detail about what was going on there, since my Grama will probably read this, but we didn't stay too much longer anyway. We were starving and couldn't be satisfied by the candy and snacks they had, so we were going to head for camp. Elesa could barely push her eyes back in her head, and insisted that we would come back. I told her the camp was only open for one day, and after sunset boys were allowed in, so I knew we wouldn't be back, but she was sure we would.

We went back to camp and ate and hung out. We did make it back to Adoration eventually, but it was dark and deserted and there were no boys hanging around to get us whatever we needed. I am sure that we will find the camp next year, maybe this time we'll bring more supplies so we wont have to leave.

This year I hung out in Center Camp a lot more than last year, mainly because there were always people doing Capoeira, and Hitoshi wanted to get in on it sometimes. Plus I realized what a great place Center Camp is to just hang out and watch people during the day. You can lay on couches, watch people preforming on stage, like the guy we saw playing electric violin with a loop machine making this incredible song all by himself. There are also people just doing the most random stuff in the middle of the camp; Center Camp is a huge circle and in the center is another circle which is open and filled with people doing Capoeira, or interpretive dancing or some stuff I didn't even know what they were doing. A few days in a row I saw a dad and his little girl who was maybe 3 dancing, they looked so happy. One day there were some story tellers in the middle of the circle and rows and rows of people watching them. I missed the beginning of the story, but it seems like the circles was divided in two and they were talking back and forth, and doing all kinds of shouting and hand gestures to go along with it. It was pretty fun to watch.

Having Kame-chan was the best, she was so good. Sometimes she didn't want to start, and a few times at night she ran out of gas. Once Hitoshi had to borrow a bike to go back to camp to get more and once we borrowed some off the back of an abandoned art car. (Sorry guys, but it was only a splash!) Other than that, we were able to just cruise all over the place, wherever we felt like, to whatever we saw in the distance without having to think about peddling all the way home. And everyone loved her, she was a great success. The best was the last day Hitoshi and I followed the outer fence, which is so far out you can't really see it from the city, and go and look at all the art that was placed randomly out in the Playa. I wished we had gone earlier than Sunday because some stuff was half taken down, and I'm pretty sure some stuff had just blown away, but we did see tons of cool stuff.

The funnest memories that stick out for me were when Elesa, Mark, Hitoshi and I all headed out together. We danced at the Roots Society, the most massive dome structure I have ever seen which usually had great music inside. We went to the circus, under a real big top. It was so packed that tones of people were crowed around the door trying to see in, but we snuck in under the side of the tent and had a great seat. There were all kinds of performers from acrobats on suspended scarves to the most amazing hoola hooper I have ever seen. He was a really thin Brazilian looking man, with more grace than any girl I've ever seen.

At some point, Elesa, Hitoshi and I ended up at the Cubatron which is this crazy art piece. It is almost indescribable, but I'll try. It is made of a post in the middle, and then maybe 20 posts around it forming a circle. The outer posts have hooks from the top to the bottom, maybe 15 with strings attached that all go to the post in the middle. Basically from the top it would look like a pie. Then all the strings have LED lights going down them that can change colours, and are covered with ping pong balls. The lights are run by a computer with over a hundred sequences. The result is one of the best art pieces on the Playa. From a distance it looks like a flat screen, but as you ride up you realize that it is three dimensional, and it waves and ripples. My favorite looks like rain.

So the three of us were sitting in front of the Cubatron and someone gave us these paper glasses that are like 3D ones but instead make rainbow patterns around light. We are sitting there, watching the best light show imaginable and suddenly we see fireworks going off on the other side. This one art structure maybe half a mile away called Crude Awakening was made up off a massive wooden oil derrick (I can't even think of how big this thing was) surrounded by nine welded statues. The plan for that night was to have a fireworks display then burn the derrick.

Now, there are fireworks going on all the time at BM. I saw them every night, and a pretty great show when the Man burns. And even with all those and seeing the international fireworks competition in Vancouver this summer, the fireworks around Crude Awakening were the best I can remember seeing. We watched them through the Cubatron, then we walked around it to get a clear view. Next came something straight out of a movie - the biggest explosion I will ever see. We were expecting that they were going to burn it, but nothing like this. It made a giant mushroom cloud. We could feel the heat from where we were, and everyone was going nuts cheering and yelling and clapping and jumping up and down. It was rad.

After that Hitoshi insisted that we head over to the Thunderdom. For anyone that has seen Mad Max, that's exactly what it is. Well, except they don't kill each other but beat the crap out of each other with foam covered bats. Hitoshi had never done it in the three previous years he had been to BM, so he was insistent that he wanted to do it. We drove over to the dome, which just like in the movie has people climbed all up over the outside of the cage, looking down and cheering. The rule is that you have to bring your own opponent, and no one we knew wanted to go in. So we gathered around to watch the on going fight and Hitoshi went to go talk to one of the Death Guild members, the group that builds the Thunderdom.

Next thing I know, Hitoshi is in the middle of the dome, getting attached to the bungee cord. I looked around me in shock, and no one I knew was near me, so I started yelling to strangers "Holy crap, that's my boyfriend!!". I hadn't thought he would be able to go in since he didn't have his own opponent, but I guess they had one other guy looking for a partner and this was to be one of the last matches of the week, so they went in together. Well, it was an epic battle, most of which I missed cause I was trying to delete pictures off our full memory card to catch some of the fight. And also because I watched through my fingers cause I don't really like fighting. When Hitoshi came out he was vibrating he was so excited, and the first thing he said was "I can't feel my face!". And he couldn't for about the next three hours, but he was so happy he got to do it he didn't seem to mind. I don't get it, especially the next day see how bruised and battered he was, but if he was happy it was fine with me.

After that we were off again, Hitoshi and I on Kame-chan and Mark and Elesa on bikes. We ended up at this huge swing set, it must have been at least two story's high. It had to swings, those really great bucket ones. Elesa and I got on and Hitoshi was pushing me, and then out of no where some random guy came in front of me and grabbed my feet and started pushing me backwards to do and under duck. I was yelling "No no no!!", because it seemed so high, and well I haven't had an under duck in at least 15 years. As soon as he got under, I was sailing through the air and I was yelling "Weeeeeeeeeee!!" and having about the best 5 minutes ever. I could see all the lights across the Playa, and if I leaned all the way back I could see it all upside down. That was the best night of the whole week.

The night of the burn, Hitoshi and I headed out towards the man, but got there a little late to get a good seat. All the art cars come and make a giant circle around the man, and then inside that circle is people standing, then people sitting. The inner most circle is fire performers. I had thought that I wanted to try to spin fire, but you have to go earlier in the week, show them what you can do and then get a pass. There must be over a thousand people spinning staff and fire poi, as well. We got a really great seat by randomly bumping into people we knew who were sitting on the back and roof of a truck, so we climbed up there. The night of the burn is pretty crazy, when Black Rock City swells in population compared to the rest of the week. There are lots of what people call Weekend Warriors, who don't really come out to BM to do anything but get loaded and yell. So it's a different vibe, and then after that night people start the Exodus, and it calms down again.

Sunday during the day was pretty chill, we headed out at dawn to what was left of Crude Awakening to see if Lorin was spinning. We didn't see him, but we saw the remains of the massive explosion and the nine statues. Last year there were three of these statues in front of Center Camp, this year there were nine in total. The are beautiful and represent people in different positions, and made of welded together scrap metal. Hitoshi and Mark decided that they wanted to climb them, so we came back out later that day. As we drove back to the camp we saw the sun just coming up over the Playa, right in the middle of the circle of the temple. It was breath taking, and I saw some photographers with their stands lined up to capture that exact moment.

Later we went back so the boys could climb around. Hitoshi being a ninja and Mark being an iron worker, they had no problems scaling up there. I could barely look it made me so dizzy, but they must have had the best view of the Playa. We snapped some pics while they did some poses for everyone cheering on the ground, then they climbed down and that is when Hitoshi and I headed out on Kame-chan to check out all the art.

Sunday is the Temple Burn, which is very different from the Man burn. Many people go to the temple during the week and place pictures, stories, poems, whatever for someone they have lost in the past year. So when the temple burns there are no fireworks, no spinners, no blaring music and it is silent. Well, we were next to some asshole who felt like it needed his special commentary attached to it, but for the most part it is very quiet and peaceful.

We all ended up back at camp and decided we had no choice but to drink as much as possible, since we would not be able to carry booze across the boarder without paying duty. So we all hit the bottle, and then decided to commandeer an art car. We all hoped on and told the driver to head to the Playa. We wanted to see an art piece we only knew as the Monkeys, that everyone had been talking about all week and most of us hadn't seen. We brought booze, they had an ozzie bar tender, Mike drove the bus and we made a stop for Hitoshi and I to spin fire for entertainment. All and all it worked out very nicely. We made it to the Monkeys, which was like one of those swing sets at the fair where it rises up and all the swings on long chains spin out. Except it was run by people, so we had to get people on about 5 different pedal bikes, and once they got going it spun these monkey. There were maybe 15 monkeys, each in a different position, and a strobe light when so if you stood in one place it looked like the monkeys we swinging from branch to branch. It's hard to describe, it was great and also felt like it was giving you a seizure all at the same time. After that we headed back to camp to sleep for about 3 hours.

We woke up Monday morning pretty early and started to break camp. Norm managed to sleep through the entire thing, until all that was left of camp was him sitting in a chair. The last thing we did was dump the rest of our water out over top of us, and then jump in the car. Hitoshi and I headed out first, only to wait in line for about 3 hours trying to get out. It wasn't the smoothest Exodus, but broiling in your car with no water is just another part of the BM experience. All said and done, it was a great year and I'm so glad Hitoshi and I got to do it together.

Getting to Burning Man Drama Rama

The few days we had between getting home from Calgary and leaving for Burning Man were complete chaos. We did tons of shopping and list making and running around. Hitoshi had to build the box for the back of the truck we were taking, and build the turtle art car that we wanted to cruise the Playa on.

Hitoshi got a huge block of styrofoam on Thursday and started carving it. I helped him with what I could. The first step was taking this big cube shaped block and turning it into the general shape of a turtle shell. Of course Hitoshi has all the tools to do this since he has done tons of sculpting with styrofoam for work. We used these two wooden sticks that you hold in either hand, and each one has a screw in the top. There is a thin metal wire wrapped around each screw, so when you hold the wood about a foot apart the wire is pulled tight. The wire has an electrical current running through it, so when it is turned on it gets incredibly hot really fast. So I held one and Hitoshi held the other and we went on either side of the block and started carving. In no time we had the basic shape of a turtle shell and a turtle head.

Hitoshi worked on it after that while I did tons of running around and packing. He smoothed out the shell, then used a dremel to carve in the detail. I could help with that since it was just following the lines. After that the next step was to coat it in hard plastic but when Hitoshi got to the store it was closed. So he started working on the box for the truck. Luckily he had his friend Sailor to help him, since for that project I was only useful in standing and looking cute for a picture.

Hitoshi got the supplies he needed to make the plastic cover Saturday morning and then the race was on (since we were planning on leaving Saturday morning or early afternoon). To make the hard plastic coating you have to make a half and half mix from two bottles. The mixture hardens in 45 seconds, so you pour a tiny bit of each into a cup and use a paint brush to brush it on the styrofoam as fast as you can. In 45 seconds it hardens and you have to throw the cup and paint brush away and do it all over again. So it is time consuming (and wasteful, I know!!) but I got to work on it as fast as I could. Hitoshi had bent a piece of rebar to put in the back that would stop the second person sitting on the turtle from falling off. I tried to coat those areas in the thickest plastic to make sure it would stay in.

After it was completely coated, Hitoshi got to work on painting it. It was originally a sea turtle, but I found a picture of the cutest tortoise called an African Sulcata which actually lives in the desert so I thought it was perfect. He painted it and put it back together and it looked so cute!

Once that was done, we loaded it into the truck with all my camping supplies that were in the studio and came home to finish packing. We finally pulled out of here at almost 11:00 pm on Saturday, only 12 hours behind schedule. Which didn't matter since we were expecting it would only take us 16 hours to get down there, so we would arrive at a great time to meet up with everyone.

It didn't quite work out like that..we were so tired we had to stop and pass out for a little while, and the truck would only go a max of 80 km and hour, and we lost the gas cap - twice! So by the following night at about 12:30 am we were still two hours from Reno so we passed out in a hotel and decided to drive in the next day. The crew in Reno got a bit of a head start on us, so we didn't end up meeting them in Reno. We finished our shopping and started the drive from Reno to the Black Rock Desert, when we realized we didn't have a map and I had to call my dad and ask him to Mapquest where we were going (thanks Dad, we had missed the turn off, but only by about 10 minutes!).

We finally can see Black Rock City in the distance and there is a long line of cars waiting to get in. At Burning Man they don't search the car for anything, they basically as if you have fire arms and give a quick look to see if you are sneaking other people in. So the line does move fast, but they also have Greaters waiting to say hello, and especially if it is your first time and you have to ring the bell it can take a while.

We were in line around an hour, which was fine cause we had the mini dvd player and we were watching movies, but I was going crazy cause I had needed to go pee since we left Reno. So the line felt like it was crawling along and finally as we get near the Greaters Station I see a port a potty of in the distance and I make a break for it.

When I came back I was feeling so much better, and so glad we made it, and excited to see the city up ahead..and the Hitoshi handed me a cheeseburger that someone in line had gave him. I knew I was home.