"Yer doin' it wrong!"
The subject of this entry is not about how Burning Man changed my life, or about how much fun I had in the desert, although those things are generally true... if you want that report, go and read my entry from last year. This year, I worked with The Department of Public Works at Black Rock City.
DPW works damn fucking hard & plays even harder. I'll have photos of this year's shennanigans as soon as I can afford to develop them. I kept saying, "If playing is the most dangerous thing we can do, then it just doesn't get much better than this!"
And if I was looking for that initiatory experience of life, death & rebirth out in the desert, I certainly got it this year! I was also going to shave the hair off my face anyway, but the cosmos just took the decision out of my hands, in exchange for a confrontation with my own mortality. What did I expect from a festival called "Burning Man," anyway? Oh, you're supposed to burn the figure of a man in effigy? Well, I must have gotten confused about that; but I have heard people say that if they don't feel like they're going to die, then it just isn't burning man.
As many of you may have already heard/seen, I did have a ''blast'' out at Burning Man, all right... fortunately, I closed my eyes & did not breathe in (otherwise, I would have been starflighted to Reno for internal burn treatment) and while the scabs have dropped off of my face by now, I am still growing my eyelashes & eyebrows back!
Again, to be clear: I was most fortunate that I held my breath while immersed in the fireball of propane that had melted all of the hair all over my entire head... I repeat: DO NOT BREATHE INTO YOUR LUNGS WHILE SURROUNDED BY FLAMING GAS ...& you may live to another day... fortunately I somehow knew this instinctually & stopped, dropped & rolled around on the ground, covering my head in handfuls of playa dust all over my head to extinguish the flames, until I felt completely cool & dry again.
Seriously though, I need a better seal (throw me a fish... for approval!) between my propane torches & the exhaust pipes they fire through from the trunk of my car... some of the propane leaked back into the trunk & when I opened it to turn the propane off, it sucked oxygen & flame back into the trunk, causing an explosion in my face! Avi suggested installing a flashback arrestor... oh yeah, I guess I should look into that, huh? "Safety Third!"
As I said to a fellow DPW volunteer, "I didn't mind the obstacles placed in my path... they were there to teach me something or another..." And I did manage to learn a lot while i was out there in the desert. As i have been saying: "What does not kill me, will only make me stranger!" On Monday, I had just had enough, and didn't feel like staying out there on the playa for Exodus. It really sucked not having eyelashes anymore (w/out goggles, I got dust in my eyes, and with goggles, I got sweat in my eyes).
Even worse than the propane explosion was the accident I had just a few days after arriving on the playa... I fell from a chopper bicycle and bent my knee backwards... I need to work on that trick where I miss the ground when I fall... maybe if I had one of those Tall Clown Bikes?
And I did manage to avoid the illness that was creeping around the infrastructure... whether it was Giardia, Influenza, or Dysentery (according to wikipedia... aka "flux" or "bloody flux," amusingly enough!) it was yucky... but perhaps I tend to wash my hands more often than some of the gutter punks out there?
When we got there a couple of weeks before the event, Atomic & I had missed building the perimeter fence for BRC; but I did get to help Cowboy Carl's crew pound seven miles of T-Stakes for gate road... whew! At least we got to go out to The Frog Pond afterwards... After I injured my knee, Logan kindly gave me light-duty assignments for a while so that I could recuperate a bit. For the first few days, I was assigned to the door @ the Commissary (basically, i was like the maître d'), where I greeted everyone & asked them who was paying for their meal. This was mostly fun for me, but many of the patrons hated it... even though I did my best to be jovial & amusing, while still maintaining an efficient process. I think that many of them didn't wanted to be reminded that money existed. Leave it to me to enjoy reminding people of that which they want to avoid &/or deny! Or maybe, some people just don't like me? After all, I was a new face in a tightly-knit crew, and I can be kind of an asshole. Actually, there is a general mood of aggressive teasing among DPW, with which I am comfortable, even though it's not my preferred mode of communication. Although, one benefit of the constant insults, is that they essentially keep everyone on the same level!
Anyway, the commissary folks are awesome, too (One of them helped me extensively in rehabilitating my injured knee). I also got to meet pretty much everyone who worked on the playa for the first few weeks. The last day I worked that position, Larry Harvey came through the commissary. He said something to me about how there probably wasn't a category to place him in, and I responded that as soon as we drew a box around him, the desert dusts would likely shift around so much that we couldn't find the lines anymore...
After pounding T-Stakes for gate road (with Cowboy Carl), I worked with other crews: erecting the wall & painting in the Ghetto (with Art Shark), setting up carpets & furniture in Center Camp (with E), hanging shade in Center Camp (with Quiet Girl & Dr. Jones), erecting various fences (with Cowboy Carl), painting pieces of the Temple (with Carmen), and installing head lamps & brake lights on golf carts (with Beanie).
So, last year I wanted to work & I was told to go play instead & to remember my 2005 experience while I was working during 2006, so that I would know why we work so fucking hard to build this city. Well, now I know what the desert has to offer me & what I am capable of returning to it; and I am already plotting & planning how to synthesize these experiences into a mutually beneficial synergy, 'cause "next year was SO much better!"
I am looking forward to the The Green Man, next year...
In the meantime though, I am glad to be back in Austin, tending my own proverbial garden.
I am also really happy with my day job... I feel like I am useful & that I am contributing to the well being of fellow humans; so it provides an outlet for my humanitarian inclinations.
And as the healer who worked on my knee reminded me when I started complaining about strife in the world, "It's all an illusion... just breathe!" Don't get me wrong, I do wholeheartedly support focus on our breath as the fire that drives creation... but I also think that sometimes, we can't continue to ignore the problems around us, and it's our responsibility to monkeywrench the system when it's gone into mindless & heartless overdrive. I believe that this is true in whatever context you wish to apply it.
There was this one sign that I saw while I was driving out of BRC that captured my perception of the place... "BRC: The world's happiest company town!" And what else would you expect it to be? It is a city out on the frontier of our known reality that contains numerous utopias, & dystopias, depending on what you are seeking. Larry Harvey's gang have the genital fortitude to put their names on the dotted line, and answer to The Federales for the responsibility to leave no trace on the playa, and DPW is doing a damn fine job, I must say. I can see how people think that you essentially have to be a benevolent dictator to get anything done on that massive a scale in that short of a time. Ironically, DPW does not really operate like BMORG, or even like the rest of BRC. And although I didn't see us building any bridges this year, there was a hell of a lot of construction accomplished by a bunch of anarchists! However, we did build quite a few walls, and as Hedwig will remind you, "There ain't much of a difference between a bridge and a wall!"
DPW works damn fucking hard & plays even harder. I'll have photos of this year's shennanigans as soon as I can afford to develop them. I kept saying, "If playing is the most dangerous thing we can do, then it just doesn't get much better than this!"
And if I was looking for that initiatory experience of life, death & rebirth out in the desert, I certainly got it this year! I was also going to shave the hair off my face anyway, but the cosmos just took the decision out of my hands, in exchange for a confrontation with my own mortality. What did I expect from a festival called "Burning Man," anyway? Oh, you're supposed to burn the figure of a man in effigy? Well, I must have gotten confused about that; but I have heard people say that if they don't feel like they're going to die, then it just isn't burning man.
As many of you may have already heard/seen, I did have a ''blast'' out at Burning Man, all right... fortunately, I closed my eyes & did not breathe in (otherwise, I would have been starflighted to Reno for internal burn treatment) and while the scabs have dropped off of my face by now, I am still growing my eyelashes & eyebrows back!
Again, to be clear: I was most fortunate that I held my breath while immersed in the fireball of propane that had melted all of the hair all over my entire head... I repeat: DO NOT BREATHE INTO YOUR LUNGS WHILE SURROUNDED BY FLAMING GAS ...& you may live to another day... fortunately I somehow knew this instinctually & stopped, dropped & rolled around on the ground, covering my head in handfuls of playa dust all over my head to extinguish the flames, until I felt completely cool & dry again.
Seriously though, I need a better seal (throw me a fish... for approval!) between my propane torches & the exhaust pipes they fire through from the trunk of my car... some of the propane leaked back into the trunk & when I opened it to turn the propane off, it sucked oxygen & flame back into the trunk, causing an explosion in my face! Avi suggested installing a flashback arrestor... oh yeah, I guess I should look into that, huh? "Safety Third!"
As I said to a fellow DPW volunteer, "I didn't mind the obstacles placed in my path... they were there to teach me something or another..." And I did manage to learn a lot while i was out there in the desert. As i have been saying: "What does not kill me, will only make me stranger!" On Monday, I had just had enough, and didn't feel like staying out there on the playa for Exodus. It really sucked not having eyelashes anymore (w/out goggles, I got dust in my eyes, and with goggles, I got sweat in my eyes).
Even worse than the propane explosion was the accident I had just a few days after arriving on the playa... I fell from a chopper bicycle and bent my knee backwards... I need to work on that trick where I miss the ground when I fall... maybe if I had one of those Tall Clown Bikes?
And I did manage to avoid the illness that was creeping around the infrastructure... whether it was Giardia, Influenza, or Dysentery (according to wikipedia... aka "flux" or "bloody flux," amusingly enough!) it was yucky... but perhaps I tend to wash my hands more often than some of the gutter punks out there?
When we got there a couple of weeks before the event, Atomic & I had missed building the perimeter fence for BRC; but I did get to help Cowboy Carl's crew pound seven miles of T-Stakes for gate road... whew! At least we got to go out to The Frog Pond afterwards... After I injured my knee, Logan kindly gave me light-duty assignments for a while so that I could recuperate a bit. For the first few days, I was assigned to the door @ the Commissary (basically, i was like the maître d'), where I greeted everyone & asked them who was paying for their meal. This was mostly fun for me, but many of the patrons hated it... even though I did my best to be jovial & amusing, while still maintaining an efficient process. I think that many of them didn't wanted to be reminded that money existed. Leave it to me to enjoy reminding people of that which they want to avoid &/or deny! Or maybe, some people just don't like me? After all, I was a new face in a tightly-knit crew, and I can be kind of an asshole. Actually, there is a general mood of aggressive teasing among DPW, with which I am comfortable, even though it's not my preferred mode of communication. Although, one benefit of the constant insults, is that they essentially keep everyone on the same level!
Anyway, the commissary folks are awesome, too (One of them helped me extensively in rehabilitating my injured knee). I also got to meet pretty much everyone who worked on the playa for the first few weeks. The last day I worked that position, Larry Harvey came through the commissary. He said something to me about how there probably wasn't a category to place him in, and I responded that as soon as we drew a box around him, the desert dusts would likely shift around so much that we couldn't find the lines anymore...
After pounding T-Stakes for gate road (with Cowboy Carl), I worked with other crews: erecting the wall & painting in the Ghetto (with Art Shark), setting up carpets & furniture in Center Camp (with E), hanging shade in Center Camp (with Quiet Girl & Dr. Jones), erecting various fences (with Cowboy Carl), painting pieces of the Temple (with Carmen), and installing head lamps & brake lights on golf carts (with Beanie).
So, last year I wanted to work & I was told to go play instead & to remember my 2005 experience while I was working during 2006, so that I would know why we work so fucking hard to build this city. Well, now I know what the desert has to offer me & what I am capable of returning to it; and I am already plotting & planning how to synthesize these experiences into a mutually beneficial synergy, 'cause "next year was SO much better!"
I am looking forward to the The Green Man, next year...
In the meantime though, I am glad to be back in Austin, tending my own proverbial garden.
I am also really happy with my day job... I feel like I am useful & that I am contributing to the well being of fellow humans; so it provides an outlet for my humanitarian inclinations.
And as the healer who worked on my knee reminded me when I started complaining about strife in the world, "It's all an illusion... just breathe!" Don't get me wrong, I do wholeheartedly support focus on our breath as the fire that drives creation... but I also think that sometimes, we can't continue to ignore the problems around us, and it's our responsibility to monkeywrench the system when it's gone into mindless & heartless overdrive. I believe that this is true in whatever context you wish to apply it.
There was this one sign that I saw while I was driving out of BRC that captured my perception of the place... "BRC: The world's happiest company town!" And what else would you expect it to be? It is a city out on the frontier of our known reality that contains numerous utopias, & dystopias, depending on what you are seeking. Larry Harvey's gang have the genital fortitude to put their names on the dotted line, and answer to The Federales for the responsibility to leave no trace on the playa, and DPW is doing a damn fine job, I must say. I can see how people think that you essentially have to be a benevolent dictator to get anything done on that massive a scale in that short of a time. Ironically, DPW does not really operate like BMORG, or even like the rest of BRC. And although I didn't see us building any bridges this year, there was a hell of a lot of construction accomplished by a bunch of anarchists! However, we did build quite a few walls, and as Hedwig will remind you, "There ain't much of a difference between a bridge and a wall!"