The life lessons of Burning Man / Is there anything you *can't* learn from the
Texa...@aol.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/08/28/notes082809.DTL&nl=fix
The life lessons of Burning Man
Is there anything you *can't* learn from the insane desert art festival?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, August 28, 2009
As I've been lured back to the sweltering, dusty sexed-up madness that is Burning Man again this year -- my sixth time -- by
a gaggle of delicious friends, I am hereby reminded of a few hundred truths, half-truths, outright lies and astonishing
epiphanies offered up by the world-famous, Christian-feared, beautifully debauched, sensory overloaded,
impossible-to-describe art-survivalist-camping-rave megaspectacle now underway in the remote Nevada desert.
If you've ever wondered at the appeal, the urge, the drive to attend such a thing, if you've heard wisps of the mythology and
the mystery and the epic weirdness or even seen a few pictures and wondered, you know, WTF, maybe these tidbits can help.
Then again, maybe not. With something like Burning Man, there really is only one way to know for sure.
You are not who you thought you were
Countless are the tales and numerous are the personal friends who were once to be found hovering near the far end of the
overly anxious, tightly wound, frenetic Type-A personality scale, who attended BM for the first time and wandered out on the
playa at sundown and just so happened to stumble upon, say, Serpent Mother, or the giant goddesses, or one of David Best's
breathtaking temples or any of a thousand other unearthly spectacles and suddenly felt their skull crack open and their eyes
spin around in their sockets and their brain fold back in on itself.
Right there and forevermore, their worldview shifted. Their id swallowed its own tongue. Possibility opened its legs wide and
went, ahhh. In short, they lightened the hell up. It's rather astonishing how often this happens, and not just to the uptight
and the pushy. This is one of the most powerful aspects of the event: It almost matters not from which angle you approach it
-- Burning Man is an equal opportunity soul exploder.
You are not alone
In your wild dissatisfaction with how things are. In your frustration with socially and politically imposed limitations. In
your conviction that there simply must be more to this tertiary experience than work and traffic and hostility, grind and
paunch and slump. In your need to fly your freak flag high, cut more loose than you thought possible, test your limits. In
your admiration for boy shorts and leather vests and body paint and oral sex in public places.
In short, BM reminds you that you are far from alone in your understanding that this is one hugely painful, incredibly
difficult, unbearably gorgeous, terrifying, excruciatingly short life experience and sometimes the best you can hope for is
to dress in fake fur and mount the dragon and scream from atop the roof of a dusty RV of your ravenous desire to lick the
moon.
You really might die at any moment
You could be crushed under the wheels of a massive rolling pirate ship. You could be impaled on the three-foot metal eyelash
of a giant roving eyeball. You could be hit in the chest by a megabolt of man-made lighting shooting off a live Tesla coil.
Anything can happen, really. And it usually does.
Yes, I know, you are reminded of your mortality every day living in the cruel, cruel city, the angry buses and lurching taxis
and potential H1N1 outbreaks, not to mention the armed Republican psychozealots. But of course, we forget. We get a little
numb. BM gives it to you raw and hot and dirty and says, you are not long for this world, you messy little speck of spiritual
spacedust. What do you want to do about it?
No one really understands copious genital piercings
There's always one, that amazing dude you always see at Burning Man wandering around Center Camp in nothing but a camelback,
a camouflage cowboy hat and countless indecipherable tattoos, completely naked and fully resplendent in his stack of bolts
running up the penile shaft and a giant Prince Albert through the frenulum and a ladder of rods all the way up underneath,
more metal than penis and more magnetically baffling than aesthetically alluring.
No matter how much weirdness you encounter out there, no matter how exhausted your eye becomes from the nonstop visual
orgasmica, you cannot help but glance down and go, oh my God, that right there is some deep psychosexual concern, my friend,
some painful and fascinating need for self-mutilation and in a weird sort of way I am uniquely privileged to be here right
now, standing next to such a wonder as I order a dusty iced coffee just after dancing at sunrise to Bassnectar but just
before heading over to Porn & Eggs camp where they serve up copious offerings of both for my morning ablution. This is all
I'm saying.
You have not really seen everything
Oh how you love to be all jaded and bleak-minded and wary. Oh how you love to think you're all been-there-done-that
super-cool hypercynical because you make your own nose rings and smoke five pounds of ganja a day and once had sex with Bon
Iver's cousin.
Whatever. Even the most slow-blinking, trendier-than-thou uber-hipster will eventually be confronted by something at this
event that will shake her to her core and slap her asunder and make her maybe, hopefully see something new, reminded of the
mad, impossible, neverending flux of memory and experience, even if it is merely how utterly inane her uber-hipster facade
really is. This is a good thing.
Man, this is the way life should always be
It's sort of amazing out there. There is a refreshing lack of general whiny uptightedness. There is almost no fear of sex or
inebriant or personal expression (to a fault), no brittle dogma, no two-faced political scandal, no shrill Republican
screeching. There is no money changing hands, no economy per se, almost everything is free, including and especially the art,
which is everywhere, and copious, and very much like nothing you will see anywhere else on the planet.
To millions, this is a vision of living hell. To millions of others, it is pure heaven, as all those insipid sociocultural
masks and veils drop away and all the boundaries blur and genders intermingle and meanings shift and dance and pass out from
the heat. You come away saying damn, why can't life be like this all the time?
Oh wait, no it shouldn't
Get real. Burning Man is a completely outrageous, multimillion dollar, for-profit, impossibly unsustainable theatrical
megaproduction. This is, in part, why we love it. Tickets are $300 and it costs many hundreds if not thousands more in gear,
supplies, transport to attend, and while you can get there and do it on a grimy hippie sort've budget if you leech on your
friends just right, it's basically a very expensive, meta-bohemian, chemically enhanced anti-vacation. It's all a grand and
ridiculous and temporary illusion, not at all meant to be transposed on a livable sphere.
Or is it? You may not be able to take the pseudo-economy and the neo-pagan society back with you, but what you can transpose,
of course, is the sense of awe. The fearlessness. The creative wonder. You can bring back confidence. Abandon. Fierce joy.
Really, what more could you ask for?
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Mark Morford's column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate. Contact him here. To get on the notification list for
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Paul B.
This was sent to another group I am a member of. I hope in my life time I have a chance to go to the Burning Man Festival.
Even more impressive would be to go to is Michael Heizer "City" in Nevada. It's about 200 miles North of Los Vegas. It's near
the Yucca Mountain depository for spent nuclear fuel waste (still as of this date no waste has been store there).
If you want know more I be glad to enlighten you on how he has spent almost 30 years working on this secret project. I have
various PFD files and additional photos of the City and his other works.
Cheers,
Paul
Texa...@aol.com
Warning: The Author is a bit of a _________________,
well you'll see, if you read this.
The wonderful part, a part of this article was about my friend,
Kitten who created the Gay Camp, "Comfort and Joy", Yeah! Kitten!
Bill aka Chad James, Flagstaff on the Playa!
PlanetOut Lifestyle: The Sexy Side Of Burning Man
http://www.planetout.com/lifestyle/2009/08/burning-man.html
The Sexy Side Of Burning Man
Sex On The Beach is a cocktail with vodka, peach Schnapps and some fruity juices thrown in for color. It's sweet and
refreshingly thirst quenching in your mouth.
Sex on the "Playa" (a dry lake bed in the Nevada desert) is a cocktail of dust, sweat and unwashed bodies, with some fruity
costumes thrown in for color. It's salty and chalky, and there's no water to wash out your mouth, ears, eyes, nose, or any
other hole in your body. For these reasons I tend to avoid sexual encounters when I go to Burning Man. But not always.
(Photo: Steve Cabrera)
(Photo: Steve Cabrera)
It's hard not to get horny when surrounded by so many beautiful boys running around naked, or scantily clad in colorful
costumes (both gay and straight) and not want to grab and lick them like lollypops. The only hitch is everyone is coated with
thick layers of playa dust, and various & sundry items ranging from skin protection to body paint. Being that there is NO
running water in Black Rock City � Burning Man's yearly fabricated Brigadoon 75 miles outside Reno, which disappears leaving
no trace - the boys tend to stay dirty for the week-long art festival and no amount of wet wiping can keep me from thinking
I'm kissing a camel's ass. But that's just me.
(Photo: Steve Cabrera)
Instead of plunging into the prolific plethora of procurable porking at the wink of a brown eye, I suffice myself in the
abundant visual stimuli with artistic expression in every eye-full. Sexually speaking however, a lot of "Burners" feel
otherwise inclined when they visit The Man. Gay sex is rampant and often boundary-less, and this holds true for many straight
boys who feel that if they are going to wear a little drag, they may as well live the role - at least experimentally. The
Vegas mentality prevails in the mantra, "what happens on the playa, stays on the playa," and it can always be blamed on the
drugs - even if none were taken.
While watching a writhing pile of naked bodies in the "AfterGlow" tent at camp Comfort & Joy, I got to thinking about what
sexually motivates people when they go to Burning Man. So with my dusty micro-cassette recorder in hand and a fist full of
double A's, I set out to find out how people think about sex on the playa.
(Photo: Steve Cabrera)
"How about it Cabbage Head," I say to a beautifully tall boy wearing a lime-green mop for a wig, "are you feeling sexual here
on the Playa?"
"Absolutely!" he says, shaking his green tendrils with vigor while watching the orgy.
"But what about the grimacing grime?" I retort, side stepping a gooey puddle of "moop" (matter out of place) on the dusty
tent floor. "How do you deal with it?"
"I have plenty of antibacterial wet wipes in my tent, so we can use those to get clean before we have sex."
(Photo: Steve Cabrera)
"What about you Mac," I asked of my campmate later while peddling past an Art Car sculpted like a giant fish with three eyes
and giant teeth, "Are you looking to hook up here?"
"I'm not planning on it," he said, "But if it happens, I'd be open to it."
"Would you go to a gay camp like 'Comfort & Joy' and have sex in the open, or in one of their circus tents while other people
are having sex around you?"
"I think I'd have to be really drunk first, but you never know. I mean we're at Burning Man and it's my first time, so we
might as well go big or go home."
"I'd like to have sex out on the desert," says another campmate Brian, eyeing his boyfriend Tim with a raised brow, "But not
around all these people."
"I'm not into sand," piped in Tim. "It's a little too abrasive, unless packaged with some kind of moisturizer, like an
exfoliating body scrub. Then again, perhaps lube would do."
(Photo: Dot)
Later I talked with Kitten Calfree (pictured)- one of the originators of camp Comfort & Joy - about his thoughts behind the
anything-goes atmosphere . "We try to create a space where people are allowed to touch each other, but rather than letting it
get too weird and cruisey, we do a lot to try and manage the energy in the space, like workshops where people can talk about
sexuality in discussion groups.
The "man-scaping" workshop is one of the first things we do. It helps people open up because they get to be naked while
getting groomed. It's warm and friendly, without being a jump-to-hard-core-sex club. It says 'you are worth cleaning up down
there. Even if you aren't super beautiful, you are still worth paying attention to grooming.'
The other thing we do is provide entertainment. Yeah, there are still a lot of cuddle spaces, but we bust up the sexual
energy with theatrical distractions. It's still okay to be naked with a hard-on, but it's more like a communal love-in, and
less like a dark room where nobody talks."
"Are there any gay camps that are only about sex," I ask, "like Jiffy Lube camp with the slogan, 'Get in - Get off - Get
out'?"
"Well, it's now called 'Stiffy Lube' because they got sued or something, but it's closed this year. Their whole thing was to
set up a couple dark green army tents with a few cots, and throw some glow sticks on the floor. Very basic. I mean they might
have had a couple events like a deep throating contest or something, but it was all about hard cock and sex, sex, sex.
(Photo: Dot)
We started Comfort & Joy sort of as a response to that. We wanted to create a gay lounge environment. It's surprising that in
Black Rock City, with its 40 thousand inhabitants for the week, there really isn't very many cuddle tents where you could
spill into after dancing, lay on something soft, and touch your naked Playa boyfriend without being treated strangely.
This year we sort of did an homage to 'Stiffy Lube,' since they were supposed to be next door to us and didn't show. People
are still coming to our address because they're still in the Playa registry, so what we did was - in the smaller tent where
we have yoga in the mornings, discussion groups during the day, and at night a hosted a game show - after eleven, we hang
some curtains and throw some glow sticks on the floor. Presto! Instant Stiffy Lube. So people who want that 'dark room'
experience can have it, and now everyone's happy. Meow."
(Photo: Dot)
After I got the low-down on the love-fest, who should I run into next in full clown face but Gregg Taylor, one of the
originators of camp Stiffy Lube (may it rest in peace). I asked him about the now defunct gay sex-dive and he said, "The
first year at Jiffy Lube we had a 'Hello Mr. Butthole � Anal Sex 101' seminar, and it was mostly straight couples, where the
guys just wanted to get poked. That year we started with 25 couches in one big open army tent, behind it we had a little
back-room inside a U-Haul truck. That first year it felt more like a community, then it just became a sex camp after that. I
was shocked when I had a friend come out here and said, 'I just come to Burning Man to get laid.' I think that's so strange
because there are so many other reasons to come, but it's not uncommon.
In the past, Burning Man used to be much more about sexual empowerment. Now it seems like it's become about sexual power."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The ideas of, 'I feel good about my body,' and 'Being naked is okay,' used to prevail. Now it's about assertion, and power
and dominance, and 'You will look at me!' That's the difference between empowerment vs. power, two very diverse things.
Burning Man has changed a lot, it used to be about explosives and robots and geeky shop guys blowing shit up. The only two
sex oriented camps were Bianca's Smut Shack, and us. Now, if you look at the program guide, half of it is sex-workshops, and
the other half is relationship seminars."
(He sighs)
"No more robots."
(Photo: Eric Glaser)
A naked man named Tree stood rooted in a people watching spot long enough to grow on me. He told me, "This is my first year
at Burning Man. What's amazing is that this environment provides opportunities for me to push myself in ways that I normally
wouldn't do."
"How so?" I asked, toying with his twig.
"I'm certainly being more open to public nudity, or even being aroused in public� it just feels safe here. One thing I'm
enjoying about Comfort & Joy is that it's a really sex positive space. I find that there are a lot of straight identified
guys who will play around with boys here, where they wouldn't normally."
This held true later when I witnessed an erotic massage workshop, hosted by Dharma in the AfterGlow tent at Comfort & Joy,
where a mix of gay and straight couples crowded together like sardines touching their partners to the point of orgasm -
although this was not the point of the seminar.
(Photo: Dot)
About his experience at the workshop, photographer "Dot" commented, "The workshop was based on the Body Electric genital
massage techniques, and focused on spreading sexual energy through the body rather than achieving orgasm. Out of the 100 or
so couples, about half were gay and half were straight. At the beginning I could tell that some of the straight guys were a
bit nervous about being naked (and erect) in front of other straight guys - let alone a bunch of gays � however, as the
workshop proceeded, I felt that this fear completely dissipated. It was as if all of the masculine energy (both straight and
gay) became synchronized together in our focused breathing. When it was over, I felt there was a new understanding and unity
between gays and straights by sharing such an intimate experience. It was totally what Burning Man is all about."
A non-flirtatious muscular man named Gary told me, "I come to Burning Man to connect with myself and other people. There are
so many other things to do, that sex becomes unimportant to me."
(Photo: Eric Glaser)
"Amen to that Gary." I said before donning my dust mask and goggles to head out onto the Playa for a "Critical Tits" after
party in the middle of the Playa. In the land of Burning Man there is so much art to see, and music to dance to, that I found
myself drawn away from the sexual allure of the boys in the AfterGlow tent.
"Then again," I thought to myself, "that cute blonde boy I was eyeing earlier is heading into the tent right now, maybe I'll
stick around and partake in a 'seminar' or two."
(Photo: Steve Cabrera)
(Photo: Steve Cabrera)
(Photo: Eric Glaser)
Burning Man 2009 will be held August 31st - Sept. 7th.
For more information go to burningman.com
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Burning Man is one of my BIG interests!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_man