Blinking in a Brighter Light

I called an old friend, just to see how he’s doing. He’s sitting in the house he grew up in, watching his father die.

I left a comment at a blog because I didn’t like the music. The comment was deleted because, said the owner, his mother reads it and he won’t allow that kind of language. I don’t remember what I said. I try to keep the obscenities down. Apparently I don’t try hard enough.

Maybe I’d been drinking. I doubt it. I don’t drink, particularly. When I do I’m a docile drunk, silly and meaningless. Then I get tired and that makes me cranky and then I might not be the winner of many popularity contests. But I wouldn’t swear about music I don’t like.

It’s hilarious what we can learn about ourselves if we open our eyes. I might do that someday.

My friend and I hadn’t spoken for a couple months. He sounded like he had been crying. His father was a big man when I knew him three decades ago, not at all the Berkeley type, with his guns and custom trucks and admiration for certain politically incorrect historical figures. He was deeply in love with the woman who lay dying then of an acute arthritis, in the dining room they converted to a bedroom when she could no longer be taken upstairs. Now he lies dying in that room too, and his son is watching over him, feeling helpless no doubt. We didn’t talk long.

I went back to the blog and listened to the music again. This time I used headphones and let it flow over me and discovered the music I didn’t like before kicked some pretty good ass. It was electronica of some form or other (there are dozens), deep and rich and well orchestrated and full of surprises. Reminded me of the music that serves as a constant backdrop at the Burn, especially at night, when a hundred dance clubs sprout like lemonade stands and the strange lights, chai tea, lovely women, oddments of booze, unbelievable costumes, dust, aching feet, three days unwashed hair, and general awesomeness of people letting loose and sharing the fruits of their hard-worked creativity run through you like electric currents and life is simple and good.

Life is good and life is temporary. The more we know of it, the shorter it gets too. We all struggle, I think, to come to terms with that. I struggle now, just learning to see the need. No, I’ve never been complacent, nor in the least bit comfortable. But that doesn’t mean I’ve had my eyes open. What then does it mean? That I should sit still and weave stronger connections with people, for one thing. And other things, even more mysterious.

Written to music generated by entering "Shpongle" into Pandora.

More Pix

You didn't ask but surely someone wants to see the rest so here. (Sac Decom 10 Oct 09)

Fun Where the Hell is Waldo Game!

I Spy ...

A naked thigh!

A truck under a portable carport!

Eight hundred seventy two lost or stolen bicycles!

In the center of each these images is our campsite. We erected the carport Monday (Aug 31st) after sundown during a rising wind. Imagine tying two hundred square feet of waterproofed canvas down to a brace of lightweight aluminum poles while the wind kicks up to thirty and brings about a pound of dust per cubic yard of air with it. But once it was staked and roped and the truck was under it, all set up for campin', it was quite comfy.

The scene on Monday September 1st:


The scene on Saturday September 5th:


Now for fun that will engage your favorite eight year old for hours and hours!

Find the above location on these two images!

Satellite photo, Sep 1st

Satellite photo, Sep 5th

Better yet, pour a strong drink and crawl around these crazy wacked-out scenes yourself.

All right, here's a Burner's-eye view. Tame. We're not up to the level of creative camping yet, we just like to survive. But it's hecka comfortable in there. (Supportive carpentry illustrated here.)


Some more general notes:


A - Our little campsite

B - Camp shower, trailer mounted, cold water from 55-gallon drums, complete with surrounding evaporation pond

C - Some weird art car made out of a golf cart that showed up one night

D - Li'l Pearl the Turtle, about which more later maybe

E - Open bar and general mess-around dome tent for our neighbors the Karma Chickens (another Sac crew)

More random shit will follow as it hits me to slack off at work and post it.

Hot Desert Dude Seeks Friend for Mutual Cup Cleaning

God that sounds nasty. But I really was hot. Even in a woman's shirt that I got at the BRC Boutique and cut the sleeves and collar off of to make a vest, I felt prickly and overdressed. And my sippy cup was pretty nasty by this time (see image in prior post).

Anyway this picture has been in my pictures to be posted directory awhile and I don't feel like waiting anymore for the right context so here. It's the only one taken of me at Burning Man despite about twenty five thousand pocket digital cameras going off constantly. I made the necklaces out of .223 brass I'd been saving since my amateur survivalist militia days in the early 1980s. I finally found a better use for them.

Party Time

Burners can't sit still. It's Decom time! And ours is a lot more fun than SF Decom (which is the next day) because it's small and intimate and you'll make real friends and not just add Friscoite Burners to your contact list. Come one, come all! Or just watch.

Sunday Sundry

It's not over. Merely continuing to evolve, and more interestingly in these interesting times. Serves me right for getting personal on a blog, now I feel like I owe updates.

Really hating on meetings. As I type this I am online with Tokyo and Penang. The subject is not exactly trivial. But I am deeply annoyed at the level of detail people need to launch into. Especially technical detail about a couple of options the customer might choose that we all know in fact the customer will not choose (the customer is a well-known OEM). Oh, management needs to know all the angles! But no, they fucking don't, not if they have any god damn common sense. And they often do, actually. But due diligence is expected of the troops anyway. Maybe I'm just old and cranky and no longer have the patience to weigh all that wasted time against the corporation's expectation that we all execute as programmed.

My neighborhood is not THAT good. The man across the creek who started his own company must for various complex business and personal reasons put his house on the market. That's of interest to the rest of us who wonder what our homes might be worth. But I think we all agree that the price he's asking is a we-e-ee bit of a stretch. Two thirds of it, maybe. If not half. Of course, I wish them every penny of success. And granted, it's a hell of a lot nicer property than ours. But at that price I don't expect any change in neighbors before spring.

Good thing I love classical music. No one else wanted my father's four linear feet of phonograph records. The eye-catchers are classical records with album covers designed in the 1970s. Very colorful, even psychedelic, but still the music of Vaughan Williams, Shostakovich, Dukas, Respighi, et al. Since these records are worth approximately nothing in the vinyl market, my only plan is to digitize them so they might get listened to again, by me. I only mean to do it once in awhile so the project will probably take decades. Is there something else I could do with them?

Not why I got sick! You take your own cup around Burning Man in case someone is serving drinks. By the end of the week mine had held multiple samples of beer, vodka, whisky, wine, coffee and tea. Oh, and water. Other than that I never bothered to wash it. And stuffed into the water bottle holder on my bike, it was also subject to the elements, i.e. a thousand square miles worth of dust blowing around. This is what it looked like by the time we got home. I still think I got sick from talking to some dude who liked leaning in and tended to splutter.

In Case You've Ever Wondered How Big Burning Man Is

I'm almost back from the worst flu of my life. I'm actually at work this week -- I don't give a shit, but I'm here. Last week was a near-total loss. The week before that was spent on another planet, from which tales may or may not emerge. Meanwhile, to mark my potential return to Earth, here is a graphic that gives an idea of the scale of Black Rock City, and why you must have a bicycle and a good pair of walking legs.


Larger, original size here.

Adios

I managed to post something every day for three weeks. That run stops here. There is still a LOT to do and as it says below, we are about out of time. See you in a number of days between eight and infinity!

Naysayers

SfGate has their BMan page up again. Note the discussion on why you would never go to Burning Man. There are some good reasons. The event really is something other than what some of its promoters would have you think. But who cares? Fun is fun. And as for people who grouse about desert camping conditions: Screw them, no mercy. More dust for me (or more something).

Bed

Last year I designed and built a platform to sleep on in the bed of the pickup. Last night I assembled it in place for this year. It's very simple and very effective. It provides plenty of room above the wheel wells, and storage below, and once a carpet pad is taped down and a few layers of comforters and sleeping bags are laid in, it is super comfy.


Also I hinged it for access to the storage area underneath and to get it up out of the way when we are using the tailgate for something, such as preparing dinner. I had to shape it to get around the mounted toolbox and to fit under the shell when all the way open.


Creative construction is fun. You should see the "octohut" (but I have no pictures). Basically eight pieces of plywood jigsawed to fit together like a 3D puzzle that form a very solid hexagonal hut, eight feet tall and nearly that wide, with a roof made of triangle sections out of a ninth piece. You can cut doors and windows in it as you please, hang sconces, an air conditioning unit, whatever. It hauls flat on a trailer and can be up and ready for action within an hour. We're thinking to make a bunch next year. Paint 'em desert gray, seal out the dust with duct tape, build a little village. I'm thinking to make mine out of roof sheathing with the reflective inner coating to make a mirrored little love shack.

But that's all for next year. For this year, down to the wire. The Eagle thing done, we can now focus on BMan prep. Have barely started. Will be a hectic 5 1/2 days.

Worthless

See, exactly seven days from now I expect to have set up camp and be under-dressed and bicycling in the desert heat on the lookout either for free drinks or an active dance bar or both, my senses filled to reeling with other like-minded weirdos similarly under-dressed or set out in odd post-apocalyptic Mad Max attire or strange creative costumes or slowly driving in a daze as they seek out a campsite, the sun slowly dropping towards the dark razor's edge of a nameless Nevada mountain range in a perfectly deep blue sky. I find this just distracting enough I can't get a fucking thing done at my job.

The under-dressed part really isn't necessary to being a part of things, it's just my personal style. We all have our uniquities. I just made that word up. I expect to make up a lot of words out there in the creative maelstrom. Words and modes of living. BMan is a deeply spiritual experience for some people, the reason being once you drop your structures and your expectations and your inhibitions and your programming amongst an uncountable number of other people happily trying to do the same things in their own way, great windows open up by which you can look into your soul that simply wouldn't open before, and the trip can be life-changing. Yes, drugs can open those windows too, and some people use drugs out there, but not many, and they really ain't necessary. Not to mention there is a significant law enforcement presence: Federal officers of the BLM, the Pershing County Sheriff's office, the Washoe County Sheriff's office, and the Nevada Department of Investigations, to name a few. I also recall seeing some Tribal Police cars last year. All of these have overlapping concerns but needless to say, torching a spliff in public is a dumb idea.

My camera broke on the first day last year and it was a freeing experience. Leaves me with a conundrum: Leave the camera at home, or take it anyway for when I just have to have keepsake photographs? There is no shortage of pictures on the web, at Flickr and elsewhere. But they are rarely of the specific things or people that mattered to me. So, yeah, camera will go, the little one that fits in a pocket. Maybe it will break too.

Maybe you can't know the building level of excitement. It's impossible to grasp if you haven't been there or if the images and stories you find on the web don't interest you. I felt I got it just from web research, and once I got to know people I found I was more or less right. Maybe it attracts my long suppressed but deeply ingrained Berkeley hippie soul. For others it's about finding appreciative audiences and participants in their love of inventing vehicles and other mechanical contrivances. There is a lot of yin-yang flowers-and-fire sort of duality generating energy in this community, men who work with their hands to make machines and art and flame, and women who also make art and dance with the flame and share their beauty, and there are a thousand other archetypes besides, but this ancient coupling as between Vulcan and Venus seems most common and generates a huge amount of creative beauty and energy, just as you might expect.

Well, it's no wonder when you drive up to the gate, they hand you your packet and say, "Welcome home!"

Not Counting Down

It’s impossible to describe. I’ve tried, but don’t know if it worked because I can’t compare the listeners’ understanding to my experience. My experience, the one time, is nearly impossible to remember. A haze of all-night raves, great objects embedded in the desert floor, flames in the sky, thirty-foot smoke rings, trust and friendliness from everyone, free drinks, sexy outfits, weird creative outfits, cock rings and clean-shaven cunnies, brightly painted bodies, brightly illuminated costumes, messages written to family members on a temple made of recycled material, weeping as they flamed and smoked to the heavens, countless personalized bicycles, barbecues and homemade firepits, playing with a mound of Legos on a dusty Persian carpet, long quiet conversations, stars above, wind-borne dust, parachute acrobats, fire dancers, stilt walkers, gymnasts, singers, dancers, roller-blading on a rough plywood platform, riding around in a motorized double-decker barroom, a camp shower that provides little privacy and fifteen seconds of cold water per button-push, and of course the porta-potties running out of toilet paper with four days to go. I mean, none of that tells you a damn thing.

But it’s that time again and I am having a hard time focusing on work. This year will be different than last. Wife and I will try a different sort of participatory dynamic. What the hell that means I don’t know. More participation, less awe-struck observation, less time together thus more freedom to follow our individual muses, like that. But it’s still a weird year. So many people aren’t going, or can’t make up their minds. Many, many cannot afford it. Jobs and incomes lost. Entrepreneurial types finding business is down and they can’t afford to shut their doors for a week. A weird vibe darkens the idea for some who found last year too big, the city too much a victim of its own success. Yet every year is different, they say, and for me personally, there is no apprehension. Once I feel I have time to really prepare -- next week? -- somehow it will come together, as it will come together for thousands of others equally disoriented, and magic will once again rise out of the bare dry earth.

You really have to ignore what people say about self-important latter-day hippies and just go.

Thrifting

Two reasons I go thrifting: Miscellaneous threads suitable for modification a la Burning Man, and polo shirts. The former could be anything. Once you're out there on the playa, the very last thing you want to do is dress normally. Accept it: You are human, you are a herd creature with a tinge of independence, you are happiest expressing your individuality in the same vein as everyone else. And so if shorts and a t-shirt truly express who you are or who you want to try being a little bit, fine, but you're going to feel foolish and oddly left out. The best way in BRC to not feel like a sartorial idiot is to dress like an idiot. There's simply no escaping it. People who don't -- and there are a few, no doubt demotivated by a misplaced shyness or overdone reverse sense of rebellion -- they stick out like sore thumbs (or pinky fingers with a torn tendon, to use a personally applicable example). More importantly, I don't think they have as much fun.

Polo shirts are something else, though. Merely work attire. I pretty much wear polo shirts only, and I'm sick of the company-related and customer-given old shirts I have. So I go to the various thrift stores to see what they've got. The selection is very limited. Most polo shirts are in truly hideous colors. This befits their use at bowling alleys and country clubs. It cracks me up that for a stupid and elitist game, golf also has the ugliest damn clothes. But here and there I find a treasure, something in black or navy with a logo that meets my criteria, i.e. has nothing to do with:

a) Polo, Ralph Lauren, alligators, or any other fashion industry icon
b) Computers or computer networks
c) Golf
d) Major league sports teams
e) Anything else disinteresting in the moment

What I'm wearing right now, for example, says

Sutter Medical Center
Sacramento
Top 100 Hospital
2001 & 2002

embroidered in various attractive fonts and colors. Cool, eh? Totally random. I'm particularly fond of construction companies and concrete suppliers. Today for under two bucks I got a polo shirt for the parts department at a Subaru dealer. But did I get anything Burnish? Seriously, you have to go there and find me if you care to find out.

lolburnerz

flickr.com/groups/lolburners/pool/

Jason Mongue's Burning Man vid

Furrballpix

Alas, none of me (except in the background of one, way off in the distance, looking dorky and taking a picture). But the man is a fine photographer and captures the essentials. (He also takes more pictures of attractive women than of just regular folk, and that's very strange, isn't it.)

Furrball 2009

I will link to more pictures as they come on line and if they are worth it.

Furry Nights

Words fail, for the most part.

But out in the dry industrial ring that surrounds the city, we had a ball.

    

A fur ball. Call it a seasonal kickoff. Pan was there, and a sword dancer, and a bunny.

    

A dancer whose body was a musical instrument, perfectly in tune with the music booming overhead.

    

I did not have the equipment to give you more than these grainy impressions.

    

A hint of the mad magic, complete with food, drink, endless dancing, and sparks landing amongst the full propane tanks. As they say: Safety third!

    

My Bacon of Hope

127 Hours at Burning Man

She calls it a day but probably she just ignored the time and counted the interval between sleeps as a day.

Wait, no! I'm such a dork. She does write of 24 hours. I counted 'em.

This was published months ago and I missed it, but here it is. Surely someone who stops here will enjoy it. It's just about right. Enough to give you a hint, but not so much you get lost. Every time I try to write about it, I get lost. Trying too hard.

24 Hours at Burning Man

Related stuff at the same site: search results.

Getcher fur boots

'Tis the season.