So, we’re out there in the weeds, in the sagebrush, in the dark, awaiting the full moon’s move into visibility. Luna’s silver sliver begins sneaking a peek over the rim of the hills. The air is warm, the wind backing off to a slight breeze. It’s a good night to be a desert moon-person. Just then, a voice breaks the spell. “So, what are you gonna do for Burning Man this year?”
Yes, well, what about that? Here it comes, that annual tribal stomp of sanity and insanity, and the one don’t-miss event in these parts for anarchistically inclined utopian escapists who aren’t bugged by the sight of people with rainbow-colored pubes. And notice the slight but significant difference in the question: not “Are you going to go to B-man,” but “What are you gonna do for Burning Man?” Meaning, “You got a project of some sort? Theme camp? Snazzy new outfits?”
A lot of folks say they’re approaching this year’s Man with a more “minimalist” attitude. These are probably the same people who spent Labor Day last year packing up the refrigerators and sofas of their camp for hours, and having to do so while coping with a general lack of energy, a condition easily blamed on the excesses of Sunday night. Those hard-workin’, hell-drivin’ Mondays make minimalists out of many.
By minimalist, people generally mean, “We’re taking an RV, one with functioning toilet, shower and AC.” All you gotta do is drive it out there, park it wherever, and that’s it, your camp is established, and now you can go ahead and start painting your teeth. Next level down from RVs on the minimalist scale is car camping with a shade structure of some sort. It’s generally understood by experienced burners that most shade structures will be trashed by at least one windstorm, and there’s not much you can do about that. Even minimalists, though, will load up on good food, good liquor, some wacky clothes, some glow stuff, maybe a sound system, and nurture that annual throbbing desire to get up there and see what the heck is gonna happen this year. It’s finger poppin’ time in Black Rock City, and that means experiencing the primal pleasures of watching a lot of stuff get burned up to the pounding beat of a gnarly bongo orchestra while green laser beams pierce the pudding of a star-soaked night.
My compadres talk about maybe opening a gynecologist office in B.R.C., sorta like Lucy’s psychiatrist office in Peanuts, with the little wood stand and the sign that says, “The doctor is in.” It seems at first hilarious, but then, extremely risky. It seems less risky when I suggest that we restrict our clientele to only those women who look and dress like jungle goddess Bettie Page. In the end, we realize we have to get serious, and opt to buy a bunch of glow sticks and Popsicles.
So do wacka do, buns of blue, and don’t spill the jambalaya. Late August shang-a-lang is buildin’ up, and that means fiya on the playa.