It’s not every year that one would describe Burn Week on the playa as “lovely,” but from all indications and reports, that’s exactly what it was for 2018, with Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Labor Day featuring highs between 80 and 90, and most importantly, light, mellow, undusty breezes. I give credit to the Ghost of Larry, who I’m sure had something to do with it. In fact, I was kinda surprised that there wasn’t a huge 3-D hologram of Larry hovering in the sky over Temple Burn, but maybe that idea was a little too corny for the inner circle of raging visionaries who’ve given us so many mind-bending moments over the years.
But I have to scoff at that Drugnet Dragnet conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the Paiute Rez this year, with the justification for this operation pinned on the fact that there’s an opioid crisis on America’s reservations, so agents are out there trying to put a dent in this nasty scourge by cracking down on these devious druggy Burners as they drive through Nixon and hold on, wait a sec, say what? Hey, I’m sure there are indeed opioid problems with the tribes. Hell, there seems to be opioid problems with every demographic in every ethnic group these days. But if we’re gonna make deranged dope generalizations here, allow me to fire up this one—Burners are to opioids what Trump is to pole vaulting. You dig?
In support of myself, check out these Pershing County Sheriff stats from the 2017 Burn. The number one drug confiscated by the cops? Mushrooms. Not Oxycontin. Not Vicodin. Not smack. Good ole brain-bending shrooms. (Terence McKenna would be proud!) Number two—pot. 3. Good Golly Miss Molly (as in Ecstasy) 4. Cocaine. 5. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. 6. Ketamine (!) 7. Methamphetamine. You see any opioids in that mix? Me, neither. The common generalization, supported by these numbers, is that Burners are much more about ecstatogens than opiates. Of course, there were various Oxies out in Black Rock City this year. It’s a city of 75,000, fercrissake. There had to be some. But using the sheriff’s bust list, we can also safely assert that Paiute opioid addicts don’t have much to fear from glowing, gifting Burners, who would much rather talk to God than rock the nod.
So next year, BIA, if you wanna pull people over for going 26 in a 25, and then subject them to the twitchy dope dog, have a better bullshit cover story. Kay?