Postcards from Black Rock City

We checked off a new bucketlist item with a much anticipated trip to Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada at 7:00 and L. 1700 portapotties, 70k+ people, 6 days, 7 miles across, 28+ miles walked, 8 costume changes.

Here are a few of our letters from Black Rock...

“We are having a blast at burning man despite a rocky start with a horrible dust storm and rude gate employees. I’m sure I’ll post a few times, but preliminarily, on the good side, I had no idea there were hundreds of camp bars where you can get a drink if you do what they ask (insult them, flash your junk, tell your darkest secrets etc). There was one place where we watched people getting shocked with a cattle prod for shots of liquor which we did not brave. I have never been hugged or told I was fabulous by so many strangers. No one could have possibly prepared me for how much dust there is. Everything we brought is either ruined or needs to be washed 3 times, we look like cave people, and we may have to buy our rental car, lol. We’re going to see them burn the man shortly. If you’ve never been here, you can’t believe what its like at night, hundreds of art installations and art cars lit up, thousands of people biking, like a living organism. Glad to be here...”

“Every time a stranger approaches you at burning man, you're in for a weird experience. There was this guy who was emceeing a spoken word show that fancied himself a children's performer and went everywhere with his magical turtle puppet and would sing magical turtle in a childish babytalk voice in different languages. He ended up by us later watching the fire dancers and when he wasn't talking to others he just kept waving his puppet and singing the word "turtle" over and over. As I was going to the nasty portapotties for the last time, there was a man yelling "yo" over and over with his hand in front of his face. He came up to me and I said "yo" back. It became apparent that he was holding an avocado and using it like a microphone, so he said hola into the avocado, put it in my face and I said "come esta?" and he gave me a big hug and said "muy bien." Burning man combines alot of the types of things I like to experience...”

“Meg and I were initially worried about drinking beverages prepared by others here, but that’s worked out fine. I’m especially glad that my drink wasn’t roofied at the one bar where a guy sat down with us and randomly started telling us all the sex tents we could go to have large objects stuck up our rectums and how much he enjoyed seeing it done to others. Don’t know where that interaction would have gone had we been the type to be like, “oh boy, let’s all go together...”

“We concluded the night with the burning of the man. This year, the man was a pyramid-like structure with various robots around the perimeter and the man in neon blue on top. First, they had dozens of fire dancers and then they lit the structure which was filled with fireworks and explosives. It burned for several hours, is probably still smoldering now. Tons of art cars with dj’s circled around and we checked them out for an hr. Then, we returned to the fire which was now 5-10 feet tall in places and the circle was like 500 feet across. As it got more palatable to brave the extreme heat, hundreds of people, many of them naked or getting naked, started walking or running the perimeter dangerously close to the flames. Some started sitting and acting like they were worshiping the fire, crawling towards it, writhing and gyrating on the ground. After a while, some fools started skipping or running all the way through the flames. We saw one naked guy fall on his face and get up and keep running. We kept our clothes on and stayed on the outside, but did roast marshmallows...”

So What is Burning Man to us? Whether we saw it, heard it, heard about it, or participated in it, here is how we would describe it:

Getting flagged home in a dust storm ✌🏽 To Pat and Jessie for all your help; Gray skin, Goggles, making snow angels in a playa dust storm, ringing the burner bell, thieving asshole gate staff, bleach white playa as far as the eye can see, oil wrestling matches, a/c car naps, choosing the naughty line, techno till dawn, howling at sunset, flashing for snowcones, butterfly kissing a stranger’s nipples, naked fire running,  loudspeaker announcements for an hour an a half wait for the orgy dome, exodus pulsing, radical gifts of so many fries, photos, hugs, pandas, necklace, shoes, hat, and lightup bracelets; street bowling, giving tree exchanges, 4D tesseract rides, robot jokes about buttons being pushed, so much dust, photobombers, sharing coats with strangers, telling dirty secrets, leaving messages at the temple, the temple cat tree that made me cry, hating the dust, obliviousness to people doing coke, sparkly unicorn hopping on the cuddle party art car with strangers taking me out to center playa and joining the dance party- chatting with a girl who did a bump of coke and told me about her dad being an original burner here 22 years ago, watching a firefly LED show in the sky, chalky dust, walking among the temple embers, sharing a grilled cheese in the temple ashes, Where’s your cup?, roasting marshmallows in the man’s ashes, invigorating ice in the underpants, walking miles to see a 737 plane fusselage, post-temple burn 80s dance party, suspicious eating disorder infused lecture on fasting, bathing in a bucket, blinding dust, giving hair brushes to strangers, merciful medics, tea with hummingbird water, the best bad advice, Vancouver inspired abstract body painting, midnight spring rolls from an Irishman at Barbie Death Camp telling us tales of Matthew Broderick’s drunk driving deaths in Ireland, rainbow and fiberoptic extensions, the porta potty hospitality crew passing out the best hand sanitizer, lotion, and gum ever; giant hammocks, posing for photos for strangers, blowing dust, brushing your teeth with strangers on the playa, bluegrass jam sessions, watching wild bm fashion show, walking around in underwear, giving in to the dust, rainbow bushes, penis piercings, donkey show Dick radio hour, nose picking, free compliments, chocolate handouts, orgasmic street spritzers, gorilla street bike repair, climbing into a giant jellyfish, napping at the inflatable zoo party with coldest zestiest water ever, morning pottery and tea at the pee potties, telling distance by time, tents covered in inches of dust, fireworks and train wrecks, the magic turtle birthday party, animal ears from the furries, pineapple infused sausage snacks, mind-boggling ingenuity, cat shaped fuzzy dune buggies, pirate ships with carousel horse rides, shopping at a free street market, button making with strangers, helping up a strangers drag game with push-up bra hints, embracing the dust, fashion moop pickup, insane fire runners, naked running around the fire, shots for shocks with cattle prods, colorful, psychedelic living art as far as the eye can see, golden flames licking your face and warming your bones, trailers linked with walk-through extensions, laying in a crowd of folks listening to a symphony play to a rainbow light show, weaving through bike mazes, lots of baby wipe whore baths, cups on belt loops, naked women straddling and praying over a burning log with flames licking their palms, souls, and labia; a guy wrapped in a towel who informed us he finally embraced nudity regailing us with stories about sex tents at 7:00 where he witnessed a woman having a metal rod inserted in her ass, cow skull barbed wire mascot, tennis ball kickstands, lounging with teddy in the couch on the edge of the playa, sweet as fuck iced mochas, listening to artists talk about creating and designing their art, clean-up related rages, watching naked yoga acrobatics, graffiti art, cowboy walking, chaffed nether regions, bruises, cuts, and broken nails, dirty puppet shows to playboy letter readings, car saunas, teeth coated in dust, stories of playa meetups, napping in the shade of a nearby trailer, Paul’s Birthday bash, getting fashion fabulous in a tent, the inch of chalky clay under your fingernails after trying to run your hands through your hair, fixing flats, and clay invading our every pore and remolding us as we went.

We came. We saw. We burned. We are ash and dust.