Burning Man 2006
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“i want to eat the nothingness!!!!” i scream… 4am, almost there, just outside gerlach now… one hell of a ride… i put it behind me and enjoy the desolate road. 29 miles to gerlach. the brightest stars above and high dry brush for endless miles. i am alive in a way i could only be out here… in a way that time stops and returns to natural benign rhythms… first and foremost i switch off my cell phone. no signal anyhow ‘goodbye cell phone!’ i slip it into an awaiting ziplock bag. the one that holds my house key, my credit cards. the one i’ll pretend to lose…
playa time now - sunset thru a funnel of clouds meeting stark mountain tops. the echo of machinery as the city builds. we are one of the first to set up in gigsville. two circles in the playa for the van-b-que and uberman… these days before everyone arrives are bliss… fresh playa like virgin snow, each crack a fingerprint… our carports squeak, small cars like pots and pans rattle and come into view… plumes of dust follow and accumulate like ribbons. sun rays like fingers of god, these black mountains hold us like a bathtub of unreason. wishies float by… the sun anchors finally… a chill sets in, a bell is struck… and the drums of nighttime begin… ~~~~~~as daytime temperatures climb, my bicycle-squirrel antics subside and i sink softly into the desert floor. eyes parallel with puzzle pieces of a jagged sacred earth… this morning i spoke in charades with the belgium artists… awe is a universal language… the sheer scale of what they are creating is enormous, just insane…. with great swooping arms they painted for me what it will look like when they are done. one of them pointed to my camera and my early arrival wristband. in our charade game, i told them of my art documentary work that i am doing for the burning man office.each morning and also at dusk i circle round an emerging city, lending a hand to various projects, finding friends, photographing the madness… center camp alone is a surging epitome of what it means to build a city… i circle it mesmerized a few times a day… it’s like an oiled can of kick butt, a busy busy ant farm… there are people welding on final touches to the huge metal sculptures and painted benches are arranged like a parking lot for now.
safe warm calm cocoon descends… light breeze, silence… tonight the cirque berzerk tent went up. roo orchestrated the ordeal. the tent is up and oh the antics that will go down like history beneath it! i photographed welding sparks raining down from headpieces. i lay my head now to the pillow excited for playa dreams and the most fitful of sleepiez.
tonight i rode my bike feverishly until i bounced off a fence…. i laid there capsized under the night sky, whispering ‘game over’ as bruises formed and i realized i was very far off from the event, somewhere near the gate and mountains… i laid there until i was sure nothing was broken and then i got paranoid about scorpions so i jumped back in the saddle… i rode through an abyss towards lights and found myself at the gate. in my absinthe haze, i felt a strong desire to welcome everyone to the circus. they sent me a mile down the road to the greeters station. there, i stumbled upon welcomed wrongness, much of which i seemed to have created… i enticed virgins to strike the bell, straddling it between my legs, feeling their vibration, their exaltation, their want of reset… i spanked them with swords, hijacked their rv’s and sang johnny cash songs. my work done there, i raced my bike along dogfish. they fed me black cherry goodness and sent me off to be a fucko and rampage the city at will… there is this fire, this life force, this firecracker within that needs a violent shaking upon aligning with this city and i can only do it alone among mountains and stars and strangers…. i am in love, a paramount blissful love… and while everything else is dramatic discourse, i find it necessary to rampage… i am free here in this wild abandon… i am home in this cage less retreat. the event hasn’t even started yet…
a sandstorm just hit us….we were drinking bloody marys, brady & i alone in our house-shack-carport-lovenest… brady was stringing his guitar. i was drawing on myself… we saw a dark swirl in the afternoon sky…. “it’s an artcar,” brady said. no… it wasn’t… soon the sky turned dark, a girl on bike was laughing saying ‘that’s all dust and it’s coming this way.’ and a wall soon came upon us…. for some reason i decided my bike needed to come inside. brady zipped me in and stayed outside holding onto our house. the wall came closer and all hell broke loose. the carport went flying, the side pole missing my face by a few inches, brady went flying onto another carport, our shower was gone, everything we’d put together so perfectly in the week we’d been here, askew… lessons… we are all subject to nature’s fury… brady, in pain, walked away…. i looked around in all directions, felt alone and went into shock. all our stuff was everywhere. my sister’s tent was fine… we had apparently taken a direct hit by a tornado…i sit now in the middle of the strongest white-out i’ve ever had on the playa… sand rustling fierce and cracked parched toes. time stops and wind builds deafening…. then swiftly friends emerge and bang back our rebar and we put our house back together and pour bloody mary’s for everyone.
i’m in a haze… i’m vibrating… i’ve had an incredible time in the desert… i want to hold it near for as long as possible… i skim thru the 3000 images i took at burning man and in each one i feel as if i can jump in and never leave… i am in love more than ever, alive more than ever…. “kaleidescopes are like what happens when fireflies get really organized.” – a quote from puck
