Monday, August 28
< p r e v n e x t >
Among the creative things I had gathered in preparation for my trip, one of my favorites was a 3-color stamp pad and a collection of alphabet stamps. The day before I had stamped a white t-shirt with the words "Burning Man or Bust - Boston to Black Rock City", and I now pull it over my head as I pull my luggage out the door of my motel room. I scramble around town to get one or two last-second items I've forgotten about (duct tape! I have to find some duct tape!), gas up the Jeep, and head north. I have directions, but I'm not paying much attention to them - my cursory glance at the map makes it look like a pretty straight shot. As a result, I'm 25 minutes past my exit before I actually take a close enough look at the map to realize my mistake. I'm also completely in the middle of nowhere. Nevada is beautiful enough as it is - even Reno, for all of its overpolished, tinfoil shine, is surrounded by breathtaking mountain ranges - but now I'm surrounded by open plains, raw, textured earth, and haphazard rows of tumbleweeds that stretch in all directions. I only spend about 5 minutes waiting for the next exit before reality sinks in - there are no exits, at least not for the next hundred miles or so. My momentary panic at the thought of driving 100 miles just to find a place to turn around is quickly soothed as I begin to comprehend where I am. There are hardscrabble paths that pull out from the left side of the highway every few hundred yards or so, and a grin passes over my face as I ease the Jeep off the highway and onto the dried mud dividing the northbound and southbound lanes. It's about a quarter mile to the other side, and as I weave past the bushes and rocks I start to get a sense of what drew me out here in the first place.
I can literally feel my pulse quickening as the last few miles skim by. At this point I'm part of a grand caravan, some 2 dozen cars and trucks all pointed toward Black Rock City, the temporary community that Burning Man calls home. It's about 11am when I catch my first glimpse of the actual site - a long string of campsites forms a man-made ridge against the backdrop of the open desert. Before I know it I'm pulling off the paved road and onto a makeshift dirt path that passes for an entrance. Signs have been erected everywhere - signs of welcome, signs reminding you to drink water constantly ("Piss Clear" is one of the many BM slogans designed to remind you to take care of yourself), and most of all, signs which reinforce the most prominent motto of playa living, "Leave No Trace". This is, after all, the open desert, and there's no one here to take care of you, or pick up after you. There are very few concessions to modern convenience - there are port-a-potties, and there are the comfort drinks (coffee, iced tea) sold in Center Camp, but other than that there is no vending of any kind. Self-reliance is important, as is responsibility for yourself and your actions. There are no garbage cans at Burning Man, and while there is a clean-up crew that will be scouring the desert at the end of the week, it is composed of volunteers.
When I pull up to the gate, I'm promptly greeted by a man wearing a hat, some strategically placed tinfoil, and hopefully generous amounts of sunblock. This is the Burning Man equivalent of a security guard. He asks a few obligatory questions, no doubt to appease the Nevada authorities - after all, we are on public property, and gatherings of 20,000-plus don't go unnoticed, even out here. When he asks me if I've brought any drugs, he tries unsuccessfully to hold back a smirk. When he asks me if I've brought any livestock, I start to wonder if he's just messing with me. When I've convinced him that I'm not hiding any goats in the glove compartment, I'm given the thumbs up to head in and set up camp. I then receive a map and some simple instructions - find a spot and settle in.
Black Rock City is divided into a series of semi-circular roads, so that the city itself looks like a giant horseshoe. The roads are named after parts of the body - Head Way, Sex Drive, Feet Street. Radiating out through this horseshoe like spokes is a second set of roads, named for positions on the clock - 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, and so forth. There are no camps between 10:00 and 2:00; the open end of the horseshoe reaches out into the desert. At 6:00 is Center Camp, a huge, open-sided tent where people can meet, greet, and hide from the heat. From Center Camp a majestic line of art installations reaches out into the middle of the encircled camps; the installations are all centered around this year's theme of The Body. At the heart of everything is the Man. His 50-foot wooden frame is located squarely at the epicenter of Black Rock City.
As I ease the Jeep across the cracked earth and into an orderly tangle of camps, ribbons of dust flow from the wheels. People in varying degrees of clothing, body paint, glitter, and sunblock are cruising by on beat-up bicycles; scattered cars and trucks are milling about. The name of the one camp that I actually have a vague connection to crosses my mind - Camp Texture. The sister of a friend from home is supposed to be camping there. Checking my map, I see that their camp is actually pretty close to where I am now, and figure that I'm in as good a spot as any. I pull the Jeep into an open spot, kill the motor, and step outside.
The first hour of my Burning Man experience is spent playing tug-of-war with my camping tent in blazing, 95 degree heat. The tent is brand new, and it's a pain to set up. By the time it's been beaten into submission, I realize that I've consumed close to a half-gallon of water already. My hat resembles a leaky faucet - sweat is pooling and dripping from the brim. I'm exhausted from the effort, but now is not the time to rest. I hastily stash some supplies inside the tent, pull my bike out of the back of the Jeep, pick a direction, and start pedaling.
It's hard to remember specifics from that first day - mostly I just recall trying to take everything in. For the first hour or so I can't get enough of the people and how casually exotic the atmosphere is - transvestites in feather boas, men in space suits, and of course all of those folks with no clothes on! There is body art everywhere - piercings, tattoos, face painting, body painting, necklaces, funky shirts, hats, shoes, handcuffs, whips, whatever. Here everyone is, wandering across a dried lakebed hundreds of miles from civilization, looking for all the world like they're out for a stroll in Central Park - "Honey, would you like to go feed the ducks?" "Sure thing, sweetie, just let me get my hat and take my cock ring off first..." Eventually I stop people-watching long enough to see the rest - the camps, and the art installations, and the playa itself. I've never seen, heard of, or imagined such a powerful concentration of creativity in one place before. I suddenly feel like an ugly tourist - all around me there are elaborate structures that must have taken hundreds of hours to put together, and here I am with my Jeep-'n'-a-tent, crashing the party. My stamped t-shirt suddenly feels like a pitiful offering in the face of all this beauty. I want to contribute, to participate, to be a part of the carnival.
As night falls, Black Rock City comes to life. You'd never know that there's no electrical grid here. The hum of hundreds upon hundreds of generators is drowned out by thudding techno music, and the perimeter of the city is spiked with lights - glowing, flashing, pulsing in every hue. At the center of it all, the Man holds court, his limbs lit with bright neon. At the bottom of the 50-foot statue, sitting on bales of hay which will eventually provide the fuel for his demise, a cluster of BRC residents is gathered, paying a strange kind of homage as they sit, smoke, and introduce themselves to one another under a dizzying star-filled sky. At this point, fewer than half of the camps are actually up and running, and I can't help but wonder what it will look like by the weekend. 
Maneuvering through this maze on my beat-up bicycle, I have one purpose in mind - I want to find someplace to dance, if only to celebrate the fact that I'm actually here. At a camp calling itself the Temple of Atlantis, I find what I'm looking for - a sizable crowd is dancing forcefully to trance music outside a large wooden pyramid. A shaman of sorts is leading a series of movements, trying to focus the crowd. I jump into the midst of a swarming mass of bodies, and exhaust myself as completely as possible. The experience is part drum circle, part dance floor, part mosh pit - personal space is, for the most part, a non-issue, and people are actually looking at one another, smiling, dancing together. All the same, it's still a bit awkward at first. A lifetime of social conditioning is under siege here. One person at a time, inhibitions crack, then crumble as the crowd grows in size and the music builds in intensity. On cue from the shaman, people are alternately clawing at the ground like monkeys, then hissing and slithering like snakes. Take that, clubland. For the next several hours, I move from camp to camp, dancing, riding, staring at everything - afraid to be tired, desperate not to miss any new sight or sound. At last, when I can barely keep my eyes open and my feet steady, I ramble back to my tent, tumble into my sleeping bag, and pass out.