[ Wednesday, September 10, 2003 ]
Day 179 to Day 195
Black Rock City, NV. The mother of all temporary autonomous zones, the pirate utopia, the Republic of wine and poetry, the big candy-laced blinky Disneyland in the desert.
To the playa, to Learning Camp, to see if we can get out again and learn something again, and not leave half our brain cells on the playa, or leave just the half that have become an encumbrance to us.
Why does it have to be on the playa that we seek out this learning and unlearning? Is it all the lights, the eye candy, the stress, and awe, the sublimity, the surreality, or a massive messy stick-together of all of these things.
Learning Camp has it made. We have two rock star rock solid first time burners, and another new learner, LaLa, without whom I can’t imagine it would have happened. And we’re surrounded by the best friends-of-a-friend village, Asgard, Bacon Valhalla, and a bunch of fucking wonderful people in the neighborhood.
Finding the old friends in other camps becomes a test this year, and never quite fully happens. But I have learned that this is the way of the playa.
We make art, make friends, I filter out the haunted parts, off and on, avoid the camps haunted with bittersweet memories, or dare myself to engage with them again.
“Don’t go to DMV, she’s at DMV.” “Hey, come over and hang out and we’ll talk.” “How have you been?” “I hope you have a great week.” Filtering. Signaling. Finding out more and more what it means to really be someone’s friend, and what it means to really offer friendship, and how difficult and awesome both can be.
“Why hasn’t this fucking tent been moved? If this tent isn’t moved by the time Bad Fucker gets back, there’s gonna be trouble. So don’t make me go get the Ranger tow truck to move this god damn tent.” The Bad Fucker persona wanes, as the brain space that it lived in and reveled in has more peace and more serotonin in it this year, and less anger.
The physical and emotional transition to the playa is less extreme for me, as, I postulate, I’ve had time to unwind and reflect in the past 6 months. And I don’t have to crank up again on the way up the Sierras to prepare myself to go sit in my office and listen to people yell at me on the phone.
I orbit her, attempt to talk, and she deflects it. I try not to get pulled in to girl-orbiting, girl-tracking mode. But why not? Fuck being subtle. “I’ll show you the life of the mind.” Not anymore. I feel more ready for the life of the heart, and the life of the body. It is a relief, and yet it scares the shit out of me. All the while, I know it is better.
I don’t go to Burning Man so much anymore for the spectacle. And that’s a relief, too. I still love the spectacle, but when the show stops, and the baseline brain activity re-asserts itself, I don’t need the show. I’ve got my friends, I’ve got a new pack of Nat Sherman Fantasias, I’ve got a crush, and I’m nervous, and I’m more alive than ever.
It’s good and it’s comforting to have Cherry Braveheart Ass and Blinky back in the fold, and Motion sleeping nearby somewhere. They all look good and it feels like we’re building something here.
Depeche Mode night at Camp Verboten. The chocolate. Floss. The angels. Homeland Empire. The Head. The tuna guys. The guy without any glow sticks walking alone out to the burn. Rallying and pulling my shit together enough to ride back to camp to find the cable locks. The Homeland Security Mobile Unit operation at the porta-potties. Neal and Donna. Sitting and talking with Chris and Bad Quaker one evening.
Wanting to hold Dr. M and cry with her and make everything o.k. again, and not being able to. Seeing desperation in the eyes of strangers. Ever few days on the playa, sometimes more, thinking of Stevo in SLC Punk holding his fist over his heart shouting, FOR THE LOVE!!! Almost crying.
The gathering of (mostly) privileged white people in these conditions – extended planning, extended travel, stress, extreme heat, extreme sound, light, psychoactives – might mean something to a sociologist. For example, what are the necessary and sufficient pre-conditions to get these people (me included) to wake the fuck up, start finding community and cooperation, start loving each other, stop viewing one another as objects . . . and on and on.
San Francisco, CA. Still finding playa dust after the third shower. Save a few spots, so I can lick the playa off 2 square inches of the back of your neck and we’ll pretend that we’re still lying in that duststorm. No, I guess we don’t need to pretend.
Beers and cheeseburgers with old co-workers. Stinson Beach. Laughing out loud. Black Sand Beach. Marin. 26 Mix, getting drunk and thinking that all of life’s most important data can be expressed through Clash lyrics.
“I’m still Jenny from the block” playing scrabble with you and wondering what will happen next. Fuck television, DIY partner.
Watching “Tales from the Trip Side,” with Spoon. Spending 3 hours discovering the odd, uber-geek, peeping, surveillance-tech world of Friendster. “Yeah, that guy in your camp looking for you, he was totally hanging out with us, too, and he fucking knows X?, too, no fucking way.” “How could she possibly have 194 friends?”
After 6 months or so, I feel like this travelogue may have run its course, or is soon to run its course. Thanks for reading it, and for playing Haiku with me, and sending me e-mail while I've been on the road. In my best drunken Mickey Rourke voice . . . "To all my friends!" Bad F*cker Highway, over and out.
Soundtrack: Johnny Cash, the Johnny-on-the-Spot vacuums, and the constant hum of generators
Reading List: Piss Clear
[9/10/2003]
PAY ATTENTION BLACK ROCK CITY
