BURNING MAN, PART 3-

       They still make me smile, the tiny poofs of dust that rise when I pull my shoe laces tight. They are brief souvenirs of Burning Man, the temporary city I left two weeks ago.  Let me share a few other "poofs" that remain.

     This was my fourth Burn. It's hard to get to, hotter than Hell, but still a great pleasure and learning experience.
   
     While its creativity is like no place on earth,
 ( mutant vehicle photo by John Curley)
  
the eight-day city also teaches us better ways to live.
    Everyone gets along. Self-reliance and sharing are a big deal. There's nothing for sale and no advertising. Imagine a Super Bowl without the ads.
     Burners give things away expecting nothing in return. In the past I've been given pendants, beer, and foot massages. In addition there was pizza, pickles, and a dance lesson.The main giveaways though are friendship and love.
     Smiles and hugs come easily in this temporary town. It's not perfect but it feels safe. Self-policing by volunteer hippie rangers take care of the problems that rarely occur.
     Self-expression is encouraged, you can do almost anything you want. Ride a bike naked?  No problem. After seeing the first one you take little notice of the others.
     
    Six congressmen and 18 mayors visited Burn '19. I was told that they went away pleased, amazed that an instant city of 80,000 could live in harmony. If any of them took the naked bike challenge I didn't see it. No one wants to see Orrin Hatch in the buff.

    What we call Black Rock City (it's in Nevada's  Black Rock Desert) inspires people to bring out their best and to share it with others. For some, it might be walking with a colorful "Free Hugs" sign. 

          Henry Chang shared his extravagant dune buggies imported from Las Vegas.

 Photo by John Curley

Duane Flatmo has been bringing his 25-foot octopus, "El Pulpo Mechanico" to the desert since 2011. The crowd goes crazy as its waving tentacles belch fire and loud music. Either one can knock you down.
 
 Pulpo photos by John Curley

 You could climb inside this 40-foot head and discover the wild hallucinations inside or,




 


watch sweating gladiators dual with padded weapons in the Thunderdome.

    I marveled at Ben Lanholz's 300-pound boulders suspended in space. His creation would be roped off in any other place but here we were (Photo by John Curly)

 allowed to climb it. No one fell while I stopped by.     

    You can take all kinds of extraordinary risks,  swing from ropes as you fight in the Thunderdome, play Ultimate Dodgeball, or climb monkey bars 40-feet high. A waiver for injury (or death) is printed on each of the $500 tickets. As in the outside world, people doing dangerous things sometimes get hurt.

      Not so risky, our crew's humble addition to the Playa, gifting people with bad portraits.    Photo by Jamen Percy



Dylan and Ian met actor/comedian Nigel Rajaratham who shared jokes and Indian folk tales.

 

New Orlean's Shakespeare answered questions.




    We all come together on the last two nights  for the solemn Temple Burn and festive incineration of The Man. Hundreds of people work for months to design and build these fantastic structures.

(Credit: a photographer much more talented than me, John Curley)

     Talented David Best creates most of the Burn's temples. During the week they are filled with memorials of loved ones who have died. Each year's temple expires as well, in flame, on Sunday night.

     Ten hours after The Man fell we watched the sun rise on the remaining hardware and embers.  With pockets of hot coals here and there people were cooking sausages, baked potatoes, and coffee. 
   In the grand desert tradition these treats were shared with everyone.
 

    




This drowsy pirate passed out French bread and invited us to dip into his fondue pot.

     
     From the ashes we rise at Burning Man.
                 _________________________
 
      

      You might want to look at a 3-minute video of this year's art.  You can open the link at,
 https://youtu.be/7aARVwTDhd4?list=PL206871873B1C323B

      

BURNING MAN, PART TWO- THE PEOPLE YOU MEET

          You meet the most remarkable people at Burning Man. Nine months ago Colin O'Brady became the first person to walk across Antarctica. 

Two weeks ago I was hanging out with him at the

desert gathering. 

Arctic selfie

     Black Rock City attracts all kinds from all over.  There are more than a thousand camps. Our tribe had happy burners from a dozen countries.  Here are a few shots from our week there.

Chino Loco showing off his sandwich burning skills.  Divya, behind him, was our camp mother, protector of all.

 Me with globe-trotting media friends

Every day  Ravi would don a new costume to portray a Hindu god. How many of your neighbors do that?

   Ravi as Rama (lover of Sita, once kidnapped by a ten-headed monster, there's much to learn in the desert).

                Clean teeth, clean mind

    


     Miamian, Cailen Caplan, paid us a visit.  She handles government relations for the Burning Man organization.

  Our tribe, Camp Journeylizm.                                       Photo by Maciek Gryko

     The third day  I sat down in a tent for 200 to hear B'Man's CEO speak. Marian Goodell reminded us that one of the Burn's goals is to spread it's philosophy world-wide. If we do that there will be less consumption, more sharing and a healthier planet.
     She reminded us that we were camping on leased government land. We've got to leave it as pristine as we found it for the lease to continue.
     There are no garbage cans.  Everyone is expected to take care of not only their own trash but to pick up any other moop ("matter out of place") as well. This becomes a habit, part of B'Man's "radical self reliance" principle. 
     After Marion talked and answered questions, the shirtless emcee told us, "If you stay with us you can hear from first person to walk across Antarctica".
     I had to stick around for that.

PERILS OF THE  FLAMING JUMP ROPES

     Colin O'Brady, a trim 33 year-old took the mike and explained how he had become the world's first.
   

"I was always a good athlete. Swimming put me through college and afterwards I decided to back-pack around the world.  

      I've always liked challenges. At a beach party in Thailand, I tried my luck inside a flaming jump rope. Bad move, my legs tangled. Severely burns put me in a hospital for months. A week after doctors told me I might not walk again I took my first step".
     A year later he won his first triathlon and found his calling as a professional endurance athlete. These guys apparently keep looking for records to break.
    Two years ago Colin set the one for climbing the world's seven highest mountains (including Everest) in the shortest time.  After that he headed south.

     Beginning with Ernest Shackleton 100 years ago, men have tried to cross the southernmost continent. Until last Christmas, no one had ever done it alone, without assistance. Colin finished his 1000 mile trek last December 26th. He pulled the 300-pound sled carrying his supplies for 56 days to reach the far side. He did this fighting wind and  temperatures as low as -80 F. 
     He added he could have never done it without
the support of his wife, Jenna, his sponsors, and his meditation regimen. 

    Afterwards I chatted with the O'Bradys. They thanked me for being a teacher and pointed out that they worked together to bring two million students on the journey as well, virtually.  Many were amazed, I learned, that Colin did not change his underwear for almost two months.

      Now, he says, he wants to encourage other people to conquer "the impossible" in  own lives.  If he ever gets tangled in flaming ropes again he'll still have a great future as a motivational speaker.

    The big tent at the Pineapple Hotel camp had many other thought-provoking speakers as well. The next day I took my buddy, Ward, to hear a true
  ENVIRONMENTAL HERO.

     Before us stood a handsome 51-year old man wearing a sarong. Kevin Conrad is a world-class environmentalist. Twelve years ago representing Papau New Guinea at a world climate change conference Kevin made headlines when he told the balking United States representatives, "If your country can't lead the world for climate change, at least get out of the way so the rest of us can".

    Kevin's back story was intriguing. Born in the U.S., he was raised in a tribal village in the South Pacific. His missionary parents worked with villagers that included recovering cannibals. He told us, "I never wore shoes until I came to the U.S. to attend college". That afternoon he was wearing flip-flops.

    Kevin Conrad now directs The Coalition of Rain Forest Nations and was lauded by Time Magazine as being one of the world's leading environmental heroes. His group conceived and launched a $1.4 billion carbon remediation facility in cooperation with the World Bank. Their climate initiative has removed 6.2 billion ton of carbon from the atmosphere thus far.
     And there he was in his sky blue sarong telling us, "We've got all the tools we need to save the planet now. What we need for you to do is get your leaders to use them!".
     If we do all we can to elect people like Kevin, we stand a chance. 

     The people we got to know best  were those in our own tribe, "Camp Journeylizm". Composed of American and international journalists (plus family and friends) our group shared many stories.
  We'd get though the hottest part of the day conversing in our camp's "living room".  
    On the  night of the Burn, twenty-two of us set out on bikes to watch the fireworks, bonfire, and dance the night away.


 


     What a night it was. Several people told me as we prepared to leave the desert,  "What I liked best was the people I met", and I had to agree.  It's a long road to Burning Man and the folks who make it inside the front gate are special indeed.
              ___________________________


Drone shot of the Big Burn and the party surrounding it. That's us on the lower right.



   

THAT THING IN THE DESERT

        Last week six of us left a comfortable house near San Francisco to camp in a hot, dust-filled desert. "Insanity", you say?  Yes, definitely, and Burning Man 2019 was well worth it.

    80,000 people gather every year in the forlorn emptiness of NW Nevada to create a city like no other.  A month before there is nothing but the cracked mud of a lake bed and then there is this,

an entire city, everything where there had been nothing. 

    This year's theme was "Metamorphosis". As Pegasus galloped on his towering pedestal (above) he morphed into a flying machine.



 



The Man, in the center of it all, spent the week emerging from a winding blue-lit chrysalis.

 




At the end of the seventh day The Man was glorified in fireworks

and sanctified in flame. 

     After the burn, we clean up and go home. The tents, sculptures, and Porto-pottis disappear and the Black Rock Desert becomes a pristine lake bed again.
    Nobody cleans up like Burners. Our vanishing act is a tribute to one of our city's ten unique principles, "Leave no trace". 
    The other nine have to do being nice, things like
"share what you have" and "radical self-expression".  I'll tell you more about them in the next episode.

You gotta have a bike to get around this place. One-eyed monster costumes are optional.

   




  The six of us are family and friends with Miami roots. Three of us live in Gainesville.

            Our crew: Ward, GT, Dylan, Tina, Natalia, and Ian

    We shared our lack of artistic talent by setting up a "Very Bad Portrait Studio" every morning in front of The Man.  
     The odd thing is that all of our customers liked our lousy drawings. Many swore they'd have them framed when they got home.  

 Ward, Tina, Dylan, & Natalia running our "studio" and yes, the man behind Ward forgot to get dressed that day.

   Officer Howell, with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, loved his portrait.  We became friends and he let me examine the body armor that he's worn for 29 years.  In all that time he's only been shot at once. The officer loves B'man and said, after he retires next spring,  he's coming back as a civilian.

Lindsay and Micoh in typical Burning Man gear. She wore pearls, a red apron, and black duct tape.



     
Ian killed it with this 
outfit.
 
   

  And he REALLY killed it with this bad portrait!

    It takes a lot to run the third largest city in Nevada. This one is staffed by 10,000 workers. Most are volunteers and we jumped in to help in various capacities. We served a baristas, stage hands, and PR wonks.

    It was a thrill to be sharing it all with my sons, Dylan and Ian.
At night we would explore the playa (open desert festooned with sculptures) on illuminated bikes.    

     Pedaling through the pulsating Time Tunnel was one electrified ride.


    All around us were mutant vehicles edging across the sand, each one a loud rolling party that  continued 'til dawn.

    By day many of the 400 art cars plied the Playa as well. You could hook your bike to this one and ride as long as you liked.


      Dylan and I got to tour on the "Movement Of Jah People", a former double-decker bus. Riding on the front bumper (the lion's tongue) was almost a life-changing life experience.
 

    Half the people in Black Rock City were on a sleep all day/party all night schedule. The Grove Guy isn't like that. He awoke at dawn, a good time to shoot pictures and talk to God.

 

    He (and sometimes a she) always had thoughtful things to say. When I get back to Florida I may have one installed in my home.

    It seemed impossible to see all of the art, there was just so much of it spread out over miles of desert.


     A winding ladder took you up into the belly of this former tad pole. 

    The life-sized mammoth below was dreamed up by local girl scout, Tahoe Mack, after she learned these creatures once roamed near Nevada's Tule Springs. It was created by artist Luis Valero Roco using metal collected by the spring's clean up crew.

        Like many of the sculptures this one will be finding a new home this week. Tahoe's dream will be permanently placed in the state's Ice Age Fossil Beds State Park in North Las Vegas.

      The desert afternoons were brutally hot. We chose to spend many of them in Reverbia's tent 
listening to live music. 

And if it wasn't hot enough, you could always go out into the Playa to see the Silver Man spinning fire tornados into the sky.

     The heat never let up at Burning Man.  At the 24/7, eight-day event there were always exciting things to do. I'll tell you about more of them in the next picture-packed episode.

Still shaking off the dust in California,
The Grove Guy

                  ________________________
                       ___________________