THE LONG ROAD TO BURNING MAN

       A lone bird floated in the desolate Nevada desert sky. I wondered, "What's it doing out here?" Then, I turned the question on myself.  
It's a harsh place this Burning Man. 

   The Grove Guy in need of a serious makeover.  The Man looms large in the background. Two days later he was set on fire.

     Like many, we had traveled thousands of miles to camp on hot cracked mud.

               At home in Camp J. There were five of us in three tents and the van hiding behind them.

    Along the way we had passed dozens of police officers intent on arresting anyone going too fast, too slow, or carrying substances legal in most western states.

      
   At a rest stop we met veteran burner, "Voodoo Chile". He took off his clothes to show his tattoos,  a two-foot  "Voodoo Chile" and an even larger burning man.

               My buddy, Ward, with our new friend, Voodoo.



      At the entrance we had to wait in dust storms for ten hours (and just four to leave). 
Was it worth it?  
Heck yes!
Dylan and Natalia
      
    We got to spend seven days in an artist's Paradise, a place where strangers greet you with smiles and hugs. In this remote desolation anything can happen and almost everything does.

   On our first morning a hot air balloon floated overhead. A woman strapped into a strait jacket dangled below. She wiggled until she escaped and climbed back up into the  gondola. Our neighbor, Mike, showed his phone photo to those who missed it.






 

THE TEN RULES

   We lived in a temporary city (we call it "Black Rock City" or "the playa") with ten rules we wish the world could live by.
(Radical self-expression  self-reliance, and self-inclusion. Leaving no trace, no commercials, civic responsibility, participation, immediacy, communal effort and gifting.)
Put together they say, "Be nice".

     There was nothing for sale except coffee and ice. You're expected to bring everything you need, share extras with others, and to haul out your trash. 
    It's called "radical self-reliance". If you're short on something we say, "the playa will provide". 
     And it does.

     Attendees are not allowed to sell or barter... you give things away. Gifts could be trinkets, stickers (very popular), pickles, or pancakes.
                                      Translated: "Burn Baby Burn

Hugs are great gifts too.

   It's not a music festival yet there is music (and visual, dance, dramatic and every other kind of art) everywhere.  





       Gypsy music greeting the morning sun. This was a cabin porch without the cabin.

 
The 80's super group, Alan Parsons Project, played twice. The audience wasn't large as 90% of the burners (average age, 34) had never heard of them.

   Try as you may you will only see about 30% of what is offered. That's okay as that much will keep you busy all week.

             The lights are incredible.  Those in the foreground are illuminated bicycles.

FRY TRUMP  

  On the last day I encountered one burner exhibiting his

Trump frying pans.
  
 EVERYONE IS AN ARTIST
 
    There are no spectators. Everyone is expected to perform, to express themselves in various creative ways. You might decorate yourself, help build the city or one of the art pieces, or volunteer to assist the many groups that make it all happen. Our little group volunteered and we had our own
performance project, "The Bad Portraits Studio". We presented daily on the playa.

   

 In our desert home residents were encouraged to greet each other with hugs, love, and respect. There is little need for police. Hippies cops ("Black Rock Rangers") roam the place on bicycles assisting anyone needing help.

MUTANT VEHICLES

     Cars? The only ones allowed here are the 300 tricked out "mutant vehicles". They roam the playa
An LA camp brought their 747 art car. 

 at 5 m.p.h. or less.  Everyone walks, rides  bikes, or hitches art car rides to get around. I wish I could do that in Coconut Grove.


   The sailing ship "Monaco" took us on a tour of the art placed far out in the desert ("The Playa").  Under sail, it has gone over 25 m.p.h. across the hard-packed sand. 

 
   You could hook your bike to the back and sleep in a hammock on this one from Jah Camp.
 
 One burner drove his Banana Car from Wisconsin to attend.

      These huge VWs were trucked in from Arizona, too big to travel on public roads.  

Any of the art cars will allow you to climb on board for a ride. They become rolling parties.

     And the parties never end. If there isn't a DJ's Boom-Boom blasting from the dome near your tent there will be one a bike ride away.  Strangely, thousands of burners love the deep-bass boom-boom.

CAMPS 

    Residents live in one of 600 camps.  You try to choose one near, or far, from the action.

    Our group, "Camp Journeylizm", was in a near-perfect spot. 






The kids enjoying Camp J

(Natalia, Dylan, & Ian)

You could easily get coffee 
at the End of the World Cafe







or tea at the Skinny Kitty.  
    

They have been
               "TURNING TEA INTO PEE SINCE 2003"

The Skinny Kitty was decorated with mummified cats. Most tea houses do not feature these.


A full orchestra played under the Kitty's soaring tent one evening.






The live music at Reverbia was 300 yards east and the Jazz Club was ten-minute bike jaunt south.
     Burning Man tickets cost $500 but all of the entertainment is free.  So is the beer, booze,                             Free beer at the Home Brew Camp  massages, camp sites, bike repair, pizza slices, medical treatment, and train wrecks.  
   In the early 1900's, out-dated locomotives were smashed into each other for entertainment. This weird event was re-created on Friday night using two wooden train engines built just for this."The Great Train Wreck" was bright and festive and when they did gently collide at ten p.m., fireworks and fiery devices planted inside, created quite a spectacle.

                   The Man standing at the center of it all

   The big event is Saturday's Burn when The Man, and the structure surrounding him, is engulfed in the biggest fire you've probably ever seen.


       All this occurs, as founder Larry Harvey once said, in a place where, "out of nothing we create everything."
     It's why we went to Burning Man.There's nothing like it on the planet.
    

                                                        ____________________________

THINKING ABOUT BOB BYRNE, AT THE DESERT BURN

       The sun rises in the Nevada desert
    
    While preparing to leave the Nevada desert last week, I got word that Bob Byrne was in his final days. My once towering, robust friend had been fighting cancer for years. 

     Bob loved the sunsets at the Stiltsville house

    When he died two days ago my wife asked, "How long had you known him?".  My thoughts went back to 1976 when I was assembling a 5-man team to enter the Great Grove Bicycle Race (amateur division).  
   Being big and brawny, biking Bob was an obvious choice. He eagerly agreed to join our team, "The Checkered Demons".  
    I probably met him a year or two before that. He was a true Grove guy as he grew up in -never left- and truly loved Coconut Grove.

     I remember Bob and his buddies marching in the King Mango Strut 35 years ago.  They had a blast wielding power drills and marching in formation as "The Two-Bit Drill Team". Their group was magnificent.

     I was the slowest member of our bike team but I peddled my heart out. When I had to head up the hill at Grand and Bayshore Drive I was passed by 12-yer old on a banana bike.  If we did not come in last we were close to it.       
    Afterwards, while Team Demon  rested, Bob spotted a guy passing by on a familiar bike. It was the one stolen from him months before. Big Bob  collared the guy as we backed him up. 

   Besides being exceedingly cheerful and generous, Bob knew how to do almost everything. It seemed he knew how to die as well -at least on his own terms- as he headed down the road that eventually beckons us all. When I last saw him months ago he was smiling with nary a complaint.

     Last year, when his cancer was in remission, we talked about going to Burning Man together. A few days ago I texted a message from "the  burn" and he wrote back, "Great, send pictures!".  I did and he wrote, just 12 hours before he left us,

   "Thanks so much, Glenn. Glad you made it to The Burn. It's been an honor and a pleasure knowing you my friend. Enjoy. Love you lots".

    I loved Bob too as did everyone who knew him.

    We're missing you Mr. Byrne. We thank you for your friendship and for teaching us how to be better than we are. 

   May peace be with you. In the race we call "life", you were a winner.

__________________________________________

BURNING THE MAN

     Seven days ago five of us drove deep into the barren desert north of Reno, Nevada. 

  Chillin' at the MIners Club, Gerlach, Nevada.  L-R, The Grove Guy, Dylan, Natalia, and Ian. Our friend Ward took the picture.

We were determined to join 70,000 others at the world's greatest party, Burning Man '18.
    It wasn't easy. Tickets are difficult to come by. Once we reached the main gate, we had to drive down an endless dirt driveway, with 10,000 other cars, vans, and mutant vehicles. Watching a Dusty Sunset in  slow-moving traffic

     Blinding dust storms closed the main gate for five hours.  Sometimes we could not see a car ten-
 feet away.  Our line of cars moved so slowly it took nine hours to go the last four miles. A baby (wearing a gas mask) could have crawled it faster. 
   
     We knew this August ritual of creating a  temporary city in the middle of nowhere would be worth it. This past week we have been amazed by colossal art installations, 

"The Great Sphere" which reflected the whole show.










Banana Jet
  
 Little House on the Prairie with Chicken Legs

terrific music, and the friends we've made from all over the planet.
   This year's them is "I, Robot". It's also the name of a popular record album from the '80's by the Alan Parson's Project. Two nights ago we heard them play it under the stars.
   On Monday night we saw 300 blue-lit drones rise up into the sky and shape-shift like a flock of robotic starlings. 

  
    It's one of dozens of amazing thing's we've seen.

     We landed in a great neighborhood too. Our tents are pitched with a group of international journalists covering the event. Camp Jouneylism
 

    "Camp Jouneylism" makes staying here simple as they provide us with great neighbors, an outdoor shower, and a much-needed kitchen.
    The week is rushing by and "The Man"- a sixty-foot wooden figure in the middle of it all- burned for the 32nd time just an hour ago.  It was a bonfire like no other, probably visible from the moon.
    In the morning, there will "burners" cooking French toast on the embers remaining. It's one of this festival's many delightful traditions. I'll be telling you more about others in the weeks ahead.
       _______________________________

THE POOP LADY

       We've stopped traveling for while so there's not much to write about except the poop lady.  More on her later.  

    After rolling 7000 miles we've hunkered down in a beach house on Monterey Bay. But who wants to read about that?  Relatives drop in  with their kids. We have a blast playing with them but it doesn't make for a Grove Guy story.

 

    
   Brother Bruce?  He stopped by for Francesca's bread baking class.  Afterwards he got crazy and fixed an electrical outlet.
 
   Pi was a big help.

    Adam, former Miamian turned Santa Cruz surfer, came over with his friend, Tatiana.  We took them on the trestle walk. This is what 4 p.m. can look like.  There's a beach and an ocean somewhere down below.

     If I'm putting you to sleep, sorry. We're settled in for a while.

     Everyday we walk on the beach where the Pacific ocean is Slurpee cold. 
     

Fortunately the nearby pool is heated but that's not something you want to read about either. 

  

Maybe you're interested in moving out here.  There's a house for sale, just two blocks from the beach. 


   It's 300 square feet include a kitchen, bedroom, bath and a long list of the drugs the architect was on when he designed it. 
It can be yours for  $1.4 million.


     Good stories are scarce when you're barely moving but this week was the exception. Five of us were walking down the trail that leads to the ocean, the one that passes a local sewage station. We've seen it many times marveling how the churning poop water does not stink.

     The poop water is aerated in this vat.  Once a dog fell in, we learned, and someone pulled him out. Pity the person who had to drive him home.

    That day we saw a truck and a county employee sampling the brown liquid. We waved and she waved back. That's how our sewage maintenance facility tour began.
 

   The waste water expert showed us how how the poop separates from the rest. The girls said, "Euww!".

   Michelle, the poop lady, was happy to have company as she explained, "I take everything you put down a sink -or toilet- and turn it into clean water and fertilizer". "Even baby wipes?", I asked.  She said there are exceptions, the things that don't decompose. The wipes, tampons, dental floss, and condoms must be removed by hand. "Of course, I wear gloves" she added.  
     Hearing this I shook her hand and thanked her.  Michelle gave Pi a dog treat explaining, "It's freeze-dried buffalo guts.  Dogs love 'em!"  We loved her tour and expressed our gratitude.

     So there's not much to write about now. We look offshore for whales but have not seen any yet. I trapped a couple of rats yesterday but so what? I do that back home.

     I expect I will have stories next week as we head to Burning Man once more. The tales are endless there.
 
                __________________________