Friday, September 02, 2005

~*...burning man...friday...*~

friday, september 2

fetish friday
due to the incessant year-round complaints i got about last years friday theme, this year you get to explore all od those kinky fetishes you never wanted to tell anyone about. go get tied down, eaten off of, dressed in latex panties, or whatever kinda kink does it for you. just remember to clean up and leave no trace. hosted by: everyone in brc

photo by greg eymundson

random repeating friday event in black rock city

advanced rope bondage
5:00pm-6:30pm friday
10:00am-11:30am saturday
join our experienced crew for a tour of advanced erotic ropework. we hope to demonstrate suspension and other advanced techniques. show up early! our dome is a no-photo zone. hosted by: camp arachnid @ fetish and 7:30

photo by aaRon gautschi

random one time friday event in black rock city

fight club - part 2

7:00pm-10:00pm
fights will be moderated, but only the fighters determine their level of contact and duration. we fight in order to express our mutual respect for each other's arts and find the enlightenment therein. hosted by: camp ubercarney @ esplanade and 9:30

photo by tristan savatier

three daze and not enough naps later, i decided to head back to our rvs and get some well deserved shut eye. the sun was shining brightly friday morning, but not bright enough for me to find my bicycle. yup, it seems as though my attempts at making my bike look different from everyone else who bought the same walmart roadmaster special wasn't really that effective. i took off all of the stickers on the bike and rearranged one so that it said "dredimaster". i guess another dredimaster was at the burn and mistook my bike for his. if there's any place in the world where you could run into more than one dredi, the burn is a pretty good start. i did notice another roadmaster bike like mine, but it definitely wasn't the dredimaster ride.

i was not looking forward to the walk back to our camp. it would take about 35minutes to walk back to our camp, and i was beyond tired. but we are on the playa, so finding people to double you back to your camp is as easy as asking.

when we reached our camp, i had one last beer and a morning bowl then i curled up for 12hours of shut eye. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......................

after an excellent rest, i suited up into my friday night normurai outfit, grabbed turtle, and went cruising around the playa. problem for me was that i didn't have a bike. wow, you really need one to get anywhere efficiently on the playa. the place is just too big to walk.

i grabbed turtle and headed over to the crazed canadian cosmik catz camp. on our way there we stopped off at the deathguild thunderdome to watch a few fights. remember mad max beyond thunderdome? well, thunderdome is on the playa. two men enter one man leaves!

two fighters enter the thunderdome and are attached to bungy cords so that they are suspended above the ground. they are equipped with a weapon of their choice (or no weapon at all), and then fight each other to the end of the battle. the weapons ranged from large swords to huge hammers (covered in foam and duct tape of course). hundreds of spectators watched from above and around the thunderdome yelling "two men enter, one man leaves! two men enter, one man leaves!". i had seen mad max, i'd seen pix of thunderdome at burning man, but it is nothing like hanging off of the dome as you look down watching people fight. watch video of the deathguild thunderdome here.



we then stopped off at a camp called euphoria. it was put on by a wikkid krew of peepz from salt lake city, utah. they had a large dancefloor pumpin heavy breakz, a swing, and a trampoline. i grabbed my mug and went to the euphoria bar to get a drink. i asked turtle where his glass was. he told me that had not yet had a drink from a bar on the playa. i was floored! "what do you mean you haven't had a drink from a bar on the playa?". it was actually turtle's first time cruisin around on his own since he got to the burn. he was rollin with our krew the first three nights. it was about time turtle explored the playa on his own, or at least without an entourage of 7 other people. i love the krew i went to the burn with, but there is too much to experience and see on the playa for me to agree with 7 other people what to do, where to go, and when to do it.

the girl working the bar at euphoria was a cutie from salt lake city named collette. it was great chatting with her as she provided me a window into mormon culture. she reminded me that even utah has candy kids and herb smokers. i also found out that the euphoria krew was also involved in the august rave in salt lake that was busted by the national guard. yah, what a fiasco! helicopters, troops in full assault gear with machine guns, and excessive use of force to shut down a group of ravers dancing. its mind blowing to see that in a state where you can have six wives is balanced out by zero tolerance on drugz...and they don't joke when they say zero tolerance.

here are some links to discussions about the raid including video. nutz!.

404audio
kutv, utah
utrave
video of the raid

while at the euphoria camp, i met a guy from los angeles. he really wanted to spin records at this camp, in which he had no part in running. he asked one of the guys at the euphoria camp if he could play some records boasting "i've got the best record from the world's best djs man. its for your benefit that i play." pffft. that didn't last long. shut down!

turtle met a beautiful girl at the euphoria camp and for the rest of the evening had a partner in crime. noice one turtle!

it was getting about that time...time to do some more dancing with everyone in black rock city on the friday night of the burn. everything that was to be built from the ground up was completed by that night, and everyone who planned to be at the burn all year was finally on the playa. it was full steam ahead for a night of debauchery on the playa, and i already had the desired effect.


photo by scott london

cruising across the promenade that night provided an unlimited number of creative distractions. we came across a camp called the barbie death camp. thousands of barbie dolls in precarious positions with each other, and a few ken dolls thrown in there for good measure. most of the barbies were being escorted into an oven by assault rifle toting soldiers. maybe the barbies were raving too much in the desert and needed to be stopped before it got out of hand.

we came across this, um, i guess a statue of a face, in the middle of the desert. here is what it looked like in the day time...

photo by scott london

at night, the artist responsible for this installation projected his face on to the statue and that friday night he was talking about dreams, what they mean to him.

i stopped off at the pangea stage to hear some groovy beatz. there, i met a dude from seattle dressed in a furry bear costume. he was appropriately named honey bear. i grooved with him and his krew before asking them if they wanted to see the kewlest thing on the playa (a very bold statement being in the most creative city in the universe). of course i had sparked his interest, and the interest of his krew. i pointed to the series of red lights off on the distance and told him to go czech it out. he did better than that. they had an art car that could hold almost 20 people. it was a large fun fur covered vehicle with a huge flourescent mushroom erected in the middle. the mushroom spinning mushroom cap was covered in cds underneath. with two spotlights pointing up at the mushroom, the reflektion against the cdz were very trippy as the mushroom cap spun around in circles. 16 of us piled on to the art car and began our journey towards the red lights in the middle of the desert, jungle music pumping from the art car's humble sound system.

it didn't take long to arrive at the light harp. not having a bike wasn't so bad when you've got an art car to take you around (and they are everywhere). hearing your body make music at the light harp went over very well with the seattle crew. daam that light harp is wikkid!

after making music with out bodies, we jumped back on the art car and headed towards animal control. animal control is a theme camp that houses stray animals that have been have rescued (abducted) from the playa. if you are dressed up in fur, like a bunny rabbit or a bear, you could be a target. riding around on a home made paddywagon powered by two bicycles with a large wagon on the back, animal control "rescues" people dressed up as animals on the playa. they will put you in the back of their wagon, sedate you (with booze), and take you back to their camp where you will be remain in the animal holding facility until someone comes and adopts you. brilliance. its not like you are forced to do anything you don't want to on the playa, but if you're dressed up as a bunny rabbit on the playa you're probable down for being "rescued" by animal control. "come adopt me! i'm being held at 4:00 and catharsis!".

problem was, we couldn't find the animal control camp at night, so we gave up on adopting any animals that night and ended up at the house of lotus. paul oakenfold was playing somewhere on the playa that night, but i really couldn't give a shit about hearing him play. at least it was good to know that there are no v.i.p's on the playa, and everyone had to pay to get in...even if you are the "best dj in the world". pfft, isn't that tiesto's title? as for lotus, yes, i spent every night there because of all the stages at the burn, the house of lotus had the best beatz. there were three other stages right beside it too, so i always had choice...and a better chance of running into my krew, which i did.

i was on my second bottle of malibu rum to gift others, and it went over very well....very, very well at the house of lotus. man, the things people will do for a shot on the playa. gawd i love it. drink, alter your reality, fuck, dance, express, do whatever you want...but don't be careless about smoking weed on the playa. the nevada sheriff's have been patrolling the playa for the past few years. having such an open festival of freedom and creativity eventually had to be mediated by the law somehow. drinking underage is a no no. serving booze to underagers is also a no no. being high isn't illegal, but possessing drugz sure is. and seeing as they can't really bust someone for being on drugz, the only drug they can catch you with is weed. word on the playa was that the sheriff's had night vision goggles to see people smoking at night. if they caught you with weed, they are also more likely to catch you with something else. word to the wise, don't smoke weed out in the open if you have more drugs on you. otherwise, if you get busted fro smoking weed you're shit outta luck when they find whatever else you have. good thing my friends didn't have anything on them when they got busted for puffin a phattie that morning.

two of the peepz in my krew were smoking a nice sized phatty with a german couple as the sun rose. all of a sudden, the german girl grabbed my friend's hand and started pulling him away. he said "where are we going, we're not done smoking this joint." the girl kept on pulling him away saying "they got him, they got him." as my friend turned around, he noticed our other friend talking to two sheriffs, one of whom was now holding the joint they were smoking. my friend went back to help out, knowing that neither of them had drugs on them. the police asked them where the rest of their weed was, and their answer was "we don't have any. some guy just gave us this joint on the dancefloor." after emptying their pockets on to the playa and getting thoroughly searched, the police let them go and went after bigger fish. what a shitty buzz. in the most free and liberal community you have to look over your shoulder when smoking weed. gawd i love canada.


i had asked friends about smoking weed on the playa, and was warned by all of them to be careful when puffing rootz at the burn. i wasn't about to fuck with nevada police, especially seeing as i look like i smoke weed. if i wasn't me, i'd flag me. as if the black guy with the dreadlocks doesn't smoke weed, i'm a sure thing. and they'd be right too, but i wasn't about to validate anyone's assumptions on the playa, especially the police. so funny enough, being the herbalist that i am, i didn't smoke much weed at all at burning man. i had a few tokes here and there, mostly around our camp where we felt more comfortable, but not as much as i normally would at an outdoor festival.


another incredible night on the playa, another sunrise at the house of lotus. there is no place like home...and the man burns the next night.

- tell your friends about me \m/^_^\m/

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