This story is total fiction of course! Think about it? Things like this just don't happen in real life. Any perceived resemblance to actual people or events is just fuckin' crazy! Why do you want to act crazy for?
Prelude
I arrived at BRC on a Saturday a week before the burn with my co-pilot Elisa. It was nice to have her company this time around. We were greeted with a sincere " welcome home " and home we were! We set up our camps in the east corner of the Black Rock City Community Theater theme camp just in time for the sun to go down. It took me days to adjust physically and consciously. The days leading up to Friday were filled with wonder. I danced and flirted with many a Burning Man sister and danced some more and beheld many wonderful works of art! I would ride my bike with reckless abandon like a school boy playing hooky on a late summers day till I was exhausted. Dragging my raggedy ass home to eat and sleep. Only to wake up in the middle of the night and party some more, but the best of the story doesn't really begin till Ginger and Mary Ann ship wrecks! So that's were I shall begin. On Friday the day before the burn. Note: The above graphic of the Blue Girl I have choosen to use as a symbol of free self expression and the sensual beauty of Black Rock City!
I met Ginger on all fours blowing chunks into the playa. She looked at me with bewilder eyes and shaky limbs and proclaimed she was about to spew forth! I motioned her to follow me off the street like backing up a truck into a narrow drive way where just outta site she dropped a gave up her cookies to the top God of the playa, " The Sun " The Sun and it's consort the Black Rock Desert! " I'm sorry. I'm sorry " , she repeated! It's funny how we are more concerned about the state of our ego than the fact we're seriously injured and about to become even more so! One step away from heat stroke and two steps away from death! " No worries " I said in a bad fake Aussie accent. " Come over here and sit in my shade ", I pleaded. Acorns are known the world over for producing wonderful shade! She didn't want to be a burden to others. She was still thinking in mainstream terms of separation and the live and let die philosophy which pollutes it so. I told her she wasn't in America anymore and didn't have to act that way no longer. It takes time to surrender to the desert. To bow down to it's heat and give in to the playa dust, becoming one with the dusty world as the sage Lao Tzu would say. Also one has to morph back into a free entity which takes me a few days. Having lived a year with self imposed restrictions on many levels of ones life as to not offend ones neighbors or to break a law and get arrested. This takes it's toll on me deeply and was more than ready to let go than any other BM before.
Ginger sat down in my fold up chair in the shade of Camp Acorn posted as a sentinel on the most outer frontier of the BRC Community Theater's theme camp. I prepared her a glass of electrolyte and gave her a potassium pill and began the task of de-Los Angelizing her state of mind. Let's go back a bit and fill in the blanks here. Ginger and her dear friend Mary Ann were on a 10 hour tour from LA to a desert Island of free self expression known as " The Burning Man ". This was their first time to Black Rock City and their first time in the desert. So one might say they weren't really prepared mentally or physically for what was in store for them! They arrived at night and set up their raggedy ass tent on the out skirts of BRC. A raggedy ass tent which the zipper was broke so they used a safety pin ... just one safety pin mind you to keep the flap shut on the tents entrance which faced south into the wind catching every particle of playa dust it's gust could offer up ! " Mary Ann ", she blurted out! I need to check on my friend. They had arrived that night and got lost from their tent for 5 hours wondering aimlessly thru the night till the sun came up and tried to sleep in a little two person tent during the scorching heat of this years BM with no shade other than the tent, which one could have baked a loaf of bread in it was so hot! Ginger was walking herself to death in the streets of BRC around the intersection of Infant and 5:30 when we met. Mary Ann stayed in the portable oven partly from exhaustion from wandering lost and also from a lack of trust and or feeling separate from everyone and everything. Ginger need to hang in the shade and drink more fluids, but insisted on checking up on her friend and off into the hot sun once again she ventured. One can only offer assistance and advise not force it.
It was Friday. It had taken me longer to crack outta my shell this year due to the heat. I finally let go around sunset on Wednesday sitting cross legged up on TheMan coming on to some good shrooms. A 3 to 4 year old little girl would tap me on the shoulder and pull down her particle mask and whisper to me, " air stinks " and with a snap it covered her face again. It was all I could do not to laff out loud. The sun went down. The illuminator would show up with his outrageous light show mobile which would project trippy patterns over the desert floor and up upon TheMan as he cranked up some Black Sabbath. I was on my way!!
I wondered if I would see Ginger again. The windows for making a connection with another here open and close fast. There's just so much novelty here it's easy to get diverted in other directions. The direction I was heading in was colored blue! I wanted to be blue sooo bad. Like a Celtic warrior of old or maybe even Krishna in search of the milk maidens, but would in fact look more like Papa Smurf! Across the intersection from the BRCCT was Sporosite. The best body painters in the universe! Their services are for free, but I brought two gallons of water in trade anyways and they were very thankful for it. Blue Acorn! This offered me the final release as the last of my barriers and boundary's fell away. There is something very liberating from ones self being painted a color. It truly frees up something being held back deep inside one. I felt more free flowing in my consciousness than I can ever remember. A movement stared by giving in to the playa dust days earlier.
I adorned myself with neon beads and a blue sarong with a bluish head scarf which gave me the Papa Smurf look. I had gave up foot wear and was now bare foot in the dust. I wandered over to the misty/shade dome to check out the tribe and found that Ginger had returned with her friend Mary Ann. Mary Ann look bad. The facial expression and body posture of someone who wasn't having a good time. She looked up at me as if I was just beamed down from the mother ship and stared at me like, " what da fuck? " Ginger introduce us and I ran over to my tent to fix her up with a glass of electrolyte and a potassium pill. Now Ginger and Mary Ann had been thru some rough seas and needed to rest in the shade and be still. Drinking water and eating some food, but Mary Ann was still in her La-La land state of mind of self independence and separation and opt to return to the oven she referred to as a tent. With the entrance facing the south with only a safety pin to close it as the dust blew in as if that was the intention! Ginger went with her. At least the sun was gonna set soon and they would be free from the heat. It was time to play and I decided it was time to do some " E " venture my blue ass out into the playa and let the currents of it's surreal novelty carry me off any where it pleases to! I made my way out to TheMan and scared me some tourist/spectators. Ya know with the Survivor hat on. Bermuda shorts and a neck full of cameras. Must have been the big white eyes surrounded by blue that caught most off guard. They would break eye contact in a flash with the look on their face that said, " Oh please don't talk to me! " I walked majestically with a strutting glide like a swordless warrior of the sheikh religion or a Aztecan priest on his way to sacrifice and felt transcendence. I can't remember all I saw and done. I think I played dodge ball out on the playa with a bunch of school kids. Anyways after the sun set I found myself heading back to camp to freshen up so to speak. Coped a buzz, refilled my water container and rested for a spell. I was feeling total bliss as I kicked back in the abode of twisted oaks ( my tent )and smiled ear to ear." Ahhhhhhhh " ,I moaned as I sipped my water and took a tug off the bong. It can't get any better than this!
All of a sudden a bike slides to a stop by mine outside the tent. A head appears in the entrance with a wave of the hand. It's Ginger looking much much better! She says with relief, " I was sooo happy to see a glow in your tent when I came around the corner ... what are you doing tonight? " " tripping ",I responded. I told her what I had taken and offered her and Mary Ann some for tomorrow night if they felt good and wanted to. The question was followed by silence. Or perhaps tonight I added? She jumped on that suggestion immediately. So I reached into my magic bag and pulled out the requested potion and handed it to her like holy sacrament to which she gobbled down like a stoner would engulf a potato chip on the munchies. She had some small pills called " ambien " which I never heard of till I saw a commercial on TV about them. Let me just say for the record that this little tic-tac size pill will FUCK YOU UP!!!! Like a cross between seconal and Quaaludes! Damn !!! I took one and downed it with a gulp of water. We began a most wonderful discussion on eastern metaphysics and rejoiced in each others knowledge. We discussed Herman Hess's novels " Steppenwolf " and " Siddartha ". It seemed rare to both of us to have someone who we could have a deep, open and profound discussion with. We felt that we were soul mates reunited. Not that we had memories of each other in another life, but the way we flowed and interacted with each other in such a fashion that it was as if we had known each other before we met. That in itself was one of those wonderful blessings I only encounter only when I'm back home in Black Rock City. It truly is home. The only place I can be my true self < tear>. She wanted to walk over to the center camp ( coffee tent ) and hang out. " Coool " I replied! It was a short walk. The coffee tent was something out of the Star Wars bar scene with aliens and road warriors lounging about. We found some empty seats and sat down and continued our discussion. By this time that little tic-tac kicked in and turned the whole god damn center camp into a Pablo Picasso painting! As I talked to Ginger her faced morphed into a Picasso masterpiece. Complete with six eyes and three mouths. I was very calm about the whole thing being a warrior of many a psychedelic experiences I thought it was rather novel! But I did have a difficult time choosing which set of eyes to look into. I thought of Hunter S. Thompson and Timothy Leary and how they would approve of this scene. It was time to return back to camp. My motor skills were totally fucked hahahaha ... I really had to concentrate walking and laffed for no reason what so ever! We stumbled by the Black Rock Rangers Camp and across Circle Road giggling all the way into Camp Acorn and coming to rest on my futon mattress inside the tent. We laffed, talked, giggled and had a few bong hits. Ginger took in a deep toke and slowly exhaled ... looked up and said, " I give good head massages " and I replied, " What? " She repeated herself and I replied back, " which head are you referring too? " Well dear reader need I say anything more? Of course I do! Well ... lets try to say it without saying it. We indulged in the hottest if not the loudest most sensual exchange of male/female sexual energies in all of BRC that night. Five such events of the seed egg exchange game ( always use protection ) were indulged in, but who's counting anyways? Ginger did that's who! That next morning she found herself covered with blue smears all over herself with a thick concentration of blue on her lips and around her mouth. I looked down at my weenie to discover that it had indeed been sucked pink! Sweet sexual frosting on a already spiritually delicious cake. Oh what I wouldn't give to have a picture of us in that state. It would speak volumes of the Burning Man experience. I got up with the sun the that morning and brewed me a cup of joe and lit up a cigarette. This was the day TheMan gets torched. This would be by far the most incredible burn ever for me or anyone else. Such an interesting day was about to unfold. Please come back for part two in about a week or so. Saturday the burn.
part3/Sunday/The Desert of Sad Good-bye
