Things I Never Want to Forget about Burning Man

Burning Man 2007, originally uploaded by c8mills.

OK, here’s the list:

Our spontaneous mini-concert. A guy goes walking by our camp with a guitar. Brad says, “Play us a song.” And he sits down and plays and talks for an hour, even though he was supposed to be at a “gig” somewhere else.

Zip Code Man. If you say your zip code he will tell you where you live and your favorite restaurant in that area. It blows peoples’ minds. He walked passed our camp and Brad recognized him and said, “89523.” He nonchalantly replied, “Reno,” because it wasn’t even a challenge for him. But we started talking and he asked about our RV and next thing you know we are hanging out with him.

We camp across from two guys from London who claim to be famous record producers in England. We have no way to verify this. They gave us a vinyl LP of their music and signed it like they were rock stars or something.

Same guys, cooking bacon on a little BBQ-er in front of their camp. Obviously BBQ is not their specialty as he poured a whole can of lighter fluid on the charcoal, then laid the bacon directly on the grill. He said to us, “American bacon sucks.”

Grocery Cart. A motorized grocery cart full of food goes by, with a woman manikin “driving" it. When you look closely at the food, you see a guy’s head barely sticking out.

The Crude Awakening. Eight giant metal people, representing the religions of the world, worshiping a 300 foot oil derrick. When they blew that up on Saturday night, it was the coolest thing I have ever seen at Burning Man. It went up like a 1000 foot mushroom cloud.

Watching Vickie “ride the bell” at the greeters’ gate, because she was a newbie.

After watching some guys scale the outside of a treehouse, a girl walked up to the door and said, “Ding-dong.” The door opened and she went right inside.

Tequila Pit Crew. They had a golf car with Nascar sounds playing loudly, and a pit crew in full red & white regalia, including buxomous blondes in tight jumpsuits. They would grab someone off the street, lay him in a stretcher, and give a tune-up complete with drills, and of course, a shot of tequila and stand him up--all in about 6 seconds.

Bus without a driver. This is true. A white school bus drove down our street while the driver was in the back of the bus working on the sound system. There was no one else on the bus.

The DPW parade. Department of Public Works spends two months building and tearing down the city. On Saturday they have their own parade. They are a scary looking crew, drinking whiskey and screaming at us, "Give us your beer!" With fire cannons flaring, and water cannons soaking the crowd. One motorcycle jumped out of line, circled behind us, and the girl spanked Ty as she rode passed.

The sax player on top of his van at sunset playing Amazing Grace and Moondance.

There was a circus. While we watched a lovely lady doing a trapeze act, they hooked up another girl unseen. Suddenly she starts screaming like a maniac as they drag her up by her boots, tied in a straitjacket. She struggled herself loose and finally broke out of the straitjacket altogether. It was amazing to see.

I basically wore the same thing for three days straight--these blue flowing calf length pants, a belly dancer's orange scarf, a little blue furry vest over my playa-colored tanktop, a very beat up straw cowboy hat. I either wore big leather boots or my sandals with it. They were already dirty and it wasn’t worth changing.

We saw a guy do a spiritual healing. This fascinated me as he made strange sounds and pulled the bad energy out of his body and left it on a post.

Getting up before sunrise to feel the freedom of a new day. There are so many people still out from the night before. There’s nothing like watching the sun rise over the uniqueness of this city.

Amy was 100 percent adorable in her costume of a tight fitting white camisole and teeny shorts with little pompoms all over them. It had a flowing net skirt. And thigh-high white boots.

Nekked Colton. I have to mention Colton. He lived next door to us in Truckee and we have always called him Nekked Colton, because he’s a nudist. Well, we discovered him at BM and now he comes and hangs out with us while we are there. Just a really nice old hippie nekked guy.

They added four streets, which just about doubles the camping space available. It was not overcrowded and there were close and clean porta-potties everywhere. I heard that approximately 51,000 people came and 50 percent of them are virgins. Those are not official numbers.

The Porta-Potty Queen. A group of people wait until some unsuspecting girl goes into the porta-potty, then dash in to roll out a red carpet, leading to a platform and a golf cart. When she comes out, she is overwhelmed by people cheering and playing We Are the Champions. They give her a crown and a trophy, lead her down the red carpet to the platform and yell, "Speech, speech!"