September 29, 2008 by PT Rothschild.

“IN THE WORLD, BUT NOT OF THE (DEFAULT) WORLD”

Temecula, CA – Although the title says it all, the tear and the accompanying ‘lump in the throat’ actually came on Friday morning, two days before we left. The words ‘Burning Man’ are constantly in the air (along with the Playa dust), in the notes and in the limericks by Gonzo Frothwood which are found inside and out on every potty (at least all the ones in our ‘hood), where you could even find ‘moop’ (matter out of place, which is usually souvenir stuff left anonymously on occasion but towards the end, of course, dropped trash too), and in symbols everywhere. So the whole week is leading up to the Man burning. On Friday I realized that in one more day the Man burned. Unlike the Kentucky Derby, which is also a week long festival event, the Man was going to burn a lot longer than two minutes in climax. So you would think that I’d be dreaming about returning to daily showers, ‘real’ food gotten at my convenience, my own space overlooking this beautiful valley, the hubbub of the hoopla, not to mention computers that work (see Capt. Tuesday’s Tuesday story of dictation), TV, movies, cell phones and the daily news, in short, all the things we have come to depend on, rely on, and demand. You’d think that I would have gotten tired of being continuously dirty, covered in a thin layer of fine Playa silt; hearing people party all night long to the sound of potty doors slamming shut occasionally; and seeing nothing familiar to me from the Default World, including only fully dressed men and women. Yeah, you’d think that, wouldn’t you? But I wasn’t! In fact, I was very sad at having to return to the world. That was when I started to realize that over the past 5 days, including ‘white-out Monday’, something spiritual had happened to my consciousness. I had lived in an uncompromisingly impossible situation undreamt of by me just six days ago, and had not only survived, but adjusted and adapted. I had staked out my day and nighttime territory like a cat. I had made neighborhood friends, had a favorite bar hangout where if they didn’t know my name, they at least knew my face (and my secret thrill), knew certain landmarks as location bearings, and was finding my way around town pretty swell. I had seen a lot of unique stuff and there were gobs more to see. They knew me at the Post Office by name (“Hey, it’s Mr. Pete, the guy with all the cool swag” – thanks to the product manager at Premiere Innovations for providing me with all the gadgets to field test, like Bond, which passed with flying colors). I had taken an impromptu outdoor shower behind a passing water truck (“Mr. Pete, I’m still trying to scrub that image from my mind” – Capt. Tuesday). Heck, I had even grown bold enough to start taking a ‘bowl’ outside the tent in the camp site, to the chagrin of both the Capt. and Goose. (Nevada is one of the states that allow personal use of the weed that Mother Nature provides). By Friday, we, the city of Black Rock could have been all that was left on an apocalyptic Earth. I was enjoying being a non-violent Mad Max. We existed outside the World’s bubble, where even the Devil’s influence seemed nullified. I really didn’t want to leave.

Now that I’ve been back in the Default World three weeks, I miss Burning Man more than on that Friday that I spoke of. Actually, it’s more a longing akin to a wonderful ‘shipboard romance’. I’ve fallen in love with a Man, a Burning Man. Realistically I know that I have to wait to return until next year, though I hope to take in a regional happening in the desert down in SD. Almost as soon as I got back I could feel the layer of the Default World. The stress over business money, payments to be made, the ever developing banking crisis, Ike and all those people who only have one home, now ruined because they don’t live in the Bush/Cheney/McCain stratosphere, except at election time. The difference between Black Rock City and the rest of the planet is like two plateaus separated by a wide chasm where a bridge exists between them for a round trip once a year, visible only to those who look for it. Crossing this bridge, I learned a few things about myself, and a few things in general, to which, I can only thank the team I was part of, and Coffee Camp, that by the end even caffeine couldn’t resurrect. I have to give a ‘shout-out’ in particular to the ‘Queen’ of this expedition as I close this chapter called my first Burning Man, to IPod herself, the always stimulating, ever perplexing, routinely controversial, never boring, extremely loyal ‘man-rancher’, the rascally Keirah Ann Robbins aka IPod. Though some recent news has done much to prove that I am indeed back in the Default World personally, I still see some ‘epilogue’ magical gifting much as I did with the ‘prologue’ part of getting ready for BM. The beautiful valley that I call ‘Barbie-Land’ and once adored like a ‘Ken’ now I see as a part of the Default World. I still like living here but the allure is gone. The weather still turns my head, but the desert was like a BDSM woman in its harshness one day and perfect weather the next. At first it’s a bit tough, a bit rough, a little different, but then your nature adapts to the pleasure pain syndrome and you start to look forward to taking part in the punishment for the pleasure. Living completely free, enjoying Liberty to the fullest, where common sense and Jesus’ two Commandments are supreme, leads me to feel that I had visited a ‘Promised Land’ that Moses or Dr. King never did. Don’t know about Moses, but I do think that Dr. King might have gotten pleasure from taking part in this unique week. I think he would enjoy seeing grown-ups (though there were children present) of all colors, sitting shoulder to shoulder, watching and cheering as the Man, aka the ‘White’ Man’s power structure aka ‘The Establishment’ and the Devil, being rejected and burned in effigy. I think he could have related to the symbolic relevance of the Old Testament Jewish celebration of the ‘scapegoat’ which also happened once a year. He may have frowned, at least, publically, on some of the more ribald features of Burning Man found in Black Rock City, but I guess we’ll never know the answer to that one. Locally a number of my closest scene friends have all said they want to go next year, including one who seems made for this event. I’m smelling ‘sequel’ here, Sports Fans, but next year is a long ways off and a lot can happen between now and then, but, “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise…” END

THE BURNING MAN EXPERIENCE – LIFE AFTER THE RAPTURE – PT ROTHSCHILD

Epilogue: Two weeks after BM, the first thing that IPod said to me was, “I can’t wait to go back home”, indicating that she too had felt that connection and had made that connection. Two weeks after BM IPod returned to T-Town and to an amazing ‘welcome back’ music show at Murrieta’s Corner Pocket with Tree Fingers, Violent Eden, Nice Day, and the Elm Street Rockers. That same night she charmed the pendant from me that I had held out for ransom, and no, I won’t reveal what that ransom was, but what could I do? If not for her, I wouldn’t have even had the pendant, or experienced ‘life after The Rapture’.

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September 27, 2008 by PT Rothschild.

AFTER ‘BURN, BABY BURN’, IT’S ‘DANCING IN THE STREETS’

DCP Zone, CA – The postcard reads, “Rising from the Black Rock Desert in one of the flattest most remote places on earth is an 80 foot temple topped by the stylized figure of a man. Each person (49,599+ this year) is responsible to, pack in their water, food, shelter, and fuel, and leave no trace from the week long celebration. Burning Man with its incredible (art) sculptures, mutant vehicles, fire dancers, music, radio stations, theme camps, and barter society is a life changing experience for those who participate.” (J - Barry Costello, PO Box 37, Nevada City, CA 95959). The picture side shows a girl and three guys looking like the MTV ‘Tank Girl’ edition similar to the girl pictured here, except two of the guys are painted all blue. It is the expression of one of the blue guys wearing a much lighter shade than the famous ‘blue man crew’, that sets the comic tone of this postcard. He looks out in his outrageous attire like he is surprised to see our ‘alien’ Default World culture where ‘sex’ is used to ‘sell’ everything and ‘money’ is valued over people. The addition of a Chevy pickup truck and two mobile cherry pickers grounds the picture as being here and now. Otherwise, they could all be stars standing there, with their hands on their hips, for a Hustler Sci-Fi movie. Now probably you may be thinking that this whole party is not kid-friendly but while you might not want to bring your smart mouth, won’t-follow-the-rules, ‘I know it all’, hormonally ruled teenager who’s deep into puberty with you to Burning Man, children, on the other hand, are welcomed and there are activities galore for them and you (no children are there without parent or guardian) to participate in, like the Mouse Race! where you end up at Brigit Camp for grilled cheese sandwiches, or to just hang out with you and look at all the sights. They even do a Census, but on Saturday night, after chilling most of the day to the feel of anticipation in the air at Coffee Camp with my hair feeling like it was moosed, my nails and cuticles all dust-caked and dry, my heart wondered what was in store for this evening. Friday night had been a blast but you could feel the build-up on Saturday for the night time. The city with its child-like innocence reminded me of what Jesus had said about such a mindset seeing Paradise. So with that in mind, Goose and I set off to cross the Playa and see the Temple beyond the Man (and the temple structure that he was built on). That Temple was set to burn the night after the Man burns. It is said to be a much somber affair as it is sad to see the ‘religious order’ of things being set aside from the world. I would ponder that this is because so much of the world’s charity comes through organized religious systems. So we trudged out the miles, which look deceptively close thanks to the white flatness, and checked out the Temple, stopping for pictures taken of each of us. Then it was back to camp to wait for nightfall, but we took our time on the journey home. Though we were to see the Man burn as a group, Goose left Coffee Camp around 6PM to garner a front row seat for the ‘burn’. It would be a portent for the evening.

After some food handsomely prepared by IPod with Orion celebrating his 28^th birthday, I headed over for a drink at my favorite bar, the Tree Top Lounge with B.A. serving up the ‘funishment’. Then I joined up with the crew and we were off. At first we had some extra people but it soon narrowed down to KB, Capt. Tuesday, Bumper, IPod, Orion, and myself. The night of the ‘burn’ is the climax for a day that seems to be rising up to a boil, an unsettling day actually. So it was that while some of us had gotten more than we expected, there were those who felt they hadn’t gotten what they thought they might. As we waited for the Man to burn in our viewing spot from the third row, a tiff developed. When it was over and the smoke had cleared though the fire hadn’t yet started, only Orion, IPod and myself remained, though KB remained close, mired down by his own very free flowing checkered robe in the tightly packed crowd. Our viewing area was close enough to feel the heat from the pyrotechnics that happened later in the evening. Before the night was over we would all be separated, except perhaps for IPod and Orion.

Before the Man burned, we sat on the hard surfaced Playa packed like sardines in a circle around the Man, so I was able to discard my jacket even though the night air had cooled down, and use it like a pillow for my aching ass. It took four days for the lower back stiffness to leave my body. Again the harsh climate was like a lash on your back so you didn’t get too lulled into Paradise. And then the Man’s arms started to rise on the neon lit Man structure, a structure so high that you could climb up four floors, at least inside the see-through lattice work. The crowd erupted into a roaring cheer. Once the arms reached the Nixon ‘I am not a crook’ position, fireworks started shooting out of what would be fingertips, and then from the structure base. The awesome amount of fireworks against the moonless black desert sky at a ground level of almost 4000’ above sea level, with the bursts of light were breathtaking. After eating a slab of chocolate from a suspicious looking piece of tin foil to which Bumper inquired about (“Sorry Charlie, only the best tuna. It was a leftover from last night’s wild, wild west days, and just enough for one.” – see MSN’s story on ‘magic mushrooms’ in the health section), I was set for the night. As I watched the ‘bombs bursting in air’, the lyrics from the Star Spangled Banner flashed into my mind. Burning Man and the society of Black Rock City, as outlandish as it is, really represents the feeling of ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness – the ‘American Dream’. We have been ‘taught’ that the ‘dream’ is to own land bought from a bank (Wa-Mu, anyone?), be indebted, and become a guaranteed laborer for 30 years. At best this may be a wanted necessity, at worse, the current nightmare, as so many are finding out as I pen these words, all due to the occupation of Iraq for its oil. But before I could dwell on that point too long, a massive explosion and fireball lit up the area with light and heat. You felt the warmth on your skin as another round of cheers also warmed your heart, right down to its cockles. When another explosion went off causing more of the structure to catch fire as the Man was still shooting off fireworks from his hands and base structure, I thought of the last scene from ‘Star Wars’ (Episode 4) after Luke and crew have received their medals for the victory against the (first) Death Star. The Rebellion against the Empire, well, that certainly fit the day, or night as it were. Everywhere and everyone I had talked to in the last six days was a rebel against the Empire, the Establishment, and the Man. All seemed spiritual, some were religious, and maybe there were a few Christians like myself there, but we were all now rejecting the ‘world’, the Default World, like it says to in the Bible, whether any or many of the people there realized it. No money, no use of automobiles per se, and no washing your hands before eating. In the desert, if your hands get sticky from eating a free mouth-watering, cold and delicious ‘bomb’ pop, because you gave an impromptu definition from a picked word card (patriot – ‘a person with a good heart easily misled by cooked Intel’), you simply stooped down and ‘washed’ the stickiness away with a rinse of Playa silt or dust! In the Default World your mom’s head would spin like in ‘Scary Movie’ if you sat down at the dinner table with that announcement. Yet here it worked. I looked over at IPod and watched as the fireworks light bathed her face in varying colors. She was like a Princess Leah. She was as fiery and as headstrong, but Leah would have seen through and banished most of the ‘douche bags’ that IPod (Keirah) took into her heart to the outer moons of Xanadu. Maybe that was part of her charm, certainly that was a large part of her drama, but the timeless expression of youthful marvel painting her face as she gazed at firework burst after firework burst, as she snuggled back against Orion for comfort and warmth, made me speculate as to just what new adventures awaited us in the future. I hoped Orion would be better than the rest.

Soon the Man and the structure were blazing ferociously. Curiously enough though, the Man’s right arm stayed raised in the air like a ‘Heil Hitler’ salute. Watching the burn and knowing what it symbolized to me and so many others there, I wondered about my Jewish ancestors on that side of the family and the ceremony of atonement, when they sent out into the desert the ‘scapegoat’ once a year, which carried the entire community’s sin away. Taking part in this heathen celebration felt spiritual to me in a religious way. A light had been cast into a corner made dark and foreboding by hearsay, opinion, tradition, and order. I looked over again at IPod. She was so like a favorite granddaughter to me. She takes care or rather ‘looks after me’ like Francie did her ‘papa’ in ‘Tree’ and I had come to really trust her and her intuition. To some she is an enigma wrapped in a paradox, but to me she is a ‘safe haven’. I can always find the center of her maze. I felt safe in the crowd of thousands as we sat packed in like Muslims, watching the Man finally burn, then topple, structure and all, crashing to the ground. Suddenly everyone stood up, then people from every direction and the hundreds directly behind us all started running or trotting toward the collapsed heap. IPod and Orion, hands clasped together, were swept from me and disappeared into the sea of faces and screams. I can’t describe my feeling of loss at that moment. Part of me said, ‘you’re old, slow, and stiff, but maybe if you really tried, you could catch up to them. But another part of me, maybe the Jedi part, said ‘it’s their night, I’m not a chaperon, let them go party or whatever.’

I looked around and everywhere people, ‘burners’, were moving toward the Man, or what was left of him. I decided to also go, even though doing so would cause me to lose all my location bearings. Soon I was part of the throng, a mass of people slowly circling around the burnt Man counterclockwise and remembering why I was told they do this at Mecca. After seeing the Man’s ashes for myself, I slowly made my way back to the fringes of the circling crowd, finally slipping free to pause and look around. I did not take any pictures or want to for that matter. I’m sure you can find something on YouTube. I did not want to show you something, Dear Reader, that you really should experience for yourself, if you can. To be in the midst of thousands of people, strangers all to me save less than ten, all rejoicing wildly, spinning fire, hooping and hollering, running here and there in every direction, in a backdrop of hundreds of lit-up art cars, all with music blasting in the distance, is like no other experience I can name. The chaos of it, the unbridled revelry, all lit by fire, starlight, and LEDs is an incredible rush to the senses, and even if you are perfectly sober, you head and sagacity are reeling. So I paused, thought fleetingly of IPod, turned on my ‘raver bait’ flashing pendant I had traded for a night earlier, looked out at the wild, anarchistic glory, and said to myself, ‘OMG’, then stepped off. I might add that at no time was I pushed, shoved, or jostled by the maddening crowd. It was truly other worldly. (ed note: the remainder of this night can be found in ‘Sex & the City – Some Enchanted Evening. Next, the last chapter of The Burning Man Experience, Life After The Rapture – ‘A Wave Good-bye, With A Tear In My Eye’)

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September 17, 2008 by PT Rothschild.

“AND THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH”

DCP Zone, CA – By the way, for those who haven’t guessed it, DCP means DeComPression, because it’s back to being in the Default World, the ‘real’ world your teacher or minister or ‘rent would tell you. You know, the place where ‘reality real world’ shows are scripted and shot at the expense of what the Burning Man art festival/society holds most precious, our home, this planet, and something that we are ALL responsible for (see ‘TV Makes a Mess’ and sign the petition, I did). So it really came as no shock when upon showing several photos to a business neighbor close to my ‘day job’, I got the comment, ‘These people must all be on drugs,” as the neighbor stared at them wide-eyed. How the World is deceived, I thought to myself, when a regular customer to Bev-Mo, the largest and grandest alcoholic (and non-alcoholic) beverage establishment in Riverside County, looks at photos of art cars, sculptures, people riding hand-decorated bicycles, generally having a good time, and says, ‘they must all be on drugs’. This comment is coming from a culture that when you turn on the TV, almost half the ads are for ‘drugs’. Too fat, take a pill. Too thin, take a pill. Sneezing when you dust, take a pill. Not enough iron, take a pill. Not happy enough, worried, and depressed, take a pill. Kids don’t pay attention in school, give them a pill (Ritalin). Don’t want your dog or cat pregnant, crush up a pet birth control pill in their food, so they can have a sex life and not get preggo, just like regular folks. In the week that I was at Burning Man, I saw or heard of not one ‘Heath Ledger’ incident in a city of 49, 599 (official population as of Saturday, August 30^th – Black Rock Beacon) people. And Burning Man exists in a city. Black Rock City has an FM radio station (BMIR – Burning Man Information Radio – 94.5), a TV station, and a Post Office (Zip code 89412) though it looks more like a movie set. The clerks are friendly, engaging, and one of them led me to a symbol necklace that made IPod, when she saw mine, whisper in my ear while flashing me her ‘Lucky Charms’ gleam, “I want that pendant. I’m going to have to figure out a way to get it from you,” which drew a sharp, sudden gulp of air from me. (I wait with bated breath for the ‘con of Woman’, and really enjoy the fun and romance in swimming with these young sharks). Another aspect guiding the hustle and bustle of this ‘off-world’ city are the Rangers, whom I met one night with Goose when we joined up with the Capt. at the Ranger Station house that was down the street from the Black Rock Dinner, which served up free grilled cheese sandwiches but had no regular business hours of operation. Whenever you saw a crowd there you could get the free food. I fetched IPod a sandwich when the snacks Ranger Sasquatch whipped up for us didn’t quite iron out that stomach wrinkle, plus we were all the way across town. Sometimes IPod forgets to eat so she was extra hungry. You’d just know that the sandwich shop opened about 10 minutes after we were told about it. Yeah, Black Rock City is like that. The Rangers keep you out of trouble with the ‘law’ and the ‘undercovers’ that are roaming around, plus they make sure you are safe and will provide you with medical attention if you become sick or injured. There were 36 arrests for drug trafficking which is not bad for a city of 50,000 who are partying. Unlike many law enforcement agencies in the Default World, the Rangers really do ‘protect and serve’ rather harass and intimidate. They reminded me of the police during Kentucky Derby week in Louisville, Kentucky, and the police I met when I traveled in Canada, except the Rangers were more folksy and in the Spirit of Smokey the Bear. People who want to, imbibe in the privacy of their campsite. Also there are no DUI’s at 5MPH, the posted speed limit on all streets in BRC, because you are part of a team, either with the group you came with or the crowd you just met. If you really need to, you can take a scheduled bus back to the closest town for $5 round trip. There is also a place to bowl and a mini put-put golf range, so next time I’m taking my custom putter along with the one my ex-wife used to make stand up all by itself.

The history of Burning Man is explained through a timeline display and is symbolized by a logo theme found on the various sculptures and works of art, which numbered at 194 all scattered at various points in the Playa. The logo is also found on every piece of swag you collect pretty much and especially on the pendants you wind up with. Besides the one IPod has her peepers on, my favorite symbol pendant is the one I was gifted with from one of the crew as I sat and talked to my favorite bartender, B.A. (Bad Ass), in the shade underneath my favorite bar, the Tree Top Lounge aka ‘Raise The Bar’ on the Sunday morning after the Man burned. As the early Christians had their ‘fish’ symbol (Pisces) which though secret was known to each of them, so it is with the symbol of Burning Man. I won’t reveal its shape here, Dear Reader, but if you ever come to BRC, you will know it almost immediately. This symbol becomes a part of you. I have worn the symbol either as a patch or on a pendant every day since returning to the DW. It’s the one piece of BM that I keep close to my heart until I can go ‘home’ again. To glance at pictures of the festive BRC and sum it up to ‘drugs’ is why BM will never be ‘mainstream’. My grandfather used to say, “Son, in the Parade of Life, there are 3 kinds of people: people in the Parade; people watching the Parade; and people saying, ‘what Parade?” The Bible tells us that a third of Mankind will be lost but two-thirds will be on hand when Jesus returns. Those odds don’t sound too bad for surviving but the Bible also says that only 144,000 out of the millions left will be catching the first ‘up’ escalator. Everyone else will get a ‘do-over’ for a thousand years. Jesus himself said to go through the narrow gate. When I look at the society and city built, attended, and cared for by a population who ‘chose’ to take part and feel the abundance of love and a certain level of meekness generated by close to all the week’s inhabitants, people from different cultures, different countries, and people like myself who find themselves at BRC through unforeseen circumstances, getting the cheapest thrill from the biggest bang because it takes money to be able to live in a cashless society, you know a force which is not man-made has to be the magnet. Some churches and some religions may think they have the key to God’s front door and announce that they are the ‘chosen few’, made so by their holy decree, but I ask you the AC/DC question, “Who made who?” If we, Man, made God up as some say, because we needed a ‘god’ for our own good to help explain things, then indeed it is ‘us’ who will pick the chosen. But what if the Bible and all the other works on religion are correct, that there is an Intelligence, a
Will, and a Plan to what we call reality? We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the world, the Default World, as we know it, the one that Jerry Springer shows us, is nowhere  close to the reality of any metaphysical realm. The Bible comes as close as anything written to accurately describe ‘earth life’ and doesn’t feign the flowery language of some religions to do it. Though Jesus tells us not to look for his second arrival to be in the desert, the desert is where he was first tested. It’s where he chose to become the first inhabitant for a new world, a world yet to come into being. I would put forth the Burning Man and Black Rock City are a testing ground for a society for a new world, hopefully to come after the old world is swept away, as is foretold. BRC could be the blueprint for the meek when they ‘inherit the earth’. For though I saw raw sensuality and good-natured revelry, I never once saw or heard any aggression. Everyone had a natural patience and relaxed attitude toward one another, regardless of attire. Two days after I arrived in BRC, I named this series to be called, ‘The Burning Man Experience – Life After The Rapture. The nature of this BM culture demonstrates a lifestyle currently unattainable and unsustainable on a permanent basis in the world today though the technology exists to make it so. I consider it a miracle that BRC can even be present and real for a week. But in a new world, one without commercialism and money, such a city and population could forge and flourish in fun, when the meek inherit the Earth. To be continued… Next: ‘Burning Down The Louse’

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