So I'm sitting back in my little house in Shrewsbury, sipping on some Welsh blackberry and apple brandy and watching a Doris Day documentary. I'm sleepless. I'm jetlagged. I'm trying to process the most remarkable week of my life. The week I lost my Burginity at the Rites of Passage Burning Man 2011.
If you've ever seen The Muppet Movie, or Labyrinth, or Fraggle Rock, or Dark Crystal and delighted in it's mayhem, then that is 90 mins of fantasy that becomes tangible and lasts for a week while at BM.
The first thing you cannot believe upon arrival is the vastness of the space. A city is created for just a week to be burnt or torn down at the end. The playa stretches out for 3 miles and your tiny brain cannot compute its immensity. There are derelict fraggles as far as the eye can see. Art work emerges twinkling and mighty from the dust. It is an apocalyptic future. A dystopian past. Another dimension. Life on Mars. The Fifth Element. There are 50,000 wild ones, all communing to love, to laugh, to lose their minds and find them again.
You have this magical originality, this alien landscape and then you have your tribe. A few of you have made a camp. I was with wonderful old friends from Hong Kong and new ones from Germany and the US. We were all cartoon characters in our own graphic novel.
We were based at a New York sound camp named Bubbles & Base. Tina Jane and myself, along with Doctor Richard were to open the bar on the first night. Dress in gold was our only instruction.
We had arrived at camp after a 15 hour RV mission bought to us by the heroic Marija. We hit the playa at 1am but didn't park til 6am due to slow traffic onto site. We slept for a few hours and adopted our first costume change. TJ was bedecked in body hugging harlequin suit, heels and Northern Thailand hilltribe headress. I wore a Jessica Simpson polka dot bubble dress and parasol. We were caricatures of ourselves. We set out into the dust. Every other camp offers free booze. So we slurped IPA in a tiny saloon, travelled by fairground whirligig for beer and sipped whatever else was available in our plastic champagne flutes. We primped. We posed. We tried to take it all in. We found Shamrock City, soon to be our Irish Bar home from home and went back to the RV for a temazepam-drenched 4 hour sleep before our 2am alarm to prepare to bar wench.
We drank some amaretto and coke, smeared our eyelids and lips with pritstick to hold the golden glitter and hit our bar. For the next 8 hours, we served champagne to the thirsty circus folk while Doctor Richard checked ID. As the sun came up for our first true BM sunrise, we knew we were somewhere incredibly special, and not of this earth.
A further nap, and another costume change, and out we walked again. This was the pattern of the week for we had camped beside the Evil Dubstep Sound Camp, pumping out chainsaws and dentist drills. Music for the deaf. Music for the gremlins. Certainly not music for me. TJ was more adept at sleeping through this but as I had spent the last year in sleepy Shropshire it was gradually dementing me. But there were open bars. And sights to be seen. So the week continued.
We donned saris and made pilgrimage to the temple of transition. A place of such beauty and meaning I cannot describe. The walls are plastered with photos and letters and clothing of loved ones. A shrine to all those you have lost or forsaken you. People kissed. People cried. People mourned. In the middle of the desert. In a structure due for burning in but one week.
The dubstep continued. The drinking continued. The bowls were passed around. The mushrooms began to be nibbled.
Time and space stuttered.
Our RV ran out of power so no oven, no microwave, no AC. It is 41 degrees. We only have noodles to eat.
And then nightfalls. The temperatures drop and you find yourself out in the middle of the desert without your friends. You've lost your way and possibly your mind, somewhere between a portaloo and an artcar. You walk the miles back, in the dark, using the Burning Man and Temple as your guiding stars. A curvaceous, illuminated structure near the Bubbles & Bass camp means you can find your way. Pilgrimage through the dust. Falling into your tent, you wrap yourself in furs and sleeping bags and know exhaustion will get you through the soundcamps all around.
The morning begins again and so does the desert. You cycle. You drink. You listen to spoken word poetry in central camps. You meet more humans.
Snowcones are nearby. If you flash your junk you jump the queue. Your top slides off and you are suddenly wandering the playa topless. And who cares? No one. Many are naked. Then to Camp Beaverton for Wayward Girls. The lesbian camp. 150 girls whooping to a lecture about female ejaculation. Women tell you you're beautiful. Stainless steel paraphernalia is shown. We leave before the demonstration moves on. TJ finds it dull. As we stroll the playa, another artcar picks us up, and we listen to sweet non-dubstep tunes in the afternoon sun. My parasol protects my modesty. Somewhat.
We move towards the best dayclub of the playa, Distrikt and are picked up on our way by a phenomenal transgender lady we name Patsy for her abfab similarities. She steps out of her Sponge Bob Square Pants car to assure us she's no Patsy, she's a much bigger girl. She makes my own look like gnat bites. We spend some time at the club then I decide I've had too much of everything. I don't want to see anymore porn, anymore nudity, anymore mayhem. I want out the movie. I want a bed. I want clean clothes. I want freshness. I want to have not eaten that hash brownie. We return. I pass out at the back of the RV and stay there for around 10 hours.
TJ brings back various friends for me to meet. All quite innocently, but in my mangled brain I imagine wrong scenarios and pretend to slumber on. The dubstep rages on, symbolising the evil techno green bad trips I had once or twice in my teens. I sleep.
The next day is better. It is the day of the burn. There are only 2 more nights. The Man Burn. The Temple Burn. I can do this!
We get up for champagne at our club and are told that a movie star has a vagina art installation just around the corner. So off we set. We climb the cock and balls. We slide down the tube. We enter the vagina. We hit the G Spot. We get misted. We emerge to the morning sun. We meet Rosario Dawson. All is well.
We have a mellow day. Lots of cycling. Lots of exploring. The oddness is feeling less odd. We drink lots of water. We prepare for the Burn. Having spent all week losing people, due to the natural and not so natural highs, our tribe plan to meet at the temple at 8 to walk over to the Man. I embrace the mayhem and the pharmaceuticals and off we trot. We have Eunice, the Unicorn as our guide. She is held aloft as we enter the most tribal happening. Every light is on. Every stereo is playing. Pyrocars spurt their flames into the air. Acid & E & mushrooms & pot & absinthe fill the air. Here is what occurs from afar: http://vimeo.com/28801666 Within is a magical, wild, untameable beast. A delirium. A celebration like no other. As he burns, the tribes woop and hug and sing and stare and the dancing begins. We are lost out on the playa for hours. Skipping and jumping. Where the Wild Things Are. The Lord of the Flies. The Island of Lost Boys. The Amazons.
As things calm, TJ and I slip away. We are not so high. We retreat to the RV to take pause and drink a glass of merlot. TJ ponders just relaxing, for the first time in the week I may add, but I reject that and off we trot once more. To have it out with the Evil Dubstep club! And we go. And we dance. Like we've never danced before. We gyrate to the dentists drill. We surf to the chainsaw. We clear the floor. We own the floor. We take back the night!
And so... to the Oirish Bar... The place of all things good.
We meet a giant Irish muppet, who shows us his show RV. He got it cheap off some fella and drove it over. It's bedecked in red velvets and an utter pit. It is wonderful.
We return to the bar where a cheeky chap offers me granola on the dancefloor. The music is wonderful.
A sparkly Wolverine Elvis type comes to talk. He hands me a bracelet. With my a silver nametag on it. It is almost my name. A L L I S O N is says. Pft. That is the American spelling. I only have 1 L. And off I flounce. I am followed by a wingman to say the spelling is bad but the math is good. TBC.....
