Constructing A Pagan City In The Black Rock Desert
Burning Man 1996
By D. Brian Burghart
I'd like to say exactly how fast we were going as we raced across the Black Rock playa to meet with deputies of Washoe, Pershing and Humboldt counties; some Nevada State Patrol officers; and officers from the Bureau of Land Management about the safety planning for this year's Burning Man, Nevada's biggest countercultural performance event.
The fact is, I can't—the speedometer was buried.
Oh, I'll admit the irony here is smaller than it appears: the playa, about an hour and a half north of Reno, is the largest flat spot on the North American continent, and any obstacles larger than a plum can be seen from quite a ways away. In no time, we hit Nevada Highway 34 and headed into Gerlach. We had to hurry; about 40 of us were in the midst of breaking ground on a city-sized theme park (or more to the point, a bunch of themed camps) in time for the Aug. 28-Sept. 2 opening, burning and closing.
Introductions are made: John Law, technical director of Burning Man; Vanessa Kuemmerle, head of the Black Rock Rangers; Michael Michael, the Danger Ranger himself, accountant and controller for the project; Robert Rogers, project gatekeeper and the closest survivor to Mount St. Helen's when it blew; Andy Pector, procurer and free trader “Perez” of Plunder Industries; and more cops than you could shake a stick at or more precisely, than could shake a stick at you.
To my surprise, the atmosphere in the room is cordial, and everyone is intent on solving possible problems—in short, how are 7,000 people going to be uprooted from their homes and flourish for days in the desert?
John, Vanessa and Danger Ranger have the answers, the police have suggestions, problems are solved in a spirit of cooperation that left my skeptical heart befuddled. Aren't lawmen and free spirits natural enemies?
After the meeting I asked Law why all these law enforcement types give a damn about what goes on in the middle of nowhere in the desert.
“It's an expression of freedom. Too much freedom is a terrifying thing,” he said.
VOLUNTEERS R US
I'd arrived in Gerlach in the morning a day earlier. I knew that people began arriving weeks before to begin assembling what will become the largest town in Pershing County, Black Rock City, during the Labor Day weekend. It was my intent to volunteer in any way I could, not being particularly qualified for anything. I figured Bruno's Country Club would be the central meeting place for people contributing to the Burning Man Project, since it's Gerlach central. I had a soda while I waited for anyone with more piercings than I have to walk in the door
That person was Mark “Perez” from Plunder Industries. It turned out I've got more piercings, but he looked like some who wouldn't ordinarily he found in Gerlach. He had just arrived from San Francisco with a 24-foot brakeless rental truck that had been doing its best to kill him on the trip through the Sierra..
“I had to hit a guard rail to stop,” Perez said. “I didn't know which was going to give out first, my luck or my driving skill.” He told me a story about backing down Interstate 80 with no brakes and his eventual run-in with CHP and mechanics.
We found the second onramp to the playa and turned onto Nevada's badlands following the tracks of those who'd come earlier. The comparison has been made before, but driving across the alkali is like a scene from Road Warrior, dust rooster-tailing behind our vehicles obscuring anything behind and any visibility in front should you fall behind in the race. I spotted a tiny black spot a couple miles away and headed toward it.
Arriving at camp, the first place I stop is near Pepe Ozan's installation. . There is a girl with green hair painting a sign and I walk past her to Pepe's sculpture, which is a three-tower design made out of skeletal metal flashing, waiting for steps and a stage and the finishing touches of clay from the playa before it assumes its final form of the gates of hell. Pepe is on a platform about seven feet up and there are a couple people on the ground, mostly watching Pepe.
“Hi, I'm here to help,” I say. “Anybody need a hand?”
That turned out to be my mantra for the next three-and-a-half days. I spend the afternoon unloading trucks, moving scaffolding and wood from place to place and sometimes back again.
Flynn Mauthe, who is out this year courtesy of Survival Research Laboratories, will work with the Seemen to build Helco (Helco is the official sponsor of this year's event and is a surreal representation of Hell as a corporation and a fast-food strip mall (“Which, of course, will all burn Saturday night”), needed a workshop. He's from San Francisco by way of Austin, Texas, and is a carpenter. He's conversant in punk rock, vegetarianism and explosives. We assembled the shop along the frontage between the Seemen and the LA Cacophony Society's zones. Law calls Flynn “a legend in Texas because of all the things he's done.”
Perez needs to unload the hellish rental snuck. Flynn and I kick in, throwing the majority of the load on the playa about 70 yards on the other side of Pepe's installation. About a quarter way through the unloading, Dan Maimond, of Maryland, shows up and lends a hand. Plunder Town is scheduled to be the last theme camp before the Rave Camp (which, rumor had it, boasts two semis, corporate sponsorship and 90,000 watts), located two miles away downwind. Plunder Industries will have a humansized “Mousetrap game,” based on a board game from the 1970s, built for people to play on. The huge game is being built by Perez and his partner, Stvco, who were featured in the August issue of Wired. In addition to the Mousetrap game, Plunder Town will include a bar, red-light district, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and a 24-hour gated community with armed guards.
“We'll build a basic infrastructure and allow people to act within the structure,” says Perez. “Our whole idea is that we're trying to stay interactive.”
As evening and dark approaches, Flynn and I head back to our camp for a little grub and some beer and wine. After dinner, I go to Pepe's installation, where the majority of people are fraternizing, the drums are beating and I drink more beer and meet more people than I can possibly remember.
Flash, a.k.a. Papa Satan, has been giving a preview of the edibles to be had at McSatan's, the Burning Man's premier eatery. “The food is always relative to your condition,” he says. “It's as good as you are hungry—an epicurean delight for animals, the best hamburgers they ever ate.”
The next morning, shortly after dawn, I'm asked to help Tym “Circus Boy” Simpson put flags in to extend the north and south roads 200 yards and to circumscribe the main camp. Circus Boy has been doing city layout in Law's absence. Fortunately, because of his circus background, he understands the process. It's mindless, lonely work and the desert sun is crazy hot.
Lunchtime, I'm back at Pepe's pavilion. Elise Fried, a former documentary filmmaker and a painter out of San Francisco, asks me if I'll lend a hand constructing a shade tent. Elise is also going to construct something called, “The Third Eye Bums Time,” a papiermache Buddah head with a lens that will light up a sundial and bum flash-paper hours marked on the sundial.
“I've been all over the world, and this event is the most respectful of the people and environment,” Fried says. “They know the surroundings dwarf us. It's fun to do things for the love of doing them. You don't care how it turns out. After all, in the end we bum everything.”
More flags, more loading and unloading, acquisition of materials for die jazz club, more flags—three-and-a-half days of hard work and heatstroke were almost as much fun as last year's event.
ABOUT THE MAN
Burning Man was the brainchild of Larry Harvey and was first burned on a California beach in 1986. Back then, the Man was eight feet tall. He made his first appearance in the Black Rock Desert in 1990. Now the man is 40 feet tall ordained with neon tubing, and towers over the single largest arts event in northern Nevada. This year, he will he on a 10-foot pedestal in order to increase his height without having to do a redesign of his structure. The theme this year is “The Inferno,” and is adapted from the hell of Dante Alighieri's book of the same name.
The “no spectators” credo results in a mishmash of performances and more than 45 theme camps. Participation can be as simple as wearing a funny hat or even wearing nothing at all. The desert elements force communicants into forming a community made up of arts and artists of all types—from sculptors like Pepe Ozan and Al Honig, to art car designers, to drummers, to monster machine artists, to performance artists, (this year, there will he a performance of The Arrival of Empress Zoe, a tribal opera with a ballet of insects depicting the peculiar saga of a soul's birth to death), to the Rave Camp, to a gallery with an opening that will be destroyed by fire every night, to a jazz club, Chicken John's Circus Ridikulous, to Polkacide, to Lost Vegas, to the Camera Obscura, to Three Day Stubble, to a sculpture of the Sistine Chapel made out of 80 pianos by Steve Heck. (John Law said of one of Heck's burning piano sculptures, “That is still the single most hellish thing I've ever seen in my life.”)
The Cacophony Societies from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle will be there in force.
The theme camps are just part of the fun of the event. Heat, enormous thundershowers and windstorms create the setting of humanity against the elements. While there is no mayor or city manager, the town has its own radio station, newspaper, clinic, police force, restaurants—all staffed mainly by volunteers.
“It's really important to keep things on an absurdist level—to parody,” says Law. “There are these pagans who come out to worship the man—Come on people, get a life.”
Law says the desert environment is good to weed out the spectators, the fraternity boys who come out to look at the tits, the unprepared who come out in high heels without sunscreen or preparation against the weather
“The bullshit tends to blow away; that's why I'm hoping for a good storm on Saturday,” he says. “We don't want voyeurs, we want people who do stuff “
The apogee of the event, the burning of Burning Man, will take place an hour after sundown on Sunday.
Burning Man will run from Aug. 28- Sept. 2, although cleanup goes for several weeks. Tickets for Nevada residents are $25 and are available at the Blue Lamp, 241 S. Sierra St., Reno. Tickets will be available at the gate for $40. Locals get in free.
There And Back Again: Surviving The Desert
The desert isn't all fun and games. In fact, most of the literature published by the project is survival tips. Here's a list of what to bring from the Burning Man 1996 Survival Guide:
1. A vehicle in good mechanical condition. Make sure you have a working spare tire, jack and highway flares. Fill your gas tank as often as possible Keep water and blankets in car at all times.
2. One gallon of water per person per day. Keep a supply of water in your vehicle at all times.
3. Enough food, beverages and ice for your entire party.
4. Garbage bags.
5. Bedding and shelter of some type: The winds can reach 50 mph. A good camp tent is recommended along with warm sleeping bags
6. Any required prescriptions,. contact lens supplies, or whatever else you need to maintain your health and comfort in a remote area with no services.
7. Sunscreen/sunblock lotion and sunglasses.
8. Shade structures, umbrellas parasols. hats, sheets something to break the cruel midday sun.
9. A cooking stove if you expect to heat food or liquid
10. Flashlights and spare batteries.
11. Compass.
12 First aid kit.
13. Bicycles (mountain bikes or cruisers with balloon tires are best).
14 Earplugs. (Not everyone will want to sleep when you do.)
15. Warm clothes for cold desert nights
16. Watertight protective bags for cameras and electronic gear.
17 Lotion/lip balm for cracked skin.
18. Dog owners: poop scoop and extra plastic bags.
19. Smokers: portable ashtrays.
20. Costumes, musical instruments, props, banners. signs and anything else you can think of that might make the experience more fun for you and your playa neighbors.
21. Common sense, an open mind and a positive attitude.
Here's a couple conservation and safety tips: Don't dig holes in the alkali desert surface, holes are a serious danger to motorists and pedestrians. Don't camp in your sleeping bag away from your vehicle at night; most of the accidents at events in the past have involved motor vehicles. Test the temperature of hot springs: there are some that are hot enough to scald you or your pet to death. Don't ignite fireworks within the camp. Don't keep loaded firearms in the camp. Don't leave campfires unattended Don't push on people ahead of you where there are fires. In short, don't do anything stupid.
Keeping Burning Man fun: Volunteer anywhere you can help. If you get there early, help set up. If you stay late, help clean up. Meet your neighbors: if you're short something you can probably bargain for it (I noticed a serious shortfall of cigarettes). Drive the speed limits in Nevada: the Highway Patrol is efficient and their dogs have sharp noses (marijuana is a felony in Nevada). Say “hi” to the locals: Law says that without the help of people like Bruno Selmi, Bill Stapleton, Joan Grant and Terrell Lynne, the event would never happen. The way to most fully enjoy the event is to get there early, camp for several days and get to know the participants.