Visit to a Dead City | D.S. Black
September 19-21 , 1998
ED: The original photos from this article have been lost. If you have copies, please drop us a note.
1. Ashes to Ashes
None of us had quite recovered from the week we spent at Burning Man. We were still in the throes of PBMS (Post Burning Man Syndrome) which is symptomized by lethargy, depression, a tingling of the extremities, acute nostalgia, weird dreams of the desert and our return to the city.
Some suggested the best remedy was Decompression, in the form of a party loaded with other playazens showing their burn scars, slides, video, photo albums, drugs, and likker. In past years that party bacchanalia recalled enough of the Lost Paradise, and was sufficient to ease the return to normalcy.
But each year it gets harder. I knew this time would be a long and sucky road. Talking with some friends, we decided there was no better way than to return to the scene of our recent pyrodelic carnage.
Accordingly, BookBill, Schuyler and I left after work on Friday, arriving on Saturday at the deeply rutted entrance to Kuwait, er, Black Rock City. With all the desperate treads of deeply mired vehicles still in evidence by the Burning Man entrance/exit gate, it looked like the site of a recent battle. The wreckage and remnants of abandoned camps and half-destroyed artwork only heightened the unreality of the place
We passed a fellow who was working a special device to pull metal stakes out of the ground. It was apparently quite effective, for the back of his truck was loaded with them.
We brought bikes, which were useful for cruising around and collecting little bits of trash. Because of the rain that trapped many vehicles on the Tuesday after Burning Man, much of the garbage left behind was glued to the playa surface, hardening into the epidermal porcelain finish of the desert floor.
One especially disturbing bit of flotsam (and hard to peel off the playa) was the Wednesday edition of the Black Rock Gazette. Most of the front page of that edition had my digital fingerprints all over it. To find that a box of this newspaper had been left unattended and thus distributed to the four winds made me regret continuing to work in a paper-based medium. I must have picked up 20-30 copies in the area between the Esplanade and the orange trash fence.
Every heap of debris was different. One pile of lumpy ash was jammed with half-burnt copies of Penthouse and other smut publications. You would think that porn is a highly volatile, flammable material, but not so! Slick and vaseline-lensed magazines do not burn so easily–it’s more than a just a matter of closing their covers and striking. Here’s a bit advice to anyone wanting to burn print: next time, use kerosene, and let it soak in for a bit before lighting.
People need to learn about packing up their trash and taking it when they leave. Also, how to better burn their shit in the first place. If there are any pyrotech writers out there who want to pad their resume by doing a volume on HOW TO BURN REAL GOOD AT BUN-RING MAN--respond to dsblack@sirius.com!
The playa moonscape was pockmarked with a profusion of burnpits that were blackcrusted, dangerous indentations. I was able to fill in a few of the smaller holes–but larger ones either require a team with many shovels or a large earth-mover.
The three of us joined a group of guys from San Luis Obispo and another San Franciscan loading up a flatbed truck with the cindered remains of 15 or so piano carcasses. It was dangerous and dirty work. BookBill nearly lost a fingertip to one of the broken piano frames. Tetanus-dripping strings, sharp, rusty, unwieldy blocks of deadweight, these things were a nightmare to lift. Even after wrestling the crumbling harps onto the flatbed, hundreds of little screws and bolts were deposited in the playa requiring a magnet which none of us had to remove.
Besides the main concentration of pianos where Steve Heck left his Land Junk, we found a couple here, a couple there that also needed to have their thankless remains trucked out. Cursed be anyone who brought a piano to the playa and left it for others to deal with.
We were warned by the other piano movers how strange the clean-up crew was at 80 Acres. As most of the people who came out for the weekend were staying at 80 Acres (up the road past Fly Hot Springs) we decided to camp there as well. Black Rock City was just too depressing a trash heap to spend the night in.
Saturday evening, after putting up our tents, BookBill, Schuyler and I ventured down to the main gathering area where we heard that soup was on. Because the Dept. of Public Works was headquartered at 80 Acres, the ranch had amusing street signs, beginning with Avenue Road, followed by Street Street and–my favorite–Y Drive.
2. Welcome to the Monkeyhouse
"The girl can stay, you two can go," was how CircusBoy greeted us. BookBill brought our gifts forward, and started laying the bottles out on a table. The tequila bottle vanished almost instantaneously--there was no time for toasts, it was gone.
Unfortunately Schuyler was weirded-out by the scene of all these scruffy circus-folk, and that discomfort deprived us of her society. When one of the three young women who were there pointedly asked, "Who's she?" Schuyler decided it was time to return to our camp. Our arrival, two guys and one gal, must have upset a delicate social balance.
Bill and I lingered at center camp, having a bowl of borscht and getting the low-down on the clean-up effort. There was some irritation that the fellow nominally in charge of the clean-up had returned to San Francisco to do a gig. The Central Camp Coordinator [Ed: Joegh Bullock] who won this year's Donner Award for setting his own camp on fire, was also criticized for organizing a Decompression Party "when there is still so much cleaning up to do."
There were folks there who had been in the desert since before Burning Man, in many cases living in the desert for a month or more, singed by the sun and wild-eyed from staring too hard at the moon. Perhaps some of them were marking time, with nowhere else to go.
This was a new moon weekend, and I was sorry to hear we had just missed Playa Kitten and Miz Jewelz, who had both returned to California the day before we arrived. Will Roger–Mr. Clean–had been based at 80 Acres since mid-summer, and I saw him a few times, but somehow never got within talking distance. Regret not being able to congratulate him on the heroic accomplishments of his Dept. of Public Works, builders and now unbuilders of Black Rock City.
80 Acres was populated by weekend visitors like us, Black Rock rangers, DPW folks, and Pedal Camp layovers. Stencilled both at Pedal Camp and 80 Acres was the Ranger line of the year, heard on the radio:
WHAT'S
THE 20
ON THAT
DOGSHIT?
OVER.
followed by some even bigger question and exclamation marks.
Sunday morning came, and with it a church service that was unavoidable. Around 10 am, Reverend David Apocalypse stopped by our camp announcing that the service would begin in five minutes. Fifteen minutes later, an acolyte appeared with the same message. Eventually we cruised down in our van to center camp, ready to return to the playa for another day’s clean-up.
Schuyler was not especially thrilled to be back in the thick of this testosterone-rich environment, but allowed that church might be a chance to see these scruffy people at their Sunday best.
Taking no chances, we paused a little distance away to partake of our own private Sunday morning communion, before stumbling forward to take a seat under the church’s camo netting.
3. Non-Spectator Church
with the Right Reverend David Apocalypse
Apocalypse: [staticky loudspeaker, which quickly rises to earsplitting volume] Say Over, brother and sisters! [organ swells]
The Flock: Over! – Over! –and sisters!
Apocalypse: [stentorian voice] Before I start, I’d like to share with you an inspirational story. And no, this is not the story of who stole the Reverend’s lips. This is the story of a young man who– [volume suddenly decreases to comfort level]
Parishioner: –who turned down the megaphone!
Apocalypse: This is the story of a young man who had what it took, had what it took deep down inside of him. And believe me, me being the Reverend, I know what it takes to give something deep down inside a member of my flock. This is the story about a young man who had what it took deep down inside of him to rise up, rise up beyond the norm.
And the name of this man…was Igor Ignitor. Let me hear it for Igor Ignitor!
Flock: Over!–Over!–Is this over yet?
Apocalypse: Now you know there always has been an Igor Ignitor very much like Jesus-Christ-on-Earth, prepared to take over. We have a very special man here…one of the very first –
Parishioner: One of the first men?
Apocalypse: One of the very first Igors Ignitor. Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s have a great big Over and a great round of applause for Johnny Missiletow, also known as Igor Ignitor.
Flock: OVER…OVER…yay!
Apocalypse: Come here, Igor!
Johnny Missiletow/Igor: Fuck you!
Acolyte: Somebody stole the bottle rockets. We need a bottle rocket for the Igor Ignitor act!
Apocalypse: Mr Johnny, it’s time for you to do your duties
Acolyte: We really need a bottle rocket!
[a bottle rocket is produced]
Apocalypse: There is no giving it up. Once you are Igor Ignitor, you are always Igor Ignitor. Are we saying that you’re stepping down? We need another person to be Igor Ignitor. Who is it going to be? Who has what it takes deep down inside them to rise up to the occasion? You–you look like Igor Ignitor. You right there, the one looking behind you. Step right up here.
Me/Igor: Shit!
Apocalypse: All right–let’s hear it for Igor.
[cheers]
Apocalypse: You need to step up here–step right up here. OK, stand at 90 degrees…[bottle rocket is put into position to shoot from the new Igor’s ass and lit]
<skipping forward to the end of the service>
Apocalypse: All right, very seriously here, I feel it is important that we have, for our Brother Flash, a moment of sacred…fucking noise!
[loud pandemonium for Flash, who was injured in a shooting in Gerlach one week earlier]
All: Over!
Apocalypse: Let me tell you a few words–
[dog barks]
Apocalypse: Last week we tried to summon Larry Harvey down here. He was going to come down here on bare breasted sex goddess space ships. But instead, he just phoned. He called us on the phone, very upset about his bicycle.
Let me tell you a few things about Brother Larry. Larry Harvey can make you rich. Larry Harvey can give you sexual powers. Larry can make you more intelligent. Larry Harvey will give you eternal life.
Larry can do all these things. But he won’t. And do you know why he won’t?
Distraught Parishioner: Because we’re losers!
Apocalypse: He won’t because he’ll get you to do it for free, anyways. Let me hear an Over!
All: Over!
Apocalypse: Now of course this is Non-Spectator Church, so at this poiint in time, does anyone have anything else they’d like to add?
[silence]
Apocalypse: That’s it? This is the sorriest fucking Non-Spectator Church.
Ecstatic Parishioner: Say Hallelujah!
Apocalypse: –you people!
<snip>
Acolyte: Reverend Poxy Lips will now have his final closing statement.
Apocalypse: In closing I am going to very briefly reiterate what was said last week. Because there seems to be some question about whether there is a Us and a Them. It seems Sister Danger Ranger Michael/Michelle asked if there was a Us and a Them last night. He was absent from last week’s service, I might add! [menacing organ]
Sister Danger Ranger Michael/Michelle: But there’s always redemption. Always redemption!
Apocalypse: Not for you. You’re doomed. You’re doomed to fall into a burning ring of fire. You’re doomed to go down down down, and you won’t get high at all.
[organ]
Apocalypse: You want to know what the difference is between Us and Them?
Parishioner: What is the difference between Us and Them, over?
Apocalypse: The difference between Us and Them isn’t that We’re better looking than Them. It’s not that We’re richer than Them, it’s not that We’re smarter than Them. The difference between Us and Them is one very simple thing. The difference between Us and Them is that We can pray better than Them.
Parishioner: We’re US!
Apocalypse: This has been a production…brought to you by the number 666 and the letters LSD. Please do not attempt this church at home. God is everywhere, except with CircusBoy.
All: Over! Over! It’s over…
Apocalypse: Ladies and gentleman, let me have an Over.
All: Over!
Apocalypse: There will be a church anti-social commencing immediately.
All: Over!
[mangled organ/kazoo version of "Amazing Grace" closes the ceremony]
4. What We Left Behind
We were weekend anthropologists, picking through the refuse of an expired city. For a few short days Black Rock City was the fifth largest metropolitan area in the state, just below Elko in population. Now it was reduced to
Bits, bits, bits and more bits!
Pits–like the huge mud pit where the One Tree was.
An abandoned tent, with graffiti both inside and out. Over its zippered doorway, these spraypainted inscriptions:
Food Is For Pussies
Hear The Squeal
In The Desert
Your Only
True
Friend
is…
the
Dust
Baloon
As I rolled around on the floor with my camera, trying to record some of the strange, unlikely mural scribblings, I expected a suctioning vegetal vortex to rain digestive juice all over me.
Outside, there were bones, bones, and more bones
rolled up carpets
an empty box of BALANCE energy bars
giant green tentacles made out of foam
the Nebulous Entity
plastic tree twigs
a paper plate with an unlikely winter scene of happy snow family figures
Elvis! (of course) and other pins, beads fused in the playa
innumerable cigarette butts
bottle rockets
bottle caps, broken glass
a blob of molten plastic, several glasses and water jugs fused
together by fire
smut-stolen from Bianca's?-piles of it, here and there
burnt bedsprings and mattresses
cardboard boxes
flares and other pyrotechnic remains
and a huge pile of ash and broken glass where the Man burnt.
We left first thing Monday morning.
Passing through Gerlach, we saw a sign outside the Black Rock Saloon, which recalled the late great glory of Burning Man.
HONK IF U BURN
BLACK ROCK CITY
POP. 15000
GERLACH POP. 352
Mostly silent, we felt a strange mix of emotions: anger and resentment at the slobs who left their trash behind; wonder at the scale of the city we built and had now seen unbuilt. And awe that through everything, we were still humbled by the inexorable desert.
No doubt it would hold onto a few of our fragments, revealing them slowly as the seasons peel away the playa like layers of an onion. Perhaps a future civilization will some day find traces of our overlooked remains, and be amazed at the story they tell.