Burning Man 1996: Personal Memoirs | Andy Savage
by Andy Savage
It wasn't until the three rolls of photos came back from the developer that I felt prepared to begin setting this text down in a readable format. I'm still not sure what really happened out in the desert over Labor Day weekend, but I AM sure that I'll never feel settled about it until I try and make sense of some of the memories with these words.
I was a virgin. I'd been to various festivals in years past, including some surprisingly ecstatic pagan gatherings and numerous Crash Worship shows, but was timid about what might be found in the Black Rock Desert. The timidity was probably a good thing, as it served to hold myself and the other three people in my traveling clan down for the first 24 or so hours until we got a feel for the unreality of the situation. After our acclimation period, I can't be sure if I even blinked once.
PHYSICAL ORGANIZATION
I had never driven on a playa before. A few miles outside of Gerlach, Nevada signs ushered our vehicle off the road and onto a little sandy staging area where our tickets were checked and we were asked if we had enough supplies (read : water). We were given a map of the main camps and a copy of today's newspaper, THE BLACK ROCK GAZETTE. At that point we were instructed to check our odometer and compass, and to drive twelve miles straight ahead, then two more miles to the right. We were heading right into the middle of the Black Rock desert. Driving on the cracked-sand surface of the playa is unsettling. Driving on a flat plane alongside equally confused cars where there are no lanes or speed limits is also unsettling. Being unable to see ahead of you due to dust storms caused by vehicles on intersecting paths to yours only adds to the experience. But we made the fourteen mile journey safely, my blue 4x4 truck now a sandy off-white color due to the dust.
It seemed impossible to determine if what we were seeing was THE camp or just ONE camp or what, because in between every clump of tents was a huge expanse of land that could have been intended for others to fill-in later, or to deliberately leave empty and provide a physical barrier between the various camps. If we could only locate one or two points on the playa that we could match to the map, we might know where to camp. No luck and it was eventually decided that we must give-in to the chaos (probably the BEST decision possible). This was Thursday afternoon and we found out later that most of the indicating signs wouldn't go up until Friday. No matter, because somehow we chose a near-perfect spot close to the main circle, the main stage, and a row of surprisingly-clean Sani-Huts. We set up camp, complained about the dust and the heat, and somehow lasted until the evening when it started to get cooler.
Burning Man 96 was unconsciously organized into three functional regions. The first area was the main camp. Here you could find:
Community bulletin board -- a huge sprawling collection of vertical plywood where you could find/post info on ANY aspect of the festival, and much much more. I spent a fair amount of time looking for URL's, personal ads, and offers of free massages. I had a little luck with the URL search.
Main stage -- an elevated stage with a surprisingly good sound system which hosted spoken word, musical acts, and variety shows each night of the festival. A schedule was published in the GAZETTE.
The Man -- actually located about half a mile away, on land that was deliberately kept free of any camps or other detritus. He kept appearing and disappearing on the horizon throughout the entire festival as he was pulled-down for corrections/additions and then replaced. At night he glowed either blue, white, or yellow with neon tubes embedded in his body.
Parachute main camp -- If there WAS a center, this was it. The 30-foot scaffolding that defined this structure was covered with a series of green parachutes, providing plenty of shade under which people congregated during the 110 degree days. You could actually BUY things here. There was a coffee shop which either had no coffee or no espresso whenever I tried to order. Most ordered theirs ICED and were often denied. I believe it was Saturday when a table was erected selling T-shirts, buttons, postcards, and hats.
The second region was the Techno Ghetto, or Rave Camp. This was an outlying area about two miles from main camp where anywhere from five to seven mini techno islands sprang-up at dusk to bring their flavor of electronic dance music to anyone fearless enough to make the trek out there. It may be a falsehood, but to me it seemed the islands were organized by the SPEED of music they played. You could find everything from a slow hip-hop beat all the way to a brain-freezing gabber attack simply by meandering around the mile-long loop that made up the Ghetto. It was apparent that three of the islands were much better funded than the others, as they had speaker walls, intellibeams, and lasers. In short, you could determine their sponsor's bankroll by the size of their generator.
The final region had no specific GEOGRAPHIC area, as you could find it everywhere else. These were the camps. I'll discard the plain camps (like my own) where people just slept and hung-out, but suffice it to say that there were TONS of them. The Theme Camps were where it all went down. The Seemen Camp. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The Irrational Geographic Society. Water Woman. Lost Vegas. MudHenge. Too many to name, and even too many to see! Each of the major camps had been organized around a specific theme. They were run by regular Burning Man atendees like everybody else (read : no payment for their services) but they were at Burning Man to DO SOMETHING.. Perhaps they were going to organize a siege of main camp with a sonic barrage from the Art Cars. Maybe they were going to hold a circus consisting only of freaks and geek tricks. Create Mud People and then hose them down. Have robot wars. Hold a pagan drumming circle. Or maybe they would just figure it all out as it came to them. Wandering the camps made up the bulk of my daylight hours (aside from endless people watching). I honestly don't think that during my three and a half day stint I saw nearly everything
PLAYA CONDITIONS
I don't think I can say too much other than what the 'sanctioned' Survival Guide says. Its about 100-110 degrees during the day and about 60-65 degrees at night. One's body is not used to dealing with such temperature extremes, and the climate definitely caused me angst at times. Its very dry and you MUST drink until you piss clear. There is a sense of isolation from the real world, largely due to the fact that you can't SEE the real world. Not even a building. The hazy outline of the surrounding mountains are all you can detect when looking beyond the confines of the desert.
I will bring more water next time. We made sure to follow the one gallon per person per day rule and it worked well. But I want more. Unless you have experienced such extreme dehydrating conditions, it is hard to imagine what a bit of water can do for your mood. I want to be able to pour liquid over my hair, hands, and face until I feel clean. I want to be able to rinse out my cup so I can get more stale coffee. And I want to squirt water onto innocent passersby. Other than that, following the survival guide got us out of all the unforeseen jams.
THE DAY
Wake up stiff to the sweltering morning heat. Initially have the urge to defecate until the realization hits that there is no waste in the body due to minimal food intake. Wipe sand out of eyes and jump around to awaken limbs. InstaCoffee in plastic cup with neutral-temperature water. A few cups later and it is possible to put contacts into eyes. Other three people crawl stiffly from tents, complaining. Must urinate. Piss on the far side of camp, notice that urine smells of coffee. Eat some bread, and accept today's GAZETTE from a giddy shotgun-toting Disgruntled Postman. Thus begins another day on the playa.
Once everyone in my party was up, I would generally try and coerce one or more of them to go exploring with me. I was often the first awake, so at times no one wanted to venture far and I would get restless. Eventually I would find myself on my bike or on foot, traveling wide-eyed through the temporary city of extreme freaks in the middle of the desert. My trusty camera, compass, and Civil War hat were with me everywhere.
I visited the Airplane camp, where private aircraft were coming and going constantly. The playa seems to be a great landing strip. When stationary, the pilots and their crew would throw tarps and tents over their planes' wings to provide shade and a sense of HOME. Elsewhere another glorified transportation medium could be found : the Art Cars. Sixty or so dedicated motorists had brought their vehicles with them and established a spot near main camp to park. These cars were more their owner's canvases than their mode of transportation. Hundreds of tiny brass statues were bolted to an old cruiser, making it look like a steel porcupine with quills of the trashiest statues available. The giant Virgin Mary on the hood helped to cement this image in my mind. There was a Honda scooter that had been reborn as an aardvark. And another that was a bunny rabbit. A pirate ship that was really an RV; a huge Gumby doll steering from the top of the rigging. There was a VW bus with a VW bug as its roof. The bug really WAS a bug, having been sculpted to resemble one of the typewriter beasts seen in Cronenberg's NAKED LUNCH. Most were apparently street legal and mechanically sound, as their siege on main camp left an impression of real terror on all who were there to witness it.
The Seeman and Plunder situated themselves far out near The Man, probably to minimize complaints from any neighbors due to the constant buzz of activity (and power tools) at all hours. The Seeman were preparing for a rock-em-sock-em robot war in the style of Survival Research Labs. They had a few mechanical monsters equipped with flame throwers, some with stabbing implements, and various other items of destruction to unleash when the time was right. When they finally pulled the ripcord on Saturday night, an entire 'American mall' was destroyed, complete with a Taco Bell spoof, a huge red tower filled with incendiaries, a department store with skeleton models, and a slew of other stuff that sounded EXQUISITE as it was demolished. Fire, screeching, and unending chaos filled the playa for HOURS when that went off. Plunder staked-off an area deemed Plundertown and started constructing a life-sized version of the game Mousetrap. There was a bathtub suspended by a steel pipe, giant chutes of sheet metal, and all the other items the game entailed constructed out of junk metal on the playa. A bowling ball was the key to setting the game in motion. Unfortunately I never witnessed this in action, but saw the construction site, and was left invigorated by it.
Someone decided to haul thirty or so old pianos to the playa. They were broken-open and all nailed together, forming a musical instrument the size of a convenience store. People could bang on the exposed cords, while others could get inside the structure to witness one of the most disharmonious and eerie musical sounds imaginable. I was told the entire structure was eventually burned, but did not actually witness the event.
The oasis at Burning Man, both physically and psychologically, was the region containing Water Woman. This was a huge pyramid, shaped from PVC pipe, garden hose, and shower heads through which water would be pumped four times a day. There was a sex doll tied to the apex of the pyramid with a particularly strong spray of water coming from her crotch region (thus the name Water Woman). At 12, 3, 5, and 7 each day the Mud People would converge at the structure and play in the playa mud (still wet from the previous shower) until the valve was opened and streaming water rinsed them off. The image of happy naked people covered in white mud underneath the Water Woman, is not one that I will soon forget. After being doused myself, it was a truly monumental experience to shiver and BE COLD for a few moments after spending so much energy hiding from the heat. Once again, an abundance of water is more than what it seems in the desert.
As I mentioned, there were literally too many camps to see. I could detail many more, each with their own particular quirk, but I feel the few I've mentioned above represent the general quality of what one might find in abundance at a Burning Man experience.
As the first perceptible changes in the degree of light and heat were noticed, I would head back to my camp to watch the sunset over the desert. Due to all the dust in the air (I guess), the sunsets were a brilliant red, and would light-up the sky like no other atmospheric phenomena I can remember. One evening, I took a picture of one of these sunsets, and the ensuing photograph was exceedingly disappointing. There are simply too many hues and contrasts to be registered by a blunt tool like my camera. And as seems to happen quite often, the sunset led to...
THE NIGHT
The night was considerably more surreal than the day. I have solid memories of what I saw and did, but do not have the distinct time-sense to place it all in, as I do with my memories from the daylight hours. At dusk, candles would be lit on a series of posts in main camp. These would stay lit through the night, acting as lanterns. Along with the full moon, they provided plenty of light if you stayed in their vicinity. Were you to venture elsewhere (perhaps along the two mile trek to the Techno Ghetto) everything was as pitch black as you might expect. Small twinkling lights could be made-out in the distance, but without any stationary structures to use as guides, navigation could be tricky, to say the least. For this reason, flashlights and compasses were a must when venturing out at night.
Our camp was near the main stage, where various performances could be seen nightly. It was possible to gauge my own interest level in whatever was going on there by listening for a moment from our camp, and decide if I wanted to walk over based on that. However, I think there were some weird acoustic distortions going-on, as a few times when I would casually pass by in front of the speakers, the music would sound ceaselessly excellent and I would stop and enjoy it, without having a clue as to what I was listening to. This makes me think that the overall level of organized entertainment on the main stage was probably quite good, when in fact I only watched a few acts from start to finish. The stage was active until at least 2a or so each night, and I found it very pleasurable to return from my journeys and still find a live concert going on with an active and dedicated crowd.
Many of the theme camps held nightly activities, too. The Seeman's spectacle happened after dark, as did the burning at the Gates of Hell (entrance to the industrial region), and of course The Man Himself burned at night, but that's another story altogether. Wandering randomly one night, I happened upon a performance being put on by the Cirkus Kamp. The ringmaster was a gorgeous blond woman dressed in a leotard, waistcoat, top hat, knee-high boots, and a huge black strap-on dildo. She was abusing the crowd with her megaphone when I joined the scene and soon the freak show began. There was a man who hammered a long screwdriver into his nasal cavity through a nostril, and then withdrew it, acting (or not) that it was quite painful the entire time. Also, there was a man of rubber who, after grotesquely limbering-up, proceeded to pass his entire body through the open mouth of a tennis racket, by dislocating joint after joint until it had gone from his head to his feet. All of this was accompanied by the disgusted noises of the frantic crowd and the disharmonious score provided by the Cirkus' marching band. Needless to say, the entire experience was exceedingly surreal due to its setting in the middle of a desert wasteland.
It has been a few years since I considered myself a PART of rave culture. Thus it was with a bit of trepidation that I accompanied my clan to the rave camps on the each of the nights of our Burning Man experience. Here I spent the majority of my nights dancing, wandering, listening, watching, and dodging others doing the same. The music in ALL cases was some of the best I'd heard. Is this the level of DJ excellence I can expect at most rave parties? I honestly don't think so. The music was complex, well-mixed, and continuous. New sounds and rhythm structures were not uncommon, and I doubt ANYONE could refer to the majority of it as 'the same old techno'. There were many choices as to which camp to linger at, and eventually I made my way to all of them. Two camps in particular (I believe the Spaz and CCC camp) had statues of aliens (one human sized, and the other thirty feet tall), mirroring a common theme in much of techno culture. There were generators everywhere, cabling underfoot, and motivated dancers wherever you looked. I have been to outdoor raves before in the Rocky Mountains, but dancing on the floor of a dry lake bed in the middle of nowhere was a distinctly new experience.
Half the fun of the Techno Ghetto was getting there and getting back. The first night we were bold, and decided two miles was not too far to walk. We got lost. By the time we reached the outskirts of the Ghetto, I estimated we had walked over three miles in the dark over unfamiliar terrain. I was unsure if I should feel courageous or silly at this feat. We caught a ride home in the open back of a pickup truck going about 30mph too fast, while the driver tried to have a yelling match conversation with us from the cab. The next night I taped my flashlight to my bike's handlebars and set out for a trek into the nether regions. Riding on the playa at night with a poor head lamp is one of the more disorienting experiences I can remember in a long time. My inclination was that every few feet I would hit an unseen obstacle and fly over the handlebars. But since the floor is featureless, this never happened and I successfully made it there and back. The third night we decided to hitchhike, and caught a ride sitting on the back of a convertible already filled with people, our legs hanging over the rear bumper and dangling inches above the playa surface. The way back we stumbled into a sedan with three drunk people, who first tried to convert us to Mormonism, then decided to yell out the window at everyone we passed about Santa Claus and Indians. I was more than excited by the time we got back to camp.
THE BURNING
After all, what are we here for? Let's burn this thing! By the time Sunday night came, it seemed the entire festival was restless and out for wicker. We wanted some fire, and we got it. Let me preface the following descriptions by saying that due to my preference of celebration in the spirit of Dionysis, as seen in Crash Worship performances and active war zones, I do not agree with the policing that went on during the Burn, even if it WAS for safety reasons. The whole ceremony would have been better if some unaware drunk guy HAD been set on fire, rather than having to put-up with people yelling at everyone to stay back.
A bunch of hay bales had been arranged carving out a circle with a 100 foot radius around the Man. People began gathering at dusk, somehow arranging entirely OUTSIDE the circle, as if there were signs telling them where to station themselves. At around 9p a series of mini-processions began in the inner region of the circle. Some of the various camps strolled around touting their particular kink; people were dressed, painted, and otherwise adorned to reflect the 'frenzy' that the crowd was supposed to be feeling. Most stayed firmly planted on their butts. I believe the main failing in the processions was the conspicuous lack of music. There was a minimal marching band of sorts, but they never seemed to be loud enough (or interesting enough) to warrant much response. With the proper application of sonic inspiration and flaming objects, I feel the entire situation would have been a bit more conducive to what would follow.
Eventually I saw something that made me very happy. A man was strapping a flame-thrower unit onto his back. He lit the pilot and positioned himself near a huge pile of hay bales. A group of people mounted the platform the Man stood on and lit His feet on fire. Instantly, the explosive charges lacing the Body went off in rapid succession. The neon bulbs went out and were replaced by brilliant flame as He was consumed from the ground-up. During all this excitement the flame-thrower guy had been busy. There were a series of huge bonfires raging as the hay stacks were ignited. Finally, the crowd found its feet and surged forward, only to be met with resistance from men with bullhorns and big lungs (and in some cases, stilts!) "Stay away from the Man! You do not want him to fall on you!" Yes I do. We stayed back until He collapsed, at which point the fire had grown SO hot as to make Him unapproachable. I turned to one of the hay stacks, and noticed that someone had placed a huge wooden piece of toast next to it. The toast was getting very brown, and I noticed that there was real toast all over the ground. I started picking up handfuls and flinging it into the fire, onto others, in the air, wherever. I saw the flame-thrower come off the man's back. The Burn was over and I didn't even get my eyebrows singed.
REFLECTIONS
Burning Man 96 was the best festival I've ever been to. Some may dispute that it was a festival at all, but any gathering of people all bent on experiencing hard survival conditions, music, drugs, fire, art, and whatever else comes their way, conjures the word 'festival' in my mind more than any other.
Burning Man was uncomfortable. It was scary. It was unsettling. It was pointless. And it was unnecessary. On the other hand, anything that makes me feel so desperate has GOT to be a good experience. That which does not kill me only makes me stronger. The festival was enlightening due to the unbridled artistic energy that went into it. It was vindictive that something so nonconformist could draw such a mass of people. It took you away from your normal life more than any drug could ever hope to. But best of all, it made you honestly wonder, "What the hell is going on?"
Next year I will not be a virgin. But I am not naive enough to think I'll know what to expect, either. To combat some of the feelings of displacement and confusion, I plan on displaying an outpouring of artistic energy, and helping to perpetuate the extreme chaos and beauty I discovered in 96. Burning Man is the type of festival that infects you to the core. No matter how painful and needless the experience may be, it is impossible to deny a return journey the following year.
Andy Savage