How I Got to Burning Man 2006
Or
Hope and Fear and Loathing in Reno
Or
Geta Grip!
I fell out of the sky and crashed in the desert. I took a deep breath, linked twice, and assessed that I was in an airport in Reno Nevada. I had spend the past half year or so prior on the Big Island of Hawaii, an odyssey of adventure, ordeal, exploration and discovery. While on a quest to find enlighened psychedelic societies, and alternative sources of fuel and energy, I instead had my hands full encountering bizarre island people, crazy communes, cults and covens, corrupt cops, scheming industrialists, crank outbreaks (and outbursts), disenfranchised natives, zombie hippies and 'green' ghettos. Not the Hawaii that the tourists see, to say the least. Considering the circumstances I felt fortunate to escape with my life... although what were my chances of survival in a foreign city in the desert with only my backpack, about $40 and my quite frazzled but still functioning wit? And what the hell was I doing in this God forsaken city of Reno Nevada? Oh yeah, my Quest: Burning Man or Bust.
I had been traveling for the past year altogether, originating from a small former mill-town in Maine known and denounced for producing world famous horror novelists (with all the inherent pleasantness that implies).
Escaping the east coast with all of its rigidity and plastic, unimaginative dominator system values had been high on the agenda for me for quite some time, and now I was out the door, on the road and making it happen.
It was a trip to find a culture and community of explorers and searchers, psychonauts and oneironauts, artists and actualizers: a psychedelic society where people were free and happy to be, wherever that might be. It was my quest to find this. So I set off alone seeking the others, and in a year of exploring I had traveled and lived in British Columbia Canada, the Bay Area of California, Southern California and a bit of Mexico, and Hawaii before arriving where I was, at an airport in Reno. One of my biggest regrets in that time was that I had not started out the year prior by going first to Burning Man, a huge psychedelic art festival in the desert of Nevada.
After attending and participating in a Burning Man themed after-party on the streets of San Francisco called the Decompression in Oct 2005, I swore to myself, no matter where I was in the world, no matter what the circumstance, there was no way I was going to miss Burning Man 2006.
A week prior to the event, I was an ocean away in Hawaii, gathering whatever resources I could scrap together in an effort to get off the island and to the Party. It looked like I would have just enough money to get a plane ticket to Nevada and a ticket to get inside the gates of Black Rock City ($300). As fate (or whatever) would have it, a good deal of my stuff was ripped off by some green-ghetto trash zombie parasite hippie (or something), leaving me with no tent, less clothes, and now only the funds to barely pay for a plane ticket. A savage burn on an island that had been lava scorching me for months. I had to escape while I had the chance, so I took off and hoped fortune would be kinder back on the mainland, and I would somehow find a way.
So there I was, in Reno, a completely unfamiliar city to me, 100 or so miles away from Black Rock. I had heard that there was a head shop that sold tickets in town, but it was late evening when I arrived and it would surely be closed. There was no way I could even afford a motel this night, so I came up with an on the fly hare-brained scheme to hang out at a casino all night until the head shop opened the next day. Then, in a crowd in the distance, I saw a shock of pink hair: quite out of place in the straight-laced Reno scene. I investigated and my instincts were correct. Pink hair and her boyfriend were Burners from San Francisco. I spoke with them briefly; they were a cool enough thirty-something couple heading in early to set up their soundstage. I had a sudden vision... I could probably hitch a ride with them to the gate and somehow get a ticket there (or ask them for an extra). But I rejected this notion; it didn't feel quite right, not quite my idiom:
It would be too easy, and where's the fun and adventure and radical self-reliance in that?
I managed to get to the Reno Hilton hotel for free by craftily taking a courtesy shuttle reserved for gamers (Nevada-speak for gamblers), which I convinced the driver I most certainly was (hey, I'm always Game). Appraising the situation I saw the large casino floor of the hotel where I decided I would pull an all-nighter, pretending to gamble, while I waited for the head shop to open.
Many hours passed in the faux glitz and blinking gold plastic light glamor of slot machines, blackjack tables and bad tinny music, all the while getting the 'you ain't from around here, are ya, boy?' look from the drunk gambling rednecks in cowboy hats and their fat wives, humping the American Dream. I was a pilgrim in an unholy land, a freak in a town of straight weirdoes. The spirit (or ghost) of Hunter S. Thompson was ignited in me as I decided to play this up for all it was worth. I played the nickel slots just enough to score some free booze from the waitresses. Now buzzing, the idea came to me I could win enough cash for a ticket Run Lola Run style by betting on the roulette table. Come on 20 Black! ... 3 Red. Shit! ...Maybe I should have screamed like in the movie... $5 lighter, I vowed I would not let this place of blinking lights hypnotize me into further chump moves.
Around 3 in the morning I was fading fast. There was no way I could make it another seven hours or so without a nap at least. The lounge with its luxurious sofas looked very tempting. No! I thought, Sleeping would be just enough of an excuse for the swine security to sic the hounds on this longhaired freak and kick my ass to the curb. And yes, I was at that point thinking in H.S.T. mannerisms (it made it more fun). Ah, sleep deprivation, that wonderfully unnatural natural altered state. I needed somewhere to crash before I collapsed. I splashed cold water on my face and neck, walked around the hotel... to no avail, only delaying the inevitable. I had to find somewhere that I could sleep for a couple of hours, until the breakfast buffet opened, undisturbed, where roving security wouldn't spot me. A kitchen, a broom closet, anywhere. Then I found the place I knew no one else would be: the basement Wedding Chapel.
I got just enough sleep in the lobby of the shrine where Holy Matrimony was consecrated, in a basement of a casino, to recharge the batteries. I ate my fill and then some of the non-meat selections at the cheap All-American Gamers' Breakfast Buffet, and got thoroughly goosed on coffee. Yet, I wasn't quite ready: I wasn't going to just tell my story of being ripped off to the head shop clerk and beg for a miracle ticket. Or, if I was, I was at least going to do it in style: with my Freak-Flag waving high, attired in my full Burning Man Playa-wear costume, a kind of future Space Samurai, complete with my untried piece de resistance; my Geta.
These custom-made (by me) Japanese-style wooden sandals with an underside reinforced by thin steel plates (cuz you never know when you need to parry a sword attack with a well timed kick in Nevada) were what set my Future-American-Amalgamated-Warrior-Ronin costume apart. While other in Black Rock City dressed in quite extravagant, flamboyant, outrageous, hardcore, out-there, made their outer attire part of their inner art, while they could look the look and talk the talk, I quite literally had to walk the walk. There is a Japanese saying that, "You don't know until you have worn geta." meaning, "You can't tell the results until the game is over," and nothing could be closer to the truth for me as I launched out into the streets of Reno in these awkward and unwieldy footwear.
As I was getting quite a few sidelong 'What the hell?' glances, my first few steps though the city were uncertain and insecure. "What am I doing?" [clump clump (sound of the steps of the geta on pavement)] "I look ridiculous." [clump-clump] {Slip!} "Damn!" [clump] Then, I called upon my inner focus and resolve by recalling the stoic nature of Jin. Let the outside environment be ignored, concentrate on the task at hand. With a focused, intense look on my face, I developed a rhythm that carried me across the sidewalks with few falters, and quick recoveries. Per-clenk, per-clenk, went the more confident steps.
As the blocks and miles went past, I felt a new force enter me. One of pride and exhilaration. Here I was, walking in geta, through crowds of 'normals' in Reno, who couldn't hold a torch to my actions. And I was having a blast!
With an ear-to-ear grin and with a inner heat that bested the scorching Nevada sun, I let out a battle cry. Accepting the Mugen consciousness, I tore down the streets like I owned them with my newly developed Geta-Swagger!
Wher-Clank! Wher-Clank! Wher-Clank! Wher-Clank!
With this momentum, I entered the head shop, briefly told my story to the clerk, and told him I needed a ticket and a ride to Black Rock City, with nothing in my voice, stance or beliefs betraying the notion for one second that these desires weren't going to be met; not in a mean demanding way, but that I had earned the right. He nodded, and did me the favor: he gave me the number of a guy in the neighboring town who hosted international travelers at his home for a week before and after the event, who could help me out. I was going to Burning Man!
