Part 2: Lost and Gone Forever

There is a 747 in the desert right now. I imagine it’s partially disassembled at this point, but I have to imagine that jumbo jet based art projects take several days to strike and remove.

I’m in the TSA line at this 747, I consider making a joke about having global entry but I think better of it. There is a German man in a full security outfit carefully examining each person that boards this plane. Finally it is my turn.

“Do you have any insecurities you want to declare?”

I had assumed this was some sort of performance art, a play on the security checkpoint, but I quickly realized he was asking me something far more personal. I saw a sign of things not allowed on the plane: fear, stress, hopelessness, inadequacy, dread.

I looked up at the man and told him what I was feeling.

“I’m afraid I’ll never measure up. I’ve spent the last ten years watching my peers zoom by me while I seem to be stuck.”

He waved a metal detector across my shoulders.

“Ah yes, I found your insecurities. They’re right here.”

He waves the metal detector at my heart.

“So what I’m going to do is take these from you. Then I want you to board the plane and check your emotional baggage, write down where it is you are trying to go and don’t worry about the bumps on the ride, you will get to your destination ok. But all your stress? I’m throwing it in this garbage can behind me and we’ll just leave it there OK?”

And like everyone else in Black Rock City, he gave me a hug, told me he loved me and to enjoy the rest of my burn…then I stepped inside a German 747 that someone had transported to a remote portion of desert about 50 miles from the Oregon border.

PART 2: LOST AND GONE FOREVER

Well we survived…

The dust storm was pretty violent but I kept my eye on Andrew’s back tire the whole way and followed the sound of his voice back to our camp. The British tea camp right next to us had completely collapsed and our tent was attempting to blow away, but the 12 inch rebar held.

It’s surreal watching a shade structure fly over your head into the deep abyss like a scene from 1997’s Twister, but the storm was as short as it was strong. The camps that were destroyed were rebuilt and before we knew what had hit us, the music began pulsing through the city again and a rainbow appeared on the horizon, some deity’s promise that we had been tested and we had passed. It was still early in the week and the worst was behind us, a beacon of hope moving forward.

In my newbie orientation, the instructor tried to give us a non-exhaustive list of things that can kill you in the desert.

-Dehydration (too little water)

-Water Poisoning (too much water)

-Exposure (the cold kind)

-Exposure (the hot kind)

-Death by art car

-Falling off something high

-Something high falling on you

-Fire

-Bad drugs

-Too many drugs

-Alcohol Poisoning

-Flying debris

-Lightning Strikes

-Heat stroke

-Cardiac Arrest

They gave us that list and stressed that this environment is actively trying to harm you, almost like the Fire Swamp in The Princess Bride: not on that list, wandering off.

I am a wanderer.

My first script I ever wrote was called ‘The Wanderer.’

My favorite OAR album…The Wan- you get it…like a feral cat, sometimes I just start walking in a certain direction. I could be following a song, or a light structure, a smell or anything that seems interesting.

On this particular night, while out with the Aspen kids at a bar at 4:30 and F, I was in search of…a bathroom.

Normally when you are on a night out with your friends, the bathroom is in the bar. Burning Man is not a normal night out with friends, and the bars while prevalent, tend not to have bathrooms.

I walked out of the bar and took a right, or maybe it was a left. Someone had given me a pie earlier in the day and told me it was special, but now HOW special. Next I saw some girls taking Jell-o shots at a small camp, they asked me if I wanted to join them. Now I don’t live my life by many rules but if you are far from home and a group of young women offer you Jell-o shots, you say yes.

It was probably 30 minutes before I realized I was roaming around aimlessly again, I had lost my friends, the Jell-o shot girls and still hadn’t managed to find a bathroom…but I suppose at Burning Man you are never truly lost until you are found.

“Dave!” (or honestly maybe he was just saying 'Hey!')

I look up at someone that seems vaguely familiar. He’s standing on a bus, or is it a boat? It’s a large structure with wheels and it is so bright that it can probably be seen from space.

“Get on the bus!”

I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t worry about my bike or the bathroom or my friends where I was supposed to be…I am where I am supposed to be, this bus. So I got on.

I sat on a bench next to two guys and two chicks and one handed me a drink.

“We’re going on a bass crawl.”

I looked around the bus, it had a full dance floor, a fully functional bar, a DJ booth and 40-50 people hanging out at small tables on the fringes.

A captain of some sort yells ‘All aboard’ in an old timey voice and the ship sets sail for port. The art car makes its way toward the Esplanade toward the deep playa where the legendary sound camps Questionmark, Robot Heart, Distrikt and Mayan Warrior.

I don’t remember what we talked about on that ship/bus for five hours. I know that at one stop we pulled parallel to a giant ball pit and I did a Scrooge McDuck dive off the top of the bus.

I know at Distrikt someone handed me a Super Soaker full of beer to hose down the crowd from the stage. I know that at Camp Questionmark I told one of the schedulers that I was a famous Drum and Bass act known as Fuck Buttons and that I was trying to get a last minute set time. He told me that he had heard of me and to come back tomorrow night and he would get me in.

We ended the night at Robot Heart, I was dancing on top of a cage with a beautiful woman from Hong Kong and she looked into my eyes and simply said ‘you can kiss me if you want.’

As the son began to rise my new friends and I exchanged names and camp locations but we all knew that this was the end. That is the magic of burning man, a relationship can burn so intensely bright and then be lost and gone forever.

Suddenly I was alone again, staring off into the distant horizon of which my campground waited for me a solid three miles away.

Not ready to begin the long trek home I found a camp called Hugzilla. It’s a camp full of trampolines and 6 foot teddy bears, I crawled onto one of the trampolines and cuddled a couple bears; it just felt right in the moment.

A couple hours later the hot sun started to pour over me and I summoned the energy necessary to make the odyssey back to 315 and H. I walked through the deep desert past the likes of the Trash Fence where there was a Daft Punk party going, or who knows, maybe this year the people in the costumes actually WERE Daft Punk performing together for the first time in 10 years and I was just too zonked out to notice.

I zombied past the temple, the Man at center camp and even a Tycho sunrise concert that was full of people who looked like they had been up for 48 hours straight, but they didn’t seem to mind.

When I got back close to camp, a group of runners blew past me, I couldn’t help but sit down and laugh. Of course, this was the day of the Burning Man ultra marathon. Some people come here to party, some people come here for polyamorous love and apparently some people come here to prove that they can run 50km in the desert heat. Suddenly my drunken stumble home doesn’t seem so daunting.

I lay my head down at about 8am knowing full well that it’s going to be too oppressively hot to sleep in about an hour, but I crawl into the tent anyway and close my eyes. Andrew is there already so I can rest easy that there isn’t a search party out looking for me. I think past a certain point out here you just have to let people find their own way. I close my eyes and I see nothing, but the music still pulsates throughout my soul. I survived another night at the burn.

 And now a multiple choice test to get you in my mindset!!!

1.     After waking up and realizing that you have just partied for 24 hours straight, slept for 48 minutes and haven’t eaten a full meal in two days you…

A.     Decide to take it easy today, listen to your body, don’t overdo it.

B.     Find a nap camp to spend your morning, misters, a hammock, shade, that sounds good about right now!

C.     Find a camp that is serving a hearty breakfast, all that exploring on an empty stomach can catch up to you.

D.    Any combination of A, B and C.

E.     Holy shit is that a camp doing morning beer bongs?!?!?!

2.     You drunkenly lost your Burning Man mug last night, this was both the cup that your drinks were poured into while visiting camps AND the device that held a photocopy of your ID. Naturally you…

A.     Find that mug!!!!

B.     Find another copy of your ID and attach it to an old Gatorade bottle or something, BOOM! New mug.

C.     Stop worrying about alcohol facilitation, you should be in search of bacon and a good nap.

D.    There is a wiffle ball bat in your tent, saw off the end and Louisville Chugger every drink the rest of the weekend, strangers will think you’re awesome. Tape your actual ID to your backpack or something.

3.     Finally, what are we going to do about that missing bike? It’s locked up at 430 and E, about a mile away.

A.     Walk by yourself to go get it, a morning stroll could wake you up.

B.     Wait until your camp mate wakes up and walk with him, you don’t want to get separated again.

C.     Take your campmates bike to get your bike and then ghost ride one of them back. WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Well, if you answered literally anything other than E, D, C you passed! But you already know what I did right? When a camp jokingly asked me if I was trying to steal a bike on my way back I flipped out and went down, leading to a badly mangled foot.

Bonus Question: What did I do about that mangled foot?

A: Treat it with first aid ya dummy.

B. Throw a sock on it and forget about it.

How did I survive this trip again?

Ok, where were we?

Wednesday. It is Wednesday, halfway through. Only half way? My God…time both flies and drags at Burning Man. I simultaneously feel like I just got here and I’ve been here all my life.

As much as I draw out certain experiences for comedic effect, it’s important to know that the best part of Burning Man often lies in the quiet moments; it’s the moment a 35 year old Ukranian woman figures out that she has eliminated you from NeverSleepAgain’s Connect Four tournament, it’s the time you dominate a foosball table at a gay bar called Playa 54 for a full hour, it’s that time that you’re walking home and you stumble upon a mini golf course called ‘Slut Putt’ and decide that your life simply cannot continue without playing a full round.

I shot a 31, Andrew show a 27. For my troubles I had to do a naked lap around the course and then allow one of the ladies of Slut Putt to paddle me three times.

THWACK!!!!

Nothing.

THWACK!!!!!!!!!!!

Nothing.

THHHHHHWWWWWWWWAAAAAACKKK!!!!!!!11!

“Jeez dude, I feel like you’ve been paddled before.”

Maybe once or twice.

As fun as it is to throw bananas at the Mario Kart camp, or to climb the Thunderdome and feed your inner bloodlust…as cool as it is to find the American Ninja Warrior course set up at 9 and B and prove once and for all that you CAN CAN’T actually do what you see on TV…as much fun as it is to throw yourself from an Australian rope swing carousel and laugh as you let go skipping across the playa dirt, hoping you didn’t suffer any broken ribs; the one thing I will always remember from Burning Man is the people.

I’ll remember Angela and her sister from Reno whom I had a perfectly normal conversation with in the nude during a group shower. It’s their 7^th burn, they brought their parents last year. Angela is gorgeous and I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I did accept her invitation back to her Sake theme camp. Maybe we would take a bunch of sake bombs and exchange numbers. Maybe some day she would come to Los Angeles and I would take her on a date, a totally normal activity made slightly less normal due to the fact that we met naked? I think I have a newfound respect for the Martin Freeman subplot of Love Actually.

I’ll remember eating Jambalaya with ‘Mama Bear’ who told me she came to Burning Man to spread her mother’s ashes. What a fitting tribute.

And I’ll remember Hamish…Oh God Hamish….

So Wednesday night, we find ourselves in the deep playa at a Table Service bar. We were there to witness a 10 million dollar art car called Mayan Warrior (allegedly funded entirely by drug money) when we stumbled upon a night club in the middle of nowhere.

A Frenchman asks for our names…

“I’m Big Wave and this is Drew”

Ah yes, I see right here on the list. Your table is almost ready.

After waiting 10 minutes or so we are sat with three Australians.

“We’ve been waiting for you guys all night,” They crow.

*Note: We have never seen these people before in our lives

They introduce themselves as a rag tag group from Melbourne, tell us camps we need to hit the next day. After an hour or so of pleasantries it comes out that Andrew and I are from Los Angeles and work in entertainment leading Hamish to give us his film pitch…and let me tell you, you have not lived until you have workshopped a film treatment with a tripping Australian in the desert for three hours.

We head back to our camp around a quarter til 6 and Andrew looks back at me.

“It’s not that bad of an idea you know. Think he’ll actually email us?”

I dunno if he will, but if he does I already have an outline saved on my computer as EDM Fantasia.DOCX.

Halfway through the burn I was totally in, I was already making plans for next year. I’ll bring an RV, perhaps run a simple bar, a Fireball bar! Come to Dave’s Fireball bar and tell stories about stupid shit you did in your 20’s or 30’s for that matter.

What I do know is that I have become a believer, in people, in positivity, in love. I don’t know who I will be when I return from this trip but I know exactly who I am now, and it’s approaching the best version of myself. Out here I do not worry about my shortcomings, about the fact that after my pilot crashed and burned I’ve been basically wallowing in my own misery and relying on the charity of others for the past 9 months.

No out here I’m just a happy-go-lucky guy with hair so crusty I’m afraid it’s about to literally start breaking off. But I was thinking about cutting it anyway, right? If that’s the worst of my worries, everything is going to be ok…that was until Thursday of course.

Because on Thursday everything changed…