Burning Man: American Dream

The Jack’d crew and many friends made it to the wasteland city that is Burning Man. The plan was to build a skim pit, drive the company R.V, and paint and decorate the massive eight foot skimboard. However, our plan was foiled except for the giant skimboard, as we could not get a press pass to film the skim pit, as well as transport enough water for ourselves and the extravaganza. The R.V was out of commission do to bad starter. The giant skimboard however, was a great success. Simply a one of a kind masterpiece; a majestic wooded canvas filled with our hopes, dreams, and unimaginable experiences of Burning Man 2008. Burning Man was more than just a giant party in the middle of the desert, as most people believe it to be. Burning Man is rendezvous for spiritual enlightenment, intrinsic worldly views about culture, religion, time, space and a deep sense of community involvement. When fifty-thousand people who barely know each other survive in the middle of the desert without crime, hunger,or depression; it amazes me that communities in the rest of the world are subjected to crime, fear and terror. Burning Man is very surreal but I think people can learn a lot about human interaction and society; which some aspects can be transplanted into the rest of society, to enable the well-being of the entire community. Among the community at large the favorite member had to Rob, an ex-marine who brought his girlfriend and a couple friends along the way. Rob was always full of good cheer, humor and a kind of low-humming intensity. One night we witnessed that low-hum become a raucous roar at thunder-dome. Thunder-dome is just like it was with Mel Gibson in the Mad Max series, except no one is trying to kill you. Instead of using instruments of death, you are given a foamish nerf stick that you whack the other person with, after you are strapped into a harness that is hanging from the dome with bungy ropes. Then you are pulled back to the edge of the dome and flung at your opponent, which marks the start of a three round bludgeoning match. Unfortunately, that night thunder-dome was shut down early; so people were improvising by freestyle wrestling. Rob wrestled three dudes who all outweighed him by at least 50 pounds and all eclipsed his height by about six inches. They were not prepared however, for the stout marine made them all submit, but still showed lots integrity; shaking all their hands after he defeated them. The best part about the defeats was the badass purple dress that he was wearing. Among us who witnessed the athletic feet was Ian, A.K.A Cloud, a cool dude from California who was happy to be camped next to some dudes from Washington. Cloud is a computer expert (but extremely UN-nerdy) and has a website called www.ifitfeelsgooddoit.com.

Most of our days consisted of staying out of the midday sun, locating the misting mojito tent, the occasional bike ride to the playa, one day we went and tried kite-boarding; which made us all look very clumsy. But, mostly it was about recovering from the last night and waiting for the water-truck during the day. On the hottest day it reached 114 degrees, we made it out of the tent at all that day. That was also the day of the critical tits parade. So there was plenty of incentive to go outside. When the sun sets the city of Burning Man comes to life. Right when the sun dips below the hills everyone gets on top of their R.V’s or car’s and yells, making all kinds of noise that marks the beginning of the nighttime festivities. Burning man at night is an indescribable experience. Although burning man is awesome, it is not all fun and games. When we arrived the first day, it took us the entire day to set up our massive army tent; for three reasons. One, we were exhausted from the dreary drive and were without sleep. Two, we had never set up the tent before, I’m sure we looked very clumsy setting the thing up. Three, the most exacerbating aspect of the ordeal was supposedly the worst dust storm in Burning Man’s history. 50 MPH winds blowing massive amounts of dust at you from all directions; white out conditions, that can make any task near impossible. Eventually we were able to construct our dwelling and enjoy the week of burning. We had such a good time that we all cannot wait for our next burn:”Evolution”. See you on the playa.