The year 2003 has been a year that for Gabe Heller has been full of a great deal of stupid. A whole whopping heap of stupid. A truly stupendously stupifying amount of stupid. For one thing, Gabe is now working for the Federal Government. What can Gabe say, he was unemployed for 9 months and they were the only ones to call him back. As if the whole stupid of the federal government wasn't enough stupid to dump on Gabe's shoulders, add to that all those new unnecessary red left-turn signals in Gabe's neighborhood and the recent invasion of his life by a large number of people with the general attitude and competence of the pointy-haired boss character in the Dilbert cartoon. Even people Gabe went to college with who he thought were reasonably intelligent, open, and sane individuals have caught the incompetent mangerial bug and chosen for some reason to apply it to their lives and friendships as well as whatever careers they may be pursuing. The result is that Gabe has been "downsized" from most of his previous friendships. He hadn't even known that your friends could fire you. He certainly hadn't ever thought of firing them. Unfortunately this creeping stupid has even affected his Burning Man experience, in that he was threatened with "appropriate action" should he attempt to even enter the camp he had been planning to camp at. If "appropriate action" is to be employed as a countermeasure to Gabe, Gabe figures he better have something pretty big in mind before he triggers them. Like some kind of raid to liberate that camp's "weapons of mass consumption." Unfortunately, the sheer amount of stupid was weighing heavily on Gabe, even while at Burning Man, to the extent that he found it hard to remain awake for more than about 8 hours per day, and hard to care enough to put up these pictures for you. If you are a fan of Gabe's Burning Man photos, then it is fortunate for you that it's raining today in Minnesota and Gabe is really bored, though not bored stupid. This year, I was ready to leave for Burning Man on time. I even had two five-gallon jugs full of extra gasoline and was ready to turn my car via a power inverter into the juice behind the 2.5-person camp I had thrown together at the last minute to house myself and any other victims of the creeping stupid who might come our way. This state of affairs could quite simply not stand. I could have just sat around for several days to ensure I would arrive late. But, no! It had always bothered me that they closed that dirt road from Winemucca to Gerlach so I have to drive almost to Reno to get to Burning Man. So, I decided to instead drive several hundred miles out of my way to avoid driving fifty miles out of my way, and hence solve both problems. So, I spent an hour or so trying to get Mapquest to acknowledge that another route was even possible. I spent another hour choosing careful mid-points trying to get it to say that this new route was in fact shorter by miles or minutes. I then spent another hour trying to print this out due to "the stupid's" assault on my computer earlier in the year whereby it used a carefully aimed lightning bolt to hit my apartment building and knock out my onboard printer port and my stereo amplifier. Having delayed my departure by three hours in this fashion, I figured it was time to embark on my new "Great Northern Route." This route substituted the vast flatness of Nebraska with the vast flatness of South Dakota. I have Wall Drug to say Dick's Toe Service that while Nebraska Wall Drug is large The Corn Palace and flat Mount Rushmore and boring Wall Drug to drive through The Gutzon Borglum Story that South Dakota Wall Drug is an entirely different The Corn Palace experience. Not necessarily better Wall Drug just different. I made up my mind that I would only stop at Wall Drug if I saw a sign one mile past the exit that said, "Stop, Go back! You just missed Wall Drug!" There was no such sign, so I didn't stop. I meant not to see the Corn Palace either. Unfortunately, I did want to see Mount Rushmore and ended up seeing the Corn Palace on the way by accident, and then I got stuck on the wrong side of the train tracks and decided it wasn't worth waiting to see Mount Rushmore either. For the record the Corn Palace was a little better than I had feared. I was fully prepared to find it was a giant disney-esque plastic palace in the shape of a corn kernel, and pleasantly surprised that it instead consisted of actual food. Beyond that, I managed to pass through South Dakota without stopping at any establishment mentioned in those billboards, or even needing to avail myself of Dick's Toe Service. My toes were at that point still in very good shape. I might could have used some "Toe Service" after I had been at Burning Man for a few days, though. Continuing west, I found myself in Wyoming. What can I say about Wyoming? Going through Wyoming on I-90 is about the same as going through Wyoming on I-80 except shorter, and you end up going north into Montana at the end. I tried to figure out if Montana is the Spanish word for mountain missing the tilde over the n, and if so, what the Spanish were doing there. I thought they were mainly south of there, like in California. This was too suspicious for me, so I decided to avoid Montana and instead just keep going west, which put me on a line to intersect Yellowstone National Park. I had some unfinished business in Yellowstone National Park, and this seemed a decent opportunity to conduct it. However, the forces of stupid had other ideas in mind. First, they had spent millions of dollars and lots of time and effort, even lost their lives fighting forest fires in Yellowstone. To what end I do not yet understand. In dry climates, forests burn. They get full of dry leaves and branches and brush and things and then lightning hits them and they burn. If you stop them from burning, then they continue to fill up with even MORE dry leaves and branches and brush and things and then lightning strikes and they REALLY BURN. And if you stop them again, the process continues and the next time whole great whopping swaths of forest go up in smoke and no army in the world could stop it, except possibly China's. Now if you had just let them burn in a modest way to start with then, well, then, THEN I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO TURN AROUND AND DRIVE BACK EIGHTY MILES TO Cody to take a different route through Yellowstone, goldern it! Also, they could have had some signs about it IN Cody, rather than fifty miles down the road from Cody. Secondly, the forces of stupid had decided a good way to make money out of impatient tourists approaching from the Northeast (after all I'm sure a lot more Montanans visit Yellowstone than say, oh, Californians) was to make the speed limit for thirty miles along this alternate route leading to Yellowstone twenty miles per hour. The idea being I assume that people would think "Twenty Miles an Hour? You've gotta be kidding" and go like, twenty-five or something, and then the local police would pull them over and fine them a couple hundred. This might well have worked on some tourists, but not the tourists in whose traffic jam I found myself. We were smart. We were going twenty miles per hour. On the nose. All three hundred of us. Fortunately the forces of stupid are stupid and although they do make things about fifty times harder to do, they rarely prevent me from doing them. So, I did conduct my unfinished business in Yellowstone, namely to do stuff that my parents wouldn't let me do when I was there at age twelve. Like jump off the boardwalks and get really close to the bubbly pools so I could get some decent pictures of them. And somehow I didn't die, or even lose a limb or a digit or anything. Strange, I know. I wasn't even wearing like hip-boots or anything, just moccasins. I even risked the remaining hairs on my head to get pictures of minerals and a deposit-lined stream. I think I may have lost a hair or two during this escapade, but that's about normal, given the speed of my receeding hairline. The hardest part actually was getting BACK onto the boardwalks. You'd think they'd make that easier, so if someone does fall over the side and Old Faithful goes off they aren't automatically boiled alive, but there's no underestimating "the stupid." I then proceeded through Yellowstone along thousand-pothole-per-mile roads (support your national Parks, PLEASE!!!) at the speed of three-hundred large snails. I emerged, shaken, but not stirred, and headed on briefly into Mysterious Montana and then Immediately Idaho. Somehow I managed not to see any potatoes the entire time I was in Idaho. I did, however, see this really cool truck-stop where the canopy normally made of primary-colored industrial metal was instead made of giant tree-trunks and thatch. I took a picture, but somehow misplaced it. There I found just about the first t-shirt featuring native american women that wasn't soft-focus sentimental kitsch, which I bought for my mother, who isn't at all native american, but married someone who is just a little bit. I also saw a fire. First I saw a line of about 50 cars. Then I saw a little wisp of smoke. Then I got out, and walked up to look at the fire. It was a shed, about twenty foot square, the only building I could see. It was not actually burning, but it was smoking quite a bit. It was about fifteen feet from the road. This, according to the Idaho police, was good enough reason to close the road. This road was the only paved road through this part of Idaho. I then searched for a non-police Idahoian, and in faultering Idahoese explained to him my desire to bypass this fire. He pointed to me a road composed of (as best I could tell) dust and rocks that led all the way around the ten-mile wide valley in which we found ourselves and met this road again about 100 feet past the fire. I pulled out of the long line of cars, expecting someone to follow me. No one did. For all I know they're still there. It took me about an hour to detour around that "fire," but after I did, I saw exactly one car for the next 3 hours. I was passed by a very dusty elevated orange Mustang doing about 90. Making up for lost time, I guess. I began to see cars again about the time I entered Oregon. What I didn't see in Oregon were signs that were correct. For instance, I just looked up the speed limit in Oregon. It's 65, or maybe 70. But they don't actually tell you that. Oh sure, if it goes down to 55 they tell you, but they never tell you if it goes back up, or when or what it goes to. So, having done about 75 through Idaho, I find myself being passed by cars still going 75, so I figure that must be the limit in Oregon as well. Then there's an intersection and they post signs saying "speed limit 55." Then there's a large stretch of uninterrupted road and I get passed by more people doing 75. Oregon must be a speed-trap cop's dream. It's also a oil racketeer's dream. I stopped to buy gas where the price listed was "1.69" but gas actually cost "1.96." That's quite a racket, given that gas is full-service by law in Oregon, so you aren't allowed to get out and look at the price on the pump, or they come running out to stop you pumping your own gas. What're you gonna do when you find out their sign was wrong, demand they syphon the gas back out of your tank? And then there was this sign, along the side of a road that was empty except for me. Oregon, for a state that has a burgeoning tech market, your signage needs some work. Admittedly it's not as dangerous as the highway curves in Utah near Salt Lake City that are canted the wrong way making it easier to fly off the road rather than harder. But still, Oregon, get your act together! But I digress. In Oregon, I also saw aproximately fifty billion bugs. I saw them as they hit my windshield with the sound of light rain and soon they were all I could see. It's a good thing that road was pretty straight. Through my side window which was not yet completely covered, I sighted a gas station and pulled over to take shelter and maybe clean my windshield. Strangely, no one came out and offered to pump my gas. If I had the guts I would have pumped my own darn gas and left some money on the pump, but it wasn't the law that stopped me. It was the same thing that stopped the gas station attendant. This gas station was the main source of artificial light for miles around, and in the late evening, about half of the fifty billion bugs were hanging around the gas station's light bulbs, covering anything painted white, or in fact anything sufficiently inherently white, including me. I managed somehow to clean the windshield, though by the time I finished, more live bugs had landed on it than dead ones I had removed. I tried to fend them off using the squeegee like a rapier, but there were too many of them, and I was forced to retreat into my car. I tried to wait it out, but with the growing dark even MORE bugs arrived at the gas station: likely they intended to stay the night. So finally, I just closed my eyes and drove very slowly, keeping the rough band at the side of the road under my right tire until I came up over the ridge, and out of the "Valley of the Bugs" and into the "Valley of the Dolls." I was in California for about an hour, just in the Northeast corner and my main impression of California is that is is just too darn big. I could rant for a long time about California, but it all comes down to that. When you have great dry deserts and cities of ten million and hippy communes and gated communities and hunting preserves and street gangs and sweatshops and huge tract farms and Arnold Schwarzenegger all in the same state, it just isn't conducive to sane state laws about anything at all. From speed limits to gun control to immigration, its all messed up in California and the reason? It's just too darn big. And all it took me was about an hour to figure that out. Because the part I went through might just as well have been Oregon for all I could tell, except the speed limit really was 55 the whole way, and I knew why: because of problems with smog in Los Angeles, eight hundred miles away. And then I passed into Nevada, and then Black Rock City and relative freedom, if not from the threat of "appropriate action." I arrived at Burning man several days earlier than on previous occasions, and was enheartened to discover that the other 1.5 people at the camp were similarly about a day late, and hence hadn't shown up yet. I set about putting up my tent of slightly increased size. This year's model is a truncated icosahedron. I had seen fit to waterproof last year's canvas and restrict further canvas purchases to discontinued boat-covers, and hence not only was my tent cool and breezy in the sun as before, it was also dry in the wet. I proceeded to fill this tent with amusements, and before I knew it I already had a visitor. Unfortunately, she didn't know how to play chinese checkers. Yes, those of you who are observent or acquainted with this year's tent design may have noticed that I left out the parts where ... um ... things happened. Just a word to the wise: do not use cheap carabiners or cable ties in the construction of your tent. The next day, 1 of the other 1.5 people arrived, with his much sturdier, but also much hotter geodesic tent which we proceeded to turn into a stately pleasure dome with walls of parachute. The other .5 of a person varied during the course of the week, but at one point it was this person who is showing off her new practical no-fuss desert hairstyle. Being in a camp with 1.5 other people I really didn't meet that many highly photographable people, though I saw many in passing. So, this year I concentrated mainly on photographing art, and it was a bumper year for art. Of course I started with the man, taking an early-morning shot. I follwed this with a study of an encrusted Westfalia akin to my home-town's renowned art-car, the Grotto Auto. At center camp, there was a geodesic sphere within a sphere and although it is not yet rotating, nor did I ever see it rotate, I have it on good authority that it did rotate and not all of it in the same direction. In addition to art-cars, there was car-art, like this modified rear-end of an Oldsmobile. As always there was plenty of neon and black light. And many artworks were in various states of construction. There were many more far-flung installations this year than in previous years, so I grabbed my bicycle and headed out to see them. I took no notes, but I seem to remember this one also had an interactive xylophone-like instrument that one could play as part of the installation. Unfortunately my picture of the Temple of Gravity by no means does it justice. All the hottest people were hanging out there, and probably because it was just so damn cool. That grey blob in the middle of the picture is a slab of concrete hanging by chains from the over-arching dome made of cast iron. There is a fire underneath the slab. People are dancing on top of the slab. It took me at least an hour to get over how cool that was. And then I ran into this which completely blew my mind. Whether it was supposed to have been drawn earthward by the influence of the temple of gravity I may never know. Regardless, some of the smaller installations were interesting in their own right. This glowing teepee I found photogenic. And the technical feat of the year has to go, if not to the temple of gravity, then to whoever installed this drinking fountain in the middle of the desert. When daylight returned, I returned to the playa and took more pictures of artwork. Someone had constructed an artifical fan-girl out of abandoned antiquated technology. Someone else had created a mammoth-mo-bile. And yet another had designed the Temple of Reflection. In following the tradition of last year, I documented all the humorous Budget rental "Moving tips" I came across, and I present them here for your viewing pleasure. I found Tip #23, Tip #32, Tip #38 and Tip #72. I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention some of the people-related things that went on, even though I have few pictures of them. It's been almost a year, so if you find I left out your favorite incident, do let me know. Our other .5 person was at various times three young girls from CA who couldn't find where their boyfriends had camped, a fire-dancing troupe that never showed up, some friends of the other 1 camp member, and some other friends of the other 1 camp member who wanted to use our pleasure dome for pleasure. Afterward, or possibly beforeward, I forget, a subset of us went walking out on the playa and saw and heard and experienced much of interest. There were various sages in little windows all around the outside of the pyramid who would (or not) impart sagacity, and we spoke about them and many other things. My old friend Jesse kindly ignored my outcast state and came to visit me on one occasion. I certainly hope he didn't suffer any reprisals for that. I tried Burning Man's version of speed-date and met 4 interesting women none of whom were interested in me. I helped some other people build and re-build a silver-screen that blew down on several occasions so we could watch Pink Floyd's "The Wall." I went to center camp and heard a guy reading a very funny piece about corruption in the third world involving driving sheep across runways. I tried to learn throat-singing, but didn't quite manage it. I sat out in front of my tent and played the mandolin and the ABS digeridoo, and attracted the occasional fan. To each I gave a copy of one of my albums. I found at various times two branches of the library of Burning Man and read about bio-Diesel and life-extension and thought that was at least an interesting read. Later, after a particularly sudden and blinding sandstorm, I became an honorary member of the cult of "fuh-gah-wee." I sat in center camp and gave away some honeydew melon I had bought cheap in Oregon. Some people gave me things as well. I was also approached by someone who claimed to be Burning Man's Big Labor Boss who said he could have taken out my competition, the "John Cougar Meloncamp" who had been giving away free melon all week. I was even recruited to help a little with The Man, and hence on the dustiest day I have yet experienced, I was safe inside the pyramid under the man stacking up spare wood for kindling and eating creamcicles. I have to say I was very pleased with the burning of the man this year. I realise that by saying so I break with many years of Burning Man tradition and may well be even further ostracised, but I don't care. You, reader, deserve the truth. Last year was just too tame. This year saw the return of at least some of the wild chaos which marked my first year at Burning Man and I'm given to understand was even more plentiful in the past. To sum it up, in 2001 I felt smart or maybe lucky is a better word. In 2002 I felt over-protected. In 2003 I just felt good about it. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before I forget, while waiting for the burn, someone showed me a cool light-up twirly bauble on a string. Then the fire-dancers began to do what they do. I felt a slight loss as I realised they had some REALLY GOOD fire dancers this year, and I no longer felt like I might could get up there and dance with fire a little and not come off as a complete rube. But then they just kept doing really cool things with fire, and the loss was mitigated. Here are six pictures of the fire dance. Not only did they do some great moves, a couple of them had a little 5-minute vignette, with an inventive funny storyline and everything. And then came the big moment. To start with the Man stood there, arms aloft. During the fire dance the power went out on his left-hand side and his arm lowered, leaving him doing a Nazi salute. I do not think this was on purpose, but the idea of burning in effigy national-socialism, the synthesis of business and government I find rather appealing, so I really couldn't complain at all. Besides if the burn had gone completely perfectly, it would just not have felt ... right. This year there was no cheezy fake-smoke billowing out from under the man like you'd expect at something more mainstream like the olympics. Instead they spent that money on lots and lots of fireworks. The Man remained standing for some time. But fell eventually. Then the pyramid went up, walls first, structure last. Maybe it's just because I had a hand in it myself this year, but I thought this part went smoothly enough to be consistently entertaining but without being so professional and under control as to seem tame. It occured to me at this point I had not yet thought to turn the camera around and photograph the burners. After all, who are these people who go out into the middle of the desert and build a bunch of stuff, burn a lot of it, clean it up and disappear for another year? Well, here are a few of them or at least what they look like. I woke up the next morning and realised that my RDO's (as our acronym obsessed government likes to call one's days off) were Monday and Tuesday and I had 48 more hours to get home than I thought I had. So, for the first time, I was able to stay and view the burning of the Temple. Of course given the year's theme of "beyond belief" there were many many temples this year. The Temple of Gravity I've already told you of. The Temple of Chance was a house of cards that was also supposed to burn that night, and eventually did, though I got no pictures of it as I was out of memory at that point. But the main temple was still "The Temple." This year, the wood-works that supplied the scrap for the Temples of yesteryear had gone out of business, but this drove the Temple's architect to new heights of creativity as he managed to get his hands on the leavings of a piñata factory. With this he built something someone called a replica of the Vatican. I've never been to the real Vatican, so I don't know if that's what it was, but nevertheless, it was really cool-lookin'. Before they burned it, a woman easily a good enough singer to have been in an opera or two sang "Summertime" and something else I forget. I always thought Summertime made a great call-and response, so when she called, I responded. I hope no one disliked me too much for that. They didn't mention it at any rate. As this temple consisted mostly of paper, it went up rather quickly in a great ball of heat and flame. We were required to be much further away from it than I would have liked, so I got only tiny pictures of it, but I have combined them here for a little slide-show. It burned hot enough to create a stream of smoke-devils which you can see pretty well. After that, I went back to camp and set about getting ready to leave. I had one spare seat and had promised it to someone and then within an hour had to say no to the fire-dancer of my dreams, but such are the stupid twists of capricious stupid. If you were the one who got the ride, and were wondering why I was somewhat distant on the road to Denver, well, now you know. That and the fact that my camp-mate tried to console me with the words, "oh, don't worry, she'd probably just take advantage of you," and then I said, "I wouldn't care if she did." And then you found your bank had messed up somehow and you couldn't pay for gas or the hotel room in Reno you talked me into renting, perhaps you can now see how the irony of it all might well have driven me into a near catatonic state. I hope you found the water-bottle you left in the car. I sat it on your front step. Or maybe it was your neighbor's front step, I wasn't sure, where you re-set my trip meter so I couldn't figure out my mileage. None of it was your fault, but nevertheless, I really couldn't get over all that stupid, not all at once, not without some time to myself at any rate. And thanks at least for the cinnamon roll. It, and the burn itself, and much of what went on at Burning Man were categorically if not profoundly the antithesis of stupid, and the memory of it all has largely gotten me through another year working for the Federal Government and all the stupid that implies. Just one more thing. What the heck is going on in this picture? Anyone? Anyone? Stupid? |