TripOut Gay Travel:
Aflame at Burning Man by Matthew Link

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  Burning Man Black Rock Desert

“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very…very…pissed off.”

These words from out Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk greeted me on a series of signs lining a dirt road as I crawled along at five miles an hour, approaching the entrance to Black Rock City. A completely nude man stood at a small booth and instructed me to stop. I rolled down the window, a gust of white dust filled my lungs, the setting sun glittered off his body, the wide desert sky pressed down from above, and he grinned and said, “Welcome to Burning Man.”

After being instructed to get out of my car, pick up a crowbar, and slug it against a huge bell, I drove through the curved arms of the circular city. The sheer size of what I had entered was astounding. It was a sprawling campus of 50,000 people who every August build a temporary Mad Max-like metropolis of tents, domes, roads, and structures in a flat mountain-ringed basin in northern Nevada, about two hours northeast of Reno.

It’s been said that trying to explain Burning Man to the uninitiated is like trying to describe a color to a blind person. I understood: I was seeing a new realm reveal itself before my eyes.

Along the dusty streets I passed an elderly topless woman with pink sunglasses and a sarong. A drag queen in green spandex and platform shoes followed her. Then a heterosexual man in a grandma-style mumu and a floppy white hat. They were all as nonchalant as if they were shopping at the local mini-mall.

I passed elaborate encampments that looked like space-age refugee camps with names like The Church of Chill, Baby Seal Club, Cirque Berzerk, Emotional Baggage, and one of my favorites for some reason, TBD. Each was a complete work of art in itself, some with scaffolding, walls, roofs, tents, murals, catwalks, couches, yards, bars.

I swerved around intricate “art car” vehicles and floats that came out of nowhere and skidded across the desert. They were in the shape of cats, ships, horses, spiders, jellyfish, boomboxes, and yes, cupcakes. A constant deluge of bicyclists with day-glo costumes flowing in the wind bombarded me. I stopped and asked one dreadlocked girl if she knew of my destination camp, Comfort & Joy, and she replied, “Honey, there are over 50,000 people here. I haven’t got a goddamn clue.”

Somehow I finally came upon Comfort & Joy, one of the main gay camps at Burning Man. Two circus tents and a field of fuchsia-colored inflatable palm trees greeted me. I asked some of the semi-clad guys sitting at a makeshift kitchen if they knew my friend Bradford, who I was supposed to meet here. “Ask Kitten,” was the reply.

I finally found Kitten, a tall, bleach-blond young man in a sparkly blue miniskirt. “Oh, I think Bradford was here yesterday. He’s not staying here.”

“Oh. Is it okay if I set up my tent here?” I tepidly inquired.

“Sure.”

Under a growing night, I somehow got my tent erected, put on a pair of black swim trunks, filled a plastic bottle with tequila and juice, and ventured out into the depths of “The Playa,” as I quickly figured out the desert basin is called here.

Like a foreign movie without subtitles, it’s hard to explain everything that happened next. I passed by an actual flamethrower target range, with participants in fire retardant suits. I walked through an Old West town filled with cowboys with electric lights all over them. A metal hand three stories tall waved at me. I spoke with a gatekeeper at a dungeon who said I could come back to confess my sins to the judge, who would decide my punishment accordingly. I passed a “Psychiatric Help 5 Cents” booth where a lady told me I should simply do whatever work I enjoyed.

My head was spinning and all I could think was that Tina Turner as Auntie Entity in Mad Max would appear at any minute. Just then, like the universe heard my mind, I turned and saw a huge dome with the word “Thunderdome” on it.

It couldn’t be. I climbed up the enormous jungle gym-like structure and gazed down at two men in fantastic warrior wear hitting each other with what looked like giant Q-tips. The dangling crowd cheered above.

All I can say is that The Playa is a separate universe. The universe of your most bizarre dreams and visions. For some reason, everything comes true here.

The rest of my time was a swirl of white-out sandstorms, flying on an actual trapeze through a bar playing ’20s music, huddling amid lingerie-clad girls at a bonfire, dancing on a raised outdoor platform terrace under a desert dawn with video screens flashing images at me. Anywhere you went, people freely gave to each other whatever was asked – free booze, clothing, water, food, shelter, company. Exchange of money was not allowed on The Playa, not even trading of goods. I kept hearing, “The Playa supplies,” and it was correct. No one knew each other’s real names, jobs, incomes, backgrounds. It didn’t matter. Everyone was on the same level ground. Don’t ask me how I never saw fights, drug overdoses, rudeness, or cruelty. For the first time in my life I witnessed 50,000 people live as one unit.

On Saturday night, The Man did indeed burn with gigantic pyrotechnic explosions worthy of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. A group of people danced around the dying flames all night long, and I sat and gazed at their forms.

The next evening, I walked to the top of The Temple, a seven-story intricate wooden structure that was a mash-up of Thai, Western, and Surreal archictecture. It was completely covered with scrawls, poems, and heartbreaking dedications to departed loved ones. Small groups of people hugged each other and softly cried. The neon lights of the two-week city sparkled below like moonlight on an empty ocean.

Hundreds watched as The Temple was set on fire and as it methodically burned and crashed to the ground, one huge crimson log after the other. The crowds were silent and still. It was the soul of the fleeting city, transformed, transitioned, carried away by the wind.

Days later I am still shaking out white dust from my various belongings. I’m finding it harder to shake out the visions of another world from my mind.

For more information about Burning Man, visit the official website: http://www.burningman.com/. To get a better sense of the vibe of the Comfort & Joy camp at Burning Man, visit their website at http://playajoy.org/.