Friday, September 7, 2012

We Are Burning!



Burning Man isn’t about gifts, but sometimes a gift can make the experience.
Mine came from Yertburbia.
My new toy for my fourth Burn was a megaphone.
Knowing myself, I asked a friend even before it arrived to not let me be the asshole with a megaphone.
As early as Monday, the pronouncements began.
“Good morning Burning Man. How is the state of your burn?” might have been an early offering.
Somewhere along the line, I began to heckle the camp behind us officially named “Flirt,” but I called Yertville, Yertburbia, or Yert’s town.
The camp of fine people had five or so Yerts -- a polagram sherter quickly becoming the IT way to live in the desert -- and a tent or two.
Soon the pronouncements and the heckling became a thing. Eached ended with the words: “We Are Burning,” with an occasional “Continue Burning” or “Resume Burning.”  Encouraged by campmates Lo Cobra and Lovemonkey we sang songs to Yertville. “Yert so Good” may have been the best.
Through it all, I tried to say good-natured, uplifting and inspiring. I didn’t do it late at night or early in the morning.
We even took the show on the road, with my booze and Burning Man-high-on-life persona offering running commentary and live narration to the places we’d never been. Sometimes the neighbor dudes would join as we rode our bikes to do and see what the city had to offer.
It felt great when an occasional person would notice and say “that’s the voice.”
But I still felt a little bad about my heckling of Yertburbia and their alien technology.
It was made all good though when H.B. dropped by to offer a paper and hand-drawn megaphone constructed from a Pabst Blue Ribbon box.
“We Are Burning.”