How I electrocuted my pants before I got to Burning Man

I ruined a pair of pants and I'm almost ready to cry.
These weren't any pair of pants. They were my new sparkly red stretch pants -- ready for their first trip to Burning Man.
My Burning Man wardrobe slants utility and function over sexy and flare. Despite boasting only one real pair of sexy pants, my playa name is Major Sexy Pants, more on that later.
These pants, made lovingly by my campmate Tractor, were going to redefine my swag.

How they died: The pants were placed in a bag with also contained a block-sized (5ah) 12-volt battery. The pants connected the circuit and the pants were fried as the wire melted.
Assessment: No reasonable person thinks "Don't put the pants next to that rechargeable battery." But no reasonable person transports large batteries in the same bag as funky red stretch pants.
Are the pants safe? Hell yeah. If I were in said pants and came in contact with a live battery, I would move. Ladies weren't safe around these pants either. In a small sample size, they demanded to be rubbed.
Burner Bio: Attended six consecutive after first 2009 burn. Camp GYST elder. Major Sexy Pants playa name references my general helpfulness as much as the cut of my pants.

This it/was the year I planned to step up my playa wardrobe. "Radical Self-Expression" is one of the 10 of Burning Man. People have generally interpreted that to mean you don't ware your "default" world wardrobe.  The dusty surface of the lake bed his highly acidic so it makes sense not to ruin your regular clothes, but it also encourages you to step further out of your regular life. (Discussing life outside of Burning Man id generally discouraged.)
Tractor is passionate about getting people out of the cargo pants that she intends to dress 1 percent of Burning Man in booty shorts. Assuming a population of 60,000, that's 600 booty shorts. She's done that number and well beyond, helping people like me and many others.
My first years, we're all about survival, but as my camp has grown I've found campmates that care enough about me to upgrade my style package. The loss of these pants is such a setback.

Burning Year Around

In a little over one week I’ll be heading to the desert for my sixth Burning Man.

The event, in it’s 28th year, is a week long arts, music and cultural festival in the Nevada Blackrock desert. It is characterized by three things: the harsh environment, participation and the feverishness of participants.
 I’m sure my list of three will be debated. Some would say drugs or the clothes or the music. Allow me to retort: The environment dictates the dress and is the main reason most people won’t come. Unlike concert festivals, Burning Man demands that

everyone participate and be part of the show. And that participation leads me to the next point: Burners are obsessed about talking about Burning Man.  
A non-burner co-worker recently compared burners to hovering parents.
Tuche.
But for good reason. There is a whole lot to prepared for: feeding yourself for a week, costumes, travel etc. However, the main reason many burners can’t stop talking about Burning Man is to a certain extent they never left. The random collection of peaceful, art, music and fun-loving tribes is easily more alluring than the work-a-day world with bits a fun sprinkled in between budget meetings.
But also many of us have been in project mode almost since we left. Here’s a sampling of some of the things my campmates have been working on:

- Tractor is the queen of playa clothes gifting. She spent 100s of hours making tutus, miniskirts and booty shorts for the people she’s never met. She enjoys nothing more than helping a new burner out of their khakis.

- Boosh in addition to other projects built the Pantzooka. We’ll playful save those afflicted with the urge to shirtcock. Yes, shirtcockers are men who rocks a t-shirt with their bit exposed. Here is the commercial I made with my non-burner engineer and artist for use on the on-site radio station. The station streams on the Internet at www.bmir.org.

-Princess Fussy Pants, with Scout and her craftsman, built the Burner Pen Pal Project. The attractive, functional setup allows burners to safely exchange off-playa addresses for letter exchanges and a website for people to share those experiences.  Here is the radio spot.

- Uncle Bob is the king of camp construction. He’s built lamps, expanded the bar, built high-bar tables, redesigned our shower and has generally been working like a mad man to ensure everyone is comfortable and the camp functions.

- Captain America is racing to complete a kegerator for camp.

Going back to Burning Man, unsure about pen

As spring approaches, I know at least one thing I'll be doing this summer. I'm going back to Burning Man. I'm convinced I can get it right.

I bought a ticket and the majority of the people I camped with last year are coming back, so that is all settled. The open question is whether I go as a journalist or just go as a mission in self discovery. (Truth: It's always a little of both).

Last year, I wrote a piece for The Root magazine on diversity at Burning Man. It's a fine piece and I'm happy I did it, but the technical issues that I had to be overcome to file without leaving the desert were pretty significant.

It basically took big chunks of two days to produce: one day interviewing, writing, shooting and editing pictures and one day trying to get a WiFi signal strong enough to send words and pictures out then having to go back to the WiFi to answer editing questions.

For the most part, Burning Man is a low tech environmental. They don't provide WiFi and phone signals are spotty at best. The WiFi that is there is provided by people just like me who do it to do it. Most take advantage of the lack of connectivity. It's one week where you can tell your boss that "no you won't be checking emails" while your away. It's amazing how much freer one's mind is when our real-world work lives, bills and pressures are told to take a vacation. We - myself included - make fun of people who walk around hoping to get one bar of phone signal so they can get a text message.

But the writer in me enjoyed trying to translate experiences into words. Burning Man is filled with so much going on it a writer's dream and nightmare. Part of me wants to explore other mediums. I'd love to get behind the mic at the Burning Man radio station. I started performing one-man improv shows with a megaphone and I've toyed with video.



Of my videos my 2011 is by far the most popular before the word "chick" is in the title.

If you have Burning Man stories ideas, I'd love to have them. Even better would be ideas for outlets that will pay me for those words.

Video Shares Camp GYST Burning Man experience

Burning Man is a videographer's dream. One could literally spend all day and night behind the camera and never feel like they got enough. That person would also be missing out on experiencing the magic of Burning Man.  I try to strike a balance between documenting the beauty and joy around me and participating in that experience.

This video is my attempt to scrape together a taste of the experience, without letting the effort get in the way of my experience.

Much love to Camp GYST and the beautiful, friendly, curious, doers of Black Rock City.




Photography and video by Ed Fletcher. Additional photography by Angela Gentry. Animation by Epicpranks01. Music Soundcloud creative commons "Welcome to the Video Game" by Vextor Kyoto, "Rigomortis" by Kaiyne, "stabb270" by beatfux, "(#270) The Process by yo.Areou, "Dubstep Dishwasher" by The Living Tombstone, Additional vocals by Capt. Sexy Pants.

Please help identify the band with the green wigged singer. I'd love to credit.

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.”

Scouring the Web for Dubstep

In a matter of months, I've gone from not knowing what a Dubstep was to scouring the web for a hot track for my up coming film "Dance Step of Death." For the film, I'll need three non-electronica songs that have a nice danceable groove, and one killer Dubstep track. They all need to come from unsigned artists. If you have suggestions hit me up. In the meantime, enjoy my collection of dubstep music and dubstep dance videos.

Video captures whimsical fun of Burning Man 2011

After much delay, I've finished and uploaded my Burning Man video. With so much to see and do everyone's experience is undoubtedly different. This is a small slice of the sights and sounds of Burning Man 2011 Rites of Passage. With enough distance, I can hardly remember my listless dehydration at the tail end of the week. Burning Man is not for everyone, but clearly its for plenty. Enjoy.

And while you're here, I've also embedded my 2010 slide show.

Two music idiots ask: "What the hell is dubstep anyway?"

"Dubtep is robot dinosaurs fighting with lasers," random guy at Burning Man.

Music is a big part of Burning Man. For reasons unknown to me, the vast majority of the offerings are various sorts of electronica. The meager live music offerings are dwarfed by large theme camps offering dj music. It's important to note that the Burning Man organization does not bring, host or promote any of the artists. It's all done by theme camps interesting in hosting a huge free dance party in the dessert.
For the first time, I was camped with a electronic music expert who alerted us electronic idiots on when the world famous artists will be spinning the latest dubstep.

Dubstep expert

As we came to learn, dubstep is all the rage. (If you aren't already, you should be playing the clip above). Following our music expert's instructions I listened to several artists people pay good money to hear including bassnector and Opiuo. That often meant lasting until 3 a.m. But while I knew they were spinning dubstep, I didn't have the foggiest idea what defined dubstep.
As we sat in the queue to leave Black Rock City after a week of excess, (exodus the bane of Burning Man) Princess Fussy Pants asked me, "What is dubstep anyway?"
"A series of beep and twerps," I replied, to a laugh. But what is dubstep really?
Given the fact that we had hours of mind sapping traffic to clear, we decided to ask our fellow automotiveinmates. Below is a list of responses from other waiting to leave the incredibility enjoyable and exhausting festival. Some went for humor, some aficionados gave us a clear thoughtful response.

• "Dubstep is robot dinosaurs fighting with lasers." 
• "You know when your in the jacuzzi and you put your head under water by the jet? That is dubstep."
• "Pitch driven base line -- kind of a wobble. Beeps and twerps are more electro house."
• "It's all about the whoop. Baseline of whoop, more dynamic that house or techno. Wah, wah, wah, wah."
• "drug music."
• "Don't know -- I'm not a fan."
• This one super knowledgeable, not so articulate fan said it has something to do with a "double oscillating base" related to reggae and two step -- hence the name. 
• "It's doing a hit of nitrous by the speakers."
• "70 beats per minute sounds like doom ... do dat -- doom doom do dat."

If that doesn't want to make you run out to shill out $100 to see bassnector spin I don't know what will. Please share your impressions of Dubstep or call me a idiot below.

Burning Man is for Doers

Burning Man participants bike near "The Man"

Amateurs try their hand at basic trapeze maneuvers 

A shot ski goes down in the middle of the desert.

Why I go to Burning Man

It's cliché to say Burning Man has to be experienced to be understood, but in many ways its true. (If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is experiencing it firsthand worth?)  That said, I will attempt to explain why I attend Burning Man.
People fit into one of two groups: watchers and doers.
Watchers will critique a flash mob, but won't organize one, show up to the costume party, but don't take risks and are the last ones to go skinny dipping.
I choose to be a doer.
I guess I've been a doer most of my life. I was more or less involved in student government since grade school, was a union official at work and have served on various boards throughout my adult life. I love that Burning Man celebrates doing. 
Burning Man is not a city. City's can sustain themselves for more than a week. But Burning Man is a community. A community of people that say yes, that take risks, that participate.
For those who know little of the annual week-long experiment in the Nevada desert, Burning Man invites attendee to shed their normal governors on what to wear and how to act. It turns the show or the festival inside out and asks the guests to be the show. Some invite world class disk jockeys to perform, some create a (free) full-functional bar (minus the bathroom), some teach acrobatics, others offer massages classes, other erect beautiful works of art.
Just about the only thing the event offers beyond structure, gatekeepers, port-a-potties, ice and a few classes is a large wood "Man" that of course burns.
One could run themselves ragged, trying to do a quarter of the pre-planned event. Conversely, one could stumble on the perfect day by setting out on your bike and exploring the a dozen or so of the unmapped, unscheduled events planned and executed by people just like me -- doers.