hmmm....Burning Man

So in a few hours I'm going to Burning Man, a festival/gathering/I don't really know how to describe it thing in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada where it appears not a lot goes down except for one week a year when 40,000 or so people gather on "the playa" to participate in self-expression, self-reliance and "art"

To be quite honest, I'm terrified. I think it's more likely for me to die at this event than over the course of my travels through Southeast Asia and Israel this past year. 40,000 naked, drugged out people creating what temporarily becomes Nevada's 4th largest city sounds awesome because I'll feel right at home, but then I realized that for me, feeling at home, or rather, feeling safe, means usually surrounding myself with people that are NOTHING like me, for the sake of safety and sanity. Anyways, I still think it will be a really interesting event just in the social experiment nature of it. You are expected to be totally self-reliant, you have to bring shelter, food, water for the whole week, nothing but ice and coffee is sold at the event and you are not supposed to bring money as it is a not a monetary-based economy, but rather a gift-based one, where you bring things to "gift"(I'm realizing I use quotes a lot, probably too much, in this case it is to imply that the word gift is not usually a verb, so I gottzta make it all special-like) to other people and in return you assume things will be gifted to you. Since I am well steeped in the heart of darkness I assume that no one will give me shit especially because I currently haven't shaved in close to 6 weeks and look like the kind of person you try to kick off your lawn when you realize they aren't just there to back their invisible car up and turn around. On the other hand, this might make me incredibly successful at acquiring things. Nonetheless, despite the Joseph Conrad tugging at me, Neil Young also plays a part and so I will hedge my bets by also partaking in the heart of gold approach and bringing random gifts, cuz nothing says fuck me in 123 degree heat like a free tube of chapstick from me, to you.

I go in with no expectations which is probably good but I was doing some pre-event reading in order to brush up on anything I needed to know and I came across this really interesting blog post about the event. Reading it, it struck me that like most cultural phenomena, hippie-dom, woodstock, beat generation, web 2.0, that by the time I've heard of anything it is no longer cool, hip, or in its pure, original unadulterated form. This guy talks to people that feel burning man, supposedly the epitome of non-consumer lifestyles was becoming just that, a corporate event...blah blah blah, I just think it'll be interesting to see what it feels like and talk to first timers and old timers. On a related note, my 91 year old grandma told me she was at the first burning man, like 20 years ago, which is hilarious.

Alright, I'll report back about the event when I return, maybe share some pictures, maybe show the 3 readers of Monstro blog what a totally liquidated brain is capable of and if you have skimmed this whole post and yearn for something better, by all means if you do one thing, watch this.

God Bless America.