Burning Man

The following takes place across 12 hours.

A group of drones hovered above a giant wooden temple. A couple was getting married by the east portico and a burial ceremony was taking place on the west side.

I took a sharpie and scribbled some wishful thoughts on the temple walls (it was to be burned the next morning). For those who believe in the contagion of human emotion, an hour at the temple, will recharge your batteries for a year.

Hunter S Thompson would have written his greatest book about the Burn. The days are filled with exploration and self discovery, as if MOMA gave everyone $10k, unlimited supply of of booze and said "Go Wild”.

Night time is adults only entertainment. This is Vegas without lines, bouncers or rules. Oh yeah -  everything is free. My friends lived from sunset to sunrise, again and again and again. As my greeter mentioned in the car line, on the opening day, " You sleep when you're dead".

We crouched in the 4th row of concentric human circles. The beating heart of a 50,000 person camp hummed in anticipation. People were mostly beautiful, often foreign, usually half naked and dressed in a post apocalyptic chic.

Slightly to my rear rose a intimidating row of art cars. Some evil genius refashioned SUVs, boats and motorcycles into pirate ships, animals and pyramids. A rubber ducky, the size of my apartment building hovered over my left shoulder. Its pulsating red eyes and green LED outline gave it a sinister air. It stared me down like a Disneyland ride from hell.

Everything glowed: people, cars, structures, even my shoes. Suddenly, the firefighters started moving, the crowd, shifted, like waves, and now, we, the rowdy human ocean found ourselves at the very front.

At the center and roughly forty feet away from us, stood a 5 story tall, wooden UFO, with a skeletal man-like-shape perched on top. Cargo Cult originated before my time, but I’m a sucker for space fiction.

First came the fire dancers, then the fireworks. The celebratory bottle of FireBall was long gone. Someone passed around a cranberry juice mix that housed half a handle of whatever. For those who dabbled, you could find any drug you wanted within an arm's length reach.

Without warning, flames engulfed the Man. The base of the UFO caught fire. It spread through the outer rim and into the captain's deck. The inferno quickly devoured the entire ship and soon, the superstructure exploded. My face burned from the proximity to the flames.

This was a bonfire on crack. Smoke tornadoes formed around the burning effigy and moved towards the seated audience. What started as wonder, grew into a fully fledged adrenaline firehose. The vibe started bordered on absurd. Traces of anxiety creeped in to those in the front rows.

For a second, I panicked, thinking the volunteers and the screwed up. But the tornadoes dissipated barely inches before reaching the audience. The carcass burned down to its support pillars and then crashed to the ground to thunderous applause. The air filled up with smoke, as if a volcano erupted, a controlled Pompeii.

As the fire subsided, I strapped on my goggles and covered my mouth with a bandana. It was time to go dancing at Slut Garden (an outdoor dance club. Bman's brazen sexuality often terrifies the insecure).

Now, with the Man's ashes in the sky, we would ride our beach cruisers across the playa from music stage to a martini bar, to a mashup up dome. At some point a female bartender told me that she would only serve me, if I showed her my junk. Nothing fazed me anymore.