Saturday, August 25th:

After months of preparations and anticipation, it's finally that time again. I rub the sleep out of my eyes at 5am and grab a cup of coffee, ready to slide behind the steering wheel of my rental minivan and hit the road to that dusty, scorching hot and windy place in the Nevada desert called "Black Rock City" - a huge, temporary city, arising out of an ancient dry lake bed once a year, for one week only, to become that mystical event ... Burning Man. This will be my third consecutive pilgrimage in just as many years.

My camp mate Renee and I take off just as the first light of day breaks. Six hours later, we arrive at the gates of the city, greeted by a massive wind and dust storm that enfolds the waiting line of cars in a blinding white-out (it appears the forecasters really weren't kidding ...). It's always amazing to me how quickly everything inside a car is penetrated by the dust, even with the windows tightly closed ... and I can almost hear the Playa Gods cackle their mischievous "Welcome back to Black Rock!"


Meet my camp mate Renee! No, the bandanna over her face isn't part of the costume. It looks clear right now, but trust me - it was dusty just a moment ago.

Officially, the event doesn't start until Monday morning, 12.01am. As working media however, Renee and I have obtained special permission from Burning Man LLC (also generally referred to as "the org") to enter the city earlier - partially due to our willingness to volunteer in helping build 'Media Mecca', a camp dedicated to tending to all attending professional journalists and photographers.

Thank goodness this isn't the first visit to Burning Man for either of us. At the greeter's gate, amongst others, we see a leathery naked guy with a long spindly beard, handing out event programs and greeting people. As I am still in my somewhat persnickety Default World mode, I quietly hope he'll ignore us and that we'll get another greeter - but of course he makes a bee-line straight for our car. "Any virgins aboard?" he smiles. We shake our heads in unison. If we had been indeed virgins (as first-year participants are called), we would have had to get out of the car, ring a ceremonial bell, and roll in the dust. And most likely we would have gotten a big ole' bear hug from the naked guy...

He leans into the car and hands us our programs - and I realize, it's time again to concurrently leave all preconceived notions, judgments, inhibitions and awkwardness towards non-clothed people at the gate, together with the naked greeter. I take a deep breath, and get over the fact that a naked old man is casually informing me that today has been the first dusty and windy day on the playa in a week...


Naked guy in a white-out - need I really say more?

We drive through the gate and ... we are HOME again. Despite being a viciously dry, hot and dusty place for most of the year, Black Rock City is called "home" by its citizens. It's where our true selves reside - and although we are on leave for 51 weeks of the year, we get to come here for 1 week out of the year to be ourselves, to express ourselves freely, to dwell without judgments or inhibitions amongst our fellow humans. It's so good to be home again. It feels as if no time at all has passed.

Renee and I find an open space on the coordinates of 3.45 and Freshwater, get out of the car, and acquaint ourselves with our new neighbors. Right away, we find we are in luck: Ben and Dave, two middle-aged high school friends from Modesto, CA, and Seattle, WA, kindly lend us a hand in setting up our camp, pounding rebar stakes into the ground and pulling up shades, cracking good-natured jokes all the while. This is indeed a good start.


Our camp - in all its glory

White-outs and high winds whip the playa until the late afternoon, but the yet sparsely-populated city is relaxed and quiet. We bike out to pay our respects to The Man, but he's still partially under construction, and the pavilion underneath is yet inaccessible (as is Center Camp, Arctica, and many of the other regular theme camps). After a small dinner and a well-deserved cocktail, Renee and I retire, and as late-evening winds tear at our tents, we fall asleep under the spell of utter exhaustion.

Having never been, I am looking forward to the full series of your journal entries and photos documenting your adventures this year.

Limp penis and all. ;^)