The clubs were great, but by far the best place to dance was in or around the art cars.
Art cars the mutant vehicles that are licensed to roam the playa, including the steets of Black Rock City. They come in all sizes and types. Some are modified golf carts that hold but a few people. Others are giant double decker buses with platforms on which folks dance under canopies. Still others are self-contained modern sound systems on wheels, with a luxury look and platforms for go-go dancers.
Last year we got to ride on the double decker bus kind, on the deep playa one night, at the invitation of its owner. It was quite fun. The same thing happened to us this year. Some folks from a camp up on 2:30 and Airstrip dropped by our camp a couple times (how they found us, who knows) and hung out in monkey huts. They told us about their art car---it looked like a big banana split. Sure enough Thursday evening we were heading out to the playa and we stopped at 8:00 and the Esplanade. After dancing a bit at club there, we saw the banana split art car and got ourselves invited on it, past the bitchy driver who served as the de facto bouncer (douchy art cars that violated the radical inclusive principle of Burning Man were the subject of talk in the local BRC press this year).
The ride on the banana split bus turned out to be somewhat of a disaster. Tbey had a rather crude sound system, which at one point failed as their generator died (with all the lights too). Dancing on the swaying platform was impossible in the normal sense. It felt like the whole wooden superstructure would collapse over the side at any moment. It became a matter of holding onto the railing and just jiving and bouncing to the sea-like motion of the platform.
That would have been OK, but I was near the generator and got gassed on carbon monoxide. That was the roughest experience of the week, all in all, especially since that's the night I wound up staying up until 4 am to see Paul Oakenfeld at White Ocean, and to shepherd Okki and Stefan safely home along the backstreets of the K-ring in the not-so-wee hours of the morning.
But fortunately you don't have to ride an art car to get the experience of it. In fact, it's best not to ride it at all. Instead what you do is simply ride around on your bike looking for an art car with a good sound system that is parked on the playa having an impromptu rave. It's easy to find them in the darkness. You just follow the music. When you get there you park your bike and just start dancing with the people who are already dancing. Or you do whatever you want. There are no rules.
Of all the big-sound art cars, the one people talked about most in our camp was one called Robot Heart. It was the car that people followed into the playa for the all-night rave that went past sunrise. It was, we thought, the one we danced in front of, during the burning of the Man, when all the art cars gather in a carnival like ring around the man, making a giant super-rave. Michele said it was, but Kevin, who has been to more burns, says no, based on the decor. Maybe I'll find out next year.
3 comments:
Hi! Really nice reading your blog. With a name like "the ticket collector" and your fervency to stay up all night to see Paul Oakenfold of all people at burning man, I think I've learned quite a bit about your personality type. I'll start with this - myself, my girlfriend and 2 of our closest friends spent our entire summer building out that bus JUST so we could bring it to the playa to later be bitched about by the likes of you. I'm sorry our generator ran out of gas while you were on the bus - in a truly unfortunate freak accident, our perpetual motion machine broke in Utah on our way there. As for our driver being a "bouncer", we never turned a single person away from our car aside from on our way to the DMV to get registered. My suggestion to you would be, find another event to go to if you don't like climbing on home made stuff. We're not professionals, we all have lives to live, and we carved out as much time as we could to give that art car to the citizens of black rock city. We are making improvements to the split for next year, however I truly hope that you won't get on it - if that was your roughest experience at burning man, you're doing burning man wrong.
Wow! I'm so sorry that riding on our art car was the "roughest" experience of your week at Burning Man. CLEARLY, you must have brought your own flawless, professionally-crafted art car, so do tell, which one was yours?
Four of us, who are obviously NOT professionals, spent every spare hour of our lives creating the banana split, simply to bring it out to the playa for the enjoyment of others. Tell me, what did you bring to the playa?
It is so painfully obvious that you have no understanding of Burning Man. I would like to suggest that you give up on your attempt at blogging, and avoid Black Rock City going forward. Just do us all a favor and stick to Cochella where you can dance in total safety.
Lol. I actually liked your car and had a fun time hanging out with Bennie and Toodles, who were excellent hosts both on the car and at your camp! I just stood in the wrong place on the deck, that's all. No one's fault but my own!
But thanks for your comments.
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