Wow, what a trip. Tawny and I drove up to Northern Nevada on Saturday the 28th of August. We made it up to Reno at about 2am. We still needed to get a few things in Reno before we could head up (like booze, food and water) so we had 6 hours to kill before Wal-Mart opened. We ended up sleeping in a big pile of camping gear and bedding in the back of the Minivan we'd rented. We were sleeping only a few inches from the ceiling of the van. In the night Tawny had a dream that the little parking lot sweeper car had come the rustle us. When dawn came we made quick work of Reno and one long as wrong turn aside we made it up to the Playa in pretty short order. It took us a while to find the camp we were with. 5:30 and Earth doesn't mean corner spot we found out. We were actually at about 5:20 and Earth. Our camp mates at the G-Spot, who we hadn't met before, rocked! They put together a great kitchen, huge amounts of shade and lounge area, two trampolines, a nice bar with a stripper pole and a waterbed, as well as a hair washing station (Astral Head Wash had nothing on us but capacity) and a heated shower. We were in the company of camping masters and it was my pleasure to add some music to the mix. I brought up my JBL tops and we sniped power off of the grid. I did my best to provide smooth and enjoyable music that everyone would like, Jazz in the morning, some modern folk after that, then on to trip hop and house for the day. A few of the hits on the Playa were Zero 7, Mark Farina's Mushroom Jazz series (of course), Chet Baker, !!! and Hem. Many thanks to all the contributors to Norequests, it was your library spuneth. On Thursday DJs Soul, Wonder Bred, Dr. Foxy and Sifu Tweety (& co) showed up. After that we turned the afternoons into more dancy affairs. Each DJ showed their stuff and was at the top of their game on the decks. I felt like all thumbs once I was playing vinyl. The Burn in general was pretty cool. No real jump up and down moments. More of a 'cool burn' for us. The Temple was the only art that really stunned me and plenty has been written on that. There was one fucked up moment on the night of the burn when some asshole ripped the tonearm right the fuck off of one of the turntables on a system near us. Granted they were bumping breaks at 12:30 in the middle of town, but geeze. On the way back Tawny and I stopped in Sierra Hot Springs and stayed for the night. It was quite a feeling to go straight from the Playa to the steamy and sulfurous baths. The hot springs was packed with Burners too, which was pretty funny. Everyone in the same headspace except for the staff which was a bit overwhelmed. The next morning we drove through Tahoe on our way back to the 395 and then down to LA. Upon reaching the 15 we got stuck in 3 hours (GAH!!!!!!) of traffic because of a brush fire. Thank you for the nice "Welcome Home" from the Queen of Angels we thought. You can find all of my Burningman pics here. Oh, one last note. To the guys who setup the bitchen Margurita Stand near the Man on Friday: Your chips were salty, salsa spicy, Marguritas smooth and your Guac was heavenly. You are our heros.
Posted by Zak at September 10, 2004 11:06 AM
