Most Fun Ever…Burning Man 2010

“Call me when you return from Neptune” were the words one of my promoters last said to me before I headed off to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada AKA Burning Man. Neptune? This year, I was invited to come and be a part of the Root Society and DJ at one of their stages with my Bitchin’ DJ Kenzie Clarke.
Wednesday September 1st , I arrived in Reno at 10:30 am still sleepless (up for over 27 hrs now) and I was greeted by my shuttle mates and fellow Canucks Hatiras, his wife Melanie, MC Flipside and Kill The Noise (not a Canuck but a great dude ). Our leader Maximus appeared and together we gathered 3 more van loads of DJs.

Instantly we were on Playa time, and since I had had the most sleep (total none) I took to the wheel and drove our posse out of town down route 80 towards Gerlach and the Great Pyramid Lake Reservation. A two hour drive and a short wait at the gate by the days standards left us with a light search for feathers and live plants. We then de-virginize ourselves by rolling in the dust, making dust angels and ringing a giant bell declaring “Virgin No More!” Instantly we were bonded as “Burners”, welcomed home and off we go to our camp at 10:00 and Baghdad.

Photo by Melanie & George Hatiras

So here’s where I realize that this place is fucking HUGE! Oh yeah my little map with all the coordinates of people’s camps I want to visit and explore “just two or three or six blocks away from me”. Fucking hell this place is 8 miles round! How on Earth or Neptune will I find Kenzie?

Arrival at Root and Flash Gadget – Tipi Concierge and NewFoundlander shows us all to our respective Tipi’s. A quick costume change into my “Apres Ski” uniform, I grab Star Eyes and two bikes and off we go directly across the Playa to find the Time of Your Life Camp where I am to DJ my first set with Kenzie. Keep in mind I still haven’t slept and am now completely overtaken by the blinking lights and awesome before me.

Photo – Root Society Camp

We arrive huffing and puffing after our 2 mile cycle and find more Canucks than you can shake a stick at in proper Ski suits, racing suits and all sorts of variations on the fav winter sport (in the desert) than you can imagine, moments later Kenzie finds me and its game on!

There is a photo booth consisting of two sets of ski boots locked into skis, fastened into a stationary position with a giant ski hill map backdrop behind it and a snow machine. Shit I am so going to get in these! Kenzie and I jump in and 3 seconds later I re injure my MCL. Right – day 1, no sleep, injuries – 1, how the hell am I going to ride home?

Photo by/of: Jon & Pamela Horvath

Whiskey cures everything. I make it back to camp and situate myself right at Oscar’s bar – the coolest bar on the Playa and hang till about 4 am. I’m still not done! The Martin Brothers from San Francisco are playing a hop skip and limp from me at 4 am at the Nexus stage. Roll my bag of bones on over and voila, Soundwave besties and Shambhala warriors united we bounce to the Function One sound system till 6 am– total up time 47 hours.

Nexus had a fire globe and jungle gym all around the stage – ridiculous!

Thursday September 2^nd – 11 am – Roll out of Tipi, its hot, wow they weren’t kidding. Certainly hotter than Calgary’s summer, find one ladies black slip and bustle, goggles and bandana and BAM we are fitting in with the locals. Kenzie comes and finds me and we are off to Bacon without Borders for another little DJ set.

We got no Bacon but we did have a nice time peddling through the sand and making plans to fight in the Thunderdome later.

Photo – Beautiful sculpture that took 60,000 individual welds and a few trucks to haul her out to the desert.

Fast Forward to Thursday evening – Nick Thayer arrives direct from Australia – no sleep either and we have coordinated for him to eat, get on our private art car we have commandeered (a mini van with a bunch of benches on the roof and a shade structure driven from the roof with a lever and a string – so tight), hit our next set on the Janky Barge, get Nick to his set at Opulent Temple then back to Root Society for Nick to play the big dome. Man we are busy!

Photo of The Janky Barge

Opulent Temple was a great stage with the ability for the DJs to control the fireballs that blasted above their heads for all the builds in the music – max 6 fireballs per set to save fuel for the next guy!

Here’s a video Elite Force put together from  his set at Opulent Temple:

Nick finishes and above our mini chariot we climb again and go back across the Playa to Root Society. Its here when I notice that from across the Playa at 2:00 and Baghdad we can see the giant video wall called The Tower of Babel which is Root Society’s main stage this year. As we get closer the visuals are so insane! Not sure how big this thing is but its so cool, DJs situated right in the middle while Boston based VJ’s sit across from the stage in their light booth and control all the visuals.

Here’s Youtube video of Stripe at Tower of Babel

And check out Crystal Method

Nick gets to his set in the 90’ dome, Kill The Noise wakes up from a nap and we kidnap him in search of grilled cheese sandwiches at 3 am. Dust City Diner is our destination and Todd knows where to find it. Deep Playa is the coordinates and off we go into the darkness north of the city towards a few meanderings of blinking lights.

This adventure was by far my favorite of the entire week at Burning Man. When you get away from the city you hear quiet and see all the lights and just relish in the fact that all these people 51,000 to be more precise came together to create something out of nothing and when we are all gone on Monday this place will be back to the way it was. Sorry deep thoughts, but it does start to hit you.

Todd is a genius and knows the Dust City lights better than others and within 10 mins has found our late night snack shack. We park, hop up on bar stools and sit in this 50’s diner where we are served by Dinah in a bouffant blonde wig. “The meatloaf is amazing” she says as she hands me a grilled cheese and a coffee served on a little porcelain cup; motown on the stereo and ashtrays under the lamps on the counter. Heaven I am in heaven.

Photo – Dust City Diner

Friday September 3^rd – 9:30 am – This 5 hours of sleep or less a night is starting to get to me a bit. I head over to Kenzie’s house to volunteer. Kenzie’s camp boss Todd is a cool creep, he runs the Soulmate Trading Outlet where Kenzie and tour Dr. Dug were employed to help the applicants find their soulmates in an amazing process powered by dolphin cries and unicorn tears, not to be confused with a dating service. I spent the morning here helping out and was lucky enough to get T Bagged on the head by some naked dude who decided the shortest point from A to B was over my head – thanks dude.

Later Friday Star Eyes kills it in her Burqa. I am jealous as we hit the dust storm that I didn’t think to bring one! We grab cocktails and water and head out and run full tilt into Boobies on Bicycles; a few hundred women tits out on two wheels cruising. We venture over to Time Of Your Life camp again for some Margherita’s and a DJ set by Foxy Moron.

Friday at 8pm – Underground Dome, Root Society – Time for Bitchin to play! We meet our sound guy Scurry who from the minute we start playing is running over to dance and thank us for great beats. Everyone is so thankful! Loving it! Canadians I never knew existed popped in to show their support as we battled it out on the dustiest set of CDJs you ever saw in your life.

As we finish our set Scurry comes over with a gift – two keys to the city, only 100 made and lucky us – a souvenir to last a lifetime. We also got a “Really Good” sign from some sweet Canucks and we thought of our good buddy Mat The Alien and wished he was there performing his video set on the giant video wall!

Later in the evening Nick Thayer got the opportunity to play in the video wall right before Crystal Method. Check out Nick’s sweet little Burn video here for an idea of what its like to be up in the wall and have 15,000 or so people around you dancing.

Check out Nick’s Burning Man video here:

Saturday September 4^th – After Kenzie and I played our second set at Roots on one CDJ, someone’s serato and my hard drive (things are getting really dusted by now), I made a trip to the Temple. The Temple was one of my favorite art installations in the city. Someone and whether or not this is true told me that it was an estimated $300,000 USD art installation and was designed to burn in huge fire tornadoes.

I went out with Nick Thayer and Ali-B, I had a few tokens from my Step Father, Step Mother and Nona all of whom died this past year from cancer. Nick wanted to say a prayer for little Quinn Mills, son of Adam AKA A-Skillz and Susie Mills who had died at the age of 1 just the week before from an aggressive cancer. Needless to say the emotions were uncontrollable as we wept, hugged and supported each other. The great thing is there were thousands who had been there before us to leave their messages, wishes and prayers to the Temple, which was to burn on Sunday night.

On the trek home I decided I was ready to make Saturday night really count. Since it was my last night on the Playa I thought: “I will stay up all night and catch my 11 am shuttle and sleep in the car”. As a camp we prepare for Saturday nights Burn. The man is ready to go down and we cannot believe that the last 3 days has brought us all so close together. Our tireless leader Jefr Tale leads the evenings meeting and with many tears he announces that Root Society will not be having a dance stage next year. He and his wife are expecting and its time for a break. It’s here when I realize how lucky I was to be invited to be a part of this group and that I truly feel they are just as much a part of my family as I am of theirs.

Ok I know the sappy Burning Man stuff, it happens!

We walk out as a group all 162 of us and situate ourselves to watch the man come down. The arms are up, fireworks for 25 ish minutes with a dust storm and then BOOM! A huge fireball explosion and the entire structure is engulfed in flames. People around me comment on how fast it will burn, what an amazing week they had and then of course more hugs, tears and hollers as people get wiley over the man going down. Party Time!

Here’s a short video of the fireworks and the explosion:

Post burn I am feeling so full of inspiration and sad that in 12 ish hours it will all be over for me. I cruise back to camp check out some of the DJs and a little walk around our neighborhood has me pooped. I plunk down at Oscars bar and help Simon and Oscar serve drinks till about 6 am.

OSCAR’s BAR

OSCAR THE GREAT!

I haven’t really seen the sunrise yet so I decide to head over to the Disco Knights camp (across the street from my Tipi) and watch the sunrise listening to the choicest choons by San Francisco DJ M3. Joined by my Tenessee born lovely Darla Jean we giggle our way into daylight.

DARLA JEAN ALWAYS LOOKS HOT!

Sunday September 5^th – 11am – Nick and I are ready to hit our hotel in Reno, sleep in a bed, shower twice and eat the buffet. Its then we are asked to haul scaffolding and tear down the stages in the 90 foot dome. Without hesitation we get to work. I want to die since I haven’t slept and am still pretty drunk. But I did it. Thank god for Sky Walkers hugs and peanut butter sandwiches. I have still never been happier; best day ever.

We luck out and get to stay to watch the Temple burn, I wasn’t expecting this so even though I have been up for 2 days and am completely exhausted I am so stoked. We hop on the Purple Palace art bus and roll out onto the Playa for our last time. Different from the burn the night before the Playa is nearly silent. Art cars shut off their lights, turn off the tunes and let people sit and respect what the temple meant for each of us.

Photo – Purple Palace Art Bus parked at 10:00 and Esplanade right at Root Society.

Check out this Youtube video of the temple burn in 3 parts:

Part 1:

Part 2: (FIRE TORNADOES!)

Part 3:

Of course tons of other shit happened. Our friends got married at the Temple, Distrikt had a rad dancefloor, bar and water hose, tons of art cars, random acts of awesomeness etc etc. The first thing when you get to the desert is to give up on trying to do everything. Take your time, see and do what you can.

The rest of my trip home involves an anxiety ridden drive home, a rude hotel front desk clerk spelling my name wrong and nearly kicking Nick and I in the street, a shower, a cheeseburger, 6 hours sleep, a pool party, a buffet, 12 more hours sleep, 3 flights from Reno to Salt Lake to Minneapolis to Calgary, two days sleep and the most amazing adventure of my life.

Being invited to be a part of Root Society was really incredible, an experience I will remember and be grateful for always. Huge thanks to Jefr, Skywalker, Jim, Simon, Oscar, all the Root Society, Syd Gris of Opulent Temple, Costco Soul Trading and so many more. I will be going next year, you should come home too.

-Words: Mama Miche, Bitchin’