How to make a burning man milkshake: 1)Take a family reunion and throw it in the blender with a full-moon pagan freak-out. 2) Pour in 50,000 half dressed monkeys and drop a Miami nightclub on top. 3) Serve warm, very warm, and drink it every night for a week with 15 shots of tequila for a chaser.
Burning man is not for the faint of heart. Pounding rusty rebar into the desert in the middle of a 40 mph sand storm at night after being awake for 48 hours makes you feel like you've earned the right to drink and dance a bit. Dodging flames, lasers, and poorly driven couches while keeping the beat takes a mixture of fatalism and reflexes that guarantees that your fellow attendees are not only sincere but charmingly insane.
Our lives are defined by the events that sucker-punch us out of our routines. The weddings, car-crashes, and birth-screams that rattle our cage with the chill breath of real living deserve prayers of thanks. Last week I ate a bologna sandwich in fishnets to the conflicting soundtracks of Neil Diamond and norwegian heavy metal. I saw my daughter charm the smug calm out of a yogi in a desert tent surrounded by fire-spinning jugglers. I watched new friends succumb to the riptide of freedom and wander home in green fur hats telling red furry stories.
No, burning man is not for the faint of heart, but neither is love and more that any other whiz-bang collision of light sound and sweat, I found joy in the friends and chosen family that was Kentucky Friend Camp this year. 1700 bologna sandwiches, 20 gallons of bourbon and relentless hospitality surely brought a taste of the bluegrass state to the west coast.
How to make a burning man milkshake: 1)Take a family reunion and throw it in the blender with a full-moon pagan freak-out. 2) Pour in 50,000 half dressed monkeys and drop a Miami nightclub on top. 3) Serve warm, very warm, and drink it every night for a week with 15 shots of tequila for a chaser.
Burning man is not for the faint of heart. Pounding rusty rebar into the desert in the middle of a 40 mph sand storm at night after being awake for 48 hours makes you feel like you've earned the right to drink and dance a bit. Dodging flames, lasers, and poorly driven couches while keeping the beat takes a mixture of fatalism and reflexes that guarantees that your fellow attendees are not only sincere but charmingly insane.
Our lives are defined by the events that sucker-punch us out of our routines. The weddings, car-crashes, and birth-screams that rattle our cage with the chill breath of real living deserve prayers of thanks. Last week I ate a bologna sandwich in fishnets to the conflicting soundtracks of Neil Diamond and norwegian heavy metal. I saw my daughter charm the smug calm out of a yogi in a desert tent surrounded by fire-spinning jugglers. I watched new friends succumb to the riptide of freedom and wander home in green fur hats telling red furry stories.
No, burning man is not for the faint of heart, but neither is love and more that any other whiz-bang collision of light sound and sweat, I found joy in the friends and chosen family that was Kentucky Friend Camp this year. 1700 bologna sandwiches, 20 gallons of bourbon and relentless hospitality surely brought a taste of the bluegrass state to the west coast.
Damn, Josh. You really are a helluva writer. Thanks for the memories so flawlessly converted to words. Despite limping around Burning Man on a metaphorical empty tank, I have nothing but fond memories of my second year in the desert with my gypsy nuclear-holocaust family. Reading your words takes me back there in a way that seems more real than the experience itself. I look forward to the day when our desert fashion show makes it to the main catwalk and Tommy refers to nothing more than an ancient rock opera.
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