Alenka had wanted a beer for several hours, but I, a Goody Two-shoes even at Burning Man, had asked her to wait. According to the internet, local law enforcement was quick to hand out open container tickets to Burners who started the party too early. We were still driving, but if I’d learned anything from beer commercials, it was that a woman dancing topless in the headlights of a vehicle means it’s time for beer. Logan retrieved a large bottle from the trunk, popped the top, and we toasted our (almost) arrival. A half hour later we were at the entrance.
Normally, at the front gates, the Welcome Committee beckons people from their cars, gives them a hug, and says, “Welcome home.” This is a common greeting at Burning Man. Like “aloha” in Hawaii, people use it for hello, goodbye, and several things in between. After the greeting, Burning Man virgins ring a special bell and make a “Playa angel” in the dust.
We did not get this typical spirited welcome. A powerful dust storm rendered our greeter unenthusiastic. The ambassador handed us information guides and pointed us in the direction of our camp.
In the distance we could see lights, but around us, on the farthest road from the center of Black Rock City, there was only darkness. Few of the RVs, tents, and scaffolding structures were lit up. People in goggles and face masks would emerge from the dust storm, leaning against the wind, visible for only a moment before evaporating in the white. It felt postapocalyptic.
We pulled up to our camp and found it empty and dark. No Playa angels, no ringing of the bell, no one at camp to receive us. The energy welling up inside of me, ready to burst forth, had nowhere to go. It was like I’d shot a gun, but instead of a bullet coming out, there was a “Bang” flag.
Twenty minutes later we saw a group of people decked out in various neon colors, blinking lights, and fur coats walking up the road toward our camp. We got out of the car to see if we knew them. A tall man wearing a bloodred top hat and a matching fur vest came running at me. It wasn’t until he’d wrapped me up in a hug that I realized it was Grant.
“Welcome home!” he shouted.
The rest of the group surrounded Logan, Alenka, and I, and assaulted us with hugs and names. Now I was excited! I tore through my suitcase searching for my blue sparkle pants and changed into them right there. Grant handed me a beer and a pill.
“It’s molly,” he said.
“What’s molly?”
“It’s like ecstasy. Just take it.”
I nodded and obeyed my Drug Spirit Guide, popping the pill into my mouth and washing it down with a slug of beer. Guess we were getting this thing cranked right up.
* * *
I headed out toward the Playa with Grant and a few others. The dust storm had settled, making the lights visible and distinct. They came in every color, most of them blinking, spinning, or moving, all attached to something, either a human, a sculpture, or a Mutant Vehicle, the modified cars that crawl all over the Playa, part transportation, part mobile art piece.
We walked over to what looked like a Chinese pagoda. The structure, the size of a large barn, was powerful and foreboding on the flat desert landscape, but up close the intricate woodwork looked like lace. This was the Temple, the spiritual center of Burning Man and the last thing to burn at the end of the week. Still incomplete, yellow tape cordoned it off so a construction crew could work through the night to finish a structure that would burn to the ground six days later.
In the distance, in the middle of it all, stood the Man himself, a giant neon effigy reaching toward the heavens. I got a little choked up when I caught sight of it. A year earlier, I’d been dumped and depressed, hearing about Grant’s awesome trip, and now I was here, experiencing it for myself.
A couple hours later we returned to camp and I joined some people having beers. The jovial group was laughing, hugging, and singing, but I didn’t feel a part of it. I stood at the edge of the party, watching quietly, my excitement turning to anxiousness. I didn’t know anyone but Grant, and everyone else seemed to be lifelong friends. Not to mention, they were all so at ease with the strange clothes, the partying, the nudity, the drugs.
I felt like a kid on his first night at sleepaway camp—excited about what was to come, but also homesick and worried about making friends. What if the drugs and the people and the weirdness were too much for me? Maybe I was too square for Burning Man. My last thought before falling asleep that night was I don’t know if this is for me. I hope I can last seven days out here in the desert with these people.
14
* * *
ACID MONDAY
Some of my campmates had a tradition known as Acid Monday. How Acid Monday works is that on Monday night you take acid. It’s a simple tradition, as the best ones are.
As I spent that day exploring Black Rock City, a pit of nervousness cratered my stomach. I thought about what it would be like to take LSD. I didn’t want to freak out during some crazy hallucination and look like an idiot in front of these varsity-level drug users.
After dinner Grant handed me an orange Sour Patch Kid dosed with one drop of liquid LSD and I placed it on my tongue like it was a psychedelic communion wafer. Alenka, sitting across the table from me, rolled her Sour Patch Kid back and forth in the palm of her hand, wondering if she should take it. She had never even tried pot.
“I don’t know about this,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t do it. I’m tired anyway. I might just go to bed early.”
She glanced up at me, silently asking for my opinion.
“I think you should take it,” I said. “I’ve never done it before, either. We’ll stick together and keep each other safe and I bet it’ll be a great night. And we’ll be able to leave Burning Man without any regrets.”
I was pumping myself up as much as her. She popped the candy into her mouth.
“Let’s go tripping,” she said.
Yes, let’s.
After about twenty minutes my hands and scalp began to tingle. Then, my whole body felt alert and adrenal. I asked Alenka how she was doing.
“I don’t feel anything. Maybe mine didn’t work.”
As we all left camp, toward the beckoning lights of the Playa, I felt like a part of the group for the first time, bonded to it by our shared high. Whatever happened on my first acid trip, we were in it together, a platoon of psychedelic explorers marching toward our destiny.
For the first thirty minutes, I silently marveled at the scene around me. On LSD the Playa was even brighter and louder, as if the knob for the world’s master volume had been cranked all the way up.
We walked over to the Man. The base was a large three-story building, with a series of arched balconies. On top, the Man stretched up into the sky another fifty feet, a skeletal structure lined with orange neon lights, slowly rotating.
I wandered inside the base structure and climbed the stairs to a window on the third floor, just beneath the Man’s feet. Stretched out before me was a vast expanse of blackness broken up by lights. I felt like an astronaut gazing out at the stars from beyond Earth. It was beautiful, moving, and a little bit scary.
I headed back outside and found our group was breaking off in different directions. Some had already walked over to the Temple, while others, including Grant, were about to head to a party. I hesitated, not wanting to get separated from my Drug Spirit Guide, but also being curious to see the interior of the Temple at night while on acid.
“I think I’m going to go catch up with the others at the Temple,” I told Grant.
He gave me a hug and said, “Have fun.” As I walked away, he watched like a parent dropping his kid off at college, happy to see me heading out on my own, but a little worried about what would become of me.
As I approached the Temple, it occurred to me that the LSD and the craziness of Burning Man might make it hard to find my campmates. I could end up alone, with no Drug Spirit Guide AND no friends.
Normally, getting separated from my group at a party would have threatened to ruin my night, but I felt at peace wandering alone. I
didn’t need a party, because there was one happening in my body. If I didn’t find my group I could spend the night exploring Burning Man and my inner psyche. It would actually be good for me. I could reach enlightenment. Or, better yet, meet a girl.
“Matteson!” someone called.
Oh thank God, a person I know, I don’t have to be alone.
I turned to see Brian, a lanky Canadian from my camp. He was sucking on a cigarette and wearing a mangy old fur coat and blue leggings. Classic Burning Man look.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.
He nodded toward the Temple.
“Yeah. It’s not good in there,” he said.
“Why not?”
“You’ll see.”
I left him standing about twenty yards outside the entrance, the closest to the Temple he could smoke. They didn’t want someone to accidentally burn it down before they purposefully burned it down.
* * *
In movies and TV, people on acid experience hallucinations replete with Day-Glo dragons, flowers, and rainbows. I did not experience this. For me, the LSD visuals were only slight alterations. Lights left a trail; patterns shifted and moved; shadows seemed to be alive for a split second. That was really it. But, while I didn’t have a conversation with Abraham Lincoln’s ghost, some of the things I saw on LSD did trip me out. The Temple tripped me out.
The intricate woodwork, illuminated by bright lights, twitched to life. Every surface quivered, like it was turning from solid to liquid. People packed the central chamber and it felt like I could hear every word, every laugh, every breath. The building, the sounds, the light, and the people were all in sync, pulsating, as if powered by some heart deep underneath the Earth.
I walked back to Brian.
“Yeah, it’s not good in there.”
We waited for the others to emerge, but after thirty minutes it was time for a rescue. We spotted a few of them in the middle of the Temple, lying on their backs, staring up at the ceiling.
We tried to rouse them, but no matter how much we explained why it “wasn’t good” in there, they wouldn’t get up. For a moment I had Alenka’s attention as she stared deep into my eyes, past my corneas, and into my soul. I readied for her to say something incredibly insightful.
“I think the drug is working,” Alenka said.
Guess so.
Brian and I took a seat beside Alenka and Puffin, a Brit from our camp, so nicknamed because his body type resembled that of the barrel-chested bird. For some reason, Brian and I, high on acid, began to talk about Nicolas Cage. Puffin sprang upright, shaken from his trance. He spoke with an accent as proper as the queen’s.
“Is someone speaking of Nic Cage in the Temple?”
“Yes,” I replied.
I was embarrassed, but Puffin nodded as if I’d just said something very wise. He approved of my nontraditional spirit animal.
* * *
A group of us exited the Temple and started walking with no particular destination in mind. Beyond the periphery of the Temple we slipped into the darkness of the desert, giving my sensory perceptors a break. Getting away from the sound and light felt good, like diving into a cool lake on a hot day.
The flatness of the land made it hard to determine distance. Only when I’d look back and see how small the Temple had become could I be sure we were moving at all. We came to an art installation that looked like a giant Slinky made of neon and all lay underneath it, mesmerized by the lights spinning above us.
Next, we climbed aboard a life-sized pirate ship, made to look like it had shipwrecked in the desert. We then came across an art car shaped like a giant metallic octopus with arms moving up and down and spewing fire. A glowing mushroom blasting techno music drove by us, trailed by three motorized cupcakes. We stayed as quiet as we could in a “meditation egg,” eventually running out in a fit of giggles. Inside a mirror maze we scared each other over and over again. We drank from the breasts of a minotaur and found not milk but a White Russian cocktail.
All my life, I hadn’t understood why people did drugs, but that night I unraveled the mystery: it’s because drugs are really fun! I laughed and laughed, often until I cried, gasping for air, and clutching my stomach. Everything I encountered felt new, not just to me, but to existence, as if it had just been invented.
The LSD had an emotional component as well. I was bonding with these six people. By the end of the night, we didn’t feel like six individuals but rather, like six pieces of a whole. If one of us had to go to the bathroom, well, then, we all had to go to the bathroom, and we’d march off to find the nearest latrine together. This bond wasn’t temporary; I’d feel most comfortable around these people for the rest of the week.
Eventually we returned to camp and had a joyous reunion with the others.
“Where have you guys been?” Grant asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Walking around.”
“You were gone for five hours.”
“Huh,” was all I could say.
* * *
As I got ready for bed, I thought about how much had changed in twenty-four hours. The day before I’d been nervous about taking drugs and unsure if I should even be at Burning Man. Now I had six new best friends and I loved LSD. Oh, and also, I understood the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “Kaleidoscope eyes.” I get you, John and Paul, I get you. Because I’m a drugger now.
15
* * *
YOU CAN ONLY UNDERSTAND BURNING MAN IF YOU’VE BEEN THERE (BUT I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT IT ANYWAY)
The mornings at Burning Man all started the same, with me waking up and thinking, I don’t know if I can keep doing this for the rest of the week. I was having a blast, but the extreme environment was taking a toll on me. No matter how late I went to bed, the heat made it impossible to sleep past 10:00 a.m., so I was always exhausted when I awoke. I’d stumble from the yurt and make the five-minute walk to the latrines dressed only in boxers. Wearing nothing but underwear in public would normally mortify me, but the topless women and naked old men rendered me an unnoticed prude.
Nudity aside, Black Rock City felt like a tranquil community in the mornings. People sat in front of their camps having coffee, others transported supplies in wagons, and someone was always building something. It was practically Amish, though instead of barns, people were raising peyote dens. This sense of community, and my friends in camp, would enliven me and before long I’d forget how tired, hot, and sore I was.
Every afternoon my camp threw a five-hour festivity with music and free booze. These parties were what we gave to the Burning Man community, our contribution to the gifting economy.
There is (almost) no commerce at Burning Man—no snack stands, no T-shirt vendors, no supply stores. No one is allowed to sell anything. The only things one can buy at Burning Man are ice and coffee. The ice, because it would be too hard to keep food fresh without it, and the coffee to raise money for the nearby community, as a thank-you/sorry.
The idea behind the commerce ban is to encourage self-sufficiency and generosity. Some mistake this for a bartering system, but gifting is different. It’s not “I’ll trade you some batteries for some duct tape.” Gifting means contributing to the community in the good faith that what you need/want will be provided by others. There are food camps, party camps, spa camps, bar camps, game camps, nap camps, etc. Whatever you might need, chances are a camp is providing it for free. Our camp provided one of the essentials—ice-cold daiquiris.
While bartending at one of our parties a friend introduced me to another new drug: cocaine. He started to hand me the bag, but I waved my hand.
“No, I don’t know how to do it. Just make me one. Make me a cocaine.”
He scooped up a little pile of white powder with the tip of a key and held it under my nostril. I sniffed, felt a tingle in my sinus, and a medicinal taste in the back of my throat.
You know how in movies people on cocaine talk about how great they feel? It’s because cocain
e makes you feel really great! I felt like I’d woken up from the best night of sleep in my life, on a bed made of clouds, next to a supermodel heiress to a diamond fortune. I shook cocktails and met people and danced and laughed and oh my God I was SO good at this—I WAS THE GREATEST BARTENDER WHO EVER LIVED. What was all this nonsense about cocaine being a drug? It was more like a health elixir or Flintstones snortable vitamins.
I could see how something that made me feel this good could become a problem, so I promised myself I wouldn’t do any back home. It would be easy for cocaine to worm its way into everyday life.
• Oh, going to the club will be so much more fun on coke. It’s the weekend. No big deal.
• Oh, going to the bar will be so much more fun on coke. Thursday’s practically the weekend. No big deal.
• Oh, going to the grocery store will be so much more fun on coke. It’s Monday, but every day’s a weekend when you’re on coke. No big deal.
On days when I wasn’t bartending I’d go explore. The expeditions would start with a specific destination in mind, a performance or a party or a food camp, but I rarely reached my intended target. There were too many distractions along the way.
Oh, there’s a giant teeter-totter that sends riders twenty feet in the air. Better ride it. And here’s a guy carrying a tray full of pancakes while wearing nothing but a syrup holster. I could eat a couple pancakes. What’s that in the distance? A man zooming across the desert, surfing the sand on a skateboard, pulled by a large kite. I should watch that for a while. And hell no, I’m not going to walk past this roller disco rink without taking a spin.
The people, and their nudity, were spellbinding too. Though it wasn’t the many topless women who stick most in my mind, but rather, a penis. A large penis. The largest I’d ever seen. At least ten inches long, flaccid, and as thick as a French baguette. Had I seen this penis in a movie I would have assumed it was CGI, but here it was, in the flesh (oh, so much flesh).
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