Getting Love Burn — BigsBlogs

It's impossible to fully capture what a Burn experience is in a blog post, it's just something that you need to try for yourself. In any case, everyone has their own unique set of encounters, experiences and emotions associated with these sorts of events. For some, it goes very little beyond an excuse to ingest vast quantities of drugs and/or alcohol, and to dress up in a lot of silly costumes. For others, it's a genuinely transformative and spiritually enriching journey that alters the course of their lives forever. Often positively and occasionally for the worse.

It makes sense to write a little about what Love Burn and Burning Man actually are as I'm conscious that many people reading this haven't had much experience of them. I must confess that a year ago I also had absolutely no idea what they were either. Before I went to Love Burn in 2017 I knew embarrassingly little about Burning Man and had assumed it was similar to Coachella or other such festivals attended by people I have very little time for. Even as I was hitchhiking to Miami from New Orleans, I had absolutely no clue that Love Burn had anything to do with Burning Man. All I knew is that the name sounded like a rather troublesome venereal disease. In hindsight, it was a rather stupid failure of association on my part.

I had been invited by my two my friends, Sunny and Natalie, who were living in Atlanta. At the time, I had only been in New Orleans for two weeks so in many ways my experiences of Burning and life in New Orleans have been in a kind of parallel. My only prior briefing was that it was a fun party on a private beach near Miami. I like fun parties and (to some extent) beaches. How could I possibly refuse.

To describe myself as woefully unprepared for Love Burn last year is a gross understatement. I'd failed to book a flight so had little choice but to hitchhike and write about it instead. Through great fortune and much gas station charming, I managed to arrive there after 18 hours without having to give a single trucker a blowjob. This was a relief as I heard that's a sort of currency on the road in America.

Soon it was obvious that this was not just another shitty festival. As we made our way to camp, we where whisked up by a car shaped like a giant bio-luminescent beetle, driven by a well bearded man called Rusty, from Arkansas. A beach buggy equipped with a crest of giant flamethrowers zipped by us and repeatedly blasted the sky with a series of deep, booming eruptions. There was no branding anywhere to speak of and when I went to a bar I was asked to provide a cup (which Natalie had thoughfuly brought for me) and no money was exchanged.

Everyone I met had names like Jester, HoneyBee, Slacker and Sexy Bacon. I was confused. So I decided to do what I probably should have done before getting there. I asked people what on earth was going on.

I was told that this was something called a 'Regional Burn' and followed the same principles of the large Burning Man festival. That festival takes place once a year at the end of August in a temporary desert city called Black Rock City, about 100 miles north Reno, Nevada. It began in 1986 on a beach near San Francisco as a small affair organised by a group of friends. Now it plays host to around 70,000 people spread across seven square miles, on an area also known as The Playa. There are ten principles that you must at least attempt to abide by; "radical" inclusion, self-reliance, and self-expression, as well as community cooperation, civic responsibility, gifting, decommodification, participation, immediacy, and leaving no trace.

The silly names, incidentally, are called Playa Names. I have now been to three Regional Burns and steadfastly refuse to be called anything except Bigbie. Mostly because my name is so odd that people assume it's a Playa name. And also because I haven't yet been to the Playa or 'Big Burn' so I don't feel I've really earned the right to one yet.

On the last day of Love Burn 2017 I was fortunate enough to bump into a few folks from New Orleans. They were curious to hear more about the drifter lunatic who had hitchhiked alone from New Orleans. They told me that I had unwittingly fulfilled the principle of radical self-reliance by hitchhiking to the event. It was more like radical self-stupidity in my view. It turned out that NOLA had a pretty large Burner community at the event. I didn't know it at the time but that meeting was the spark that lit the flame that would prove to be pivotal in making my time here so wonderfully special and exciting.

For my second Love Burn I really wanted to be part of the creation process. I'm one of those strange people who feels guilty if I haven't earned the right to have fun. A large chunk of the overall experience for many is derived from the creation of art installations and the various structures that are interacted with throughout the festival itself. I'm not an artist by any stretch but I can certainly lift heavy objects and screw things, which is a useful skill at any Burn. Thankfully my friend Mark runs one of the larger theme camps on the Playa at the Big Burn, called Trifucta. He was taking Trifucta to Love Burn and needed more hands on deck to help with three installations called Narnia, The Playground and The Hammock Garden. I was only too happy to oblige.

This time, mercifully, I was flying and not hitchhiking. I couldn't risk tempting fate by hitchhiking again. Those poor truckers will just have to wait. Sebastian and I got to the site which is only 25 minutes from the airport but feels a million miles away from Miami. An oasis of verdant greenery and palm strewn sandy beaches. You'd be hard pressed to find a better location for a festival. All around us, structures and installations from all corners of the human imagination were being diligently assembled.

Mark had spent the night unloading the contents of his enormous trailer and the various components of our toils were on the ground, waiting for a crew to assemble them. One by one they arrived. Members of camp Trifucta from all over America. I was amazed at the distances that some people had traveled to be there and basically work for free. That's one of the things that really impresses me about Burning Man. These events require an extraordinary level of dedicated hard work and most people do it for very little or no money. It's an incredible testament to what human beings can achieve in the name of love, creativity and mutual cooperation.

Over three long, exhausting days we screwed, hammered, bolted, lifted and sawed. By the end of the build it felt like we had known one another for years, despite some of us having been perfect strangers three days previously. There is something about the experience that taps into your inner child. I was once obsessed with Lego, Meccano, Roller Coaster Tycoon and SimCity. You could leave me alone with a box of assorted Legos and I would be a happy camper for weeks. Now as an adult straddling my 30th year, I was getting the chance to satisfy those impulses again, except on a scale I had never dreamed of.

After three days of fairly arduous work, The Playground had taken shape. Amazingly, there was no loss of life or even serious injury. Especially given that few of us were professionals and had no clue what we were actually building. The process had a real sense of the American Pioneer spirit to it. I could never imagine the French being able to do anything like this. Far too much like hard work. All around us the piles of wood were now transformed into enormous, extraordinarily intricate and beautiful structures.

It was sad to think that three of the most beautiful of them would be reduced to piles of ash by Sunday night. Incidentally the reason why the effigies are burnt is one thing that baffled me for a while. I then learnt at the end of the burn last year that they are filled with written personal intentions, mementos, treasured possessions and messages to loved ones. It's certainly more than an excuse for a cool pyrotechnics show. Like all art, it's open to interpretation. People get what they want to get from the Burn. Catharsis, sadness, relief, excitement, joy and everything in-between. That's part of what makes this event so special.

There wasn't much time to admire our labours because it was now the start of the weekend and it was time for the fun to really begin. I went over to say hello to my fiend Momo, whom I been introduced to last year. He was a veteran of many Burns all over America. A broad, tanned, bear-like man in his late 40s. Oozing an adolescent vivaciousness and charm that was all girdled by an aura of deeply ingrained wisdom. A wisdom which he had no scruples about imparting to all.

Back home Momo ran a successful law practice. This was a means of blowing off some steam from the banality of home. He was also the attorney for the whole event and had written the disclaimer that everyone at Love Burn is forced to sign (it basically says that if you fuck up and die, it's your fault). He was also responsible for deciding if someone who had made an infraction should be permanently banned from all future events. In short, he was not a man to be fucked with.

Over numerous iced whiskies, Momo and I caught up on our endeavours over the year. I asked him what he thought of Burning Man after so many years of attendance. 'You Know Bigbie, this is really an island of misfit toys. Most of these people can't handle the outside world and the outside world doesn't want to listen to them much. That's why you get folks hoppin' on their soap box a lot here'. I certainly had seen a fair amount of soapbox speeches from folks at the event. Some of it deeply enlightening, some of it I could live without.

I had interacted with many people at Burns who would be viewed as strange, insane or just plain weird by most of society. But I think that's what makes these events so wonderful. Everyone deserves to have a place where they can feel safe and like they're not being judged by others. And that's really one of the great strengths of this environment. You can be whoever you want to be and it's completely accepted and tolerated (as long as you're not being racist, sexist, homophobic or generally a dick). In many ways I also think of New Orleans as a burner city, or at least certain elements of it. Both of them share many of the same values. It's no surprise to me now that the Burn community is so vibrant here.

Burns are also a place where you can explore your own desires, interests and fantasies in a safe and secure environment. I've certainly learnt many things about myself over three events that I didn't know I'd be into or interested in. Not all of it is to do with kinky sex (as you might assume, knowing me). You are about as likely to learn how to blow glass as you are to learn techniques for blowing a dick at a Burn. There really is something for everyone. Unfortunately I'm not going to discuss any details of my experiences over the weekend. I believe in the sanctity of them for myself and, more importantly, for those I shared them with. I'm afraid you are just going to have to give it a go for yourself. Or forever hold your tongue.

Suffice it to say, it has been one of the most emotionally and spiritually rewarding weeks of my life. I met some of the finest souls humanity has to offer (y'all know who you are) and made many friends for life. I saw and participated in things that set my soul ablaze and that will stay with me for the rest of my earthly days. It's been a week since I got back and I'm still tingling with love and happiness from my time there. I certainly would not recommend it to everyone by any stretch. But for weirdos like me, it's heaven on earth.