Burning Man Stories: 2013 Impromptu Naked Rock Jam Session

So after a morning of attempting to annoy people with my shirtcocking, I went ahead and took off my shirt, deciding to experience a naked day at Burning Man.

It was early in the week still, and I had yet to explore much of my neighborhood. I knew there would be a camp that was serving coffee to the community, I just had to find it, which I did with a little help from the official guidebook. Sadly, I don't recall the name of this camp which graciously shared its bounty of cookies and coffee with me, mostly undaunted by my nudity.

Soon after, I wandered over to a nearby camp that I'd seen on the way which had a jam dome set up. The prior year, I'd stopped at a similar, or perhaps the same, dome on the Esplanade, and had jammed for awhile on the provided guitars, bass, keyboard and drums with some other impromptu rockers.

This time, after I'd jammed on my own for a bit, a few other rockers wandered in off the road and before long a band had coalesced, and we just sort of clicked. As often happens on the playa, I didn't really get to know any of the other members, nor do I remember any of their names. The guy who grabbed the guitar was able to lead and picked out the signature riffs of many famous songs. The bassist and drummer were competent, making up a solid rhythem section. Someone was jamming on the keyboard, and I sang and yelled into the mic while shaking a tambourine and dancing my naked ass off. I remember only a few of the songs we covered: "Get back" by the Beatles, "Rock and Roll" by the Velvet Underground, "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton, I'll probably remember more later.

At some point, we drew a small crowd of "groupies", as we called them: girls who were rockin out to our sound. They laughed uproariously and cheered at my wild frenetic dancing. It felt great to be so in the moment, creating music with others and entertaining ourselves and anyone who may have been within earshot.

As all good things must come to an end, after a few hours we ground to a halt and said our goodbyes. I would later end up running into my old playa pal, Damon. He was riding with his campmate in a golf-cart-turned-turtle. I caught a ride and caught up with him. At this point my nudity was a bit awkward, but that's just life on the playa.

Burning Man Stories: 2013 Shirt-cocking

There is a phenomenon at Burning Man. Encouraged by the atmosphere of acceptance and free expression, some men walk around wearing a shirt but naked from the waist down. They have been labelled shirtcockers and called out as tacky by the independently-published Burning Man rag, Piss Clear. Indeed the look is tacky and uncreative, but this distaste for the outfit has spread through the community and in some cases, morphed into outright hostility.

I've seen a sign by the entrance of a camp that expressly forbade shirtcockers. My dad tells a story of being excluded from singing Karoake by his lack of bottoms. I was curious about this seeming discrimination in a community that is usually so open. Online I found a deep well of hatred from burners towards shirtcockers, albeit internet forums are notorious for unfettered snark. Frankly, I never had a desire to dress in this particular style, until I found I could annoy and provoke people by doing so. I didn't want to just shirt-cock, I wanted to stir the pot a little.

I considered organizing a protest group of shirt-cockers to march on center camp and offer free coffee to all who join our cause. I soon found I lacked the motivation to carry this out.

Instead, I came up with a little visual gag regarding the practice: When I went out, I was no ordinary shirt-cocker. I had on a tiny pair of pants, which I'd cut out of denim and taped to my left thigh. If challenged on my shirt-cocking, I would simply point to my three-inch jeans and say "Look, I'm wearing pants!" If this was further challenged, as the pants being not big enough to count, then I would make a big show of conceding to the challenger, and proceed to pull off the tiny pants, and then my remove my shirt (being naked is fully accepted, of course). But by doing so, I would reaveal a tiny little shirt pasted to my chest, so I would still be shirt-cocking, but this shirt would also be "too small to count." Thus, check and mate. This had always been more or less of a joke, but this year I put it into practice.

I had no luck in getting people to spontaneously challenge me, and decided that next year I will enlist one of my campmates as a plant, and script out the whole thing as a piece of guerilla theatre.

So how was Burning Man 2013?

Burning Man 2013 was, in a word, awesome. Of course that's how countless attendees will describe it, and how they they will describe the individual elements and experiences within the festival. The word becomes devalued with overusage, but it really is the word that best captures the feeling of overwhelming, uh, well, awesomeness.

With more people this year, came more of everything it seemed: more art, more artcars, more costumes, more lighting, more music, more friendships, more, more, more. And everything there was was bigger, better, deeper, louder, faster, and funnier. My own experience was on the tame side, since I was committed to hosting several events at my theme camp, Cartoon Commune. I always had another event coming up to prepare for, so was loathe to wander out for too long at a time. Also, in my ten years at Burning Man, I have become somewhat jaded to all the art and spectacle. On some level, I feel I have seen what Burning Man has to offer and will no longer be surprised. Then again, I do occasionally get blown away by something I see or experience out there.

So, I mostly stayed in my little neighborhood of theme camps, some heavy hitters among them like the Black Rock Roller Disco, which hosts a fully functional and sizable skate floor, and oodles of skates to loan out to eager participants. Of course, the music is always top-notch. There was also the Story Portal, which was an artfully crafted stage and set with a large wooden wheel to spin as on a game show. The wheel would provide the participant with a topic for a story, to be told into the microphone for the audience. Others, which I will not describe in detail in this post, include the Temple of Pole-gasm, Seven Sirens Pirate Cove, Xpat Alien, Trifucta, and Dust Fish.

The best thing this year was probably the giant metal sculpture of a woman dancing. It was some 5 stories tall, had a layered lattice structure, with a skeleton of thick steel poles, smaller poles radiating out to form the volume of the flesh, and a seamless, elegantly-curved mesh providing the skin which allowed one to see all the way through the sculpture. I did not have a chance to view this one up close, but even in pictures, it is breathtaking.

The most amazing thing I saw this year was a procession of law enforcement vehicles slowly heading up the 6:00 spoke towards the Man. It must have been about sixty vehicles, and an officer on foot stopping cross-traffic informed us that it was a memorial for a fallen officer. This caused the crowd to become solemn and respectful, except for a few cowards shouting epithets from a safe distance. It was quite a spectacle, and I heard others' stories of their arrival at the Temple, where the memorial was held. Some others may have bristled at the percieved intrusion, but I found it inspiring that the law enforcement community felt themselves enough a part of the event that they are able to use the temple to pray, mourn and pay respects.

Burning Man 2013: Videos: In the Man structure.

It was a beautiful structure this year, shaped like a giant flying saucer, with the Man spinning on top.  I just happened to be approaching the base just as they opened the structure to participants for the first time.  I thus got to be among the first to view the inside. 

 

 

Burning Man 2013 Self-portrait Photos

Prepping for a drum circle in Laguna Beach a few days before leaving for the playa.

Found my early arrival pass, after a moment of panic thinking I might not be able to get in early.

In my upholstery samples suit.

My dome was extra comfortable this year, with an air mattress, warm blankets and pillow.

Relaxing in the dome.

the free radical!

On my bike at night.

On one of the towers of "Catmandu", art project resembling a cat scratching post.

A bit blurry, but it's me, in a tux, serving the public as the "Blue Room Comfort Concierge", giving out mints and hand sanitizer, to make the port-a-john experience at Burning Man a little less horrible.  Always well-received by the people.

A velvet rope between two posts, with a sign saying "Please enter here," stands in front of the "blue room" designated for special treatment.  As attendant, I continually inspect the booth for trash, and spray air freshener inside between uses.

With a participants of my Cartooning Workshop in the communal shade structure of my theme camp, Cartoon Commune.

Vision Sketch: Consciousness-spreading spirit-entities

This image appeared to me as I was coming down from a DMT hit.  The consciousness the figures experience comes to them from outside, as independent and free-acting light-spirits, symbolized as white snakes with two rounded eyes, all emerging from the third eye, or pineal eye, of the ancient one.  Those not woken up by the spirits continue to sleep in darkness. 

Back from my tenth Burning Man: 2013

I have returned safely from my trip to the Black Rock Canyon of Nevada.  The weather was great, with nary a single dust storm the whole week.

The art festival was again spectacular.  Every year the scale of the art and theme camps seems to outdo itself, and this year was no exception.

My own experience this year was laid-back and mostly in-camp.  I did get out a few times, but not as much as in previous years.  But that was fine for me, as I have already experienced plenty of great times on the playa with the interactive art, massive rave camps, etc in my previous nine years, and have a bit of a jaded, "been there, done that," feeling towards it all.  But I love seeing the virgin and newer burners experience these things for the first time, and having their minds blown.

Instead of going out a lot, I hosted several events in our humble theme camp, Cartoon Commune, including Laughter Yoga and a cartooning workshop.  They were quite well-attended and much appreciated by the attendees.  Other events in our camp included daily Longevity Stick exercise, 60's dance party, Goth dance party, Improv Comedy, Open Mic Nite, Life Drawing, souvenir button-making, fortune-teller, and massage parlor.

Our camp was better than ever this year thanks to the hard work of my campmates, Gerflash, Fountain, Nostrildamus, and the rest.  My Uncle Mike set up a display of his artful 3D pictures with the red and blue glasses, which were a big hit.  We had a large shade space for our guests and ourselves, with a stage, benches, chairs, LED floodlights, and some frontage art consisting of dream catchers made from hula hoops and old magnetic tape.  As always, our lovely and inspiring wind-powered gray water evaporation system, the Gray-B-Gone Evap-O-Tron, constructed from a design found online, handled our gray water beautifully.  Louis (aka Fountain), arranged a small kitchen complete with a "rocket stove" from recycled coffee cans and newspaper, and a "kitchen sink," so we were able to cook fresh hot meals for our camp dinners.  I made a vegan stew, (Louis is vegan), and other meals included sandwiches, felafel, chili, and lentil soup.  The massage parlor was a carport structure with privacy tarps on the sides, with two massage tables and all the necessary lotions and oils.

I made a shrine from a repurposed medicine cabinet decorated with scenes of my favorite playa experiences, and with portraits of some of my favorite inspirational figures on the back.

My personal dome was especially comfortable this year, with a queen-sized air mattress with warm flannel sheets and blankets, topped with a ornately-patterned comforter and a few throw pillows.  I covered the rest of the floor in cushions, except for my gear which stacked neatly in waterproof bins.  An extra layer of shade on top made it semi-cool in the heat of the day, with the door wide open and a small vent in back to let the breeze through. 

2 Vision Paintings

More vision paintings.  These will be included in my art display at the Center Camp Cafe at Burning Man. 

Rainbow Maze

Rainbow Path

I leave for Burning Man in 10 days.

I'm kind of freaking out.
I have a lot to prepare and not a lot of energy to do it all.
I'm fairly confident that my survival and comfort will be provided for, but I just never seem to finish very many of my big projects for the burn, like new outfits, a pimped-out bike, a more finished shrine.
As it is, my shrine will at least be somewhat finished.
I have to check out my dome to make sure it is fully workable before I get out there.
I have to shop for food and other random supplies.
I have to get drinking water, which I go to fetch down in Carlsbad.
A lot of things, but it's all worth it, because I'm going Home!
Can't wait to see that wide open playa at dawn, with my all stuff unloaded and ready to get set up.

The playa on Saturday before the gates open. Construction vehicles, half-completed installations, and no parties to speak of.

Sketchbook Page 22: Vision sketches, birds

 The top part of the page shows some patterns I saw in my inner eye, the middle left is a vision I had  after watching my nephew play Minecraft for an hour, which is a game with very blocky graphics.
The rest was drawn sitting at Zinc's or at the beach in Laguna Beach, observing mostly pigeons, but some crows and sparrows, a eucalyptus tree and a man.

I CAN HAZ BRED CRUM?

11 more people who inspire me.

More sketches of inspirational figures who will appear in a collage on the back of my shrine for this year's Burning Man Festival.

6 saints
top row left to right: Graham Hancock, Dennis McKenna, Terrence McKenna
middle: Rupert Sheldrake
bottom: Jacques Fresco, Elizabeth Warren

5 saints
top row, left to right: Jerry Garcia, Vandana Shiva, Eckhart Tolle
bottom: Kurt Vonnegut, R. Crumb

The Screamer: Acrylic on Driftwood

This piece of driftwood I found on the beach already had black burn marks in the right places for the eyes and mouth of this character.  I just added the nostrils, whites of the eyes, teeth and tongue.  Sealed it with Mod Podge.

The Screamer
acrylic on charred driftwood

Rebuttals to Common Prohibitionist Arguments 4

"Cannabis is correlated with schizophrenia."

This line of argument is an insidious attempt to convince the ignorant that cannabis causes schizophrenia. In fact, there is no scientific evidence to support this.  Correlation does not equal causation, but this distinction is too subtle for the average person who reads the above headline.
There is evidence to suggest that those who are prone to schizophrenia will more likely use cannabis, likely because the cannabis eases the negative symptoms of the schizophrenia.

The rate of cannabis usage has gone up tremendously in the last forty years. If cannabis were truly a cause of schizophrenia, we would have seen schizophrenia cases increase at a proportional rate.  What we see instead is that rates of schizophrenia are steady for this period.  Therefore, there is no causal link between cannabis use and schizophrenia.

What prohibitionists who use the above argument will never do is to compare that correlation to that of alcohol and all manner of mental health problems. No, they always insist on looking at cannabis in isolation, never mentioning that alcohol has a much clearer causal link to mental disorders than cannabis ever could.  The same is true for countless other legal substances and risky behaviors.

Finally, citing any specific harm of cannabis as a reason to keep it illegal is just specious.  If it is truly harmful, then there is all the more reason to bring it under the control of a legal and regulated system. Leaving its trade to organized criminal cartels allows it to cause so much more harm than it otherwise would.  Countries that have enacted policies of Harm Reduction over prohibition have seen their rates of usage decrease, even as harms associated with drug use and the illegal drug trade have all but disappeared.

Random Doodle Collage

Another collage I made using random doodles which I had drawn in the margins of notebooks full of bug reports that I wrote at my old game testing jobs.

1829
Collage of random doodles, textures, magazine clippings

Burning Man Doodles Collage

'Nother Collage.

CHUG!
Collage of doodles of Burning Man, and other doodles

Japanese Garden watercolor painting

A little painting I made on a visit wth my folks to the Portland (Oregon) Japanese Garden.
It may be hard to tell from this angle that it's a Japanese garden.  Placed in a large forest, it was more wild than tame, but the obligatory standing stones gave the feel of the traditional Japanese garden, as well as the effort to make nature look somehow more natural.

My cartooning activities at Burning Man

I have drawn cartoons at every Burning Man I've attended, for nine consecutive years, and will again this year, for my tenth.  Whenever I can, I'll scrawl my characters on a graffiti wall or "snipe" someone with a caricature from across the room, to gift to them.

In 2004, I brought a portable easel and made caricatures of all my camp-mates, and guests that were in our camp at the time.  My first attempt at a playa gift, the drawings were on paper, not ideal for the rugged camp living.  Now I do them on small cards which are a bit more durable and portable.

In 2005, I spearheaded the creation of an artful cover for our dome.  It was intended to be a brain pattern portrayed in mazy runes painted in black on an off-white drop cloth.

In 2006, I submitted my original ink drawings to an art project which was using the drawings of many artists in a wall-sized collage in the Man Pavillion, underneath the Man itself.  Also, I drew a self-portrait in a scrapbook left on a craft table in the Center Camp. 

In 2007, my camp-mates and I launched Cartoon Commune, and I held my first Cartooning workshop with a dozen attendees.  The workshop is now on its seventh year running.

In 2008, I finger-painted a large caricature of "W,"on a board with a hole for the mouth.  This was a carnival game, where participants had to throw dildos into bush's mouth.  This was for a neighbor camp's adult carnival.

In 2009, I created a shrine, the Shrine of the Cartoon Playa, a repurposed medicine cabinet with cartoon scenes of the playa.  Also that year, I claimed a two-dimensional art kiosk in the Center Camp Cafe, and made an impromptu artwork incorporating cartoons, collage and runes.

In 2010, I pre-registered for the Center Camp Cafe art gallery and hung my abstract/cartoon/visionary paintings.  And I drew caricatures as a rally point in the Kinetic Sculptures Race and Scavenger Hunt, drawing quick-sketch group portraits (five minutes or less) of the participants and their awesome muscle-powered art vehicles as a souvenir for them.

In 2011, I tried to maintain the habit of drawing caricatures as gifts for people, whenever I was waiting in line for something, like ice or coffee.  It's a great ice-breaker, and takes little effort.  In previous years, I had drawn them for people here and there, but this year I drew and gifted more than usual, maybe because I was often standing in line for crepes and artisanal coffee.

In 2012, I drew caricatures of staff and patrons at the French Quarter's Cafe Fin du Monde, and I painted an exit sign on an art car.  I also brought out my cartoony palm frond masks to decorate our camp.


This year, I am bringing out a brand new shrine decorated with cartoon scenes of my favorite camps, artworks, and experiences from my nine years of attending Burning Man.  I am also hanging my vision watercolor paintings in the center camp.  In addition to the masks I brought last year, I'm bringing a painting I made of Stimpy from an original drawing by Vincent Waller, one of the main artists who produced Ren and Stimpy, who had visited Cartoon Commune in 2007.  Finally, I'm involved in Matt Melnicki's Get Lit(erary) Project, which aims to expand the medium of the written word at Burning Man.  I submitted my recent cartoon artwork to appear as part of self-published 'zines, which will reside in a pair of artful book cabinets on the playa. 

How to Remember Dreams

How to Remember Dreams:

The best way is to keep paper and pencil, or a recording device by the bed so that when you wake up in the night you can record a quick impression of what you were dreaming about.
Dream-journaling can be fun and rewarding, and I have filled pages with long descriptions of dreams.  Other times, it seems a written description can't capture the feelings and utterly outlandish happenings in the dreamworld. 

Not wanting to interrupt my sleep for long writing sessions, I found a way to incorporate mnemonic devices into my dream-recalling strategy.  I would just remember one element of part of a dream and repeat it over and over to myself.  Later, on waking up again with a new dream in my mind, I will select an element from that and add it to the first one which I can usually still recall.  In this way, I build a list of smaller elements, each of which triggers the memory of the dream that contained it.

When a dream is just beyond recall, I find the best way to remember it is to try to go into the feeling of emotion that was associated with the dream.  If I can feel that feeling from the dream again, sometimes I can remember the whole dream.

Telling dreams to another person seems to be a great way to purge the feelings of dreams, and in effect, release them.  Sometimes an image from a dream will haunt me for years, but telling another person about it seems to defuse the energy of it.

Often we dream about something that then happens in waking life.  Or we meet someone in a dream whom we then meet in waking life.  Could the ability to remember dreams be a benefit in terms of being prepared for what might come?

Burning Man 2008 mushroom trip - part 3

continued from Part 2 ...

Part 1 here.

I found I had energy to stand, and the music's rhythm inspired me to jump out of the chair and dance frenetically.

The music playing was reggae, one of my favorite genres.  I danced as I like to do, letting the rhythm move me.  At some point, a song came on with lyrics that sounded to me like, "I wonder why Babylon be fighting marijuana?"  This spoke deeply to my own bitterness and anger at the prohibition of cannabis, and I yelled out, "Yeah! What the fuck, right?" looking to the other people dancing, who acknowledged me with silent nods.  I danced until I got tired, then I went back to the bar where I'd originally been offered the saki.  This time, I accepted a shot of saki and it went down really smooth.

The dust was still thick, and I was thinking of moving on from this camp, so I asked those camping there to help orientate me.  I asked where the Man was in relation to us, and they pointed up the adjacent road, not the way I was expecting.  I was incredulous, at how much I'd been turned around.  Putting my gear on, I said goodbye, and headed up the spoke towards the Man.  I figured I'd have better luck walking along the Esplanade, keeping the large theme camps to my right. 

It was somewhat better tracking by the large landmarks and signs.  I was still looking for the Entheon art galleries. Just as I thought I must be getting pretty close, I saw a sign that said "Do not ask us where Entheon Village is."  This was a sure sign that I was near, but very frustrating, since of course I had been thinking of asking for directions.  I figured that many a lost psychonaut had bothered them, to lead them to erect the sign.

I ducked into a dome to wipe my glasses, and a woman inside was chanting at a small shrine on one side.  She was chanting "Nam myoho renge kyo," which I learned is a phrase in Japanese that is supposed to bring one to a state of bliss, by repeating it.  I huddled in there, avoiding the dust, just glad for the shelter, and a place to sit.  For awhile I went unnoticed by the lady, but after awhile she invited me to chant with her.  I was a bit weirded out, but I figured what the hell, it's Burning Man, so I chanted with her for awhile with little enthusiasm.  Soon after, she invited me to kneel with her at the shrine to continue chanting.  I told her I was "good" where I was, huddling by the door, watching the waves of dust sweep by.  I was dubious that just chanting a phrase, let alone that one particular phrase, was going to bring me happiness, and anyway I was already happy.

Soon I left that shelter and walked on, coming to another dome, another group having a party.  I was talking to a girl and the subject of the weather naturally came up, the blinding and stifling whiteness outside. I told her about how I'd invoked the windstorm, given it power, and she got a very serious look on her face, as though taking my power over the weather seriously.  She gravely told me, "I hope you got what you wanted from the storm."  I had to acknowledge that in fact, I did get what I wanted.  From my first year, I always liked walking through a dust storm, and I have come to associate that feeling with this magical welcoming playa.  But by now, I had gotten my fill, and really just wanted the dust to go away.  Apparently my power did not extend to stopping the storm quickly.

Moving on, I next alighted upon a camp with a large dome and a sign reading, "Black Rock Diner".  It seemed open, so I went in.  Inside was a typical camp dining area with camp chairs and pillows arranged in a semi-circle around a long buffet table.  It turned out, they were not open per se, but were having their camp meal.  This camp, at scheduled times, served grilled cheese to all comers.  They welcomed me regardless, inviting me to help myself to their leftovers, since they were mostly done eating.  I was famished, and everything was delicious.  I managed to finish off a large bowl of pasta with grated cheese that they were just going to throw out.  In the meantime, I had fallen into a deep conversation with one of the main organizers of the camp and his girlfriend.  It was one of those discussions that flows naturally, yet changes everything.  I think my admission to being on mushrooms triggered it, but it ended up covering many things: zen buddhism, yin and yang, virtual reality and the matrix.  At some point, he asked me what I'm "all about," and I responded in the Burning Man spirit by saying I wanted to raidate joy and love, throw myself into every experience.  He cautioned me that such a happy-go-lucky approach to life will unconsciously create its opposite, like the yin-yang.  I couldn't quite grok at the time how my happiness could create misery, but his warning opened up a little window of awareness, such that I did see it later.  My exuberance could, and often did become a drag on others, as well as myself.

I left there with kind of a floating feeling, walking out into the pre-sunset "golden hour," and noticed the wind and dust had died down. I could once again see the sky and far down the streets.  People were in their camps preparing, and lots of people were moving up the street towards the man, set to burn in just a few hours.  I was drained from my day's trip: all the walking, the visions, the discussions, the dust.  I had burned myself out, and wanted nothing more than to crash in my dome.  I hate to miss the frenzy of the man burn, but I hate even more to ignore my body's messages that I need rest.  I had never found my goal, the Entheon Village art galleries, but at that point I didn't care, since I had seen more than my share of psychedelic art within the confines of my mind, art which had been animated and interactive to boot! 

Back at my dome, I quickly fell asleep, and woke up hours later, ready to join the aftermath of the Man burn, and see what the night had to offer.

Vision Sketch: Gnomes in Sentient Tree Village

Just a little image that appeared to me on the edge of dreaming.

Sketches of some of my favorite inspirational figures.

Some of the people I draw inspiration from.  These sketches will be added to a collage on my shrine for Burning Man.

Ten Saints: portraits in pencil from photos
top row from left: Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
middle row from left: Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, Alan Watts
bottom row from left: the Dalai Lama, Dr. Madan Kataria, Mahatma Ghandi, Albert Einstein

Sketchbook Page 21: Bird, Bunny, Plants

These sketches I created while on the plane back home from having seen some of Portland, based on some photos I took at McMenamins Edgefield, a hotel/ resort/ farm/ ranch.  The photos follow.

Sketch of bird, bunny, plants. pencil

 

Bird

 

Bunny

 

Bunny

Artichoke Plant

Sketchbook Page 20: Laguna Main Beach Summer Crowd Scene

The Summer months mean huge crowds of tourists and So Cal locals to Laguna's Main Beach, with its mild weather, lush green hills and placid water.  A bit of a study for a painting I am thinking of making of the colorful crowds and umbrellas on the scenic beach with its trademark lifeguard tower.

Laguna Main Beach Summer Crowd
July 7, 2013
Pencil

Burning Man 2008 mushroom trip - part 2

Continued from Part 1...


I left the center camp plaza via Bonneville Road, the second concentric-ring street.  It was absolutely white around me and with no visibility, I could barely navigate, hugging the side of the road, marked by occasional vehicles, and camp structures.

At the next intersection, I decided to head up the radial spoke towards the Man, thinking it might be easier to see where to go with the large theme camps to my right.  Stumbling along, I happened to kick over a solar lantern that was sitting along the road, marking the boundary of someone's camp.  At first, I thought to walk on, but then I figured I might as well be polite and set the lantern back up.  Squatting down to do this, I had a hard time seeing, but I found its base was broken and would not be set back up easily.

Someone from the camp saw me struggling with it and invited me in, telling me it was already broken and not to worry about it..  They brought me into their bar, and offered me a shot of saki, which I refused, quoting Woody Allen, "My body will not tolerate that."

I was feeling the initial effects of the mushrooms strongly by then: dizziness, nausea, nervous tension.  They invited me to sit in a reclining camp chair, which was just what I needed.  I was able to relax and enter fully into the trip.  This was when I witnessed the absolute strangest, most alien things I've ever encountered.  It was not all pleasant; quite a bit of it was rather scary, but I was along for the ride, and there was really no way to abort the mission.

I retained a vivid memory of some of the visions that appeared.  I recalled them later like glimpses from a dream, which, back at home, I sketched out in pencil, and later rendered in watercolors, shown below.

One of them was of a strange tentacled creature with what looked like a television screen embedded in its torso.  My mind interpreted this as a genetically-engineered creature from a bleak future-world,  whose purpose was to project shows in its belly-screen for the entertainment of the kids, and doubled as a pet of sorts.  The screen would display scenes of the distant past, showing animals as they used to exist, before they all became extinct or genetically modified.

Another one was a giant twisted-up tree which was split into three parts length-wise along the trunk, with curling branches and vines connecting it all together in a mass.  All along the tree's branches, goblins, elves, fairies, nymphs, or "tree spirits" moved, cycling around and around, dancing and cavorting in a frenzy.  They seemed to be celebrating their sheer existence, but at the same time just going about their daily living.  This seemed to be a free-standing world of its own, not a product of my imagination. 

The last one I remember was a vision of being inside of a large cylinder.  Along the curved walls of the cylinder were countless tiles with animated faces, all expressing some negative emotion: fear, anger, sadness, numbness, confusion, suspicion, etc.  Each tile seemed to be a different color, the "hue" of the emotion being expressed, and fit into this cylindrical matrix.  I empathized with all these beings, each caught and trapped in its respective emotion.  I wondered where the happiness might be in this scheme, this odd free-standing symbolic world, and then, on cue, my consciousness shifted to look down toward the end of the cylinder.  There, at the end-cap of the tube was a golden disk, shining brightly like the sun, and in the center was a face like the laughing Buddha, grinning and laughing hysterically, blissfully, without a care.  Just pure joy.  My mind was interpreting all this sensory input, telling me that this was a symbol of reality; these entities were just like the myriad personalities I encounter every day, or the moods I myself get trapped in. 

I saw more during this peak of the experience, but memory fails, and the wilder visions defy description like the wholly-unexplainable elements of dreams.

I was finally able to sit up and assess my surroundings.  The alien visions had retreated a bit and I found myself sitting in a camp recliner in a theme camp at Burning Man in the middle of a dust storm, which had thankfully settled down a bit, to allow more visibility.  I saw people dancing and heard reggae music from a DJ which I'd not been aware of before. 

I found I had energy to stand, and the music's rhythm inspired me to jump out of the chair and dance frenetically.  

Part 3 coming soon...
Part 3 here!

Old Collage

This one I made several years ago at the interactive crafts table at the Laguna Beach Festival of the Arts. 

Collage

Sketches: Burning Man Dangers

This was a sketch I made of my adventures at Burning Man 2005.  Originally, I had drawn comics of these adventures, but the sketchbook they were in got stolen with my car.

Here's the whole story...

Click the image for an enlarged view.

Sketch: 5 Things that Could Have Killed Me at Burning Man
Left side: top: Cirque du Flambe, bottom: The Colossus
Right side: top: Angel of the Apocalypse, bottom left: Tesla Coil, bottom right: El Diablo

Watercolor Vision Painting: Dancing Wood Spirit

This was a detail of a vision I saw during an intense mushroom trip I had at Burning Man.  It was of a giant tree split into three along the trunk, with wood spirits dancing along its boughs.  The wood spirits were part of the tree, and at the same time free-standing entities.  They were not the tree, nor in the tree, but they were of the tree.  This watercolor painting was based on sketches I made long after the trip.

Dancing Wood Spirit
Watercolor on watercolor paper

Burning Man Stories: The Dust City Diner 2011

In 2011, I mostly stayed in camp, led and participated in our theme camp's events.  I made only a few jaunts out on the playa during the week.  One of those was late at night into the wee hours, biking around the inner playa, seeing all kinds of amazing sights.

But I knew I'd hit the jackpot when I rounded the corner on a back-lit wall to see a small slice of a 50's-style diner hopping along and serving a sizable crowd.  This was in a remote corner of the deep playa, near the trash-fence, the official boundary of the event.  An artful sign lit up in pink proclaimed this to be the "Dust City Diner," an installation I had heard of before.

The waitresses all sported beehive hairdos, cat-eye glasses, and pink waitress uniforms, and were hot!  The cook at the grill wore a "domestic violence tank top" (commonly called a wife-beater).  They had clearly taken great pains to include every detail of a 50's diner: the stools with puffy red seats, ashtrays, napkin dispensers, salt, pepper and sugar shakers.

From the stories I'd heard, the staff of the DCD would happily ignore and "diss" anyone standing around the installation, who was not actually sitting on one of the dozen-or-so stools at the counter.  Those on the stools were the "customers" and were given attention and service.  I was prepared for this, and was not disappointed that they were not distributing food to all comers.  I just hung out and watched the performance of serving, taking orders, cooking, dancing to the music, and bawdy joking, etc.  Eventually, some customers in the stools were ready to move on, and I graduated to a foot stool.  These were strategically placed at the corners of the counter, where there was enough room to stand on the foot-stool and enjoy the diner's service.  They offered coffee, which I gladly accepted.  They insisted on using their cups, rather than those of participants, to keep the diner theme intact. 

I enjoyed the conversation around the counter, though I can't for the life of me remember what was discussed.  Soon, a stool was vacated, and I got to enjoy full customer status.  At some point, a waitress would yell out, "Who wants a grilled cheese?" and took a count of how many to make.  Not long after, they served piping hot grilled cheese sandwiches with a pickle on the side.  It was cut in half, so I shared mine with someone next to me who had sat down prior to the order being taken.  To the guy occupying the footstool next to me, I offered the pickle, which he accepted.  This was just excellent: hot food made by someone else, out in the middle of absolute nowhere.  I hung around for another round of sandwiches which I again got to share with others.  Satisfied with the snack and refreshment, I relinquished my coveted spot at the counter, and moved on.

These amazing, unexpected and magical experiences lurk at burning man, hiding in the vast expanse and darkness, just waiting to be discovered.

Free Caricatures drawn in Public

I draw people for free on Main Beach, Laguna Beach, CA using just a Super-Sharpie.  Here are some of the results:

Color Drawing: Guts

This is a drawing I made many years ago, before I'd really studied anatomy.

Guts
Pen and colored pencil

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: graphic art

This was a project for a class at Orange Coast College.  I drew the monochrome image by hand, using a Wacom tablet and Painter 5.0, then colored it using a few different schemes. 

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: line drawing

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: line drawing with added color

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: Final rendered image

Still-life with Eggplant and Tangelo: Stylized coloring

Three Collages

 Back when I used to work as a game tester, I filled notebooks full of written-up bugs found in computer games.  I'd often doodle in the margins of the notes, as I used to do back in school.  I saved some of the best doodles for many years.  I  compiled them into a set of collages, colored with watercolor paints, at a fun group collaging event we had at the studio, recently.  Enjoy!
 

Rune Window to Future City

Dream-state with Alien and Cars

Trippy Collage

Complex Chaotic Sketch: Wiggle State

Wiggle State