BM - Day Five - Pole Dancing and Talent Shows

Burning Man - Day Five

(I didn't take photos today.)

I was up early today but mostly just sat around reading until breakfast about which there was some confusion about what to eat. I noted that folks seemed a bit irritated and grumpy with each other this morning but there didn't seem to be any particular reason behind it.

But I stayed under the shade, per usual. We still have a ton of food and we aren't going that great with the ice. I think I'm mostly just using it for my camelpak. I've had a physically hard Burn this year. The cough, my heart going off all the time, and today my eyes were burning, streaming tears. I hadn't been wearing my bandanna or my goggles much. The weather really has been quite good. Although that doesn't mean there isn't dust. There is always dust. It just depends in what quantity, usually more when the wind is up.

It was my coffee service shift today. Gieve was on this shift as well. It was, as usual, quite fun. Usually people are quite thankful, but I swear for giving away something for free, some people can be quite impatient and judgmental. I mean, we're not a full fledged restaurant or even a partially fledged one! But in any case, I had fun with it and was silly around the stirring of the coffee, especially since I manned the ice station for some time. No stir, no ice. I'd speak in a fake Russian accent and check their cup three times in play. Usually people played along and teased back or begged my ice queenly mercy. We served roughly 175 cups in a couple of hours.

After service, I was still hanging out. We heard that Pretty was going to do a cabaret talent spot in Quixote's in one of his fabulous dresses so we were waiting around for that. In the meantime, our neighbors, Pleas-Air, held a pole dancing contest. No, I don't have photos. I'm sure someone does. There were some women who obviously had done this before. But my body image wasn't up so horribly watching these slender women getting up to dance in such a raunchy fashion. I think partly it is because there are no mirrors to remind yourself of what you look like. Or I've lost weight. But that's usually not the case surprisingly enough. There was one woman of "flesh", apparently a new phrase "lady/woman of flesh" to denote heavy these days. Whatever.

So some of these women obviously knew what they were doing and some went beyond, like letting guys come up and put their faces in their crotches (still wearing their bikinis). Then the finals came and of course the more raunchy ladies made it to the final round and... Javier!! Who apparently did a turn on the stage that I missed but upon hearing that he was up for a final round, competing against the dirty, skinny bitches, practically the entire camp went over to watch.

He got up there in high heels I'd run screaming from, a wild afro wig and a sleeveless tube dress. And danced better than any of those bitches!! He did things with that pole I didn't think was possible, like swinging out and holding it and then drawing himself in towards the pole slowly. Wow. We were all screaming and shouting for him. He didn't win, however, the raunchy bitches getting the votes from the men judges. Bah. Javier was the best.

On a side note, the strange man in our tent was in the crowd and I approached him. I had to remind him as he didn't remember but he apologized profusely, taking me at my word. I wonder if that's happened before...

Then off to dinner with the New Mexican crew with grilled chicken, sauteed veggies, rice and Sundancer's homemade bread (made from scratch in a bread oven on a gas grill, natch). Again, I eat better here than at home.

Then off to the Cabaret which was fun in varying ways. I tried to have an alcoholic drink but ended up hiding most of it under a bench. Bleh. Too strong. And really, drinking out in the desert is dumb even if a good 70% of the folks at BM do it. We saw Buttercup, a large Samoan looking gentleman with a stuffed, yellow birdie, singing in a quite a good voice, "Don't Touch My Birdie" which was very funny. Then various sexy, burlesque style singers, and then Blue, a poet who recited a very hot poem. A European comedian filled in some space. Then a hysterical Air Guitar contest with was very silly and fun, and raunchy of course. The guy who flashed his penis a lot won, of course. Followed by a very tall and skinny man in a Superman outfit who was a hoola hooper who stripped to full monty while hooping which was pretty funny. Pretty was great in his Statue of Liberty outfit. All his outfits have been fantastic. And then, the finale, a small Thai (or nearby country) man who looked like a young Sulu from Star Trek did a strange and somewhat disturbing dance down to his thong underwear. It was just... wrong. And that's saying a lot for Burning Man.

So in order to wash that out of our heads, Sundancer, Gieve and I went out to visit the Temple in the dark. I also wanted to drop off my items to be burned. Some papers of David's (my cousin who died some time ago), some of Willow's paperwork (my Sheltie I grew up with), and unnecessary military paperwork. The wind was picking up a little and I was actually in need of my goggles and bandanna, hopefully a storm is not heading in. On our way back, after I chose a good place to put my bag of stuff, we stopped at a massive Tetris installation. And I mean huge. Large, lit up Tetris "pieces" with large platforms that you could go up on and play the game and it would show up on the large centerpiece. We watched someone get the high score and then Gieve got up there and almost, just barely didn't beat the high score. We were shouting and cheering him but I'm pretty sure he couldn't hear us over the noise of the wind and the constant background of the city.

Then back to camp and to bed. The temperature had dropped today, previous nights were warmer, as much as warm can be. So it was colder and Gieve and I snuggled in to avoid the cold. Damn, it's freaking cold out here sometimes!!