BM - Day Four - Strange Man in Our Tent!

Burning Man - Day Four

(Click photos for larger versions. Copyright - Heather U-K).

I got up early, with the light, as usual, but went back to bed. There's only so much morning abuse a night owl can take, you know.

When I did get back up, I was mostly hanging out in Chez Bryan. This has been become my wont this Burning Man. To do nothing, I find, is perhaps what I need. A break from crazy work. And besides, it was freaking hot today. I know, I know, it's the desert, right? Hot all the time, right? But some days are better than others. Hot, yes, but with nice breezes. We've been having amazing weather outside of that dust storm on the first day coming into the city which we didn't really experience. Clear skies, nice breezes, very low dust. I haven't been wearing my bandanna and I probably should be, the cough is still up.

But I hung out until coffee service and then went to help set up and get today's coffee shift started. And then I did a lot of standing around, watching the coffee service, drinking a few cups of tasty coffee myself. Here's Gal, testing a cup of Vietnamese Iced Coffee (and Shirry in the background behind Ethan "testing" some as well). He and Ethan wore these aprons (Ethan's was red) over just boxer briefs, which I absolutely loved (the aprons, mind you, although the guys do have hot bods): "I keep the best snacks under my apron." Actually, I must correct myself. Gal wore his over underwear as seen here and Ethan wore his over... nothing but then ended up putting a VICC apron over his backside.











You can see Aiden serving ice in the foreground. Note his tattoo on his shoulder. We discovered the first year that we have pretty much the same tattoo. Leo always wears an Eye of Ra necklace. I have one on my right hip.

So... the set up. The tables are in a large U shape with the camp stoves starting it all off, heating up water. Then the coffee station where someone packs the presses and screws the tops in. Then the milk station where one can of sweetened condensed milk is poured out across five cups, then presses placed on top and the yell of "HOT WATER!!" comes out and we scatter and the keeper of the water station pours the water. Once it brews, someone gives the cup over. Ethan of this crew became something of the Stir Nazi. I mean he really got into it, coming up with all sorts of playful and silly ways of handing that cup over with stir instructions.

After stirred properly as previously mentioned and shown a couple of days ago, the customer is off to the ice station. Then yummy goodness is enjoyed and the cups (hopefully) turned back in to the dishwashing crew who get the joys of washing everything out, hopefully easily if all the milk was stirred in properly. All these stations rotate to give crew members a break. But about 3/4ths of the Israelis ended up together on washing duty at one point and they seemed to be having a good time about the whole thing. Well, okay, they don't look like it here but it was one of the best photos I had of it.

At one point, we had a customer (Vietnamese, natch) come up and say "You know, you're serving Vietnamese iced coffee and none of you are Vietnamese." So Aiden (who was shift "captain" at the time) made her an honorary crew member, gave her one of the cool medallions Aiden had made for all of us, plopped a rice paddy hat on her head and told her to speak in a fake Vietnamese accent. She got the duty of handing out chopsticks to customers (how we determine if you're getting a cup or not especially since people don't file singly like we tell them too and tells us the end of the line when were done). She was totally into it and had a blast. The absolute best thing was she was already wearing this shirt. "I will not love you long time."

We chatted for a little bit and found out she and her crew made the huge metal tree with steam coming out of it and big tire swings hanging off the branches. She said it took thousands of dollars to make, I may be remembering incorrectly but it might have been $10k. That is an amazing amount of money to spend for a one week a year event.

Then Quixote's Bar offered a bellydancing class as we were starting to clean up, so I stayed to watch. No, I didn't join in even though I have taken it in the past. Droves of ladies and even men came in, some with bellydancing like gear, some without but Quixote's offered scarves to wear and then the crowd gamely went forth to follow the instructor in her gyrations. Don't get me wrong, I love bellydancing. But why I stopped learning it was because I could not for the life of me get one of the most important moves, the Shimmy. That quick up and down hip jiggle thingie. As it really is one of the basic moves upon which many are built, it's sort of a bad thing if you can't do it. I can do many other moves as long as they don't include the evil shimmy. Plus I just like "freestyling it" when it comes to dance.

Speaking of dance, our neighbors, who built a large shade structure shaped like a plane and was called Pleas-Air ("It's our pleas-air to serve you") or some such, served "jet fuel" and music, offering a dance space under the body of the shade plane. They were pretty considerate neighbors too, the music actually going off not to late at night. Plus they played a good selection of music. So much so that Aiden decided to give the DJ a VICC medallion. I went over with him and danced on my own for a bit. I was really struck again by how much I think I would like to dance. I got good feet, good turn out, so I've been told. I was leaping around, pointing my toes and all. Fun. Then Aiden and I had some jet fuel and danced together for a little bit under the plane, listening intently and deeply to the music and the noise of Burning Man, looking up into the sky (eve at this point). The Playa, believe it or not, is one of the more peaceful places I know. Maybe it's the quiet surroundings. Like New Mexico is stunningly quiet in the back of my head. All that psychic constant buzz of the city gone. And then I was called back for dinner. But often at home (in SF), I can close my eyes and get a slight memory of that quiet and the "noisy" peace in the background.

Oh, I remember something before dancing at Pleas-Air, during the day. After coffee service, we had an in-depth discussion about socialism among several members of VICC, getting almost a little heated at points, but never really went over the line. Dan then said that he and I should go find the camps in the distance flying the Confederate flag and "Raid those Commi Confederate Bastards!!" and so we did. Well, mostly it was wandering around looking for them but then upon finding them and storming in with our demands that the Commies get out of our neighborhood (all as a joke, of course), were wooed into trying a vodka pickle chaser instead. Well, Dan tried it. I really can't do shots of straight alcohol, basically from my time in the military, even the smell makes me ill. Dan said it was good and we chatted with the crew, who turned out to be from North Carolina but I can't remember specifically where.

Gieve and I ate with the Israelis tonight, they made dinner. You know, I felt slightly guilty at bringing bagels, salami, beef jerky, nutella and bread to eat and not being able to really contribute to these fabulous meals being made here. We had good conversation and good food (vegetarian, which Marty would have been thrilled with after seeing all the grilled meat!).

Then I sat with the New Mexicans for a bit, chatting, having a couple of their leftover grilled lamb chops (damn, life at Burning Man is hard, eh?). I think I eat better at Burning Man than I do at home. Gieve came by and said "Hey, did you know that guy in our tent?" I snorted and told him to stop it. And he said, "No, really..." and I laughed at him again. But when he gave me a look and said, fine, in a particular tone, I realized he was not kidding as I thought he had been.

There was some strange guy passed out in our tent!! He was laying on our bed, wrapped up in Gieve's blanket and sleeping bag with his legs sticking out of the entrance. At least he was polite about it, since he was still wearing his shoes. And no, I didn't know him. I shook him awake, or at least tried to, since he kept vaguely shooing me away and trying to wrap up into the blankets even more, like a little kid who doesn't want to get up for school. Finally I yanked the blanket away from him and told him to get the fuck up and out of our tent. He managed to drag himself out and Sundancer, being a Ranger, came over to see if there was something he might assist with (remember, they are trained in mediation). The guy kept demanding this was his tent and at one point, reached for Gieve's blanket still in my hands and I just stepped back, telling him, "Mine." until he dropped his hands. He was convinced the New Mexican's RV was his boss's and this tent was his. He was pretty smashed. He was not going to leave, no matter what. Sundancer wasn't on duty but he always has his radio going and called for a Green Dot (a Rangers who is also trained in counseling who travels around with a regular "field" Ranger) to come assist but then Sundancer managed to talk the man into coming away from our tent and over towards the plane, which is where we think he might have been camping. Sundancer is good at his job.

We giggled and shook our heads in amazement about the whole thing for a little bit before settling in for bed.