BIG AND TALL MENS FASHION

Photo_082807_001.jpg So here goes my little assessment of where Burning Man is now. This was my 12th year, I've been going since 1995 and missed 1 year in 2003.
The Monday night /Tues early morning early burning of the man was one of my favorite events to happen during my tenure at burning man. So poetic, loved that it was during the full lunar eclipse. When I first went in 1995, there were about 2,000 people, I believe tickets were something like $40. There was a mass of tents and rv's scattered loosely about all over the place, in a big glob and you were lucky to find your tent again late at night if there was a dust storm earlier and the handy neon martini glass beacon of Polkacide got blown over and destroyed. I think I walked around for 45 minutes before I found my tent that night. I think that was the day of the double rainbow and huge thunder storm that was magnificent and everyone would check in with each other and ask "where were you during the storm" and "could you believe that rainbow?"
Things were chaotic, unpredictable, a bit crazy and miraculous. We were at the edge of civilization and building something out of nothing. Manifest that. No, problem. Anything went, from Disgruntled Postal Workers with sawed-off shotguns who refused to give over a Black Rock Gazette to anyone who asked nicely, to Chicken talking everyone into burning the central message board after the man late one night, to riding around the edges of the huge playa then everyone getting out of the car and letting it just go by itself. My first year of Burning Man I had recently learned how to spit fire with a group of friends from Tucson. Jesse, an active Earth First-er had been up in the NW earlier that summer and learned it from someone up there and was thrilled to teach the rest of us. In Tucson a group of us were doing ritualistic site-specific theatre events and enmeshed in the underground art and music scene. My friend Jeff Thomas (gone too early now), gave me the nickname Molitov after a night spent at my friends' cafe Luna Loca spitting what seemed like gallons of lamp oil over torches and feeling pretty excited about our new mad cirkus skills. A group of us: Jesse, Jeff, Matt Cotton (who went on to found Tucson Puppet Works--still going strong!, Lily (an art student from Spain who was dating Matt at the time) all piled into my old '84 Volvo wagon and a bunch of masks and stuff and headed out to the desert. I ended up covering the event for a magazine that was just starting up and shot photos and this became the cover story of the inaugural issue.
I'll post that article after this.
Somehow Jesse met up with Crimson Rose and a bunch of us with our newly minted fire breathing skills became part of the inner circle of the burning of the man--what a way to begin. I remember seeing Stephanie and Keith performing in the center stage with their sexy pyro-duo act, which I'm spacing on the name of at the moment--the next year they went on to found the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus which I was a part of on and off for a few years. I hung out with Michael Gump in his fantastic art car The Host which looked like a spider from mars had decided to eat a big vw? van. Gump gave out stickers saying "Frozen Bugs! Not Recommended." and then had candy machines that gave out plastic bugs frozen into large ice cubes.
It was glorious, we had found our tribe out there in the middle of Nevada, it was probably one of the many reasons I ended up moving to SF at the next summer. I ended up helping Scott Beale out with coordinating/curating the art gallery for his huge post-playa party over at cell (now called cellspace) where I had become a collective member and met a huge amount of folks including a very enthusiastic Maid Marion who had made some large scale collages on fabric covered with photo emulsion. I welcomed her into the community and helped her feel at home.
I would go to the post-playa parties at Miss P's and pre-event meetings at Will and Crimson's. I remember a certain party at Miss P's where Hernan Cortez was going up to every woman who was single at the party (including me) and dragging them up to or Larry Harvey over to them and introducing us to each other. When he dragged Marion over to Larry they were still talking 3 hours later or so when I left.
ok, gotta stop this--this is a novella. skip to this year.
The burning man org (borg) and a population of close to/over 45k people is a huge shift from the original event--an anarchist gathering in the desert. There is an active police presence, roads, utilities, more stuff than I could ever hope to see in a week and a ticket price that hovers between $225-350. This year there was some fantastic art, less than last year, so much less out in the deep playa where I like to explore at night. The punk/anarchist/prankster culture that I cherished at Bman is faded into tiny pockets or barely visible at all. So much media has saturated people's expectations of the

Week from December 19 to 25, according to Rob Brezsny


Aries (March 21-April 19)
What I foresee for you in 2009 is an upgrade in your approach to creating and maintaining your alliances. I envision you having dramatically enhanced intuition about how to connect with people in satisfying and interesting ways. I picture you being able to push beyond your habit-bound ways of conducting your relationships, ensuring that you'll be entertained and moved by them more than ever before. If I could give you a symbolic holiday gift to inspire you in this work, it might be a long, thick golden thread interwoven with a long, thick silver thread. Happy Holy Daze, Aries!


Taurus (April 20-May 20)
Happy Holy Daze, Taurus! If I were gong to give you a holiday gift, it might be a ticket to go visit your imaginary friend -- you know, the invisible ally you've been neglecting . . . the sweet, fierce companion who lives in the threshold between the light and dark . . . the "other you" who abides there patiently on the cusp between waking and dreaming, hoping that someday you will fully embrace your relationship. Don't worry, your imaginary friend isn't demanding or possessive in the least, but mostly just wants you to think of your link every now and then so that you might feel less alone.


Gemini (May 21-June 20)
One of your most fun assignments in 2009 will be not only to think way outside of the box but also to think way outside of the bigger and more interesting (but nonetheless boxy) boxes that all the outside-the-box thinkers customarily think inside. That's why, if I could give you a Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, and Kwanza gift, it would be a nice, clean, square, white box punched full of big holes with ragged edges where the inside has burst into the outside. Happy Holy Daze, Gemini!

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
In the Broadway play "Passing Strange," the narrator Stew says, "You know how one morning you wake up as an adult and you realize your entire life is based on a decision you made as a teenager?" If that description applies to you, Cancerian, 2009 will be the best year ever to do something about it. In the coming months, you will have the power to correct errors or misjudgments you made way back when. You'll be able to figure out how to start over in an area of your life that you've always assumed you were doomed to accept just the way it is. You may even find that you can, in a sense, change the past and reconfigure your memories.

Leo (July 23-August 22)
Happy Holy Daze, Leo! If I could give you one gift for the holidays, it might be a magic object to add to your love altar -- something like a pomegranate resting on red velvet, or a golden heart-shaped magnet, or Pablo Neruda's book 100 Love Sonnets. What? You don't have a love altar? Well then please begin creating one as soon as possible, and continue building it throughout 2009. For the next 12 months, the time will be right to get smarter, wilder, and kinder in your approach to creating intimate connection.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)
"My deepest emotional wound has also been the source of inexhaustible blessings." I'm not going to tell you why that statement is true for me -- it's way too personal -- but I assure you that it's one of the fundamental facts about my destiny. Could you make a similar assertion, Virgo? Is it possible to interpret your life in such a way that you could see how a painful experience you suffered in the past has also given you tremendous insight, inspiration, and vitality? Two thousand nine will be an excellent year to make that leap of understanding. And the time around the solstice -- right now! -- is a perfect moment to get started

Libra (September 23-October 22)
At Salon.com's forum "Table Talk," participants were urged to come up with a six-word sentence that captured the essence of their lives. One person wrote, "Broke. Payday. Broke. Payday. Broke. Payday." Another said, "Oh, no, not again. Again. Again." But the testimony I really wanted to call your attention to is this: "I never learned how to swashbuckle." Why is this pertinent for you? Because I believe that if you have a similar regret -- that you've never mastered the art of swashbuckling -- you will have an excellent chance to fix that problem in the coming months. In fact, I'm tempted to name 2009 as the Year of the Swashbuckle for you Libras. If I could give you a symbolic holiday gift to get you started, it might be a superhero's costume created by a top fashion designer. Happy Holy Daze!

Scorpio (October 23-November 21)
Happy Holy Daze, Scorpio! If I could give you one symbolic gift to set the right tone for 2009, it might be a clear glass vase with a potato growing partially submerged in water, allowing you to see its gnarly roots. I'd hope that would inspire you to put diligent yet playful effort into getting reacquainted with and exploring your own personal s