My Year Of Everything

During My Year Of Everything, I’ve found myself drawn to books in which the author spends a year trying to do something (travel, be biblically correct), more than books in which the author spends a year trying to avoid something (shopping, everything). Positive choices are just more interesting. Case in point, my current book “A Devil To Play,” in which Jasper Rees tries to master the French Horn in a year. It’s made me pick up my guitar, and it’s made me wish I knew how to tune it. 

And overall, this experience has made me say YES a lot more, if only to have something to write about. I’m 39 now, and NO is one of my favorite words; you have to work pretty hard to make me want to stop hanging out with my dog for even an hour. But YES isn’t going to get easier to say once I enter my 40s, so I’ve been practicing. 

Which is my long way of telling you I went to a Burning Man party over the weekend. 

I’ve been on the fence about Burning Man for years. Ben and I even bought tickets three years ago, as we were going to a wedding in Lake Tahoe around the same time, and we figured we’d swing through on our way home. We packed the car with our REI tents and a few jugs of water, and we got silent as we approached the fork in the road: to the left was the way to the Playa, to the right the road home. 

Simultaneously, we blurted: “I DON’T WANT TO GO TO BURNING MAN OH THANK GOD I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO.” Went home, sold the tickets on Craig’s List in about 45 seconds, and that was that. 

But again, I’m 39, so if I’m ever going to do it, now’s the time. Or, you know, now’s within the grace period. 

A have a couple of friends who’ve gone for the past few years, and their camp was having a fundraiser in a warehouse in Culver City, because of course they were. They invited me, and I planned to meet them there. The directions were vague; in retrospect, it’s amazing I didn’t have to go to a grocery and buy an egg like Brandon and Emily Valentine on 90210. I wandered alone through the post-production-house district of The Culv until I heard the telltale techno. 

Really, folks, the only thing more embarrassing than walking up to a stranger and asking him if his party is the Mystical Misfits Fundraiser is the look on his face when he says NO.

Back on the streets, I encountered a woman in a top hat and followed her to the right place. Paid $15, whereupon a gentleman embraced me. “I’m here to give hugs, man. And I have something just for you. Reach into my coat pocket.” It was, naturally, a poem by Rumi. It said “Please don’t tell my parents.” Just kidding. Something about love or whatever. “Well, thank you for this, sir. Can you point me toward the bar?” 

Met up with my friends, one of whom (also Dave) is also a Burning Man novice. Here are some of our observations:

• Your experience of Burning Man (and its attendant countdown and decompression parties) will depend heavily on your opinion of top hats. Do you enjoy them? Because you will see a great many. Big Slash-looking ones, long Cat In The Hat/Lollapalooza ones, little tiny ones worn at a jaunty angle and attached with an elastic strap. It may reflect the carnival aspect of the event, or everyone’s fashion sense may have been shaped by Dr. Teeth. Probably both. 
• Ravewear is right where we left it in 1994. Glow sticks? Goggles? Backpacks? You bet. Mennonite fashion has evolved more in the last 15 years than rave fashion. 
• The people were indeed extremely friendly, and their camp does indeed look like a marvel of engineering. The whole experience seems like it could be fun. But so does a cruise. And like a cruise, if you don’t like it, you’d basically have to be helicoptered out. We left at around 3, right when things started to get drugsy, and the 20 minute drive from Culver City seemed like a hassle. Could I really do it for a week, 11 hours into the desert? 
• The music. The thumpthumpthumping music. People, if you told me there was a power-pop camp, I’d be all over it. But the subliminal message I get from electronic music says: “Go home.” 

So I’m still undecided. I’m leaning toward following the advice of 13th-century Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, who said: “Just have a party in your backyard, you dumb old homo.” 

UPDATE: I use the terms “Burning Man fundraiser” and “rave” interchangeably here, and I suppose they may not technically be the same thing. But here’s the deal: if you’re surrounded by people in long muppet-fur coats, if you see more than one person giving a backrub, if someone is fire-dancing to music that was made on a laptop, you are at a rave. That’s my policy and I made it up ten minutes ago and I’m standing by it.