(Written by my dear soul sister, Jenna Shenna Roberts, with whom I drove home from Home in 2010. Re-posted with permission by the author.) “It has been over 10 months since the rollover accident, and I am still working my way out of physical pain. I am not saying this to pander sympathy (although back rubs and hugs are always welcome, why thank you), I say this because the tickets were just mailed out for this years’ burn, and festival season is here, and I want you to go to and from events more gracefully than I did last year. I know many of you will soon pack hard, party hard, and drive tired. Recently, returning from Symbiosis, my friend Gray said that he thought of me and got a hotel in Reno rather than pushing it. He got nicely cleaned up and then ran into friends and ate and slept well for cheap. I am hoping that writing this will influence more of you to do the same. I assure you that it’s an ideal alternative to being jolted awake from the gasp of your friend as a sudden jerk to the left becomes the ceiling smashing on the asphalt followed by every side of the metal box you’re in thundering after it as all of your oh so very well organized festival gear spews haplessly across the dusty desert highway while your freshly poignant ‘Now Is All You Have’ dashboard sticker gets splattered with your dear friends’ head wound blood. This run on sentence is brought to you by 5 seconds of nodding off. We were so very lucky. I am even an example of the adjective “unscathed” in a fatigue-related accident and I have had over $15,000 in healing treatments. I also just enjoyed turning 35 years old and I am more deeply grateful for that this year than usual. Eben and I are a part of the mere 13% of non-fatal sleeping-at-the-wheel accidents (yup, an 87% fatality rate). One good friend who showed up to help me heal afterward had lost a lover when they fell asleep at the wheel many years ago. Others have shown me their permanent physical damage. This all makes my...
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We all love them and that damnable UNIMOG of a music machine, but how did all that begin? I caught up with PK of Space Cowboys for the story. (RSL)When and how’d Space Cowboys come into being? What was the initial vision and how has it changed and grown over the years? (PK)The Space Cowboys started wrangling the cosmos around 1997. I don’t remember exactly. It was a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away. The Space Cowboys were one of the first large-scale sound camps at Burning Man. It started of as a group of friends who wanted to go to the desert, build and run essentially a free night-club in the true wild west. Initially the Cowboys had a large camp on one of the “corners” of Black Rock City, and ran a sound system and barter bar everynight. Big changes happened in 2000 when after meeting the fine lads of SpaceLounge, the crew’s focus shifted. As the two camps merged SpaceLounge continued to build the physical public camp that rocked every night and the Cowboys began work on a novel & radical idea at the time: a mobile sound-system. In 2001 the UNIMOG debutted on the playa, and well the playa has never really been the same since. Ever since it’s founding the Space Cowboys have focused their on playa efforts into one evening, the Black Rock Hoedown, one of the finest events BRC has ever seen (we are a bit biased). Held every year on the Friday before the burn, with the advent of the UNIMOG the location has changed each year to a different amazing artwork on the open playa. (RSL)Do you have sound camp veterans in your camp and what camps did they come from? <PK)The Space Cowboys ARE the veterans (funny, sad & true). [RSL interjection: I believe it’s funny, RAD & true!] The majority of us have been doing this for a decade. The old-timers amongst us are either original Cowboys or SpaceLoungers. (RSL)What music stylins’ should people expect to hear from your boom bass? (PK)Peeps should expect nothing but the finest in Breaks & House from the Cowboys. Our roster of residents is as deep as it is...
Read MoreA South African Fifty-five weeks ago Patric entered the Crown Room in Portland, Oregon, sat down at the bar next to me and our mutual friend, Laura, who introduced us mere weeks before, and asked, “You two wouldn’t want to go to Rio for Carnival, would you?” Perhaps in one of my previous iterations of myself I’d have easily brushed off this kind of offer as mere day dreaming, but over the last several years, I’ve accepted these moments as wonderful opportunities awaiting my faith in them. So, I played along and asked, “When do you need an answer?” Over the next days, we discussed pre-flight requirements. Flight. Check. Hotel. Check. Vacation request approval. Check. Travel visa… “You need a visa?” Patric asked. We realized South Africans don’t need a visa to travel to Brazil, but Americans do. After speaking with a plethora of visa agencies, I discovered I couldn’t conceivably receive my visa in time to travel. Dream trip thwarted – for the moment, because now, I had the Brazil bug. I asked myself “How?” and “Why not?” rather than tell myself, “I can’t.” And then one day I just decided, “Travel doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult.” And this was what that beautifully blossomed belief manifested: A Barcelonan Monday night. Burning Man. Playa dust clouds swirled off my sparkly heels as I stepped onto my first art car for the week, with a full suited Cookie Monster at the helm. Just as I gained balance, several foreign, reveling Burners descended the staircase to await their stop. I grabbed the stair rail, ready to climb, but as I did, one of the revelers intently took my hand, looked me squarely in the eyes and in a Spanish accent said, “Wait! You! You need to travel, and you need to fall in love.” “Both sound wonderful,” I reply, “Where are you from?” “Barcelona!” he said. “Oh, I loved Spain! But I never made it to Barcelona,” I respond. We paused for a moment. I embraced the message, thinking our momentary interlude was over, but he continued, “You Americans. You travel to Europe. This is not travel. No. You, my dear, need to go to…” He looked intently into my...
Read MoreSept 1, 2009 BRC inspires Raindog to move to the US from England. Photo by Mick...
Read MoreSept 1, 2009 Nancy tells her favorite burn stories. Photo by Mick...
Read MoreSept 1, 2009 Frillypants introduces her chosen family. Photo by Mick...
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