everyman

I haven’t written a real blog about this yet, still trying to collect my thoughts, catch up on sleep, and healing my physical wounds (received from falling off a high ladder, tripping over the back of my tent and having a rock break my fall, and running through a fire which resulted in a couple burns on my right hand as I was unaware the fire high up by my hand was powered by carbon monoxide which burns at thousands of degrees!)

I spent several hours packing with DG, Nick, and Paul on Thursday night.

I know [i]almost[/i] the entire time I was there, I was doing some kind of work, but work that I enjoy.

Only about 100 people were there, yet it felt like so much more to me. Up in the woods there were art structures all through the trees, some made of neon, some were made of wood, some even made with rocks. In the area called middle earth, you had zombies from pittsburgh, and in the place called “downstairs” you had pirates….from CLEVELAND!

I worked pretty much all day Friday with DG, Nick, and Paul building up our camp, pitching tents, assembling the dome, decorating the dome, attaching and trimming EL wire, setting a “kitchen” up, setting up the sound system, testing levels, and then ultimately not using the sound system much because I forgot to bring my CD collection. We set up a neat little “tea house” inside of our now very decorated dome, covered it with pillows for people to sit on, and served hand-picked peppermint tea from lakewood, OH — very strong green tea and black tea, some coffee, and a few other flavors I can’t remember at the moment.

Lots of glow necklaces, which acted as life savers depending on where you walked. If you didn’t wear them in unlit areas, you risked getting run over by a bicycle or a passing vehicle (some of which would drive on Friday with their lights off.) Essentially, a glowing necklace was a human headlight telling people you were coming or going.

Friday night I relaxed a bit to watch some belly dancing performances, watch some video performance art, watched a huge hot air balloon fill up and give people rides, and listened to my neighbors open jam on their sound system. Anyone who wanted to use their instruments or PA were welcome to plug in and play at any given time.

Announcements of goings on were made on bull horns (megaphones) or through people’s own PA systems. At night, you’re hearing music coming from at least 3 different directions, not to mention coming from mutant vehicles.

Then you got fires, burns, flame throwers, fireworks (friday night), and machines rigged up to make funny sounds.

You got people walking around offering food, knick knacks, singing, rapping, or randomly reciting poetry. There was a picture booth! Go in with a friend, a strip of pictures get taken, and you tack it on the outside wall, or keep a few if you’d like.

Saturday during the day was a particular highlight for me. After we served pancakes to ourselves and some surrounding camps, we took an entire garbage can of stuff animals (which we brought out ourselves), loaded it with a $55 airbag, and set it off after a count-down. No video was taken of this, I know DG got a pictures. Stuffed animals fired about 20 feet up in the air, out of the can, and landed all over the land with scorched fuzzy asses. We left them out and offered them up to whoever wanted them, seeing as how there were a few dozen of them!

Kids came running from everywhere and grabbed them, loving the idea of having a bear, monkey, rabbit, dog, with a scorched behind! The ones that didn’t get taken were setup around where “the man” would get burned later that night. I believe a few of them went up in flames that night. Before night fell, Kyle showed up.

Lasers were used to write “SCORCHED NUTS” on the leaves of nearby trees while the man burned. People were cheering, smiling, and I was crying tears of joy over the fact that we actually made it out, and this was my “burning man” as far as 2007 is concerned. Combine that with the most recent Recycled Rainbow, and I’m an extremely happy camper.

Another highlight was during the day saturday, when the “pornyata” got broken into pieces, piñata style…struck by a blindfolded woman using a riding crop as her weapon. It was a gigantic penis named “tyrone” with two big nuts, filled with sex toys and condoms. Seeing this happen in the broad daylight was extremely amusing!

Lots of people serving margaritas, home-made salsa, mimosa, and handing out beers. Almost no one brought hard liquor, which surprised the hell out of me, but it was probably for the best given how hot it was all weekend. I was dressed up like a purple jellyfish.

Sunday morning some woman asked me “did you go glatiator style in that outfit?” I said “no.” She then pulled up my purple robe and stole my underpants. I never did get them back.

No rain! Then we drove home. Then it rained! It poured out over there for 15 minutes, got super windy, lots of lightning, and then it was reportedly super humid for the rest of the day. Came home, unpacked for the next 3 hours.

Returned the rental car today, so we’re officially unpacked now.

http://www.scorchednuts.com