How to enjoy the Burning Man Experience from the comfort of your own home
(Author unknown. Thanks to Colin for the original and to Fred for digging it up for us.)
Pay an escort of your affectional preference subset to
not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter,
dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig, dance
close naked, then say they have a lover back home at
the end of the night.
Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours
in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite
everyone you meet to come over and party. When everyone
leaves, follow them back to their homes, drink all
their booze, and break things.
Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.
Stack all your fans in one corner of your living room.
Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on
full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.
Pitch your tent next to the wall of speakers in a
crowded, noisy club. Go to sleep. Wake up 2 hours
later in a 110+ degree tent.
Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3
blocks away. Drain all the water from the toilet.
Only flush it every 4 days. Hide all the toilet paper.
Visit a restaurant and pay them to let you alternate
lying in the walk-in freezer and sitting in the
oven.
Don't sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of
hallucinogenic/emotion altering drugs. Pick a fight
with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various
parts of your body. Forget how you did it. Don't go
to a doctor.
Buy a new pair of favorite shoes. Throw one shoe away.
Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for
the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.
Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or
until you think you are going to scream. Scream.
Realize you'll love the music for the rest of your life.
Get so drunk you can't recognize your own house. Walk
slowly around the block for 5 hours.
Sprinkle dirty sand in all your food.
Mail $200 to the Reno casino of your choice.
Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali's more
disturbing but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.
Spend thousands of dollars on a deeply personal art
work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city.
Blow it up.
Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play
a short loop of drum'n'bass until the embers
are cold.
Have a 3 a.m. soul baring conversation with a drag nun
in platforms, a crocodile, and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to
tell if you're hallucinating.
Bringing back the Boom(box)
If you're not out on the playa but wish you were, quit yer bellyachin and come out to Amnesia this Friday. The boys are bringing back the glory of the Boombox by dusting off all their old playa tracks for the occasion. Plus Zaxxon (
guerillasoul), one of my favorite robot/human hybrid DJs, is playing. If you stop showering now, and go roll around in the sand before coming down on Friday it'll feel just like you're there, minus the huge expense and sunburn.
And due to a change in plans Stefbot and I will be in attendance rather than on our way to LA in a 'stang convertible as anticipated (thanks United last minute fares!), so we'll see you there. If you wear your faux fur we might even pet you.
(image via
djgoldilox.com)
When the levee breaks
Some
arial photos of New Orleans pre and post Hurricane Katrina. You can donate to the American Red Cross
here.
(via
boingboing)
Best bulbous land mass evar!
Speaking of reasons to love Oakland (see Jess's post on Oaklandish, below), I finally got my ass over to the Albany Bulb for the first time ever last week, and quickly realized that I was a total retard for not checking it out sooner. Ok, so really it's Albany, not Oakland, but who's counting. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, the Bulb is a man-made peninsula that juts out into the Bay, across from the newish mega-Target (ask one of the Han's if you're not sure where that is).
In a nutshell, it was just a lump of landfill covered with dirt, until a bunch of homeless people moved in and created a cool little art community. Then all the "homeless" people were driven out in '99. Well, not quite all of them - I know there is at least one guy still living there with his cat. The art is still there, but not for long if the
city of Albany gets its way.
SF Gate recently had a
really great piece on the Bulb in their new "Culture Blog," so I will direct you to that for the full story, rather than just regurgitating what's been said about the Bulb a thousand times.
My point is simply, if you've never been, go, and go soon, before it gets paved over and sanitized. It's like visiting a long-lost civilization. Like what Burning Man would be if you took out all the yuppies, trance hippies, and frat boys, and left only a couple dozen talented artists.
The artwork is inspiring, fun, and incredibly creative. It's a great place to explore, and dogs love it too, what with all the weird things to sniff and the fact that they can go off-leash wherever they please. There is nothing else quite like the Bulb, and it's right here in the Bay Area, so you really owe it to yourself to go check it out.
I'll even take you on a field trip there if you need help finding it, or if you're scared of rats (
Windy will scare them away for us. There's not much she can do about Bush though).
(Bulb pics from
Monkeyview.net - go monkeys! - and
David Zucker.)
This just in from the Department of Insane Justification
Pat Robertson declares Jihad on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism." link
Way to stomp out extremism, Pat. Keep up the good work, brother.
(image via
Spontaneous Arising)
This is really happening
Some of you may remember way back in April when GTG broke the story of the impending
Japanese takeover of the world. Well, we're glad to report that Koizumi's evil plan backfired when he was
turned upon by one of his own robot minions over the weekend.
American National Guard troops nonetheless readied themselves for a possible attack by flawlessly executing
this training exercise. Today- unarmed and harmless ravers. Tomorrow- THE WORLD. Ok, well, tomorrow-
grandmothers who dare to question our involvement in Iraq. The next day- THE WORLD.
This sounds like a job for the
Raver Gun Club!
(Raver assault link via
Zaxxon)
Some links to get your week started
For all of you on the road again in the near future:
Travel tips from THE MAN.
Lucid dreaming meets the ghost in the machine.
If you needed another reason to love Oakland, besides the fact that Stefbot lets us wreck her house every time we visit:
Oaklandish. (via
Catchdubs)
Ranu sends word from a friend in London who just opened a record shop called
Silverback. Keep it in mind if you're planning a trip soon.
God hates techno. No news there.
The Temple of Fuck-all
Well, I finally did it. I finally made the decision that tortures some San Franciscans from as early as May to the end of August every year- the decision not to go to Burning Man. I struggled with this one especially hard this year. I had decided not to go- easy decision, I thought. Too much money, too much partying, too much preparation. I imagined, as many do every year, that I would take the money that I would have spent going to Burning Man and go to Costa Rica, or even Belize. (Why Belize? I know nothing about the place. Don't even know where it is. Just seems like every time someone talks about going somewhere with their Burning Man money it's always Belize. Note to self- look into Belize.)
Then Mike gave me a book to read called
This is Burning Man. I asked him as he handed it to me, "this isn't going to make me want to go, is it? Cause I'm definitely not going. I'm saving my money for a trip to Belize." He replied sagely (as Michael is wont to do), "if you don't want to go, it won't change your mind."
Yeah, well, he was wrong. It did make me want to go. It reminded me that for all its faults, Black Rock City was and still is an amazing and exotic place. Sure it's full of hippies who take their parties and themselves waaaaaaay too seriously. But it was started in part by pranksters called the
Cacophony Society, who did things just for the fuck of it. Just to get a rise out of people. This is the same spirit that drew me to Brass Tax many years ago. Why drag a sound system out to the middle of nowhere and dance around it all night? Just for the hell of it. Not in homage to Gaia or the spirits of sunset or anyone else- just to see if we can get away with it.
And it is possible to see some of the most amazing art installations ever built on a grand scale here. They rise out of nothing in the middle of one of the most unforgiving wastelands on earth, and then return to nothing one week later, many in a literal blaze of glory (cue Jon Bon Jovi soundtrack). And this art is interactive- it begs to be played with: jumped on, twirled around, climbed through, and groped. It's like a romper room for giant toddlers. The jungle gym of the gods. And while some of these works obviously carry deeper meaning for the artist and often for the participants (David Best's temples come to mind), some of them were built purely for the sake of seeing if it could be done. That is human play at it's finest.
Even so, the most jaded scenester in San Francisco would have to admit that Burning Man forces you to reexamine your most fundamental assumptions about life, art, survival, and what it means to live in a society, especially an American one. That doesn't mean that you will come back a different person. Sometimes these assumptions will return as soon as you shower the playa dust from your dreadlocks. But at least they were questioned. And maybe just for a split second your point of view was challenged. Hell, maybe it was the drugs. Or the dehydration. Or the exhaustion. Or all the damn boa feathers swirling around in the dust storm. But does that make it any less real? Who knows...
In any case, I'm not going. For reasons that I won't go into here I decided that the changes I need to make in my perception probably need to happen right here at home. Or in a convertible Mustang with Stefbot as we cruise down HWY 1 to Los Angeles to see our good friend Babsicali and soak up some California sun on a golden beach. Hey, maybe it ain't Belize, but it ain't bad. Not bad at all.
PS-- For those of you who are making it out to the Playa this year, here's a
preview of some of the installations you'll see. May Gaia be with you.
You're so pretty when you're on your knees...
...disinfected and eager to please.Ok, I know that saying Radiohead is brilliant is about as cutting edge as saying golden retriever puppies are cute. I don't care. They are hands down the only band that still has the power after all these years to move me on a fundamental level every single time I hear them, and that's worth mentioning once in a while. And, as evidenced above, they have the sexiest damn lyrics in the world. Period. Of course, Thom Yorke could probably sing about getting the runs from some cheap Indian takeaway and make it sound sexy.
But this post isn't about Radiohead. It is about Stanley Donwood, who has done most of the cover art for the band, and
his (minimalist but terribly polite) website, where you can now buy his autographed prints (via
Boingboing). You can also get some of his written works there, which after a quick perusal look pretty damn interesting. (Looking forward to reading
My Giro.) His stuff is also now posted on
Banksy's site, who we all know and love. Xeni Jardin has also posted the transcript of an interview he did with Donwood.
Check it out.
And in case you were wondering how Megs J. spends her time now that she's stayin home with
baby full time,
now you know. Love you Megs. That's seriously weird.
In the same vein, altho less freakish, is
this guy's site. Which is one of the coolest ones I've seen. He's like your stoner friend that just kind of hangs out and occasionally sings to you. Don't judge. I get lonely. (I would tell you where I came across this site, but I don't remember, so don't yell at me you freakin blog nazis- yeah, you know who you are.)
K, that's all for now. Gotta go do my wiggle.
Little in the middle but she got much back
As some of you know, I work for a digital publishing company. Basically we take print magazines and convert them to digital format. I had the opportunity today to cruise some of the new titles we have on offer.
And that's when I came across a mag with
this woman gracing the cover. Ho. Lee. Shit. Where did she get that ass? And, more importantly, as a white girl, can I ever hope to achieve anything even vaguely resembling that Mount Everest of booty?
I decided to do some research. I googled "big assed white girls." It was not encouraging that the number one hit was a site called "black ass fatties." As I suspected, no love for my melanin impaired sisters.
It's no secret that white women have long been envious of the black woman's ability to cultivate the coveted "bubble butt," that is, a tiny waistline with a large, round, curvaceous buttock round back. If you doubt this fact, just look at the corset and bustle fashions that were in vogue back in the 19th century. We wanted some of that real estate, and were willing to suck it up and pad it out as much as possible to get it.
Not much has changed, especially in San Fran. Now, being not particularly well endowed up top (Kirsten and I are founding members of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee), I've always been glad that I live in what I consider to be an ass town.
And I've been fairly proud of my "ass"ets in the past.
This pic finds me in a particularly asstastic stage of development (granted, much like a blowfish when threatened, my ass tends to swell while I am spinning. I suspect it may be in response to all the bass).
But, as I discovered to my dismay recently when shopping for swimsuits with Stefbot, my posterior has lost a bit of her ooph lately. Now, don't get me wrong, my girl can still fill out a large by Macy's swimwear standards, but she just kinda lays there. Like she's taking a nap. I suspect it may have something to do with the fact that I'm turning 30 in little over a month, but I think it may have even more to do with my love of beer and fatty foods. She's just not bearing up under the extra pounds.
It didn't help that today when I went to the store to buy lunch the headline on this week's
Star screamed in bold letters
"JESS' BUTT GOES FLAT!" Yes, I realize that they are referring to Jessica Simpson. Still, I considered it a pretty clear sign from the universe. So, I've decided to do something about it. I'm calling it
Project Bring Back the Booty.
The goal: To restore my booty to her former perkiness in time for Burning Man.
The method: This is where I get scientific. I have neither the discipline nor the means to join a gym or attend a class to get my ass in shape. But- I do happen to work right next to the best strip of flat, carless, and mostly obstacle free land in the whole city- The Embarcadero. Also luckily for me, I have almost no fear of appearing foolish in public. Therefore I've developed an exercise that I'm sure will prove very effective in achieving my goal-- and I'm calling it "the wiggle method."
It's very simple, sort of like power walking with a twist. It's essential that you walk fast to raise your heart rate, but it's also necessary to add a butt cheek clench with each step, and a slight twist as well to work a greater muscle group. In theory, this should work the glutes much in the same way as climbing the stairs, or dancing to Drum and Bass. Now, ladies, if you're really clever you can add a
kegel squeeze for added benefit. (Fellas- if any of you are still reading this- you may not know what a kegel muscle is, but trust me, if you've ever been with a woman who exercises this muscle regularly, you know and appreciate its effectiveness). So, if you see me walking down the Embarcadero at lunchtime and I resemble Charlie Chaplin with a stick up his ass, now you know why.
Since I've only just begun it's hard to judge the method's effectiveness, but I figure that with 5 miles of this every day, my back 40 should be restored to fighting weight in no time. And I really hope that the wiggle method catches on. Nothing would make me happier than a city where white women everywhere can once again hold their heads high, stick out that ass, and wiggle it. You know, just a little bit.
I wish it didn't have to be this way.
Really, I do. And if I hadn't already told you about
Sugarbush and
Oolong, maybe it wouldn't have to be. But what with the world being the kind of place where people put things on animals and then take pictures of it, and me being the kind of person who is endlessly amused by the looks on those poor beasts' faces, I feel that it would be irresponsible of me not to tell you about
stuffonmycatdotcom. Please forgive me.
(via
You Can't Make It Up)
UPDATE- I just noticed that a lot of the pics on that site are photoshopped. Let me just say that I DO NOT endorse the photoshopping of stuff on animals pictures. Lame. Not cool. In order to achieve greatness in this genre, I really believe the animal must experience the humiliation, degradation, and hatred of all things human that comes with being forced to wear a tutu with a plunger on the head, and that all of those feelings must be visible in their pitiful, staring eyes. Just wanted to get that out in the open. Let me also be clear that I would never ever subject my own animal to this sort of abuse, partly because I value her dignity but also because I like to keep my blood on the inside of my body. But since other people have, I might as well laugh at them.
If pork barrel legislation is so wrong, why do they make it sound so delicious?
A couple days ago I heard about BushCo's $286.5 billion
transportation bill, on the
Daily Show, which is where I get all my news. (Jon Stewart's best quote about the bill: "It also includes 1.6 million dollars for the American Tobacco Trail in North Carolina.
I'll tell you everything you need to know about the tobacco trail - it starts at slaves and it ends at cancer.") So I started reading an
editorial in SFGate about the bill, and soon I find myself drooling on my keyboard. No, it's not because I get hot & bothered by crappy transportation legislation, it's because the editorial is titled "Transportation bill -- six years of palm-greasing pork," and it's all about delicious pork products, including the mouth-wateringly titled "Davis-Bacon Act."
Since I wasn't 100% sure where the term "pork barrel legislation" originated, I looked it up.
According to
C-SPAN,
"'Pork barrel' came into use as a political term in the post-Civil War era. It recalls the practice of plantation owners who would often hand out rations of salt pork to their slaves, distributing them from wooden barrels. When used in reference to a particular bill, it implies the legislation is loaded with goodies for Members of Congress to distribute to their constituents back home as an act of largesse, courtesy of the federal taxpayer." Mmmm, salt pork...
Kudos go to the organization
Citizens Against Government Waste for taking the pork metaphor to the next level. They've got an annual
Congressional Pig Book, mini
Piglet Books for individual states, and even a
Porker of the Month! Oh, oh, pick me! Pick me!
Overheard in SF
“I’m not on drugs. It’s the
Sparks I just drank. It makes me hella hyper!!!”
--shouted by Tweaker being taken down by 3 cops outside the Castro Safeway.
(if you don't get the photo reference, look at girl's tongue. Via
taleoftwocities)
Diamonds Are a War Lord's Best Friend
When I was younger I used to dream of what kind of engagement ring I would wear when I got engaged someday. Since I'm generally not big on jewelry, and jewelry snagging on clothes drives me nuts, I decided I wanted a plain platinum band with a European-set diamond, much like what our dear friend Nastily received from her wonderful beau. Simple and elegant...a fitting symbol for love, right?
But then I started hearing about how
dirty the diamond business is, and I started to look at diamonds in a much different light. The diamond business has been controlled by DeBeers, which has a cut-throat monopoly on the business, for over a century. The diamond trade helps fund arms merchants, war lords, and even al Qaeda. Many so-called "blood diamonds" are mined by prisoner-laborers, basically slaves, often children. And this is supposed to symbolize eternal love?
Then I stumbled upon
this article in
Wired about these new
machine-made diamonds, and how they could potentially give DeBeers a serious run for their money, all without forced child labor! And I realized, hey, if this is for real, I could actually get an engagement ring someday without feeling guilty & awkward about it (my only other option up until now seemed to be getting an estate ring, but those are usually too ornate for my simple tastes). The article itself is lengthy, but it's a good read, with all the makings of a good James Bond movie: Belgian gem traders, a retired Army General, secret back-room meetings, Russian scientists, clandestine companies hidden in strip-malls, covert U.S. Navy operations, high-tech semiconductors (hey, it's
Wired) and even "Lithuanian amber salesmen, Nigerian tanzanite dealers, and Vegas-style cowboys in ostrich skin boots."
The machine-made diamonds are real diamonds - not cubic zirconium or anything like that. The only real difference is they are more perfect than naturally-occuring diamonds, in that the heat & pressure involved in their creation is carefully controlled throughout the growth process. Oh, and they're cheaper too, especially for supposedly "rare"
colored diamonds. (Diamonds are not actually rare - DeBeers just controls the supply very tightly to maintain the illusion of scarcity.)
DeBeers' only defense against this potential man-made diamond revolution is crafty marketing (and murder & bribery, just for kicks), which unfortunately tends to fool about 99.9% of Americans. Their view? "It is not a symbol of eternal love if it is something that was created last week." Oh, but it
is a symbol of eternal love if it was created and brought to you through a twisted network of slavery, scamming, and scum-sucking bastards? Okeeey. I have a
lot to learn about love.
Ok, let's be serious for a moment
A situation has just come to my attention and I'd like to take a moment to address it, if I may. Please read the following article. Let's not let this needless violence go on any longer, people. Together, we CAN make a difference.
Millions of brutal forced castrations and female genital mutilations take place every year in America. We need to put a stop to these atrocities and give every living creature the respect it deserves. link
Thanks for caring, folks. And thanks to Colin for bringing the issue to the table.
UPDATE: Damn,
back to the drawing board.
Insert clever title here
Banksy strikes again. This time on Israel's West Bank. (via
coolhunting)
A good intro to
Reggaeton. (via
Catchdubs)
Best of the Bay 2005 winners. In other words, a list of the most effective email campaigners in the Bay Area. Worthy of note, though, are best dive bar winner:
Amnesia, and best campground:
Sammy P!
Ok, fellas, I know that it's a man's world and all that, but do we really need scientists whose sole job is to
justify your bad behavior?
Wow. That may be the most lackluster, unenthusiastic (read: hungover) blog post I've ever done. Damn you Stella Artois. Damn you to hell.
PS- I didn't mean it, Stella. I still love you.
PSS- This is for Rok, cause he mentioned that he thinks GTG could use more cute kitten pics and
unicorn poetry (I'll also try to work the word "blogosphere" in the mix a bit more. Thanks for the feedback, Rokman!):
Cocaine, zombies, and blogging in a winter wonderland
Happy Friday all. Here's to surviving another weekend, and here's your linkdump for the day:
Cocaine river take my mind... Cocaine river don't run dry....Blogger defined. Not sure if I agree entirely. I mean, I have some unhealthy interests, granted, but I don't think computers rank very high among them. Anyhow,
vlogging is the new blogging.
This is why I love San Francisco. But
this is taking it too far. It's like
Santacon for the undead. It's enough to give Santa
some gnarly nightmares.
Speaking of Santacon,
Denmark just celebrated their own version.
Winter in August really seems to be catching on. (Thanks, Chadwick of Norwood)
Yeah, I know that's a lot to get through, but it's Friday so you know you weren't planning on working anyway. See you at
Amnesia tonight.
Santacon photo courtesy of
artstar fotografia.
Need to know
Not much time for posting today- gotta motor to Kabuki to get a bachelorette soak on with the ultra-fine Megs and Nastily (steam & salt scrub? Don't mind if I do!), but there are some things in teh news and elsewhere that are worthy of note today. (the teh was in honor of Colin, who I miss already, and who reminded me this morning to GTG or STFU. I do this for you, Sound:boy.)
Adidas buys Reebok for $3.8 bill. Unfortunately, after the purchase Adidas was promptly jumped by 4 large "urban youths," who made off with both the sneakers and the company's lunch money.
(My apologies to those read this post in the hopes that it might involve some Greg- baiting. I promise to make up for it in the near future.)
Also,
Fox buys My Space, hipsters freak out. Of course by the time the deal was signed the hipsters were already "like, so totally over it," and declined to take any noticable action in protest such as, say, closing their My Space accounts.
And because I am a huuuuuge fan of the segue (if only because it's spelled so differently than how it's pronounced), check out
Me_otch's My Space page. He's a super cool urban artist from Brooklyn who I discovered through
Wooster Collective: A Celebration of Street Art, a site that everyone should have bookmarked and check out from time to time. WC also clued me in on the existence of the
Hotel des Arts right here in SF's French Quarter that might be worth a look-see. Of course, my first reaction was, "we have a French Quarter?"
Oh, and before I forget,
GUERILLASOUL have completed their remix of Hellifino's track "branch lampin."
Give it a listen on their website. Nice one, guys!
Chiho Aoshima
I was introduced today to
Chiho Aoshima, whose work reminds me of those old Japanese landscape paintings that are so fascinating, only combined with modern manga sensibilities.
Really dreamy, breathtaking stuff. Check out her recent exhibition,
Asleep, dreaming of reptilian glory.
And on that note, Rok reminds us that
MOMA and
AAM are free today. Thanks, Rok!
(via
We Make Money Not Art)
