Last night was incredible. Not in that ho-hum incredible kind of way, but actually incredibly incredible. One of my all-time favorite comedians, Kyle Cease, was performing. I feel odd saying 'all-time favorite' because I've only really been watching him for the last 6 years or so when he performed on Comedy Central Presents, but since then I've been a huge fan. I've only seen him live once before at the Seattle Comedy Underground (June 26h, 2009) but have seen him on TV and online quite a bit. 

For those not familiar with Cease, his comedy is a mix of stories that frequently go a few steps further than expected (a common thing with most the comics I like), mimicking sounds, as well as playing off the audience (often times would-be and was-be hecklers). He's quick-witted and has an incredible knack for gathering little stories of multiple audience members and reusing them throughout his performance. If you haven't seen his work, check out his Comedy Central Presents performance on Hulu and his Youtube channel. 

I got off work and hopped on the Metro up to the U-Dist to meet up with Eric and Felix. Both have also been huge Cease fans over the last few years and have seen him pretty much every time he performs in Seattle. We showed up at Neptune around 7ish thinking the show started at 8 but we were an hour off. To our surprise, Cease walked out the front door right then and introduced himself and chatted for a bit. He recognized Eric which was pretty funny since the only place he should know him from is sitting in the front row for his shows. 

We (Eric, Felix and I - Cease went on his own way) went over to Earls for some drinks before heading back to get in line closer to 8. The opening acts were pretty good. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for Jen Seaman. She hosted the night and had me rolling with uncomfortable laughter. Nam Huynh, if I remember anything about him it will be his rapid flicker tongue disorder. Diego Attanassio was funny, but I wasn't really in to his comedy for some reason - I'll probably regret saying this 5 years from now when he's super famous. David Crowe was a surprise guest that was pulled on stage last minute. Holy crap he is hilarious. He only had time to tell a couple jokes but his African ostrich story had me in tears, specially describing the way he expected the ostrich handler to be hopping around all over the place. His smoking vs drinking joke was a riot too. I also think that it was his drink being set on Cease's keyboard that hit a switch causing the keyboard to malfunction later.  

Cease came on, interrupting (adding too? improving?) his introduction being given by Jen. He doesn't really miss a beat and just starts in to his act. A mix of prepared jokes and playing off the audience. I'm not going to go in to a lot of his comedy here - you can watch his videos. His shows are different each time though as only some of the material, at least now, hasn't been rehearsed thousands of times. While I don't know if he actually likes people in the crowd yelling out things to him, he definitely rolls with it and pulls it in to a joke. Like during the Helen Keller bit when this guy in the audience what WHOOing at the 'deaf and blind' part, but when Cease was all "what if she also couldn't feel anything" the audience member yells "OH SHIT!" - like deaf and blind was his threshold, anything more and everything changes. 

After a lengthy faulty-keyboard issue was resolved (poor sound tech... as I said earlier, I'm pretty sure when Crowe put his drink down on the keyboard he must have hit something. It was like 15 minutes of sound tech trying to fix the keyboard while getting hit with jokes from Cease - I felt for the guy, but it is his job. Anyways...) Cease started doing his "What would Elton John Sound Like If...." bit. When he got to the sing-along "Easy" by the Commodores he sings the "That's why I'm easy" and the audience sings "Ahhh ahhh ahhh ahhh" [clip from another show] he then stopped, pointed at me and asked me to come up on stage to sing that part. Now - anyone who knows me also knows I have MAJOR stage fright. I declined, he insisted, I gave in because I know it would only get worse for me if I didn't. My heart was racing. I don't even get up to sing karaoke let alone stand in front of a few hundred people on stage. I'm sad (and slightly relieved) that nobody I know got video. On my way up he made a great observation that I think I'm going to have to use at some point (photoshop project I think) that I look like one of the professional wrestlers that come up before the headliners do (or something - I didn't quite hear exactly since I was heading up to the stage). 

It wasn't really much... but it was kind of one of the more liberating moments of my life. I don't push myself to do things like that. I try not to be center of attention, I prefer to be just off to the side and not draw too much attention to myself. It sounds kind of funny since in my social circles I seem exactly the opposite of that and have no problems being loud and vocal and whatnot - but that's just when I get comfortable with people. Even when I'm comfortable with people I have to push myself.

After I got back to my seat and the show continued for awhile, Cease made a declaration with himself, family, friends and fans. He is from Seattle and his mother and best friend of 20 years (who later came up to sing a song with him) were in the audience so no matter what he's going to have to hold to it. He states that he will give $10k to Diego Attanassio if he uses any material from his previous shows ever again. He commented on Louis CK and how he has new material coming out every month or so and keeping it completely fresh instead of finding the comfort zone of jokes you know will get a laugh. He gets in to his life and how he recently broke through a lot of his bubbles and just started living in the moment. He wrote about it on Facebook this morning. Worth the read.

Since he was retiring all his old jokes - he told the audience to yell out their favorites and he would do them right now, one last time. All the jokes that made me love him in the first place were told. "Schmicdonalds", "Pumpkin", "Nintendo", "Ordering Coffee" the list goes on. Actually, he practically did the whole Comedy Central show again. Then his friend, Justin, came on stage and did the song Fettuccine. After all was done, he did a montage of the night in slow motion. 

He closed the show, but invited everyone who wanted to stay for the PodCast recording to do so. He's been doing this PodCast show 'Kyle's Cult with Kyle Cease" for awhile that I had no idea about. I'll be spending the next couple days getting caught up on it. We spent the next 45 minutes (maybe? I wasn't paying attention to the time) doing a Q&A session with him. As soon as that gets posted I'll pop it up on my Twitter/Facebook. A lot of it was about how he gets his material, how he uses it, how he prepares. He talked a lot about being spontaneous, dealing with the moment and not preparing too much or you'll sound scripted. He also talked a lot about taking chances and getting rid of inhibitions. 

I learned last night that Cease isn't just extremely hilarious, but also has this really uplifting and inspiring attitude that I'm glad he took the time to share with everyone. I look forward to seeing his new material and following his various feeds.

+ I used "Cease" instead of Kyle to reduce confusion for my less than paying attention readers. 
++ I'm not checking for spelling/grammar or broken links. Let me know if you find something that bugs you enough to say something.

I do have a lot to say about the last 7 days... Unfortunately I've had so little sleep in that time that I really need to pass out. But before I do, I just want to say there is no way to describe the awesomeness of keithsuperk  and I being in the same city.  It's probably a good thing that we live so far apart as there is no way to maintain the nutball craziness.

He is just now in the air flying back to California and I'm already having withdrawals of spending time with him. Disneyland trip this year is high on my wants list so we can run around like kids again.

I'm sure I'll post more when I  have time which will be super limited the rest of this week but I'll try and find some anyways.

xo

I really do love pride weekend. I started planning my pre-pride pre-funk thing at my apartment like I had last year and I remembered it was the last time I saw Joe before he passed away.

I don't know what else I was gonna say here..  It's total waterworks at my place right now though. I think I'm going to go shopping and get my mind focused on something else.

Missing him so much.

I don’t know what is up with this weekend, but it was probably one of the most entertaining and exciting weekends in a really long time. I try to be a fairly socially active person in general, but it was like everything was in high gear.

Friday after work I headed over to El Malecon, the regular drinking spot for my work. A couple people are leaving the company so of course we need to go drink with them (you know, tradition!). Then I was off to a birthday party…. Not just any birthday party… a Birthday party with lots of furry action. It was nuts. The party was crazy fun. I’ll just leave it at that cuz it is somewhat of a blur. I also bounced over to T-Ravis’ party at Motor for awhile.  So many adorable people…  like… omg. After the parties Curtis and I headed to my place and hottubbed for awhile until it was super late in the morning.. I don’t even know what time I crashed… 5? 6am?  Who knows?

I woke up at 1pm and lounged about. Around 10 Curtis came and picked me up to head to a Nerd birthday party. At first it was pretty mellow, but as time went on it definitely picked up. Around midnight Curtis and I headed out to Waid’s to see Green Nuns of the Revolution. I lurve me some psytrance and this show was awesome. I got a chance to see a lot of old friends I haven’t seen in ages like Jesiah and Waater. Then came the after party.. and then the after after party..   I think Curtis dropped me off at home sometime around 7am. 

Today I crashed for awhile and then watched some Netflix.  The last few hours I’ve spent talking with this really adorable boy who lives far too far away. I also talked with Niko and Annika and a few others.  All super uplifting and fantastic conversations. My outlook on next week is really positive with all the good vibes today has brought.  What I’m trying to say, is that if someone fucks up my good vibes I’ll stab them in the face. 

I'm sorry I've neglected posting to LJ lately. I haven't had the time to put any effort and emotion in to it. I continually post to twitter/friendfeed/facebook - so if you don't have me on there and want some update regularity, that is where to go. I use LJ these days for more of my deeper thoughts type stuff which need more warmth than a 140 character or less post.

Anyways, I was told something by a friend of mine last night that hit me pretty hard.  This person has a blood disease that causes all sorts of nasty things like liver and kidney problems. Granted, I have multiple people in my family with diabetes that have similar issues, but the way this was said just hit me hard and I couldn't get it out of my mind.

"I'm dying faster than you Kyle, and it's just not fair"

I am losing a friend, maybe not for years, but they are right - They are dying faster than I am in theory. But what hurts more is their knowledge of that mortality. We all know we'll die, If your death was predicted by looking at an hourglass with sand trickling away at a steady rate this person's hourglass has a larger hole and the sand is slipping away even faster. I can only imagine how horrible it must feel  to recognize the hourglass flaw but have no control over it..

I'm sure there are years to come before this person is lost to us, but I'm not down with losing anymore friends, ever.... 

Today, I pulled out the fake Christmas tree to put up in my apartment for the first time ever. Joe Jo and I were always too lazy to bother with it, so it sat in storage throughout the holidays. I don’t know what spirited me to put it up this year. It’s a lengthy tedious task to fluff the plastic and metal to make the tree resemble anything remotely close to something real, then laboriously hanging the lights, beads and ornaments. However, it gave me ample time to think about what this last year has been to me and what I am thankful for.

This year has been one of the hardest and trying years I’ve ever endured. I’ve lost two of the closest friends I’ve ever had, a couple acquaintances, and the father of life long family friends. While pulling out the Christmas decorations I found a present my niece made a year or two ago. Two snowmen with googly eyes and on the bag they came in it said “Uncle Kyle and Joe”. My gut wrenched and it took awhile to pull myself back together. I think about him every day, but it is things like this that punch me when I’m not ready.

There have also been radical changes at work adding abundant amounts of stress and exhaustion. With three companies merging and people laid off or leaving for new opportunities, more and more duties are being added on top of an already full time job. It is also likely that within the next year my job will no longer exist.

Needless to say, the year hasn’t been easy. Each day has its moments of uncontrollable mental and emotional chaos I’ve never had to deal with before. What is there to be thankful for, really?

At the same time, this year has been one of immense joy. Joe’s passing and three large collaborative events; Vantage, Critical Massive and Burning Man, have brought me closer to Joe’s family, old friends, and lots of new friends. All of great character who have surrounded me with laughter and support during the hardest of hard times. Nobody can replace the loved ones I’ve lost, but I’m happy to make room to let all these people in to my heart. Each time I’m with them they add another layer to my appreciation that they are part of my life. They make each day worth waking up to and make me want to be a better person inside and out.

It’s my friends that I’m thankful for.

I've been hesitant to post much about this in fear it might jinx my progress, but I'm really proud of my diligence.

In the last 4 years I've gained some crazy amount of weight. Maybe as much as 30-40% increase from before I started at Speakeasy. Nothing to blame other than my own laziness, lack of attention, getting older, sedentary work environment and emotional food attachments. Ultimately I've just sucked at taking care of myself most of my life, and have always been a big guy.

Four months ago I decided to start slowly making changes in my life. By gradually changing I hoped that the impact wouldn't be as noticeable and much easier to adjust to. I starting bringing my lunches to work so I could eat healthier and stop spending so much money on eating out every day. From there it progressed to switching to almost all organic foods. I've removed High-fructose corn syrup, sugar substitutes and really any added sugar (if needed a dab of honey does well). Most of the processed foods in my kitchen have been thrown away. I've gotten rid of most caffeine as well and started taking multivitamins in the morning.

I'm now paying close attention to the caloric intake. I've got it down to between 1000-1500 calories per weekday. Weekends get a bit wonky since I don't have the consistent schedule I have during work and I go out pretty regularly. I'll be focusing on my weekends and how to get them under control next. I also only allow myself to walk to and from work (about a mile each way) and in the morning I do a quick 10-15 minute weight lifting workout which I plan to extend and change it to more stretching and resistance type workout this week.

General Weekday Menu (all organic):

• Breakfast [6am ~200cals]:
  • 1 liter of water before anything
  • two eggs (sometimes with onion, garlic, or whatever veggies I have to toss in),
  • maybe some ice tea (no sweeteners, just decaf organic mint)
    • Sorry Tully's, I won't be stopping in for the morning ice tea and bagel anymore. Even getting just the ice tea leaves too much temptation to push me back in to my old routine.
• Snack [10am ~30cals]:
  • celery
  • red radishes
• Lunch [1pm ~500cals]:
  • 1 liter of water
  • banana
  • carrots
  • veggie sandwich (multi-grain bread, cream cheese, hummus, cucumber, tomato, lettuce, onion, red bell pepper)
• Snack [4pm ~100cals]:
  • apple
• Dinner [7:30pm ~100cals]:
  • 1 liter of water
  • salad (romaine heart, tomato, cucumber, onion, balsamic vinegar, olive oil)
  • If I'm still hungry I might have another salad or snack on some celery or carrots maybe with a little hummus

Coincidentally this turned in to a vegetarian diet. If I can find something to replace the eggs in the morning (that isn't cereal) and the cream cheese on the sandwich I could go full vegan, at least during the week. My basic philosophy is a diet heavy on organic, fresh and (mostly) uncooked veggie and fruit. Suggestions for things to swap out that are easy and not too costly would be great though. I also make myself chug down a liter of water for each meal plus whatever water I'm drinking throughout the day. No more soda, diet or otherwise.

I wish organic food wasn't so much more expensive. It would help if I started going to farmers markets instead of using Amazon Fresh, but they make this whole change extremely convenient, and I don't have to deal with the rain.

I have a ways to go but I estimate I've lost about 15% of my weight (I'm not sure what my starting weight was exactly). The rate of loss is starting to taper off a little but progress is still being made. I hope to regain the lost progress by switching up and extending my exorcising in the morning and maybe even add something for when I get home.

GO TEAM PRIME!

From Monday, August 30th until Sunday, September 5th 2010, I lived in a temporary refugee camp filled with over 50,000 artists, engineers, innovators, and socialites. It was an autonomous and extremely self reliance zone. We were surrounded by elaborate art projects, mega parties, and extraordinary displays of kindness, connectivity and community. I’ve spent the time since I got back processing my experiences and decompressing from that foreign world. It took awhile to get back to normal. Well, kind of normal.

This is not the first time I’ve been to Burning Man. In 2000 I went with a group of audio and tech junky friends on a Greyhound sized bus with some of the rear chairs ripped out and replaced with a giant futon floor, electronic drum set, turntables and other techie music gear. We also had a high power projector and one of the largest privately owned sound systems in the Northwest, the DMT Sound System (38,000 watts of body thumping Mackie Fusion sound - untz untz untz).

The experience of getting to and from Burning Man that year was far more memorable than the event itself which made 2010’s event practically new for me. We made multiple stops on the drive to BM to try and get the air conditioning fixed on the bus, drove in to the woods with the gigantic bus to recover the sound system from a just-ending Autonomous Mutant Festival, and then the owner of the bus and sound system, Dmitry, spontaneously buying, by check, a 15,000 watt generator for about $15,000 because it had already been booked for the weekend and this was the only way we were going to obtain it and get power to the sound system. (sorry dude who didn't get the generator). Dmitry is crazy... in a good, but sometimes slightly scary way - which is why I love hanging out with him.

When we got to Burning Man that year I remember stepping on to the playa at Black Rock City (the city name given to Burning Man) and realizing how otherworldly it seemed being in the middle of a desert with a city being constructed in a matter of days and oddly decorated vehicles driving about everywhere. Weather wise there were dust storms and heavy rain but I don’t remember the temperature being freezing or oppressively hot, though ten years is a long time to remember anything. We threw some awesome parties for the few burners who made it out to the outer ring near 9:30 and Feet Street (the last curved street that year). There were high power laser beams shooting across the sky in the shape of The Man above us 2000ft wide by 4000ft tall that our friend Purlah helped construct. When the man burned there was lots of fire dancing performances that included our friend’s fire troupes from Seattle and Portland that was awesome to see in a bigger fire dance than I’ve ever seen before. I also remember jumping in front of a flying fist destined to slaughter my friend’s face for allegedly messing around with owner of fist’s wife (which I’m sure Niko would do for me in the same situation if I was so stupid). The ride home was  the most memorable for me being on my own in Dmitry’s Land Rover and making a marathon run so I could get back home and go to work by driving from Black Rock City to Reno, NV to Oakland, CA to Vancouver, WA (4 states, 1000 miles - about 17 hours driving, not including gas/Red Bull/Ephedrine gas station stops). All this before passing out, slumped against my friend, Binke’s doorstep because he too was passed out and didn’t hear me knocking. (don’t worry, I finally made it in a couple hours later and crashed out for awhile).

This year’s experience had practically nothing in common with ten years ago.

Back in about 2004 I was asked if I wanted to go back to Burning Man. The finances and time involved are pretty hefty and I made the proclamation that I would go in 2010 for a ten year reunion. As time went on more people asked me to go and as 2010 got closer and closer it became obvious that there was no way I could back out. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to go to Burning Man almost every year since 2000, but for the reasons I mentioned before it was never feasible. Yearly Burning Man going friends even skipped going in 2009 so they would be sure to go in 2010 which made it all that more important that I go. I had no choice but to make 2010 feasible.

I’ve been to plenty multi-day outdoor camping art and music festivals such as Phoenix Festival, and Critical Massive, but unlike the relatively calm Northwest weather we have for those events, the severe Burning Man weather can range from dust and lightning storms, winds up to 70mph, and temperatures from below freezing to over 100 Fahrenheit all within the course of a week. You can’t go and easily buy supplies since the closest large city is Reno which is about 90 minutes away if you don’t count the multiple hours you will likely wait for reentry back in to the event. You must be prepared with everything to get you and your camp through the entire week.

Our planning meetings started around February. The meetings were mostly just friends getting together on a weeknight, drinking some beers, and kicking around some ideas. Who is going? What cars to bring? Who is riding in what cars? How big of a van or truck do we need to rent? Do we have enough large shade structures? What costs should we share? How to layout the camp and setup of structures?

At the end of our planning, our group became “Camp Buttsexeh” (kamp bət seks ā) and consisted of Kelly, David, Joey, Ben, Tommy, Brittin, Eric, Rob, Kathe, Dax and I (that’s 11 people for those who are not bothering to count). “Buttsexeh” originated from Critical Massive, a mini Burning Man type event in the Northwest that 8 of us went to. It was a running joke where we would call out to each other like a bastard mating call using the Family Guy “Ball Scratcher” voice replaced with “Butt Sexeh” or “Butt Rapeh”. Brittin brought this to the camp so he is completely to blame and fully responsible for our buttsexehness (which we will never forgive him for). At the time those two words, “Butt Sexeh”, didn’t annoy the crap out of me. Not sure I can say the same thing now but I’m also a little home sick not hearing that randomly throughout the day. Knowing I could yelp “BUTT SEXEEHHHHH” and get a response half a football field away every time is something I grew very fond of (while hating with every fiber of my being). Luckily I can still yelp that and someone will respond whenever I’m around friends who went to BM or Critical Massive.

We didn’t really have many snags in our planning meetings. Though, from meeting to meeting small details would change as a couple people would discuss stuff outside the group and bring the thoughts back not realizing everyone else hadn’t been clued in to the changes. They were mostly minor details and everyone just went along with them anyways; so no harm, no foul. The only major snag we ran in to was that after having booked a cargo/moving van a couple months in advance, the rental company alerted us that they didn’t have one available just a few days before we were to leave. They offered us a mini van which seemed too small to us, but after a couple days of them trying to locate a cargo van we had no choice but to deal with the mini and hope for the best.

The afternoon before we embarked on our adventure Tommy and Brittin picked up the van. They swung by to pick me and my gear up to head to Rob and Eric’s where the group was meeting to pack the hell out of the van. The van, being a pimped out mini van with 2 video monitors that pop down from the roof, a plethora of power outlets to charge any device you might have available, and multiple input jacks to play media off whatever audio or video device you have. Not to mention the nearly cargo van sized space in the back once the seats were folded into the floor. We were so worried about getting a mini van but we really ended up getting a sweet deal regardless of our protest. I’ll just mention now, insurance is important, don’t skimp on it. We didn't really use it this time but we had a lot of scares (like losing the car keys that we later found) that insurance was definitely important! This van became almost home more than our tent did. Totally worth it. I would recommend the mini van again if our camp doesn't expand any.

At around 6am on Sunday, the day before Burning Man officially opens their gates,  our convoy; Tommy and Brittin (“Mothership”), Kelly and Rob (“Blue Lagoon”), and David and I (“Red Leader”), headed out with the van and our two cars, respectively. Kathe and Eric were on their own schedule with Kathe’s rental truck, Dax was flying down on Monday, and Joey and Ben weren’t coming down until Tuesday. Our 8ish hour drive to Klamath Falls was mostly uninteresting other than people eyeballing Tommy, Brittin and Kelly’s bright fun furred bikes as we traveled along the freeways, and our awesome two-way radio conversations that frequently sounded something like “Breaker, breaker. This is Red Leader, does anyone need a potty break?”, “Mothership is good”, “Blue Lagoon needs a pit stop”, and “Copy, Red Leader locating shitter. BUTT SEXEHHHHHHH” (repeated “BUTT SEXEHHHHHHH” by Mothership and Blue Lagoon).

Our destination for our sweet-ass overnight accommodations was at the Klamath Falls, OR Shilo Inn. Joey’s dad was kind enough to donate gift certificates he got from his work that knocked our costs down to pennies on the dollar. When I don’t go to Burning Man next time (because I won’t go… right?), I’m hoping we’ll be able to swing a break like this again. It’s really nice to have that extra stop between home and the playa both ways, especially on the way home. This place was pretty nice for what I consider a non-tourist destination. It has a 24 hour pool and hot tub as well as complimentary continental breakfast. The staff there was also great and didn’t blink an eye when we asked if we could store our bikes for security reasons as people were really eyeballing those bright fuzzy fun furred bikes which made us a little uneasy leaving them outside. [/free Klamath Falls Shilo Inn advertising]

In the morning we snagged a pretty decent continental breakfast and hopped back on the road. We picked up 100 gallons of water and some cigarettes in Klamath Falls, booze and some minor groceries in Alturas, CA, and our final gas fill-up and my really awesome mega wide brim palm leaf hat in Cedarville that makes me look mildly mentally unstable (more mentally unstable than I already look).  Around 3pm we made it to Gerlach, NV the closest town to Black Rock City. After a very short tinkle break (I thought you’d like to know), we drove towards Black Rock City and proceeded to the vehicle entrance line into Burning Man.

I’ve heard stories about how long the lines can be getting in to and out of Black Rock City. We moved a couple car lengths every few minutes. In between we would hop out of our vehicles, putting on goggles and dust masks and wandering around our area, talking with our convoy, meeting random people and trying to figure out just how long the line actually was before hopping back in the car to drive it 20 feet and hop back out to visit again.  We now know the line was about 3 hours long. That’s 3 hours of stop-and-go traffic in small dust storms and a some rainfall that makes your visibility next to nothing within the car. It was just a little bit of rainfall until RAINPOCALYPSE happened. Within sight was the first gate you need to pass through to get to the horseshoe-like city, but we were at a standstill. A storm had come upon us with a fierce rain and a lightening strike. Burning Man Information Radio (BMIR 94.5 FM) announced an all-vehicle stop and gate closure. The rain seemed like nothing to a Seattleite, however, when you mix the playa silt with water it dries into cement so all cars on the playa (including those already through the gates) are stopped until the rain ends and the playa dries up so it doesn’t cause driving, walking and bike riding issues throughout the week.

When a storm rolls through you never know if it is going to be for ten minutes or ten hours, so you just deal with it the best you can. So we stomped around outside in puddles collecting mud under our shoes, lovingly known as “playa platforms”. We met the next door car neighbors, cracked open some wine and beer and made a party out of being stuck with nowhere else to go. Shortly after our progress was stopped, one of the fantastic natural art shows I’ve ever experienced happened; a double rainbow, all the way across the sky, full on, it was almost a triple rainbow. I wish it was that easy to describe, but it was honestly the most vibrant rainbow (with twin+) I’ve ever seen. The brighter of the two rainbows actually had multiple reflections below it so it looks like a stacked rainbow of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, blue, purple, blue, purple, blue, purple, and so on, fading each time with about 6 or so “extra” rainbows below. There were others pointing out the same rainbow phenomenon, so I know I wasn’t just tripping on some psychedelic playa dust (unless we all were, and that definitely is a possibility). None of the pictures I’ve seen show the sextuple+ rainbow, so apparently it was just there for us to see, sorry readers.

When the rain let up and the ground sufficiently dried (less than an hour later), and I removed the playa platforms from my busted ass shoes, we were finally able to start heading towards the gates again. It was while cleaning off the playa platforms that I noticed that not just one, but both of my shoes had holes on the bottom. These are the shoes I wear around Seattle all the time and apparently I just hadn’t noticed I had worn them all the way through. Probably not the best thing for my feet to be walking around in all week, but nothing I could do about it at this point. We finally made it through the greeting gates where all Burning Man virgins (in this case, just Brittin..  who I feel weird calling a virgin.. but in this case he is) have to ring a huge metal bell with a piece of rebar to alert the city of brand new virginal arrivals. We drove on hoping to find a spot at 7:45 and Detroit but sadly, yet somewhat expectantly those spots were already taken. We drove back and forth until we came upon 7:35 and Guangzhou which after a little negotiation with Camp Absinthia was given to us as they didn’t need as much room as they had originally planned. We were technically in the “Registered Theme Camp” area but with Absinthia’s blessing we parked our asses down and setup shop.

By this time it was late Monday evening. The sun had set behind the mountains leaving us to fend by vehicle headlights and headlamps. Parking of our asses was what our months of planning amounted to. It’s hard to describe, but I’ll do my best. We had two Costco car ports of 10’x20’ each. We set them up about 10’ away from each other with the facing walls not set up, strung rope zigzag between them and placed a tarp on top of the rope. We created two side panels by zip-tying tarp between the two ends of the car ports. From the broad side of one of the car ports we connected a huge tarp that went over Kathe’s rent-a-truck. From there was Kathe’s PVC/tarp structure which extended another ten feet out. All in all we probably had about a 20’x65’ shade structure (including the 10’ for the rent-a-truck). We setup all our tents underneath the shade structure and also created a grey water evaporation pond a few feet away using some heavy black plastic Kathe brought, some 2x4s and candy cane rebar.

Quick note about our camp theme. Outside our camp we had a white board which stated some interesting statements:

• No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal

• The One with the Roofies Makes the Rules

And thanks to Emery we were also known as “Feral Burners in their Natural Habitat”

We realized by this time our phones stopped getting a signal which kind of sucked as I was hoping to give an update to Dax, Joey and Ben who were showing up later. We got in so late to setup that we didn’t have a chance to hit center camp and register our camp. It’s open 24/7 but it wasn’t on our minds unfortunately. A few of us did ride around the playa that night on our bikes and saw The Man, the Temple, The Opulent Temple, and a few other locations before heading back home. This was the first time I rode a bike in 17 years which was pretty awesome.

I said “heading back home.” “Welcome Home” is a recurring phrase used across the playa. For a week, give or take, the playa is your home. While there I frequently said “I’m heading home” and relative phrases. Your camp is your home. It is your protection from the elements, the place you can always go to get water and food, and the place you can rest your head at night (if you don’t rest in someone else’s home *wink* *wink*). After a week living there it feels like home and when you pack up and leave, you feel you have left home behind. You will frequently hear burners refer to “going back home”... Burning Man is that place. It’s so hard to explain until you experience it yourself. So I encourage you to go so you’ll understand :).

When I woke up Tuesday morning Dax had found our camp after a night full of wandering. Dax, Kelly and myself wandered off to center camp to see if our friends had registered their camps and to register our own camp, “Camp Buttsexeh” so that others could find us if they didn’t see the note left on the street sign at 8:00 and Detroit where we agreed with our other campers that we’d post just in case we couldn’t get the spot we wanted (which we didn’t). While we were out we ran in to Michael and James who were camping with one of the two Seattle gay groups called Emerald City Glam Cocks and got coordinates to where they were camped.

Tuesday night I wandered off to the Glam Cocks (8:40-F) who were having a party at their three story wooden building with couches, shower, observation deck, and my two Mackies cranking out some mixes that DJ Kyler had put together. After awhile George, Kevin, Christopher and I wandered off to Nexus (10:00-A) to see if I could find my camp-mates. When I couldn’t find them I decided to return my bike back to camp so I could decide if I wanted to wander out again on foot or crash for the night (who knows what time it was at this point but I was getting pretty tired). George and Christopher show up and pulled me out of camp to go to some crazy party happening right down the street at 7:30 and I think Edinburgh.

This place was packed and dishing out drinks like crazy. I imagine that the 30 minutes (tops) we were there they probably handed out $1k in drinks. I didn’t have an empty cup so I chugged the vodka lemonade I had made myself and they filled it back up with a vanilla rum and diet coke (nice upgrade). We started wandering towards the esplanade and we saw one of the giant pirate ship art cars built on top of an articulated double-bus. No booze allowed on that art “car” so we were forced to chug the drinks down only to find out that they were packed and we couldn’t get on board. We started wandering the open playa pretty smashed and tried to hit as many art installations as possible.

The diameter from one side of the esplanade to the other if traveling by The Man is almost a mile long. Yet even with that much space it is nearly impossible to go very far without running in to another art installation. Often times these pieces are interactive and if not they are at least clever and interesting. When you aren’t running in to art the art is nearly running in to you as art cars blaring music come zooming by with a load full of passengers.

After wandering for what I’m guessing was 2 hours or so we started heading back towards our camps. We make a detour by the Glam Cocks and all the lights were turned off and the music almost silent so we kept walking. Half a block later we run in to all the Glam Cocks who are just about to start out on their own adventure for the night. We join up with them for another couple hours mostly wandering the esplanade and the inner-playa areas until we’re all exhausted and head back to our camps to pass out for the night. I pass out to the voices of Joey and Ben finally arriving in the early hours of the morning.

Wednesday a bunch of us from Camp Buttsexeh go in search of our friends. On our list is Twisted Nipple at 7:45 and Istanbul, Lala/Chickenhed at 8:15 and Kyoto, Ministry of Douchebaggery at 10:00 and Guangzhou, and Moonrock/Aborialis at 9:15 and Cairo. While wandering around, every couple of blocks had a bar waiting to refill our beverages, give us peel-off tattoos or otherwise treat us to some form of awesomeness.

That evening we got decked out in our gear to hit up Root Society around 10:00 and Baghdad that we had heard was throwing a white party and to see Donald Glaude. Apparently the white party happened elsewhere and Donald Glaude was double or triple booked so we didn’t end up seeing him but that didn’t matter since the music being played at the giant 90’ dome Yoshiwara was bad ass. We wandered of to the Tower of Babel to dance for awhile then off into the open playa. We managed to hop on one of the art car buses that drove about 60 feet before stopping, turning on all the interior lights and letting everyone back out. So we trekked across the rest of the playa towards the Opulent Temple located at 2:00 and Baghdad but getting side tracked nonstop by more art, art cars, and random parties that popped up in the middle of the desert where art cars stop for moments at a time. After dancing all night, our feet ready to fall off, we wandered home and all crashed in Kelly and Dave’s tent out of exhaustion while giggling and laughing about our adventures until we willed ourselves out to pass out elsewhere.

Thursday I stuck around camp since my feet felt like a giant blister after walking around all night in damaged shoes. I’m pretty sure at this point I was dehydrated and maybe had a little heat exhaustion as the temperature had been rising steadily day after day. I went to bed early and got a good night sleep while a bunch of people went out to play for the night. I had originally planned to go to the Temple at sundown, but I decided taking care of myself for the night was a better plan.

Friday I stayed at camp during the day trying to keep out of the sun and continue my rehydration, feet rejuvenation and general healthy upkeep. At night I headed over to the Glam Cock camp and ventured out with Kyler towards the Temple. Tommy and Brittin warned us about how bad the dust storm was out in the open playa and that our best bet would be to head towards The Man and then out to the Temple so we wouldn’t get lost. We ignored all warnings, popped on our goggles and dust masks and headed straight towards where we assumed the Temple was.  Luckily it wasn’t too hard to find since there are quite a few lights from The Man to the Temple to help guide us if we were getting side tracked (though I think we did an awesome job).

I hadn’t been to the Temple since Monday night and it was completely different than I remembered it. The Temple is a place at Burning Man to write your pains, your joys, your dreams, or anything that means something to you and on Sunday night the Temple is burned. The Temple has different meanings for each person. For me, the Temple offered another way to say goodbye to Joe Jo and Chris. I wrapped a letter I had written to them around one of the boards and tied the necklace Julian had made for Joe Jo around the letter. I also brought some of Joe’s ashes with me that was swept away with the dust storm wind to be forever part of the playa.

Kyler and I were done with the depressing stuff for the night and headed off to meet up with people over at Root Society to see Crystal Method. From the Temple to Root Society is open playa on the outskirts where there isn’t very many art installations or any lights. We took our best guess, put back on our goggles and dust masks and ventured in to the dust storm only giving us about 20 yards visibility. Luckily Root Society has one of the loudest sound systems at Burning Man so we just headed to the sound and amazingly got there without too much of an issue. Crystal Method was extremely boring so we decided to head back to camp, cuddle puddle in the van for awhile with a couple of the boys and recuperated regrouped, and got a bit trashed.

In the early morning as light started to creep over the horizon, Tommy, Brittin, James, Kyler, Rob and I decided to ride our bikes out beyond the Temple to the outskerts of the playa and watch the sunrise. This morning was one I’ll never forget. We plopped down on a blanket, sipped on some nice French roast coffee, and listened to the few sound systems somehow still going that early in the morning. We headed over to the Temple together and said a few more goodbyes to our lost friends. I can’t say enough how much I appreciate my friends and their understanding. This year was hard for me and I my emotions have been in a chaotic state. My Burning Man family took great care of me though, and I doubt they will understand how much it meant to me that they were there to hold me. After our goodbyes we headed over to some random art car to dance until the sun started getting a little too high in the sky and we headed back to camp.

Saturday is the day of the big event. I mostly stayed near the camp during the day still fearing the sun. But as night arrived we gathered and made way to watch the Man burn. While this is sort of a main event for Burning Man, it isn’t really a main event for me.  I’ve see the man burn, I’ve seen plenty of fire performances. To me it was really just the ending celebration for the majority of the people.  We hit Root Society again for a little while but then headed home. I was so tired and exhausted that I started nodding off in my chair. I stayed home and passed out in the van for a bit while everyone else ventured out for the night to see Rabbit in the Moon or whatever they did.

I woke up at 4am (I’m assuming. at this point I didn’t have any time pieces to check). I knew that some friends were camping just down-time of us around 6:30-7:00 and F so I went on a walkabout. I could hear music playing from the playa but the streets around our camp were dead.  It was a nice, quiet, lonesome walk that I think I really needed. A time to collect my thoughts.

I got back home Sunday morning and some of the family had come back. It was getting close to sunrise and I thought it would be nice to head out to the open playa once again to watch the sun rise one last time. Brittin was the only one still mobile so him and I road out and plopped ourselves down on the giant sundial. Brittin reheated some leftover french roast (hey, we’re roughing it here! and reheated french roast is better than fresh instant coffee any day!).

Brittin and I have known each other for years, but until Vantage, Critical Massive, and Burning Man we were really kind of strangers revolving around one another. Through fate and circumstance, maybe a speckle of destiny, we have been spun together in a family pool. We really reintroduced ourselves during last year’s Vantage party and lead him to go to Critical Massive with us. Which by itself would have been great, but that was when I lost Joe... I had a lot of friends surround me with hugs and love, but for whatever reason I feel Brittin understood me the most and he became my rock. Sunday morning coffee out in the middle of the playa with Brittin - The last day of Burning Man couldn’t have unfolded any better.

Sunday was take-down day. We deconstructed our tents, shade structures, and hours and hours of back breaking work we were finally done. Tommy, Brittin and I stayed to watch the Temple burn while the others headed for exodus and hit the hotel early to get some rest.

The Temple..  I’m not sure how to describe this but I’ll do my best.  To me the Temple burn was the climax and the end of Burning Man. I’m glad that Tommy and Brittin understood the importance to me. The Temple is where I posted my goodbyes to Joe and Chris and I spread Joe’s ashes. Death is difficult for anyone. But being agnostic and no religious faith makes death difficult in an interesting way. I’m not told how to grieve and I’m not sure what my position is on afterlife or spirituality. So I’ve explored many ways to say goodbye and the Temple burn was as emotional, if not more so than when I released Joe’s ashes on the Puget Sound water front. I had Tommy, Brittin, and Kyler next to me as the flames encompassed the Temple and burned 50+ feet in the air (I suck at judging height, so it could have been 20 feet or 1000.. who knows.) Kyler recorded it which I hope to see sometime and maybe add it to Jeremy’s Joe Jo video maybe. The circle of people that surrounded the Temple was probably about 150 feet away from the structure, circling in a giant mass of people. When the Temple went up in flames, everyone (for the most part) went silent. I’m going to guess at around 3000 people encompassing the burning wooden structure, and other than a few asshats there was dead silence as we listened to the wood crackle and burn to the ground and joining the ashes and playa with my letter, Julian’s Joe Jo necklace and all the words of love, hope, grieving, forgiveness, desire, and snark written upon the Temple structure. I’m not ashamed to say I cried. In its firey destructiveness it was beautiful and emotionally fulfilling in so many ways.

Brittin, Tommy and I piled in to the van and headed out through the mass exodus. I’ve heard about mass exodus for years and never really thought much of it. But thinkfyt about it.. 50000 people trying to leave at the same time where it all funnels out to a single lane highway. Hello bottleneck! I nodded off but I’m pretty sure exodus took us about 3 hours. I remember waking up at a closed gas station still dressed in my long fur vest. Everything in the city was closed, but I can imagine that they see people dressed in much weirder things than a long fur vest.

We arrived at the Shilo Inn around 5:30 AM. We stayed up, showered, and grabbed some breakfast at 6am (yay for free breakfast!) then plunked down in the hot tub for awhile. I think we dozed for about 2 hours before getting back on the road and heading home. We got home late in the night with it pouring down rain. Dropped stuff off at the Penthaus and Tommy’s place and took home a bag or two of important stuff. Our adventure concluded.

So uh..  now that this adventure is all over.  Does anyone know how to get candle wax out of fun fur?

Pictures provided by Brittin (PBear) and Rob (Veo/Ranger Targus). Thanks boys!

Video by the Emerald City Glam Cocks (ScenicBoys): 

I wear my heart and emotions on my sleeve and always have. Hopefully my long posts haven't been getting tiring and repetitive over the last three weeks.

Last night was the final installment of the Joe Jo mega-event gone-away parties. All of us who have participated are physically and emotionally tired and broken and it will be nice to finally calm down and pick back up where we left off with a slightly used and damaged soul. I'm really happy that Joe's mom, Dee, and his sister, Carissa, were able to attend the event. Joe talked a lot about his friends but it's another thing to see them all coming together to support one another and the family during a time like this. I won't hazard a guess at how many people showed up, but the room (which is pretty huge) was pretty packed. The last 5 days we've celebrated the life and memory of someone who was clearly loved by so many people and his legacy will live on with his family and friends for eternity.

The party last night was special in many ways. It was put together by JT, Jason, Howard, and the owners of R-Place. They brought in a bartender (Pickles!) and a karaoke host (KJ) to help us out. There were two additional photo collages put together as well as a memory book to write stories about Joe in. They also brought in some snack trays for people to nibble on throughout the event.

Throughout the night people went up to sing songs that reminded us of Joe Jo. "One Week" which I'm pretty sure only Joe could sing fast enough to keep up (we tried as a group and failed miserably). Patrick sang "Sweet Transvestite" from Rocky Horror. George and Adam sang Cher's "Dark Lady" with Patrick hijacking the mic for awhile as he proclaimed "That's my song, bitches!". Jason singing Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" with Brittin, Jesse, Patrick and myself as backup dancers. But the one song I will remember last night the most was "Seasons of Love". Sung by what we later nicknamed ourselves as "R-Place Tabernacle Choir" (which was most of the people who also tried singing "One Week" later in the night). It's karaoke and there is no expectations that any person will do great, or a group can actually carry a tune. But when the music started and our mouths opened it was one of the most beautiful sounds I've heard. We sang with purpose and to give tribute to our Joe and in support of all his friends and family. I also got to sing next to my girl Joey who I just married to her now husband a few weeks ago which made it extra special (love you Joey). "Seasons of Love" is from the movie Rent which deals with a lot of issues that strike sadly close to home. I had a chance to see Rent at the Paramount with Joe last summer. The songs from that musical will always carry a little extra special meaning for me, but especially "Seasons of Love" because it was so incredibly done at his gone-away party.



Late in to the night our friend Jeremy was able to play the draft of the video he's making to memorialize Joe. Part of the video is a photo collage focusing on Joe, Joe with friends, and Joe's life. I've seen so many pictures of Joe from putting together the collage that the beginning didn't hit me too hard. But a couple pictures of him and I would flash on the screen and I realized I needed to sit down for the rest of the film. I sat next to his mom and put my arm around her while we continued to watch. There is video of Joe singing at karaoke, and more photos, and me being pulled on to stage after Joe passed away.  Near the end of the video is something I hadn't realized was being recorded at the time and I'm really glad it was. Video of some of Joe's friends spreading his ashes on the water last Saturday at his parent's house and saying our goodbyes in our own way. Needless to say what composure I try and keep in public was wiped out completely. The last of the video is a mosaic that as it zooms out reveals the collage that I made of him. I realized as the video was going on that not only was my arm around Joe's mom and hers around me, but I was surrounded by friends who all had their hand on my shoulder. I don't know, it was a pretty intense spiritual moment, quite possibly the most intense I've ever had. When the video ended there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Everyone was turning to each other and hugging and expressing their love for each other.

Near the end of the night Joe's mom was presented the memory book and flowers (and she gets the two collages JT made as well). I was given flowers and the candle that we had lit throughout the whole night. The vodka Redbull (his favorite drink) that someone purchased for him that sat near the candle and photos was sipped on by all the remaining friends in the room (Joe believed in "No drink left behind" - I almost wore my pin last night that says the same). and then we departed.

The night up to that point was perfect. Other than some periphery drama that was completely unacceptable and piss poor timing, the whole night was great.  Maybe not so much for Phil, who was being sick all over the place after I had him do a shot and a half of Jager at 5 Point (after drinking quite a bit of Joe's drink as well as half of the drink I had just prior to leaving R-Place). Sorry Phil!

I can't thank enough Jason, JT, Howard, KJ, Pickles, and the owners of R-Place for putting this all together and making it happen. Also to Jeremy for making such a great video to remember Joe by forever. Plus, all my friends who have been so spectacular the last couple weeks - I love you all.

I have not laughed so hard, or cried so intensely since Joe passed away and today I felt last night's emotions echo throughout my day. I sang or hummed "Seasons of Love" and "One Week" all day long. The music inside me is never silent, and neither will be Joe.