Mr. Robin and Cousin Fred are Burning Man bound!

Hope everyone had a great weekend. Here at The Compound is was quiet enough. We’re all glad to see the temps are supposed to moderate a bit this week. Hell, the week following this one I think we’re in the upper-80s. That beats the heck out of 108 degrees! And, there’s even a little hope for some more rain this coming week. Things are looking up I’m telling you!

The Wife had her birthday this past weekend though it was spent the way it generally is every year lately with her sitting on the roof chugging Old Crow, singing my Philadelphia Home and cackling between verses. Yeah, the only difference between her birthday and any other day is that she’ll flick her lit unfiltered Pall Mall at anyone who wishes her a happy birthday. She isn’t fond of birthdays.

Cousin Fred has decided that he and I need to attend this year’s Burning Man festival at the end of August out in the remote desert near Black Rock City, Nevada. He says it will be good for me and help me to find my muse, which according to him has been on vacation for a year or more.

The thought of being out in the middle of a barren desert with 80,000 of my closest and youngest friends with the whole deep playa music thing going on is not normally my idea of relaxation. If my muse is hanging out there, it’s probably there for a reason and can stay.

Still Cousin Fred insists this just what we both need. Uh huh. He plans to get our other co-conspirator Friend Lamont to drive his RV over from western Arkansas and we’ll all head for Nevada in it. Well, at least there would be some comfort.

For those of you not familiar with Burning Man, this year’s festival will be the 32nd consecutive year for the event. It began in 1986 on a beach on San Francisco Bay with 8 people in attendance and an 8-foot burning man. By comparison, last years event drew close to 70,000 with a 105-foot burning man.

See the burning man is the culmination of the 8-day event when festival staff burn it to the ground as tens of thousands of drug-addled brains watch and then think, “This is what I spent $425 on?”

Think of it as the day-long Fourth of July celebration in Cosmic City. The only difference with Burning Man is that it’s stretched over several days with constant EDM blasting and blowing dust. Okay well the constant EDM is a differentiator anyway. Oh, and no turtle races.

Over the course of those several days, there is a lot of merriment, naked people, art installations, fun, nonsense, on and on.

It’s gonna be great, you’ll see.

The next ticket purchase period is coming up Wednesday. Cousin Fred is eagerly standing by and ready to pounce on tickets for us.

Actually, the Burning Man’s days may be numbered, at least for the Black Rock location. The Feds are starting to make problems for Burning Man organizers. The area is a federally-protected conservation site and have always insisted that there be nothing left out in that barren landscape once the festival ends.

Organizers are constantly telling participants that they must pack everything out that they bring in. But does anyone listen? Nah.

That leaves festival staff scrambling sometimes for days afterward trying to clean up everything left behind: mattresses, diapers, baby wipes, piles of poop…wait, what?

Yeah, it’s become a problem in the past few years despite hundreds of portable toilets. Cleaning up the piles of poop left behind by revelers who figure…eh, it’s a desert, who cares?

So now, the Bureau of Land Management is very strongly suggesting that everyone attending the Burning Man be issued poop bags.

No, seriously.

Hmmm…I’m not sure I understand exactly what a poop bag is or how to use it. But if the Feds are distributing them, I’m guessing there are directions on the bag. But then what?

So let’s say I’m a Burning Man attendee who has paid $425 for a ticket to play in the desert for more than a week. You’re certainly not expecting to have to haul your own body waste out of there. And even if organizers are able to convince all the Millennials to do so, what about the poor people of Black Rock City?

Seriously, those Millennials are going to drive off the desert with poop bags stuffed in the trunk and at the first town they come to (Black Rock City) out they go. “Well, Martha and I were having our dinner out on the porch when suddenly rolling down the street we see this here tidal wave of sh*t. I sez to Martha, Martha better go git the hip waders! We are up sh*t creek without a paddle!”

Typical “We’re with the government and we’re here to help.” Uh huh. Do I have the solution? Nah, not really. Maybe double the number of portable toilets? Or shoot people found crapping on the ground? Okay, granted that’s a big radical, plus then you’re hauling bodies out of there.

But there it is. If you’re interested in going please let us know…soon. Ticket sales this year are capped at 80,000.

In dust we trust.
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That is all!
 
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