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This is me on Monday of Burning Man, trying to gather the strength to ride this tricycle back across the Playa to my original camp site with a bicycle strapped to the back of it.
“What are you doing in three weeks?”
Tucker had a mischievous look in his eyes when he asked me this. We were standing in my friend’s suite at the Luxor Hotel & Casino in Vegas, ‘90s Eurotrash pumping from my laptop speakers, and I’d just finished telling my friends some hour and a half earlier how 2024 is gonna be my “year of no.”
“Uh, I’m not sure; maybe going to visit my dad?”
“You’re going with me to Burning Man!”
I laughed. That was preposterous, but I let Tucker finish his elevator pitch.
“I’ve got an RV all set up with cool people, but there’s one more bed, and I’ve been wondering for weeks who’s gonna be staying in it. Now I know it’s you!”
“Ah, man,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve always said if I was ever going to go to Burning Man, I’d need to stay in an RV, but three weeks? That’s so soon, and I don’t know man, I’m pretty broke right now.”
“We’ll figure something out. You’re going.”
“Hahaha, I mean, lemme think about it for a week and get back to you.”
Tucker put his hands on my shoulders and looked me right in the eyes.
“Kat, I’m at a point in my life where everything I want, I eventually get, so the sooner you say yes, the sooner we’ll be able to start planning.”
Three weeks later, I boarded the Burner Express coach bus in San Francisco and buckled up for the eight-hour drive into Black Rock City. I was as prepared as possible, not entirely sure what lay ahead of me.
I knew it was going to be fun. I didn’t know it was going to be declared a National Disaster, and I certainly did not think I’d walk away from five days in the desert with Doc Martins covered in mud and a heart full of goodwill toward men, but uh, you know what they say!
“The Playa Provides.”
Author’s Note: I already wrote a lot about what I expected and what I found at this year’s Burning Man. If you’d like to read a news-worthy take on the real on-the-ground happenings and hear from more than just me about the divine truths we gleaned in the alkaline mud, please do check out my op-ed in the Miami New Times. I’m really proud of this essay, so you should read it and tell me what you think.
Further Reading: This Year's Burning Man Was Not the National Disaster Everyone Made It Out to Be (September 2023)
I tried to remember how I first heard about Burning Man the other day, but it was hard to pinpoint.
My friend Jamie says she told me about it back in 2006 when we were freshmen at Florida State University. She said she’d heard about it from some friend or family member of hers in southern California, and she tried to convince me we should go together, but then we heard Daft Punk was playing Lollapalooza and made an executive decision to spend what little money we had on a trip to Chicago.
For the record, neither of us are mad about that.
Further Reading: Kat Says: “I Time Traveled Back To 2007 And Brought You Some Daft Footage”
Daft Punk live was the much rarer Pokemon, but Burning Man in the mid-2000s sounds rare as fuck all the same. It was still rather “underground” back then. Only 35,000 people traveled to Black Rock City in 2004 compared to the 73,000 this year—but would you believe there were just 80 people at the first Burning Man in Black Rock City in 1990, and even fewer at the first ever Burning Man on San Francisco’s Baker Beach on the Summer Solstice of 1986, like, maybe less than 10?
It started with two dudes named Larry Harvey and Jerry James, who themselves were “carrying the torch” of a sculptor named Mary Grauberger, who used to lead a bonfire ritual on the solstice earlier in the decade.
In that way, Burning Man has always had its roots in ritual; a marker of the turning seasons and a celebration of cyclical life. I myself have always found ritual to be an important part of my own routines, and seasonality is something I’ve tried to align more with in the past few years. Heading out to Burning Man, I was open to seeking some kind of ritual, but I wasn’t about to hold my breath.
Between my first introduction to the Burning Man concept and my invitation from Tucker in 2023, the annual bacchanal had undergone a bit of a public image shift.
Somewhere around the early 2010s, word about the gathering changed from “there’s a gathering of steampunk hippies out in the Nevada desert where they burn a giant effigy and build a bunch of art” to “the tech bros of Silicon Valley and southern California influencers come together in the desert once a year to take pictures in front of LED sculptures and fuck in the Orgy Dome.”
Somehow, Burning Man went from fringe-culture freak mecca to detestable cliche in the minds of the cultural mainstream. I was always slightly interested in going, but the multi-thousand dollar price tag usually kept me away.
I did go to a regional Burn last summer; one of the official Burning Man satellite events that take place across the United States and the world. Specifically, I went to Lakes of Fire in Michigan (on the same grounds where Electric Forest happens each year), and I only went because my bestie Brian was getting engaged, and he really wanted me to be there.
That was my first true introduction to Burner culture and its 10 Principles. Lakes of Fire is much smaller than the big Burn in Nevada, but it does cast a decent shadow of the experience.
Apparently I took practically no pictures at Lakes of Fire, so here is my friend Lisa with a racoon friend.
I learned about MOOP (matter out of place) and how important it is not to leave any trash you see on the ground (Principle #8: Leave No Trace). I learned about Gifting (Principle No. 2) and how all the organized camps have themes that usually offer something to passersby (like the Boba Tea-themed camp at Burning Man that served Boba Tea every day from 2 to 4 p.m.).
I had a lot of fun at Lakes of Fire, but it didn’t feel ultimately revelatory. It just felt like a fancier version of the campgrounds at festivals I’d been to throughout the years.
Honestly, when I finally got to the real Burning Man on Wednesday, Aug. 30, I had a similar first reaction.
After crawling through the sand like a kitty cat and banging the “virgin gong,” I took a tram to the stop closest to my camp address. It was awesome to do something so mundane as taking a city bus in a place so weird. The Talking Heads’ “Road To Nowhere” played over the tram speaker as we drove by a camp hosting a salsa dance class and a camp called Barbie Death Village.
“This is a very silly place,” I said to my bus mate beside me, and I tried to take it all in as a novelty, but among the roots of the thing, I saw the whole of electronic festival culture breathing beneath the surface.
This, I realized, was the birthplace of gifted kandi bracelets and tutu costumes. This was where #shipfam style subcultures got their familial feeling, and absurdity culture ultimately thrived. It made sense to me, too, because people like Holy Ship and EDC founder Gary Richards and Pasquale Rotella have been going to Burning Man since the 1990s. Characters like that clearly took what they saw at Burning Man and brought it to the masses via their own events.
Here’s my friend Jaime looking good on Wednesday, before the mud. Louis The Child is playing on that art car.
Part of what made me skeptical of Burning Man was the way everyone would say it “changed their lives.” Like, literally at least 20 people I’ve interviewed over the years have told me that, and you’d think I would take that seriously, but for some reason, I believed the rampant reports that it’s just a place for people to do drugs, have sex and wear pink wigs.
Now that I’d arrived, I was on a mission to see what Burning Man was really about. Did it stand up to the altruism and freedom expressed in its Principles, or was it just another party in the middle of nowhere?
I figured the answer would be out in the city, spread out like a clock in rows of parceled camp lots. I wanted to meet the weirdos who ran 24-hour putt putt golf or hosted karaoke nights and Vaporwave hangouts. I wanted to sit in on an Al-Anon meeting and check out the family-friendly kid village, maybe be a voyeur at the sex party my former roommates were organizing and sit in on a workshop or two.
Instead, I spent the first 24 hours of Burning Man hopping from DJ set to DJ set, because I was staying in a sound camp with a bunch of music industry friends, and this is what my life is and there is no escape. (Admittedly, watching Robbie of Louis The Child play on an art cart to 20 people while the full moon rose over the mountains was fucking magical, and Justin Martin absolutely smashed both of his sets that I saw.)
“Don’t chase the DJs” is a piece of advice I heard from more than one veteran Burner, but no one gave me any advice on how to get the DJs to stop chasing me.
Thankfully, my bestie Jaime Sloane was down to ride through the Playa Thursday night, and I actually got to take in some of the awe-inspiring art. I was particularly fond of the glowing fairy tale tree and the famous Thunder Dome. I made a mental note to return to the latter with my friend Jamie Gaard the day after because I knew, of anyone I knew on the Playa, she’d be down to beat each other with foam bats.
Alas, there would be no Friday night on the Playa. Not for nobody, not no how.
I woke up Friday morning at 6 a.m. As it turns out, everyone who stays in a camp has to work a shift or two as part of their camp obligations, and my job was to take pictures and video of my camp's “Random Ribs Party” that morning.
The DJ played fantastic indie dance jams while chefs handed out free barbecue ribs and Champagne. It was fucking awesome, to be honest, and I was having a great time.
Jaime Sloane kept reminding our group that Carl Cox was DJing his annual Purple Disco Party across the Playa, and after getting so frustrated with us that she left on her own, me and a few others followed in her wake. We didn’t see Jaime out there, but we did have THE BEST FUCKING TIME at this DJ set. If you ever go to Burning Man and you want to see a DJ, the one set you should make it to is Carl Cox’s Purple Disco Party. My god.
I got good and drunk on free booze at this party, so I shit-kicked around with my new pal Jason for a few hours until we decided to nap around 2 p.m., and as I drifted to sleep, I heard the sound of rain on my RV roof.
“That’s not good for the Playa,” I thought to myself, “but it’s good for me, because I like falling asleep to rain sounds.”
When I woke up, it was 8 p.m., my phone was dead, and I could hear voices outside my window.
“We had to cut the power to the camp. Someone got electrocuted. They’re not dead.”
I got up to charge my phone, but the voice was right. No power. My RV mates started to rouse, and I told them what I heard. We looked outside the RV. Everything was a muddy mess, and the rain kept coming.
My RV mate Pete, who works as a talent agent, talked to himself out loud for a bit and decided it was best if he tracked down his international artists and rode his all-terrain truck right the fuck out of there. Jaime, who runs her own publicity company, wondered if she should leave, too, but was ultimately too tired to pack all her shit before Pete got in his car.
I decided I didn’t really give a shit what happened, but I had to take a poop at our camp’s public bathroom, which meant I had to put my boots on and trudge through the dark and cold while trying not to fall on my fucked-up knee.
I realized on that short walk that things were pretty fucked, and I thanked my lucky stars for the 40th time so far that I was sleeping in an RV. Still, it wasn’t until Saturday morning that the severity of the situation dawned on us.
For the first time since arriving, I plopped down on the couches of our camp’s common area. So, too, did a few others, and I started making friends with my campmates. Sacha Robotti told me I could use his electric generator to charge my phone, and he let me listen to the emergency message currently looping on Burning Man’s AM radio station.
“Shelter in place,” a man’s voice told us. “Conserve food and water.”
The issue is this: the alkaline mud of the Playa, which is itself a dried-up ancient lake bed, becomes extremely sticky when wet with rain. This makes it basically impossible for tires to maneuver through the muck, and your best case for getting out is staying put and waiting for it to dry.
The Playa dries incredibly fast, but the rain was scheduled to continue for another day or two at least, and word soon swept through camps that we might not be able to leave until Tuesday. Then someone said as late as Thursday. Then someone said Burning Man had officially been declared a National Disaster.
I know I’m a journalist, because I immediately went into “this is fucking great for me” mode, and while the leads of my camp gathered in the common area space, I started taking feverish notes and filming the scene with a new friend’s phone camera.
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The emergency meeting of Camp Forthville was the weirdest part of my entire Burning Man experience.
Our camp lead Jesse held court in front of some 50 campers, his loud voice booming from his tiny frame, clad only in a pair of shiny gold leggings and muddy boots taped into garbage bags. He let us know the hard news, telling us Biden had been briefed on the situation. Just at that moment, a woman in the front row took a rip a Whippet canister loud as fuck.
Jesse broke us into three groups: one of electricians to go around and check out the waterlogged wiring, one for Camper Care to go around and tend to folks’ needs, and one for kitchen duty in order to salvage any perishable ingredients and cook them into one large camp meal.
The next hour felt pretty dark. I wasn’t too worried about myself, because I knew I’d taken PTO until that Wednesday, and my job knew I was at Burning Man. I didn’t believe they’d fire me for missing work due to a National Disaster. That wasn’t the case with the woman I found crying by the kitchen though, asking folks if she could please get on their Wi-Fi because “I have to tell my boss I’m at Burning Man.”
As all our plans to leave in an orderly manner washed away, it was time for Principles 4 and 7 to fuckin’ shine.
Principle 4 is Radical Self Reliance. I was concerned for a moment that, should we be stuck in this RV for another six days, we might run out of food and water. Then I saw how much food and water me and my RV mates had brought to this fucking event, and I knew we were gonna be fine.
Principle 7 is Civic Responsibility, which states that “community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants.” At Burning Man, you’re expected to take care of yourself, but you’re also expected to help out your fellow burner, and we did that by taking in my friend Katie and her friends, whose Shift Pod tent had been totally flooded and left useless by the first night of rain.
Jaime went around as part of Camper Care trying to check in on folks who needed clothes, water and whatever. I putzed around for a bit trying to be helpful, but then I was like, “wtf am I doing? I gotta hit the Playa and talk to people.”
I grabbed my microphone and set forth to glean the truth about Burning Mud 2k23. I figured I’d see a wasteland of alkaline carnage, but in fact, I found a bunch of happy people still partying. No one seemed phased. Everyone was in high spirits. Everyone knew they had enough resources to make it through the next few days, and most people were pretty excited to talk to a weirdo with a microphone and a camera.
Walking around and interviewing Burners in the mud was my favorite part of the week. It turned what could have been a devastating day into a fun-loving adventure, and it, along with the next few days, showed me that the people of Burning Man really did live by their principles.
I ran into Tucker Sunday evening, and he dubbed this year “The Memorable Burning Man.”
“I’ve been to Burning Man 11 years, and I can’t tell you the difference between 2013 and 2017, but no matter what,” he said, “everyone will remember Burning Man 2023.”
I think I would have had fun at Burning Man no matter what, and I do feel a need to go back and experience the gathering in a way that is more usual, less muddy, but I truly believe the rain and mud and “disaster” of it all made this Burning Man special in the grand scheme of my life.
No, Burning Man did not change my life, but it did remind me where my passions lie and made me proud to do my thing. It did show me the best side of humanity, and it did leave me inspired and reinvigorated to come back home and be as creative as I possibly can be. It made me excited for the future, and it made me wanna come back and bring even more friends to experience the madness.
By the end of it all, I was exhausted and dirty, with a swollen knee and an impaired ability to string words together in a way that made sense. I had nearly cried a few times, and to be honest, I wish I had. Everyone says that’s part of it. You basically have to have a mental breakdown out there so you can come out the other side. Maybe I would have cried if I had gotten there Sunday or Monday instead of Wednesday, but seeing as how I left Tuesday morning, I think I generally got the gist.
The Playa dried faster than expected estimates, and everyone was allowed to leave come Monday afternoon, but I stayed to see the Man burn that night. After all we’d experienced, I wasn’t going to miss the climactic moment of closure, and I’m glad I stayed.
The Burning of The Man was the most magnificent spectacle I’ve ever seen—besides Daft Punk live, of course. That will always be the top.
Burning Man tests your spirit, your physical abilities and your patience. It shows you who you really are, and I think that’s why people love it. It’s also an incredible release and a ritualized celebration of mortality.
We all are going to die, but on our way to the grave, we can try to make something beautiful and make other people smile. No one will ultimately remember what we did, and we will all return to the chemical compounds from which we came, but if we try hard enough, our lives can be magnificent while they last, and if we allow ourselves to luxuriate in Radical Self-Expression (Principle No. 5) and jump into life feet first (Principle No. 10: Immediacy), we can die knowing that we gave it our all and have no regrets.
Anyway, that’s the idea, and that’s what I took from it—that and, like, a lot of content. 🙂
If you read all that, I hope you enjoyed it. The Miami New Times essay is probably better, but I wanted to write a newsletter about my Burning Man experience, god damn it, and this is all my brain can muster at the moment, lol.
Stay tuned for the forthcoming vlog featuring all the interviews I filmed with the Burners post-mud. The Burners are the true stars of the week, and I’m excited to share my footage with you all. Video edits take time, and life continues in the interim. Hopefully you won’t have to wait too long.
Coming Up
In the meantime, Kat Calls is BACK! And I’m celebrating the return with my friend and fellow Burning Man first-timer LP Giobbi. We’re definitely going to talk about Burning Man 2023, but also her incredible debut album Light Places and her newly launched label Yes Yes Yes, which was just announced this week.
Mark your calendars. Here are the deets.
Kat Calls: LP Giobbi
Thursday, Sept. 28
7 pm ET / 4 pm PT
twitch.tv/katbein
Absolutely Necessary
(This is the part where I share songs that are so good, they’re absolutely necessary to listen to. That’s it. That’s the bar.)
I made two Spotify playlists for this section that you can follow: one weekly playlist updated with just the new stuff every week, and one cumulative playlist that will host every song I pick ever (until Spotify tells me it's full). Check them out! I made them for you—and me, but mostly you.
Here are this week’s five highlights:
Pendant - “PCM”
I am officially obsessed with Pendant. This LA native gets about 3,000 listens on Spotify a month and has released some of my most listened-to tracks of the last two years. His album Harp was released on Saddle Creek (who I know from releasing The Faint), and that entire album is an amazing must-listen that reinvents classic rave tropes in exciting ways. “PCM” is the first track he’s released since then, and it’s fucking great and invigorating, and the music video is brilliant. I need you to be as obsessed as me, please.
Suicide Year, Disxster - “Blxck Mass”
You may have heard of Suicide Year. He produced Yung Lean’s breakout track “Hurt” and has one of the most distinctive styles in the game. It’s lofi and it’s gritty and it fuckin’ bangs, and this tune with South American producer Disxster is a real treat for the senses. It sounds familiar, it might be popular on TikTok, Idk, but the way the sound just cuts out and glitches to create a funky rhythm plucks at my spinal cord like candy, and I love it.
Maceo Plex & AVNU - “Clickbait (This Ain't Hollywood)” DJ Tennis Remix
This is some extremely funky electro house right here, the type of filtered beat that you’d expect to hear in a 2ManyDJs set, so you know I have to give it some love. The original is as grimy as this remix, but DJ Tennis brought the disco vibes for sure.
Video Age - “Better Than Ever”
Sometimes my body just yearns for the feel-good vibes of 2009-2010 when chillwave tunes from Neon Indian and bubbly grooves by Metronomy made summer feel like it could last forever. This tune from New Orleans band Video Age quenches that thirst. Also, the chorus kind of interpolates “Forget Me Nots,” which is fun. Enjoy.
Purple Disco Machine, Duke Dumont, Nothing But Thieves - “Something On My Mind”
This song is cheesy in the best way possible, ie; it’s dripping in ‘80s synthpop and moody feelings. This coulda been a track on The Weeknd’s latest album, but it’s a major collab from Purple Disco Machine and Duke Dumont, who are both impeccable at this type of shit. It also featured British rockers Nothing But Thieves, who I know less about, though I’m now intrigued to learn more.
Okie dokie, folkies. That’s it for this week. I’ll throw a paid-only podcast up next week, something from my archives of interviews that I recently revisited. There’s a lot of good stuff in there! Who knew?
If you wanna get those podcasts, smash that subscribe button and join for $5/month or $50/year.
ANYWAY, LOVE YOU, BYE.
Thanks for tuning into my newsletter. Listen to the playlists on Spotify. One is updated weekly with all the songs from each edition. The other is cumulative with all the updates ever!