long rambling report from the flipside
I am back from Flipside, which lasted Thursday through Monday. Four nights of camping in an insanely crowded loud tent community with all kinds of hippie punk geek crazy kinky weird cool people in a pretty park near Dripping Springs. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of stuff, but here's a fair bit of what I experienced. jipp and I were both newbies to this event. We knew you're encouraged to participate with some kind of art/performance/whatever, and the theme this year involved monkeys, so we spent several days beforehand stenciling monkey faces onto 41 old CDs (which I figured would be fun decoration for our campsite and I could give some away or decorate other areas) and stenciling monkeys onto 3 old shirts which we bought at Goodwill along with some skirts. We also decided to take more food than we'd need, to share with other folks. And we took a go board and stones in case we got a chance to teach go to other people.

JP and I took a long time squeezing all our equipment into his car, so sadly we hit Mopac rush hour traffic and took almost an hour to get from my place down to the Y in Oak Hill, then hit the HEB there for groceries and a propane tank for a borrowed camp stove (including a comedy of errors trying to get an appropriately sized tank) and then made it to the campground before sunset. We stopped at the entrance to be officially greeted (our greeter was a friendly guy named Ted in a dress) where we got a little orientation and they made sure we understood the rules and what Flipside is about. Since I'd read that it's nice to give something to the greeters, I gave him one of my stencil monkey CDs. Then we were on our way, driving down into the Flipside. First impression: OMG there are a zillion cars and tents packed everywhere! There was basically a main road/loop that went south with a cattle guard that only art cars were allowed to park below (but you could drive down it temporarily to unload your stuff). We drove the loop, naively thinking we'd find some nice place to set up that wasn't too crowded. Ha, no way! We ended up back way north of the cattle guard (in the so-called Village) on some rather rocky ground, closer to the entrance than the cattle guard. Luckily there was still plenty of light to set up camp, then we cooked dinner in the dark and ate in the sporadic light rain, foolishly forgetting the tent windows were open and stuff inside was getting wet. Later that night we explored and ran into Josie, a friend of JP's, who'd never been camping before and made us look like experts. We also ran into Jose, who I had actually known from mutual friends a few years ago (I think I'd last seen him playing music with Remi at JeffS's New Year's party a few years ago), and a friendly woman named Cave Girl from California. We hung out in the main area (at the south end of the trail) a while and looked around at fire dancers/jugglers and various theme camps and so forth, as well as the large wooden six-armed monkey effigy (probably 30 or 40 feet tall I guess) which some folks had been building for months and which would be burned on the last night (Sunday). There were also several really big propane flame throwers set up that let out huge blasts of flames that looked pretty cool in the night. There was a creek and above-ground swimming pool, and various cool art cars, a variety of big tents and shade structures, a big metal pyramid with lights and techno music under it, several sex/sm theme camps, various little temples/shrines (including one for Rachel Corrie, the US peace activist killed by an Israeli military bulldozer), an art garden, and all sorts of other stuff to see and do.

For me this first night was kind of getting a feel for the whole thing. One cool thing is that everyone dresses however they feel like without worrying about normal society rules, and it's funny how quickly it becomes no big deal that there are zillions of post-apocalyptic industrial costumes and pagan/wiccan robes and topless women and naked people and guys in skirts etc, sort of like a kinky renaissance fest or something. The utter acceptance and enjoyment of diversity was very refreshing. It was very comfortable wearing a black skirt and gothy black top around that first night. Going to sleep finally after the long day felt great - and earplugs were a necessity because of the continual noise everywhere, mostly in the form of multiple sources of loud music. This was definitely not camping as I normally think of it (peaceful communing with nature) - it was more like a really loud rave which just happened to be outdoors.

Friday JP and I walked around more in the day, exploring the area. (JP wore his stenciled Barrel of Monkeys shirt first, and I didn't want to be Tweedledee to his Tweedledum, so I postponed wearing mine till the next day...) I was still being boggled by the density of people. Tents and cars everywhere! There is talk about moving the Flipside to a different site since it keeps growing every year. Anyway, the day was very hot and I think we spent a fair bit of time in the pavillion (a permanent roofed structure in the main field) which was nice and shady and cool and breezy. I hung one of my stencil monkey CDs on a nail on a support post in the pavillion to be a nice little random decoration, which stayed there the whole time and I hope gave people a smile. I helped some guy named Key run electrical cord in the pavillion to bring power to the monkey, stapling it along rafters, and when he was almost done he realized he had the male and female ends reversed so had to undo it all. I then suggested running it between the beams and the ceiling, which wouldn't need staples and worked much quicker. I think Friday we also helped a group of a couple dozen folks erect a really huge parachute tent shade structure, which was neat, like some kind of hippie Amish barn raising. I tend to be introverted with big crowds of strangers, but helping people is a handy way to grease the social wheels. This sort of thing happened often: volunteering and generosity is a big part of the event, and in fact there is no buying and selling of stuff - money is useless and unused. Friday morning we were given breakfast tacos by a camp we passed (actually JP was but not me, since sadly they had already run out of the veggie tacos.) In this way, Flipside is unlike most other big events, where one just expects to see vendors and booths selling overpriced drinks and commercial crap, and to see advertising banners of event sponsors and so forth. It was very nice to have none of that stuff! (The only exception was an outside ice truck that drove through the camp daily to sell ice, which was somewhat of a necessity.)

Josie's party moved on Friday, apparently coincidentally to a place near me and JP, then moved again even closer to us after they had some disagreement about the Friday morning site. We also had a couple in a minivan near us, named Frog and Wick. Frog was a friendly cool woman who's very involved with Burning Man and told us she'd be performing a wedding the next day, so I resolved to check that out. Friday evening some more people in Josie's party arrived (some of whom JP & I also knew, particularly Jason and S, a nice couple that for some reason I always see separately (Jason boardgaming and S at parties)), long after sundown, so they were having to set up tents in the dark, I think more-or-less coincidentally near us. I guess their work schedules caused the late arrival, but it seemed unfortunate to me to miss out on the whole first night and day of the event and then have to set up in the dark. Someone else in their party even had to be picked up the next day in the afternoon - bleah. There was also another couple with a 2-year-old, which seemed like a dubious decision to me (indeed, the website encourages you to leave kids and pets at home unless you really know what you're doing). It sort of seemed like this was a group of couples hanging out a lot together at the campsite chatting and tending to the baby, seemingly like any old camping weekend with friends, which wasn't the energy or experience I wanted, so we ended up not interacting very much.

I believe Friday night there was a gong show which was entertaining silliness. A variety of singing, music, poetry reading, along with some less traditional fare, such as a guy who got a volunteer to come up on stage and open a beer bottle using a metal opener that was a piercing in his penis - flinch wince ow! (He then got 6 volunteers to each push a quarter into his nostril.)

The large wooden monkey in the center of the field continued to be built all weekend, and at night it began to have neon lights and flame throwers, which were quite cool looking.

That night I also had a fun adventure at one of the kinky camps that had some bondage equipment where I was watching a nice flogging scene. (There were a couple other nearby kinky camps, but the energy at them didn't grab me as much.) The camp had a little wheel of fortune they invited people to spin to receive some random act to perform. One hapless person spun and got "perform a full body cavity search on someone", which they declined to do. (The unlucky person was informed somewhat apologetically that this was the worst card and most of them were better, heh.) I was invited to spin by a camp member, so I asked if it was possible to win a flogging; she said no, but I could just ask for one if I wanted, but I needed to spin first, so I decided to overcome my normal shyness and go for it. I spun and ended up getting a card that said "kiss someone below the waist". I was somewhat nervous about how this was going to work or how I'd find a volunteer kissee, but another woman immediately volunteered and lay down, so there we went - very surreal and enjoyable. Afterwards I then followed the first woman to the cross, where we played - my first time to play in public with someone I didn't know. Very liberating to feel comfortable enough to get naked in this evening carnival setting and do an sm scene, which turned out to be quite enjoyable, marred only slightly by a drunken rowdy clueless gawking couple at one point.

After that I was feeling all blissy and ran into 6opou (who is one of the 2 people who convinced me that Flipside would be a cool thing to do) and Nina, who wanted to check out the marks on my skin from the scene I'd just done, which was fun and made me curious, so we went to the Burning Glam tent (which loans out fabulous clothes and has a big mirror so I could see my backside) then we hung out a while at the stage where an awesome drummer (who I think was performing under the name Chant) was playing a variety of drums to accompany taped music he composed and recorded) - this was fantastic high energy music that really got me dancing, and I will definitely seek this guy out again if I notice any appearances by him. Nehundo mentioned that this year's Flipside had more live music than past years, which pleased me greatly since I love live music a lot more than dancey club music and DJ mixing. I then came upon a trio playing rock music on a stage that was part of the giant wood monkey effigy - drums, guitar, and theremin! I have heard live theremin music before, but not in a rock band like this! Then later I came upon a sort of nutty klezmer band with accordion. So lots and lots of dancing ensued, and I was really digging this Friday evening, between the sm adventure and the fun live music and dancing. In the past couple years I've been getting more and more into dancing (and part of that is overcoming mental blocks about dancing in public), and dancing seems to be taking on more and more meaning for me, in ways that are hard to describe. In a way Friday night was a peak for me. During the day I'd been feeling somewhat disappointed - it was hot and uncomfortable and I wasn't socializing very well, but then Friday night was awesome, and I felt for the first time that I was definitely glad I'd come.

Saturday morning was cloudy and cool, which was a very nice way to start the day, but the sun and heat came back by noon or so. Sunblock was very important this weekend. There were a lot of seriously sunburned people!

I explored a neat little wooden temple quite close to our camp that seemed to combine Buddhist and other elements. They had a lot of orange cloth strips and some markers for people to write an affirmation, wish, or whatever and tie to the temple, which would then all be taken to the next Burning Man. I wrote one in Esperanto, and left a stencil monkey CD on the offering table. I think also on Friday or Saturday some folks set up the art garden, with lots of paint and brushes and such for people to use. I painted a few things there, including a monkey face and a sign on a long thin board that said Everything Is Better With Monkeys (some words of wisdom learned from ex-cow-orker Tony).

JP and I again spent a lot of time at the main field, meeting various people. We coincidentally were at the pavillion when a livejournal meetup occurred. Although I'd gone to the lj meetup at Elysium during SXSW after the nuclear taco event, I found myself not feeling very invested in this lj meetup, partly because I was very much enjoying NOT being in my normal computer geek state of mind (I was also intentionally not paying attention to clocks or time during Flipside). (I'd brought my PDA along to do Esperanto and Mandarin vocabulary study and also my camera, and ended up never using them. It was very enjoyable being low tech for 5 days.) During the lj meetup, we ran into Chad (the other guy who had convinced me that I should attend Flipside) and he invited me and JP and a couple girls (Jennie and Reesa if I recall) to play some boardgames with him... first we went retro with some goofy Mork and Mindy card game which was good silly fun, then a game of Scrabble (not bothering to keep scores). Excellent silly fun. Later, at JP's suggestion, JP and Chad and I played croquet, which turned into more of a polo game as we knocked our balls around the whole field, selecting random people in the area who were wearing boots and aiming to see who could get their ball through the boots first. During this game, I noticed the wedding (which Frog had mentioned) was starting, so I peeled off to watch that. I was experiencing funny synchronicities with last week in New Orleans, where I'd gone for my brother's wedding (and during the Bourbon Street bachelor party also seen plenty of nudity and craziness). This wedding was very pagan and reminded me of renfest or sf con weddings, with invocations to various gods of the 4 elements and handfasting and jumping a broom and whatnot; it was rather formal/scripted and a few minor mistakes were made, but nonetheless it was a lovely touching ceremony (I even got weepy-eyed even though I didn't even know the people getting married), and it was concluded by a big spiral dance with hundreds of people in a line all dancing into an inward spiral (led by the newlyweds) then at the center, they began spiraling outward again going the other direction, so it was like a huge long snake of people in continual flow, very impressive looking.

There was to be a big wedding banquet/reception with potluck dinner afterward, so JP and I decided to make a big batch of stew for it. It's a long walk to our camp and took a while to cook, so we got there after most people had already sat down eating, but still a fair number of people got some stew and enjoyed it. I also wore my sock monkey chest-burster shirt (from Halloween 2002) which proved rather impractical for eating, heh. Another New Orleans synchronicity occurred - at the wedding reception a week ago, I talked with a physicist about liquid nitrogen ice cream, which I've been wanting to try for a few years now, and now at this Flipside wedding reception they actually made liquid nitrogen ice cream (and one of the chefs was my pal PJ!) Liquid nitrogen ice cream indeed is seriously delicious! Since it freezes so much faster, it doesn't have water ice crystals in it, so it's much smoother - mmmm tasty! And usually I think plain vanilla is boring... Highly recommended. Especially on a really hot day like this!

A few older spectators who I assumed were parents of the bride and groom were there. They looked quite out of place and would never go to an event like Flipside normally, yet they were there for the wedding and seemed to go with the flow fine, which was cool. I think a lot of parents, probably including mine, would have issues with attending such a nontraditional wedding, surrounded by all kinds of topless women and guys in skirts and whatnot. I was chatting with Frog during the reception, who had removed her hot black robe and now just had a fairly narrow black top over her breasts; she was saying she figured she should meet the parents but hoped they wouldn't be uncomfortable (with her black and green/blue hair, extensive tattoos, piercings, kanji character scar cut between her breasts, and so forth), but I said I'm sure they've already figured out this is a weird event, heh. It was only her second wedding she'd performed, but I think she did a good job. (Her only mistake was forgetting sunblock, so now she was really painfully red looking, like so many people this weekend.)

After the potluck, JP & I still had some stew left in the pot, so we walked back to our camp and stopped along the way offering it to people. It was gratifying how much people liked it when they tried it! At some camps we had some fun conversations, and got offered avocado and chocolate candy in return.

That night (Saturday) we headed back down to the main area as usual. The main event was a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, with live music. We ran into Kai (who I know from years ago) doing tech work for the show, and in the show were Nehundo, Chad, and Jack who I know along with a bunch of other folks - really big fun production. I'd never seen this play before, but I am sure they took a few liberties with it because there were some amusing bawdy bits that I doubt were in the original... Later some of us were dancing at a big white tent which was playing generic techno that wasn't doing much for me, so I lay down a while, then a techno version of one of my favorite songs, Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, came on, so I leapt up for that, but in the middle of it they lost electrical power and all the lights and sound died, alas. Dancus interruptus! Later I was watching a fashion/talent show at the main stage and that also lost power. Electricity is an uncertain thing at Flipside I guess. Also a lot of camps make their own with generators, which of course just adds to the general loud background noise of the event. (Some camps do better than others at baffling the loud generator noise.)

Sunday I decided to trust the sunblock and wear a lacy black camisole instead of a more covering shirt; hurray for good sunblock. JP wanted to take the go equipment to the main area; I was hesitant (due to its weight and the long walk and the risk of it getting lost/messed up) but thought what the hell, since I also wanted to teach go if anyone was interested. We played a game ourselves, and also had a good conversation and teaching game with a guy Dave who lives in Hyde Park and seems really cool. We talked about politics and philosophy and metaphors from go that apply to real life (e.g. not getting caught up in less important fights, and not being too greedy) and foreign languages and cultures and art and so forth. Later some college girl stopped by and played a bit as well. That afternoon there was a big oil wrestling event, which was mostly nude, and used some mixture of water-based lubes on the participants. As Frog said to me, that seems kind of cheesy/sleazy, but what the hell, the participants were having fun. It got boring to me after a while though. During that time, a loose goat walked over the go game in progress, so that game was called on account of goat! We headed back to camp and learned from Jose that there was to be a large potluck near the sex noise camp not far from us (which turned out to be the area where Nehundo and Jack were staying, I think) so we decided to make a huge pot of stew for that (which would conveniently also use up a lot of our food so we'd not have as much crap to haul back). This was the first night I wore shorts instead of a skirt too, partly out of laziness (I didn't feel like changing) and partly out of practicality (I was sick of not having pockets), but I still wore the lacy black camisole, so hey. (Actually I noticed that guys wore skirts a LOT more than than sexy tops, not sure why. Utilikilts were also quite popular at this event, for those into the skirt effect without the gender ambiguity.)

Anyway, there were lots of people at the potluck, and our stew proved quite popular (most of the food was more snackish or pre-made). There was some incredibly delicious grilled asparagus over the fire that went quickly. We chatted a bit about what was going to happen that evening (the main event - the burning of the monkey!) and about possible mental chemical alterations. Unlike other evenings, Sunday night in the Village began to feel like a ghost town because everyone was leaving their camps to go to the main field. Several hours after sundown we headed down and there was a huge circle of people all around the field in the night. Lots of drumming and cheering and a palpable sense of anticipation and energy. There was a new temporary marked off larger circle outside the monkey, which the 1000+ people stood around watching. The Procession soon started, which was lots of fire dancers and jugglers and people on stilts in weird costumes moving around the monkey, in the inner circle between monkey and crowd. I was starting to feel a somewhat altered mental state, and the tribal ritual feel of the event was fascinating. I don't normally enjoy ritual (whether traditional standard stuff like church or the pledge of allegiance or whatnot, or alternative weird stuff), but this was rather compelling and powerful. It was like a vast surreal carnival. Nehundo's group was standing at the back side of the monkey (which was much less crowded than the front). I was not very invested in hanging with that group though, because I was blissing out dancing on my own a bit behind the crowd. People started shouting "Burn the monkey!" Flamethrowers burst jets in time with the drumming. Soon somebody walked up to the monkey and I think tossed in a torch, but I couldn't see clearly from the back, so I ran around the circle to try to see better, and I wanted to experience the thick of the crowd, and suddenly the monkey burst into a huge ball of flame and the crowd went wild. The flames were incredibly bright and hot (aided by the ever-present propane as well as magnesium and fireworks), and the circle of people expanded outward as people were pushed back by the sheer heat of the burning monkey, almost in a panic but not quite. It was an astonishing spectacle seeing this huge wooden structure, which I'd seen being worked on for days as a giant work of art, now engulfed in searing flames. I made my way back to the less crowded side and watched, dancing to the drumming and chanting, as the fire consumed the monkey. There were loud cheers as various arms burned and fell, or the head collapsed, and so forth, and after perhaps 20 minutes the structure was reduced to a raging bonfire heap and no longer was recognizable as a giant monkey. There was pandemonium as people cheered and chanted and drummed, and a circle of people started moving and dancing and running around the monkey, and I joined in. I was in a great state of continually dancing and it was an exciting release, circling round and round this huge bonfire. I noticed all kinds of things going on. Lots of other people danced wildly too, many people hugged and kissed, some couples passionately embraced, some people quietly stood praying or chanting to themselves, a few people lay prostrate on the ground, some people did cartwheels and flips, one shirtless guy stood calmly close to the fire smoking a cigarette in a contemplative pose for a long time silhouetted against the flames. I had a terrific time dancing around with the drums playing for a long time. Eventually the fire began to lessen and the drums stopped, and then some camps started playing loud music again, and I realized that during the ceremony, there had been more of a unity and respect for the burning as the central event, and now things were back to the normal chaotic cacophony. There was also spectacular green lasers from the large metal pyramid framework. I wandered around dancing - I danced continually that night more than I ever have before in my life! Occasionally I'd run into JP or Nehundo or Chad or other folks I knew, but mostly I was moving around in my own little world, like a ghost among people, or like everyone else was ghosts... I was in a non-social-interaction state, but it was cool. I was finding middle eastern music at the fire dancers ring, or Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire at the big white tent, or bad beatnik poetry, or techno music, or a crazy German expressionist puppet show with a Nosferatu puppet and other stuff I didn't grok, or a burning ring of propane fire in the creek which people were jumping into, and all sorts of other stuff. I don't know how many hours it went on, but it was very cool. Luckily there was plenty of opportunities to refill my water bottle thanks to the gift economy community, and I was grateful to the temple of sacred sex for having lots of cheese and crackers and grapes available. Eventually I made my way back to camp and decided (for the first time) not to sleep with earplugs because I wanted to continue experiencing the insane mix of sounds and music.

We woke early the next morning after very little sleep, yet not feeling tired. What an energizing night it had been! We managed to pack up and head out before the heat of the day hit. All in all it was quite a time; I'm up for doing it again. And now I know better what to take for it (e.g. ignore their advice that each person should have 2 gallons of water per day - we only used 5 of our 16 gallons!)