cybergeisha

I swore I’d go to bed early tonight.

You can see how well THAT worked out - it’s 4:30AM. It started at 1:15AM when I looked at my site and thought “Wow. I haven’t updated my webcam picture in MONTHS!” So I did. And then I thought “Hmm, well, I don’t use The List anymore, I might as well take that out.” Which led to some updates and pruning of my external links.

And then I started writing a new profile for myself. And then, and then, and then. And then, it was 4:30AM.

Since I’m proud of my tenacity in bringing Cybergeisha up to date, I’m writing a post about the update, instead of going to bed. I figured that the 1.5 people who read this would be on the edge of their seats in anticipation of a new post, and a new post on the site.

So, here: new material. I’m going to try and write here more - I’ve got a lot going on here in San Francisco and I’m sure all 1.5 of you would love to know about it.

I assisted in the Thunderdome quite a bit this year - every night I was there I ended up theatrically handing out weapons to the participants in the fights.

About two hours after Kurt and I had arrived arrived at Burning Man, dome fights started. Kurt gave a speech, someone grabbed me, said “Hand out weapons,” and I started doing so. At some point, Kurt ran over and put his hat on me. I just kept doing what I was supposed to be doing, and somehow, I ended up in this photo.

I almost didn’t recognize myself wearing a hat - I found the picture browsing Flickr for Burning Man photos. Actually, for a second or two, I thought it was a picture of Kurt.

This is me, Kurt, and Robert at Burning Man. We were standing at the base of “Babylon,” a 150 foot tall tower/art installation. We never actually went up to the top of it, there were a LOT of stairs and a lot of people. We were also out driving around in Vector and decided to drive out to the edge of Black Rock City instead.

The picture was taken by Kurt’s friend Richard, who I met for the first time while eating sausage on top of the Death Guild scaffolding. There’s no better way to make a good first impression on people than meeting them with a summer sausage in your hands.

I seriously like how Kurt and I are being all badass, and Robert looks like some sort of bodyguard.

I said I wasn’t going to stop posting them as they came, and I’m not. I’ve gotten more photos of me, my friends, the ice party, and other assorted shenanigans. Man, I had such a good time. Every time I see pictures it takes me back and makes me smile. I sorta miss it. A lot.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?!

On the way to the Ice Party, I was hanging off the left (my right) of the Pirate car. In the seat up top is Iris. Kurt was riding on the hood, as you can see in the first picture, where I’m hanging off the left side of the pirate car and Kurt is sitting on the front. What could go wrong with this idea?

That’s me hanging off the right of our pirate car. The car to our right has playground equipment hanging off of the sides, places to sit up top and in the bed of the jeep. There is a swing on one side. There is a tire swing on the other side. - what could go wrong with that?! We were yelling over to Sky (riding on the tire swing, far right) “Hey! Sky! Do somethin’ STUPID! Do something stupid, Sky! What could possibly go wrong?!”

Black Ice @ Ice-9 aka The Death Guild Ice Dance Party

Welcome to Ice-9: BLACK ICE WITH DEATH GUILD. We made short work of all the signage, so that everyone would know who was there. As if all the death guild cars and industrial music and black-clad weirdos milling around with bloody marys and margaritas wasn't a give away.

Once again, we find ourselves at the Death Guild Ice Party. That’s Irene in the foreground, and Iris and I in the center. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but I really like this picture. The whole thing was a real bonding experience for everybody - people who didn’t know each other very well were talking, laughing, dancing together. Mixing each other drinks. Singing along to songs.

This is what I’ve always thought about when I see those high-school feel good movies. You know that out-of-control prom party that nobody ever has in real life? Where everybody is just totally shaking their groove thing, cutting loose, everyone is having a blast… It was like how I always imagined that would feel in real life. And with a group of people who are like me. Not like the archetypical cast of characters in the movies.

The infamous BOOZE LUGE. This unsuspecting customer came in to purchase ice to keep things cold… and we yelled “DO THE BOOZE LUGE! DO THE BOOZE LUGE! YOU CAN’T STOP UNTIL YOU DO IT!” We had Saké, cheap wine, vodka, cheap whiskey, rum… eventually other people started gifting us more booze to keep the booze luge alive. Eventually we had two BOOZE LUGES going to keep up with how many customers we were forcing to “DO THE BOOZE LUGE!”

Many of you, if you know me, are probably thinking “jeez, it’s just another party, Kristin. You’ve go to… well… probably 3409287293048.” And that’s true. But this was difference.

It was this spontaneous “let’s all come over to [x location] and it’ll be fun.” That’s how stuff always goes in fiction, in idealized parties. We actually GOT one of those parties. Like in those teen movies, I mentioned before. It was a coalescing of everybody just being themselves, letting loose, having fun with whoever happened to be near.

This is one of the defining moments of my trip.

Death Guild: Safety Third

This was taken on the way home from the Ice Party.

It’s hard to see, but behind the motorcycle are Chris (I think), Kurt and me standing on the back of Vector. This dust storm was incredible - this picture was shot at about 4PM. You wouldn’t know it, would you?

We were standing on the back of The Car, driving through this blinding dust storm, skirts/clothes flowing in the wind with goggles and everything - it was almost cinematic. I felt like I was in a movie, for real. Out of Mad Max, even. It’s one of those things I’ve always seen in epic, post-apocalyptic movies and thought, on some level, “Man, wouldn’t it be awesome if you could do that in real life?” Well, you can. I did!

The dome was engulfed int he white out when we finally made it back to Death Guild. We were dusty, tired, happy, goofy, some of us were a little bit drunk, everyone was hyped up and wanted to do stuff, but it felt like a rainy day of sorts. We sat in the main tent and straight up hung out. It was nice, people who don’t know each other beyond “Hey, what’s up?” having meaningful conversations.

A Place For Me

That’s what’s magic about Death Guild (and Burning Man as a whole). It’s a big group of people which has felt inclusive of me. Not just “oh it’s that girl who came with her friends.” It’s the first time that I’ve really felt this way. Like I was actually PART of a group.

This is what I treasure from Burning Man, this year. I went with one of my best friends. I left with what feels like a new family. I can’t wait for next year.

What I treasure: Death Guild. All of you.

Yet more reasons that Burning Man was awesome this year. No, I’m not going to stop posting pictures any time soon.

They asked for “volunteers from Death Guild” for a shift at Ice-9. Hanging out in the back of a freezer truck and selling some blocks of ice? Sure! So we decided to call it “Black Ice” (har har) and make it an event - take our cars, park ‘em out front, you know. Industrial-ify the whole thing.

Well, they did not specify how MANY volunteers, so we just loaded up the cars (all of them) with as many people as we could find (about 45 of us) and drove across the Playa. When we arrived, the people there were quite surprised… they said “Dude, I was thinking about 10 people would show up - did you bring your whole camp?!” And did. We brought all the cars and music, too.

It started out tame. I am on the far left.

There were FAR too many people to be very much help, so most of us milled around in front, greeted people, and a bunch of us hopped up in the back of the truck… to mix drinks, heckle people and yell requests at the DJ.

We were pretty much hanging around, rocking out, drinking cocktails and yelling out greetings to our customers. We had brought vodka and bloody mary mix, but no cups, so we just found a couple paper cups, but for the most part, mixed them in our water bottles with the “share, share alike!” philosophy. Sky and Chris were trying to carve “ice cups” using pocket knives and block ice, but gave up and started sculpting skulls.

And that’s when things sort of started to degenerate.

As you can see… this ice situation was getting out of control when we started table dancing. Nothing raises tip money like scantily clad goth chicks dancing on the counters, right? And then, even the boys got into it. Kurt was table dancing at one point. I can’t remember with whom I was bumping and grinding to “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” but it was awesome.

Sky and Chris gave up sculpting ice-skulls, took an ice block and carved a winding path through it. We took it out front, and started “encouraging” everyone who came in for ice to “DO THE BOOZE LUGE!” after they completed their transaction. We would then pour a shot of vodka down the ice track into the mouth of our lucky victim. Random customers started BRINGING IN alcohol to encourage this deviancy. We ended up with two booze luges, and a selection of vodka, gin, rum, saké, cheap champagne, bad whiskey and baileys to send down the luge.

This all happened, by the way, in the middle of an all-out RAGING, white-out condition dust storm. But there we were, hiding in a tent and two refrigerated trucks, having a raucous, boozy, loud, possibly obnoxious dance party for our own and our customers amusement.

Volunteerism: Death Guild Thunderdome Style.