Burning Man 14: Ishkabibble

It turns out that these yankees, collectively called Ishkabibble, were in the same business as we were, to wit, playing with film loops and video. Call it serendipity, call it someone playing god over at Theme Camp Placement. Not sure, but we were stuck with them.

Josh and John were the primary video people, and they had cajoled Todd into joining them to mix live audio. Robert, Rachel and Carrie either had other projects, or like me were free agents. There were a couple of other bit players, but I either can't remember their names or they weren't really important to the narrative.

So around dusk (sunsets are glorious, drawn out affairs which are roundly applauded by everyone in the whole damn affair, it sounds like) I was drafted to help set up equipment, run cords, and finish up the cubes. In fact, fairly quickly I became defacto keeper of the cubes, because everyone else was busy with their equipment. The show was short and more a test run of equipment, but it really got the attention of the guys behind us. Their set up was much more advanced than ours, with video cameras, laptops, and a video projector that John kept locked in a car he appeared to have rented just for that purpose. We tentatively agreed to join forces on Tuesday night, and have A Meeting Tuesday afternoon. I was a bit confused about hearing the word meeting in such a laissez-faire place, but Josh seemed to think it was a good idea, and some of our people nodded sagely. Fuck it, I thought, not my problem. I'll run the cords wherever.

Tuesday morning, we were all invited over to Ishkabibble's RV for breakfast. My first breakfast that wasn't out of a MRE pack, if we'd even bothered to eat breakfast. I felt awkward--they were friendly but since most of us had never been to the Burn everyone was still trying to get their senses straight. I, of course, am paralytically shy at first, made doubly so because I was eating their food and not being particularly welcoming or fun to be around. But hey, I'm shy.

That day was full of something, I'm sure, but I can't remember what. I think that's the day I discovered that one of the tents visible from my tent was inhabited by a very attractive female impersonator who liked to bend over and show his ass when he was getting something out of his tent. For the remainder of the week, I'd look over, spy a nice ass in hose and a short skirt, ogle, then whack myself in the head when the owner of that ass turned out to be a Portuguese man. It wasn't fair, and you'd think I'd learn, but I'll bet it happened 20 times.

That evening, the entire crew gathered underneath the parachute to Have A Meeting. I think the meeting took place so that everyone in the camp couldn't say they hadn't been warned of what was taking place, that is, we were going to really Pool Our Loops with people from another group. It was a short meeting, but afterwards we began to mingle with each other and by the time dusk fell we were all working as one. Or at least we'd all accepted each other--it was utter chaos in the camp, with people setting shit up, directing traffic, eating popsicles, and attempting to dye my hair blue.

Yes, that's right. Dye my hair blue. Hey, that's nothing! Robert dyed his entire body blue. Please take note that the picture on the other end of the link is NOT Robert. Robert's penis is much larger. And if that doesn't get you to follow the link, you're no fun at all.

But I think that deserves attention on its own, plus I've got a new vacuum cleaner and I want to play with it. Yahootie!~