This should be better, but I'm really hungover this morning. Actually, it's 1 in the afternoon, but I'm still really hungover.


Yes, it's Burning Man Weekend here in SF, which means that the bars in the Mission are empty and most of the big companies have been slowed down due to the disappearance of most of the Engineering/IT Departments (that is, of course, all the companies that make the mistake of hiring Engineers and IT people who aren't from India). And I am, of course, here. In the city. No Burning Man for me.

Part of why I don’t go is because my sitting in the hot sun taking a lot of drugs days are over. Been there, done it and have the dead brain cells to prove it. Although these are two different type things and although I'm loathe to admit it, I've been to enough Dead Shows to know what Burning Man would be like. Yeah, I know, there is a difference, a big difference, but we still are talking about hot weather, lots of drugs and lots of freaks. Went to a few shows at Cal State Dominguez in 100 degree weather and watched some freaked out hippie stumble through the audience completely naked and stumble right into our little section, squirming like an upturned turtle, and muttering over and over again about how small his dick was. Camped for a weekend at Laguna Seca, sleeping outside in a root covered dirt ground, spending all day in the baking sun waiting for the Dead to come on and expending all my strength and energy trying not to have my brains come out of my ears. My memories of those trips were more of relief in surviving it rather than the fun of it. Basically, I don't like the heat, too old for the drugs, and like sleeping in beds. Yes, I'm a puss, but at least I know I'm one. It saves me a lot of time and hassle.

After living here in SF for so long and putting up with Burning Man types for years upon years, I'm pretty sick of hearing about it. Everyone who goes comes back and talks about what an incredible experience it was, how it was almost a religious thing, and how it changed their perspective on everything. I know people who spend all their time between Burning Man planning for it. One's even on his group's "float committee." Some guy, months ago during the height of the whole corporate scandal hype, even wrote an Editorial to the Chron talking about how America's business structure and capitalism in general would be much better if we all adopted Burning Man style economics (which I can't find because the Chron's Web site has a sucky search function). You know, like if someone wants some X and couldn't get it before the trip, but has lots of Acid, they'll be able to trade for it and if America worked like that, we'll all live in happiness too like the Oompa Loompa doompadee do Doompadee do.

Yeah, right. Put down the pipe, dude.

But the main reason why it annoys me is it's because it's such a signifier of cool here in SF. In order to be truly, truly cool, you have to do Burning Man. And not just do Burning Man, but you have to go for the whole week and get all dressed up and take mass amounts of X and roll around in the mud. It's right up there with collecting LPs or having rare, import EP's of some random, unkown Swedish Garage Band that's so obscure they've only released a rare, import EP. It's right up there with insiting that not only do you only go to dive bars, but the kind of dive bars in which the cockroaches are bigger than the pint glasses and half the people who hang out there have no teeth and are or were in Motorcycle gangs. Or up there with joining knitting groups, roller skating clubs for womyn, or somehow spending all of the money you earn by handing out Socialist Newspapers to attend every protest and rally ever held in the world. It's just that cool.

I have no problem with Burning Man per se. In fact, if I was younger, I'd probably be all over it. And I'd probably hate it for the same reasons I hated Dead Shows (stupid Hippies) or High School even (watching everyone else hook-up but not getting bupkus and becoming overwhelmed with the feeling of just how cool I'm not). But let's just call it what it is. It's just a big ole huge, week long party in which everyone does a lot of drugs and gets their freak on. It's nothing else but that. And I just don't really want to hear stories about it. So very boring.