New Years 2012: Our first Burning Man celebration

Last year on New Years, Keith and I stayed home.  We celebrated the New Years watching Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve and I swear I didn't see a ball fall.  I saw a lot of lights get lower and lower, but nothing fell.  I've been watching that dang ball fall since I was a kid, and all I ever see is a bunch of lights.  I wanted something different for next year.

After we rang in 2011, I announced to Keith that next year I was going to have a Burning Man celebration to ring in the New Year.  "What the Hell is a burning man?" he asked.

Keith had never heard of the annual Burning Man celebration in the Nevada desert so I started explaining.  "Every year, they erect a hundred foot scarecrow in the middle of the desert.  Tens of thousands of hippies come from all over the world to get drunk and dance naked around the scarecrow while listening to sixties music.  At night, they set the scarecrow on fire and the dancing and partying continues for days."

"Ohh, sixities music?  That sounds like fun," Keith remarked, but remained unimpressed.  "I don't want all those people in my yard."

I assured him our celebration would be just me and him unless he wanted to invite a couple of friends.  People from all over the world wouldn't descend on Toddville to watch our little scarecrow burn in a little bonfire.  He remained unimpressed.

When spring arrived, I planted the pole that would hold up our scarecrow and told Keith that as we took care of the yard, anything yanked or cut is to be placed around the pole for our Burning Man celebration on New Years.  I know a yeah-whatever-look when I see one and that's what I got from him. 

Throughout the spring and summer, nothing to burn ended up around the pole except for some branches I moved so I could cut the grass.  October rolled around and I cut down two holly trees so our chaste tree would get more sun next year.  I piled all the wood and branches from both trees around the pole.  "That should give us a good Burning Man celebration," I said.  I got another yeah-whatever-look.

I resigned myself to thinking that I would be the only idiot around a bonfire on New Year's Eve.  I didn't even feel like building the scarecrow.  I figured a nice bonfire would be better than watching a bunch of lights on TV.  Deep down I knew Keith would come out just before midnight to ring in the New Year and then go back in, but I would still be out there listening to my music and enjoying the warmth of the bonfire by myself.

The night before New Year's Eve 2012, I picked Keith up from his work and we headed home. 

Keith was all excited and full of energy.  "I thought about the Burning Man all day and, look, I made my New Year's resolutions."  He held out a notepad piece of paper and read, word-for-word, what he wrote.  "New Year's Resolutions," he began as he pointed to the words.  "And look, I even signed it."  Underneath the title, he read his signed full name and then proceeded to read each of his resolutions.  "Now I gave this a lot of thought.  We have to have a story behind the Burning Man if we want it to be a good tradition."

Up to this point, I never considered we needed a good story to justify standing around a burning scarecrow to drink beer.  I thought the fact it was New Year's Eve was a good enough story.  But Keith wanted a good story and he gave us a good story.

He explained the Burning Man represented our old selves.  We had to write our resolutions down and before we set the fire, we had to read our resolutions to the Burning Man and then pin them to him.  Then we would set the fire and the Burning Man represented our desire to get rid of our old selves.  The Burning Man would go up in smoke and take our resolutions with him.  That way, the Burning Man would know what our resolutions were. 

"And," Keith excitedly explained, "if you break a resolution, the Burning Man will come back and burn your ass."

I loved the story.  "But we need a specific song to play at midnight that reflects the story and New Years.  But it has to be sixties style because that's the kind of music you're supposed to play at a Burning Man celebration."

Keith had no problem coming up with not one, but two songs.  "Out With the Old by Chameleon Church and Hell Fire by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.  "The first one because that's the whole theme behind the Burning Man and the second one because we want to make sure he burns," Keith explained.

We were all set except for one thing.  We had the story, we had the song, but we didn't have the Burning Man and I had only one day to make him. 

Let me tell you, putting together a scarecrow isn't as easy as it looks.  We've all seen one hanging in a field or even staked in the middle of the family vegetable garden.  They look easy enough to put together, but if you never put one together, it's a difficult task.

Getting the old clothes together was easy enough.  Stuffing it was almost as easy.  The hard part was gathering all the reeds to stuff it with.  Our little scarecrow took several wheelbarrow's worth of reeds. The head was particularly difficult.  I got it as round as I could, but it was still lopsided.  It was also at this point I realized our scarecrow would have no arms because I used a short sleeved shirt.  I figured it would be dark and no one would notice. 

When I first tried to hang it,  the pants fell down and all the upper body stuffing fell out.  I laid it back down on the ground and re-stuffed it.  I decided I needed to learn how to sew.  Trying to get the thread through the eye of the needle almost stopped my plans for a Burning Man.  My eyesight used to be so good, I could thread a needle blindfolded.  It took me almost half an hour to get that needle threaded.  I don't know what happened to my eye sight, but suffice it to say it sucks getting old.

I hung the Burning Man, but the dang thing wasn't high enough over the wood for the fire.  On top of that, the body of the scarecrow flopped into an odd posture.  I don't know how they get them straight in the fields, but ours limply flopped every which way.  It was past dark and I wanted to take an hour nap before celebrating, so I decided what I had would have to do.

Keith came out to look at the finished product.  "Can't you fix it?  Look how it's posed.  We have an armless, gay Burning Man." 

"No, I can't fix it because it'd probably fall apart again.  It'll have to do."

Keith shook his head.  "That's the gayest looking thing I've ever seen.  I hope we do better next year."

About fifteen minutes before midnight, I opened a beer, grabbed the burnable trash, and headed outside.  Keith followed with a glass of wine in hand and his sixties music.  As he got his music ready, I placed the burnable trash in the pile of wood, prepared to start the fire.

Once we were ready, Keith pulled out his resolutions and read all three of them to the Burning Man. I pulled out my resolutions and read all six.

"Six?" Keith asked.  "Just a couple of hours ago you couldn't think of one."

"That was then.  This is now."  I proceeded to read all six of my resolutions.

When I was done, we pinned our resolutions over the heart of the Burning Man and I set the fire.  DeeJay Keith started the song, Out With the Old as the fire struggled to burn. As the song was about to end, our fire finally started to take off.

Keith ran to the truck to play the next song.  At this point, we realized we were three minutes late ringing in the New Year.  Good thing we didn't sell tickets to the event.  Of course, down here in Toddville, we all do things at our own pace so even though the clock said we were late, we were really on time.  I reckon over the last couple of centuries, ringing in the New Year a few minutes late added up to why we're a good fifty years behind everyone else now.

As Hell Fire played, our friends, Brian and Shana joined the celebration.  As we stood around the bonfire (the Burning Man had disappeared into ashes), Brian asked what the celebration was about.  He thought for sure it was some sort of witchcraft celebration.  I knew he never heard of the Nevada celebration so I simply said there was no witchery involved.  It was just an excuse to drink beer on a nice night.  That explanation was good enough for him.

Keith was going to play his sixties music all night, but when Hell Fire ended, he played the classic rock station as he searched for the next CD to play.  A Lynryd Skynrd song played and Brain began serenading Keith.  In Brian's defense, anytime a Lynryd Skynrd song plays, Brian serenades anyone who will listen.  No one's ever serenaded Keith before and he was flattered.  He decided to leave the classic rock station play for Brian since he enjoyed it so much.

By this time our fire was back to a candle flame and struggling to catch the wood on fire.  While Brian serenaded Keith, Shana went and got a friend, Mary, to come over.  Mary came up to the dwindling flames with her resolutions and asked me, "What do I do?  Just throw them in the fire?"

"Well, even though the Burning Man is ashes now, you still need to read them before throwing them in."

"But their personal."

"Then read them to yourself and toss them."

She quickly read her resolutions and threw them in the fire.  I joined Keith and Brian in drinking beer and took their pictures.  None of us noticed Shana and Mary had disappeared. 

A couple of minutes later, they reappeared, Mary with a truckload of paper and cardboard.  She tossed it all on the near-gone fire, even tucking it behind the pallet we used for wood.  She made a couple of trips to her truck for more cardboard and paper to get the fire going.  Her eyes were focused on the one task - get the fire burning.

It only took a few minutes and we had a roaring fire that soared a good ten or fifteen feet in the air.  We'll never know what Mary's resolutions were, but she wanted to make sure the Burning Man took care of them.  Unfortunately, Mary disappeared before I could get her picture, but I hope whatever she threw in that fire means this year will be a better year for her.  She was so determined to get that fire going, I never got to wish her a Happy New Year, so, Mary, if you are reading this, "Happy New Year!"

Brian had enough beer so we offered him some of our egg nog.  It must've been good stuff.  He drank the whole bottle by himself.  By about two-thirty, the fire still put out heat, but most of the wood was burned.  And the egg nog was gone.  It was time to bring our Burning Man celebration to an end. 

Keith and I had a great time.  Our whole concept of the celebration went better than we had thought, despite having the "gayest Burning Man" in town, with no arms, no less.  We're already making plans for next year to ensure an even better celebration.  I think I know how to make a better and taller Burning Man.  Keith is working on compiling a Burning Man CD so all the songs will play in order without having to change CDs between songs.  And I think next year I'm going to include some food.  Stay tuned for next year's celebration....

If you want to see some of the excitement, hear the music mentioned, or, for some of our Internet friends who are curious what Keith and I and some of our friends look like, please feel free to watch the short video below.   The middle of the movie includes live video footage of the Burning Man.



© 2012
Mark Darien
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