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Coachella, The Festival: Variations on a Theme

Yes, I went to Coachella this year. And yes, I wrote about it. In fact, I reviewed it for two publications, with two different word count requirements. See below the short, tight, economical version in the SB Independent, or scroll down for the longer version in the alt weekly where I used to be a senior arts writer and editor, the VC Reporter. (Or, of course, just click the links and read 'em on line.)

Photo Envy of the Week
Santa Barbara Independent, 5/4/06


Capturing Coachella

I’ve always envied concert photographers: Not only do they go to shows for free, but they get the best seats. So when I realized my photographer boyfriend wasn’t coming to Coachella with me, and therefore his photo pass was up for grabs, I jumped at the chance to see how the other half lives. After years of festival frustration made up of heat and crowds and distance from the stage, I’d finally have the Coachella experience I’d always wanted.

Or so I thought. As it turns out, the other half doesn’t live quite as glamorously as I’d thought. The pit between the stage and the barrier is a strange place. For starters, it’s mostly men. And those men have really big cameras with even bigger lenses. Cowering there with my $100 Canon, I felt a little like the only boy in the junior high locker room who hasn’t hit puberty.

By the time Cat Power started, though, I wasn’t worried about the size of my equipment. I was too busy maneuvering around other photographer’s heads and arms and cameras to get a good shot, all the while trying not to get in the way of anyone else’s photographs. It was even worse at Depeche Mode, where videographers were on risers in front of me. I was lucky if I could see David Gahan’s foot, much less get an in-focus photo of him doing something interesting.

It was so distracting I hardly heard the music at all. And by the time three songs had passed and I was forced back out the chute and into the field, I was exhausted from all the striving and concentrating and fighting off testosterone. Maybe Coachella is best left to the professionals: those with the newest driver’s licenses, those with VIP passes, and those with the longest lenses. Next year I think I’ll stay home and watch the DVD.

Coachella_chaninblue Img_9358 (Two of my favorite of the photos I took  - the left because it's Chan Marshall and she rocks. And the other because that's JUST what my view was like during Depeche Mode. Plus, I have a thing for gothic fairy industrial rockers.)

Or if you didn't like that version, try this one...

A Snapshot of Coachella
Ventura County Reporter, 5/4/06
And after three years at Coachella, I can say it’s no different than most music festivals, except the stakes are higher: higher temperatures, better bands, more expensive beer, more innovative art. With a lineup reading like a list of this year’s critically acclaimed commercial hits and new cult favorites — it spanned multi-platinum icon Madonna to myspace phenomenon Octopus Project — Coachella sets up expectations that are pretty hard to meet.

Which is why, every year, I debate whether or not I’m going to go. On the con side? It’s hot and sweaty and crowded and exhausting. It’s almost a four-hour drive, not including the hour waiting to get into the parking lot. With big bands, you’re so far away from the stage you can’t see them. And while you’re busy checking out a band sure to be next year’s White Stripes in the Gobi tent, you’re probably missing the actual White Stripes on the Main Stage.

But on the other side, there’s Nine Inch Nails. The Pixies. Radiohead? Or, this year, Depeche Mode and Cat Power and Tool and The Walkmen. So I went.

It was just as Coachella always is. Beautiful. Picturesque. A cultural moment. But still, after three years of attending, just a festival. And as such, I was getting bored, which was too pathetic for me to accept. So I decided to entertain myself by making use of the photo pass I’d snagged when my photographer boyfriend decided not to come with me. I’d always envied concert photographers, not only for the glamour factor but for the fact that they could get close to the stage without actually touching anyone else’s sweat.

But it turns out that being a photographer was a lot more work than I’d thought. First of all, I was one of the only women in the photo pit. And while every photographer seemed to have a larger lens protruding from his dangling camera than the next, I was carrying my dinky $100 Canon. I felt a little like the only boy in the locker room who hadn’t hit puberty — or, at least, how I’d imagine it to be.

Once the music started, the pit filled up with other photographers. I was glad to see more women, until I realized that there were so many photographers that I couldn’t get a decent shot without a head or hand or camera in the way. It was even worse for Depeche Mode, where a row of photographers were on risers in front of me. I was lucky if I could see David Gahan’s foot, much less get a powerful photo of him.

By the time three songs had passed and I was forced back out the chute and into the field, I was exhausted from all the striving and concentrating and fighting off testosterone.

So I went home. Halfway through the Depeche Mode set, I decided it was more important to beat the traffic than to see Daft Punk close out the Sahara tent. Maybe I’m too old for this. Maybe I didn’t plan well enough. Or maybe Coachella is best left to the professionals: those with the newest driver’s licenses, those with VIP passes not connected to actually working the event, and those with the biggest lenses. Don’t get me wrong — I still love Coachella. I just think I like the DVD better than the real thing.

 

May 05, 2006 in Essays, Music, Pop Culture, SB Independent, VC Reporter, Writing | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Exercise and the Idiot Box

By Molly Freedenberg (SB Indie, May 4, 2006)

I’ve rarely gone to the gym for good reasons like heart health or longer life. No, I’m all about vanity, fear, and the occasional bow to peer pressure. For a while, when I lived in a warehouse without plumbing, I even used the gym just for its warm shower and free Q-tips. But lately, my motives have sunk to an all-time low. I now go to the gym to watch television.

I was just about to quit my membership to Spectrum (née Gold’s), figuring it was silly to pay $40 a month to a place I almost never set foot in. But the day I decided to give the elliptical trainer one last shot was the day I discovered the best — or worst — part of the Spectrum remodel: individual televisions at each station. With cable. And personal remote controls.

I started ellipticizing and watched an episode of Making the Band (the one with P. Diddy, of course). And then, after half an hour, when I’d usually be more than happy to get off the machine, another episode started. “I can’t get off now!” I thought. “I have to know what happens to Aundrea!” So I punched in for another 30 minutes and got ellipticizing again. Before I knew it, I realized what I was watching was a Making the Band marathon and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to run one, too.

I decided to keep my membership. And now, whenever I don’t feel like exercising, I counter back with: “But do you feel like watching VH1’s Behind the Music?” or “How about The Fabulous Life of Paris Hilton?” And the answer’s the same as when I ask myself that question from the comfort of my parents’ couch: Damn straight.

Of course, I may pretend that I’m at the gym for the exercise, and the TV’s just what occupies my eyes while my brain is busy loving the burn. But it’s a façade. I’m there for the boob tube trash. The firm glutes are just a bonus.

May 05, 2006 in Essays, Pop Culture, SB Independent | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Why Ventura County Doesn't Suck

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April 27, 2006 in Arts, Essays, Stuff I Made, VC Reporter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Fast Track

It’s 8:10 p.m. and I’m sitting in my car, preparing for my undercover assignment. I’ve donned my costume — plaid pants, careful swipes of kohl eyeliner, a trendy gold bag. I’ve prepared my story: I’m Emily Ocean, single, a freelance writer and arts administrator and I live in Santa Barbara.

Right now I’m gathering my strength, and watching my targets.

I see two of them, a parking row away, traversing the sidewalk toward the wine bistro. They’re both balding. Both wear button-down shirts tucked into dress pants. Both are in their late 30s. This is scarier than I expected. I take a deep breath.

These are the men I will soon be pretending to date.

If, that is, you can actually call speed dating “dating.” What I’m about to do is meet ten different men and talk to them for six minutes each before deciding who, if anyone, I’d like to talk to again. Sure, the word “dating” is in the name of the event, and in the name of the company running it (VC Fastdating), but the word seems a bit too strong for what we’ll be doing — kind of like calling a trip to the In-N-Out drive-thru dining. This is more like “pre-date screening;” which is exactly why it appealed to me in the first place.

I’ve been interested in intentional dating methods ever since my mom tried video dating in the ’80s. And I was intrigued again when, much later, my cousin found his now-wife on Match.com: he’d requested a “punk rock librarian” and got a stylish hipster redhead with progressive politics and degree in library science, which tickled me. I imagined it like ordering sushi or maybe a sandwich at a deli: “I’ll take a smart Jewish boy, easy on the over-involved mother, extra sarcasm and a side of rhythm, please. Oh, and I’ll take passionate infatuation to start, thanks.”

Speed dating had a similar appeal, though I was more ambivalent about it. I liked the idea of meeting lots of people in a short period of time, rather than wasting an entire evening with someone I knew I didn’t like after five minutes. But it also seemed a bit juvenile, like grown-up musical chairs, and also so American: How can we make dating bigger, better, faster?

I couldn’t decide if speed dating was the perfect example of everything that’s wrong with American culture, or if it was the best thing to hit the dating world since the invention of booze.

From the start, I knew that I couldn’t go in as myself: a curious reporter in a long-term relationship. The company would probably let me, but I still wouldn’t know what it’s like to participate in speed-dating, to actually meet people this way.

So I lied.

I chose a pseudonym, I opened a yahoo e-mail account with my new name, I signed up on the web, paid my $35 dollars and then tried to talk my boyfriend into going with me (undercover, too, of course).

Instead, he made me dinner, kissed me goodbye and shouted “Have fun on your dates!” as I left the house.


The ten-ring circus

The idea is to act and feel as if I’m really single, and it works. I’m nervous. I consider bailing about 20 times on the drive to Cousin’s Wine Tasting Bar, a new Camarillo establishment in the same shopping center where my family has bought their groceries for 15 years and where, as a teenager, I used to steal cosmetics and cigarettes. It has that shopping center feel on the outside: nondescript, roof too low to the ground, stucco walls that don’t discriminate between here and there.

And inside, the small place is almost full. The older group (ages 40 to 55) is just finishing up, so it’s hard to tell who will be in my peer group, who’s in the older group and who’s just a regular bar patron. I, on the other hand, feel completely exposed and transparent. Not only do I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m a good decade younger than most of the people I see, and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one here who had her first kiss at a Ministry concert and who doesn’t own a house.

I sign in with Kimberlina Andre Fouché, the warm, friendly co-founder of VC Fast-dating, and get my nametag: “Emily #6.” And then we wait. I escape to the bathroom, and then to the wine counter, where I meet my first match.

A man in a dark sweater has just ordered a drink and I’m relieved to see him. Straight teeth. Nice smile. About my age, or a little older. I ask for the wine list and it turns out he’s drinking beer. “Perfect!” I think, “We’re already compatible,” as I order a Levitation Ale (the place has a great selection of beers, by the way).

I wonder if I’m breaking some kind of rule by talking to this guy before the official dating starts. I already know he’ll be a match, and I’m sure that’s obvious to everyone else in the room. And I know it’s not paranoid to think I’m being watched — that’s what we’re all here for.

As we chat, some of my nervousness washes away. This guy is so nice, so normal — and not in an over-the-top kind of way but in an I-could-spend-an-evening-with-you kind of way. He doesn’t seem desperate or creepy or lonely at all. He’s just done with the bar scene and likes to meet new people.

It turns out a lot of the men I meet later are in a similar situation. Many are homeowners, or plan to be soon. Many are fairly settled. They are engineers and consultants. They work in computers or real estate. They own their own businesses. They’re successful, busy and mostly in their mid- to late-30s.

What happens next is a whirlwind. We’re told to go to the numbered tables that correspond with our nametags. The women will stay seated and the men will rotate around.

Fouché later explains to me why the women usually are the ones to stay stationary. “Women carry a lot of baggage,” she says, but she means it literally. “They have their purses, they have their jackets …”

The effect is like ten princesses in a room, receiving our suitors six minutes at a time. I can’t see the other women very well. Some seem around my age, others a little older. None are particularly striking — not overly flashy or overly fat or overly ugly or overly pretty. Most are just normal people, it seems. There’s an Asian woman facing me, and I’m sharing a table with a black woman who seems as disoriented as I feel. We all have carbon-copy worksheets for marking who we meet and whether we like them as a “match” or a “friend/business” contact.

And then the game starts. I talk to man after man, our mini-sessions ending with whistle blasts that remind me of circuit-training in junior high school P.E. While they’re moving from one table to the next, we’re all desperately trying to write shorthand notes so that later we’ll still be able to match names with first impressions.

By the end, I’m sure I’ve done it all wrong. I should’ve written different, more useful notes instead of “real estate guy” or “likes to travel” or “40.” I should’ve prepared questions ahead of time instead of resorting to my usual ways of talking to strangers (trying to be a good, charming hostess; trying to find common ground; trying to make them feel comfortable). I shouldn’t have ordered beer, which then gave me a buzz for half the night.

But Fouché disagrees. She says the less prepared and more natural you are, the better.


The six-minute date

So how much can you really learn in six minutes? A lot, it turns out.

One of the men I dated, Sean (who’s been doing this for five years), later told me that it hardly matters what he and a woman talk about — he never remembers anyway. What he gets is more of a general impression. Is he attracted to her? Does their conversation flow? Does he feel comfortable? One of the reasons he chose me as a potential match, he said, was because I seemed interesting, a little nervous and sincere. More importantly, it seemed, I smile a lot. Something he finds attractive.

This is exactly why he prefers speed dating to internet dating, which seems too distant and too unpredictable to him. After having had an experience where a woman he met online ended up much chubbier in person than her picture led him to believe, he’d rather just meet the woman face-to-face right up front.

And as someone who’s a little shy, he much prefers speed dating to meeting women in bars. There, “you don’t necessarily know who’s single and why they’re in the bar … they’re more likely to shut you down or roll their eyeballs at you,” he said. And that’s if he approaches them at all. More likely, he wouldn’t. At speed dating, “you’re forced to talk to someone, whether they’re your type or not.”

As for the time limit, Sean says six minutes is plenty. “We have a map in our head of qualities we like in people — the way they smile or the way they laugh or their physical build,” he said. “You get a feel for someone much quicker in talking to them for five minutes as opposed to trying to write to someone.”

And I have to agree with him. Though I couldn’t tell you much about any of the men I met, I could tell immediately if I was physically attracted to someone and if we had any chemistry. Some men sat across from me like interrogators and some got so close I instinctively moved my chair back. Some men sat straight in their chairs and others hunched over. With some men, six minutes was eternity and I was just trying to fill up the space with words. With others, we’d only just gotten started in six minutes and I was sad to see them go.

I don’t feel fireworks or rose-petal rainstorms with any of the men I meet, but there are definitely some I connect with more than others. It’s clear who my matches will be:

1. Adam. I liked him within five seconds. He was attractive, friendly, and I liked his style: black blazer over a black shirt. It turns out he grew up in Moorpark, and used to attend daycare in this very shopping center. I told him how I puked in the McDonald’s sink the second time I got drunk. He confessed he’s probably pissed on a tire in the restaurant’s parking lot. We smiled and laughed and the words came effortlessly. I wasn’t sure if we’d be compatible in a relationship — after all, I don’t puke in sinks anymore (as he, presumably, doesn’t piss on tires, either).

2. Miles. Though we weren’t quite as flirty when the teacher made his way to my table, I still liked him — and felt that he was already my ally at the event, which seemed like a good sign. I liked that he’s educated; and he seemed like someone with long-term potential. He also seemed to have good boundaries.

3. Greg. There were two things about Greg that initially put me off — he sat so close our knees touched, and he told me about his ex-wife and ex-fiancee right off the bat. But as far as I could tell, his values and interests were more in line with mine than anyone else there, and he seemed genuinely interested in me. He also spoke German (a huge plus), and it didn’t hurt that he had those ski-instructor good looks.

4. Joe. He was the surprise. Though thinner and more conservative than I usually like (he, too, had a button-down shirt tucked into slacks), Joe dazzled me with intelligence and good conversation. He worked in some kind of media, though didn’t want to specify what company, and he offered me a potential job. When he got up, I wrote on my worksheet, “I like him.”

Everyone else goes under “friends.”

And, after an hour is up, the whole thing ends just as quickly as it started. People get up, turn in their worksheets and leave. A few couples stay at their tables, and Greg comes back to mine. I genuinely like him, and I feel bad that I’m not being totally honest with him. I’ve been careful to be as authentic as possible with everyone — with my interests, values, goals. I treat them all exactly as I would if I were single — flirty with the ones I like, friendly but distant with the ones I don’t. But I start to sense that my ruse is working too well, and I don’t like it. I wonder if I should come clean, but the experiment isn’t over yet. Greg walks me out and we hug. I expect that he’ll probably hate me before all this is over.

I’m exhausted. Ten dates is a lot of work. I’m grateful the whole thing was so quick and smooth. I’ll be in my pajamas by 11.

The next step is just to wait for the results by e-mail. And, of course, tell my boyfriend how it all went.


The two-mornings after

It later turns out that my instincts are right. When I get an e-mail two days later (which, by the way, feels like a cross between Christmas morning and getting your slambooks back from your friends), it seems my four favorites have chosen me as a “match” as well. There are another four who’ve also chosen me as a “match,” though I’ve only picked them as friends. I also get a list of the men who listed me as a potential friend or business contact. Next to everyone’s name is their phone number and e-mail address. A day later, I start getting phone calls and e-mails.

Greg is first. Then Adam. I get an e-mail from Joe, who can’t remember who I am, and another from one of my “friends.” Miles e-mails, too. All of them want to talk again. I wait a few days to break the news of my true identity to them, mostly because I’m chicken. I really like these people, and I’m afraid I’m going to hurt their feelings. I finally send an e-mail, explaining that I’m writing a story but also assuring them that I’ll respect everyone’s anonymity, that I was as authentic as I could be without giving away my cover, that I’d like to talk to them for my story but understand if they never wanted to talk to me again. Then I wait.

Joe opts out of staying in touch. Miles commends me on my acting abilities, and good-naturedly agrees to talk to me for the story. Another on the “friend” list also says I did a great job of staying undercover, after feigning indignation at my gall. Another man, who has chosen me as a “match,” is very upset. “How could you do this?” he asks in his e-mail, and then suggests that I redeem myself by introducing him to my single friends. The first man I talked to, who also chose me as a “match,” also wants a trade: his cooperation with the story in exchange for one evening of my time, taking him to places in Santa Barbara where “STRAIGHT, QUALITY TWENTY-SOMETHINGS regularly hang out, preferably LARGE NUMBERS [his emphasis].”

I never hear back from Greg or Adam, which doesn’t surprise me. They’re the ones I connected to the most, and are probably the ones who most justifiably feel betrayed. Or maybe they’re already on to dating one of the other ten women they met that night, and have forgotten me already.


The bottom line

Sean, too, is more than happy to talk, even though he chose me as a “match” and I put him as a “friend.” When he hears that a few of the other guys were upset, he’s surprised.

Speed dating “isn’t that big of a deal,” he says. As for the event we attended together, the veteran says it wasn’t the best, mostly because of the turnout. Every event is different, and everyone who shows up impacts the total experience.

Fouché agrees, saying that every event has its own flavor. The demographic skews younger in Westlake and Thousand Oaks, for example. People dress up more when it’s on a weekend. In Santa Barbara, it’s harder to find women to sign up for the younger group and men to sign up for the older one. And once people try VC Fastdating, they often come back — sometimes driving from Ventura to Westlake for an event.

The reason? “It’s fun,” says Sean. Even though he’s only chosen about five “matches” out of the 130 women he’s met this way, and only gone out with 12 (including some he didn’t choose as “matches,” of course), he says it’s a great way to meet new people, learn about how to interact and increase his odds of meeting a true match.

What’s more, says Fouché, it does work. Though she’s single, her best friend met her soon-to-be husband at a VC Fastdating event. Another couple live together. Countless more pairs have met, dated, split apart. Fouché doesn’t always hear about them, partly because many people are shy about having met through fast dating.

But that idea makes no sense to Fouché. What’s embarrassing about wanting to meet someone? How is it any different than going to a bar with the explicit purpose of meeting someone? When it’s suggested that people assume speed daters are strange, desperate or lower-class, she laughs. And so does Sean, who’s met doctors, lawyers, Amgen employees and a whole lot of schoolteachers through speed dating. “If you’re trying to figure out what kind of person really does it, I don’t think you can narrow it down,” he says.

Fouché agrees. In fact, many of the people she sees are the opposite of what stereotypes might dictate. They’re successful, busy people who don’t have time to go out and prefer not to meet people at bars. Many of the women haven’t been out in a while and like the safe, controlled environment as a way to meet men (no one’s allowed to ask for personal information or ask each other on dates at the event; you must wait until you get your results). Most share a common goal: they’re serious about meeting someone. Occasionally, people are “on the prowl” for something a little less wholesome, but not that often. And she tries to weed out anyone creepy as quickly as possible.

“It’s not as scary as it looks,” says Fouché, and I have to agree. In fact, I liked it. And I’m sure it would be more fun the second or third time around, when I’m less nervous and know what to expect. Of course, I’m not planning to be in a position to try it again any time soon — or possibly ever. But if I were to suddenly find myself single, I would actually consider this as a way to meet someone (although I’d be more likely to do it in a larger city, where there’d be a greater diversity of age ranges and backgrounds).

I liked the no-hard-feelings, no-holds-barred philosophy and the fact that you don’t have to sleep with your date before you find out he’s a pot smoker. You don’t have to get emotionally invested before you realize he doesn’t ever want to have kids. Hell, you can even find out if he’s an early riser before you ever share a meal together — and all without the pressure of being alone together for a long period of time.

The bottom line is that speed-dating reminds me of a friend who always schedules a coffee or lunch date for her first meeting, because it’s short (by definition) and easy to get out of if the guy’s a dud. That always seemed like a great idea to me, and speed dating is just a streamlined version of that: The Coffee Date Version 2.0.

The verdict is still out, though, on the result of my experiment as an undercover lover. Were I ever to do something like this again, I might do it a little differently. It’s hard to know, but I’m not sure gonzo journalism is quite my thing. Then again, there is a lock-and-key event coming up …

Editor’s note: All the names of daters have been changed in this story to protect their anonymity. Interested in trying Fast Dating for yourself? Look for events in Santa Barbara on Jan. 28, Newbury Park on Feb. 22 and Ojai on March 5. For something a little different, try a free group outing in Simi Valley on Feb. 6 (a great way to check out the company and the type of people who participate in Fastdating, says Fouché) or the lock and key Valentine mixer in Camarillo on Feb. 12 (women wear a lock around their necks, men wear a key. When you find the right lock-key match, you get a raffle ticket. The real prize, though, is getting yet another excuse to talk to strangers and meet potential dates). For more information, visit www.vcfastdating.com.

{{published 1-26-06 in VC Reporter }}

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January 26, 2006 in Essays, Features, VC Reporter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Why I care about Britney and KFed

(published in the VC Reporter on December 29, 2005.)


The year in worthless pop culture
Or “Why I care about Britney and KFed”

~ By MOLLY FREEDENBERG ~

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I love pop culture.

I love Britney and KFed and their ridiculously greasy, white trash life. I love Brad and Jen. I love Angelina and her lips. I love hearing about whether Jessica Simpson is wearing her ring, and whether Nick Lachey really made out with that girl in Vegas. I love trashy gossip, silly speculation and bogus reports about things that don’t matter.

I am one of the cogs that keep the celebrity machine running.

I know I should be embarrassed about this, but I’m not. I’m too busy being fascinated by the phenomenon. After all, I’m a lifelong feminist and ideological hippie who once shunned all mainstream magazines and television shows for my own mental health. I partly blame western culture for much of the misery of 12-year-old girls everywhere. I’m still angry at Seventeen magazine for the back-to-school issue I read before seventh grade, which convinced me that if I didn’t have straight blond hair, stretchy black leggings and tortoise shell barettes, I’d never be popular (I didn’t, and I wasn’t).

And I still can’t read Cosmopolitan, Glamour or Self for more than five minutes. Either the glorification of celebrity and superficial beauty annoys me too much, or it starts getting its insidious grip on me until I wonder if I should weight 90 pounds and spend most mornings worrying about my crow’s feet (instead of, oh, I don’t know, making breakfast, painting, reading, having sex, cleaning the house, cleaning out my hotmail inbox or just about anything else).

So you’d think I’d hate Us Weekly, People and most certainly Web sites like www.thesuperficial.com even more. You’d think I’d be ashamed to admit I even know who Shar Jackson is, much less that I know exactly how she feels about Britney stealing her babbydaddy away.

But celebrity culture has caught my attention in a different way than other mainstream media has — and, lately, almost better than other media has. It used to be that I looked to movies and music to act out my fantasies for me, to voice emotions I couldn’t express on my own, to give me insights into my own life that were just out of reach. Cameron Crowe’s film Say Anything taught me what kind of boyfriend I wanted, for example, and “Something I Can Never Have” by Nine Inch Nails spoke the pain of teen angst better than I could myself.

Lately, though, it seems the great movies and powerful songs are getting fewer and farther between. For every Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there are five Cheaper by the Dozens. For every Nemo there are a million rip-offs. There aren’t even as many good mediocre movies as there used to be. And at the same time, either the lives of celebrities have gotten a lot more interesting than they used to be, or technology has given us more ways to hear about them. Suddenly, the lives of celebrities are more interesting, and more powerful, than the products they’re creating — for me, at least.

Rather than playing archetypes which help me understand myself and my community better, celebrities are those archetypes. And with all the crossover between genres (e.g. reading about Britney’s life is like a reality show about a pop star; but Britney also has a reality show about a pop star), the lines between what’s private and what’s performance has become more blurred anyway.

So in that vein, I announce to the world that, yes, I have spent 2005 paying attention to what’s happening in the homes and hotels of rich, famous and beautiful people I’ve never met and probably wouldn’t want to. And these people have some of the best stories I’ve heard all year. Here are some of the year’s best stories and most grotesque trainwrecks — and my guess about why they’re so compelling.


Move over Paris: The sidekick gets the spotlight

Like just about everyone else on the planet, I’m fascinated by Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton. Hilton is like this strange alien I can’t understand, and therefore can’t help but study. But Nicole Richie is the reason I still even care about this duo. Somehow, Richie has managed to wrestle enough spotlight away from her blond bimbo friend to make herself a media darling in her own right. The magazines covered her dramatic weight loss (“Is she anorexic?” they asked, but kept giving her attention for it) and style change (new stylist, they say), her engagement to the incredibly shrinking boy DJ AM and then subsequent break up, and the confusing deal she got to write a book and make a movie based on her charmed life. But it’s nothing she’s done, or even anything she is, that makes me like her. It’s purely the story of her ascent. As the weird, chubby, short friend of that annoying hot blond chick on The Simple Life, Richie entered the public sphere as the classic sidekick — except this sidekick has finally turned around and asked, “Why are you the superhero anyway? What makes you so special?” It’s Robin’s rebellion against Batman. It’s Stimpy stepping on Ren. It’s No.2 making Dr. Evil cry this time. And we love it. Because really, how many of us identify with the superhero? Aren’t a lot more of us the awkward, gawky understudy? The one who’s friend is the hot one, the smart one or the big success? And who doesn’t have a fantasy about showing up the person in whose shadow you’ve been forced to live? So I say, “Go Nicole.” At least until you’re truly a Queen Bee and I dismiss you as easily as I dismissed Paris.


Sex, lies and orphans

There are few things better than a good love story, and apple-pie Jennifer Aniston’s marriage to perfect-abs Brad Pitt was one of the best (and certainly better than any of the romantic comedies either has starred in). Both uncommonly gorgeous, both uncommonly rich, and both in the stride of their respective careers, Brad and Jen also seemed somehow down-to-earth, sincere and truly in love. Though I was never a particularly big fan of either actor separately, their union has symbolized the kind of pure, true, honest love I’ve always wanted — the kind I dreamed of as a kid. But their break up, including the addition of America’s sexpot, Angelina Jolie, is an even better story. The gorgeous homewrecker vixen. The heartbroken, but strong and graceful, jilted lover. The straying man you can’t help but not hate. There couldn’t be three more perfect players in this tragic triangle, as they come with built-in audience ambivalence. I can’t help but hate Angelina, the vixen with loose morals who seduced her married co-star. But I can’t help but admire her either, for her refusal to get serious until Brad’s marriage was over, her UN ambassadorship, and her heartwarming adoption of two AIDS orphans. Jen, meanwhile, is just so lovable and vulnerable. When I look at her, I instantly feel pangs of empathy, and instantly hate Brad and Angelina for her. But there’s also something annoying about her “I’m-the-victim” stance. And Brad. Oh, Brad. Is he really the poor neglected husband whose wife wouldn’t give him the family he deserves? Or was it, um, something else he was hoping Jolie would give to him? This trio are like a fantastic serial dramedy with cliffhangers after every episode — the kind of show that makes you wait all summer for the season premiere. I just hope it follows the arc I want it to take, with Brad and Jen reuniting happily at the end.


When Bubblegum goes bad: Teen queens get trashy

There’s something magnetic about a teen starlet: the youthful glow, the sense of endless potential, the shorthand symbol of “what kids are into these days.” I couldn’t take my eyes off Britney Spears every time she was on the screen. And a few years ago, you couldn’t help but think freckly red head Lindsay Lohan was cute and wholesome. But I didn’t really start paying attention to these bubblegum pop tarts until they started getting a little rougher around the edges. Britney started a few years ago, with admitting she’s less than virginal and her kiss with Madonna and the skimpy outfits on awards shows. But this year she took the cake: the tacky T-shirts, the loser boyfriend-turned-deadbeat dad, the greasy hair and fast food, the insta-pregnancy after the shotgun wedding and the obnoxious reality show that revealed Britney and Kevin as both stupid and boring. And Lohan must have learned her lesson from Britney, not waiting through a couple records to go from sweetheart to sleeze. This year has been all about her break up with Wilmer Valderrama, her crazy partying with Paris Hilton, the weight loss attributed either to anorexia or to cocaine addiction (with neither being particularly teen sweetheart-like), and the two car accidents she’s blamed on paparazzi. These girls are the embodiment of our own ambivalence about youth, beauty and success: we love and hate them because they’re perfect, and then we love and hate them when they fall from grace.

There were so many other fantastic celebrity stories this year: Tom Cruise and his brainwashed wife-to-be, Katie Holmes (otherwise known as the end of Holmes’ career as we know it); the split between Jessica “I’m either brilliant for playing stupid … or I’m really just dumb as nails” Simpson and Nick “Please, God, let me make money on something other than this stupid reality show” Lachey; the strange rise of ugly duckling sister Ashlee Simpson and her very public fall on Saturday Night Live; and the trainwreck that is scruffy Ben Affleck, charmless Jennifer Garner, downward-spiraling Jennifer Lopez and just-plain-creepy Marc Anthony.

And though none of them truly matters in any important way, though none is taking me to a higher plane for knowing about them, all have helped get me through 2005. They’ve distracted me from the tsunamis that tore apart Southeast Asia and the mudslides that took people I loved in La Conchita. They’ve taken my mind off a war I feel powerless to stop and a government I feel embarrassed to live under. I haven’t ignored Hurricane Katrina, the nomination of Samuel Alito for Supreme Court, or the scandals surrounding Tom DeLay, but I’ve been grateful for my mindless escape from those topics.

I never thought I’d say it, but I’m grateful for gossip-mag trash. And if things in the world remain this dismal, and the mainstream media doesn’t start filling the void soon, then I hope it keeps coming.


Read what my friend Ivor Davis has to say about all this.

January 15, 2006 in Essays, Pop Culture, VC Reporter | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Ubie and the Man

(Published in SEPT. 30 - OCT. 6, 2005 Issue)

A Considerable Town
Übie and the Man
by MOLLY FREEDENBERG


When the Mexican-wrestling match between the lawn gnome and the pink flamingo was over, a man wearing nothing but tight, black Lycra pants climbed onto the stage. At well under 6 feet, photographer Kevin Rolly wasn’t imposing, but he didn’t seem to know it. Still, with his scruffy beard and tufts of chest hair, he managed to look masculine despite his decidedly un-macho ensemble. He held something behind his back.

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“You know why you’re all here?” Rolly said, addressing the small crowd in fringed dresses and sharp suits that has gathered for a speakeasy-themed fund-raiser in the Brewery Arts complex. “For this: the Überman. We are going to build a man bigger than The Man.”

Rolly revealed what he was holding and thrust it above his head, looking like a cross between a kid show-and-telling and a victorious warrior, though the 3-foot-high stick figure he held was hardly impressive. It was a little alienlike, with three legs instead of two, and clenched a metal pinwheel in its upstretched fist — a dweeby, kid-brother alien. It was supposed to represent the sculpture that would dwarf Burning Man’s namesake icon later in the year, but on this June night the model looked more like an erector-set prototype than an engineering triumph.

“They’ll never be able to build it,” someone whispered.

Three months, $5,000, a design by the man with the record for the World’s Biggest Blender, and a thousand work hours later, Rolly and a dozen others are indeed at Burning Man in Nevada, raising their five-piece, 60-foot-tall Überman into the air with ropes and an A-frame brace. The red-steel sculpture with its redder neon façade stands tall and triumphant, surrounded by flat, cracked desert.

Then the wind gusts and the structure wobbles, its pinwheel catching the air like a sail. It seems Überman might stabilize; but then it falls in that silent, slow-motion, movie-tragedy way — like the giant in the fairy tales, face-first and erect. Some of the onlookers cry.

Rolly, in cutoff pants, a cowboy hat and a cheek swollen to twice its normal size by an abscessed tooth, doesn’t wait long to hit the Scotch — or address the crowd. He climbs atop a burned-out VW van, its insides full of smoldering coals from last night’s barbecue, and gives a rousing speech about redemption and resurrection, a cross between Henry V and Animal House.

“We will rebuild,” he says, now ­echoing MacArthur, and the motley crew of friends cheer.

Three days on, with the unexpected help of Burning Man organizers and their giant crane, Rolly and company are lighting the re-erected statue’s neon accessories to a jazzy, poppy version of “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme. But this isn’t exactly the Überman many imagined: Though Übie is taller than The Man, he isn’t bigger than The Man and its base.

Also, Übie is stuck several streets back from Burning Man’s main drag, challenging The Man as effectively as a rogue in the bleachers threatening a boxer in the ring. He has short arms, an impish smile made from The Man’s neon rib, and a noticeable lack of neon down below, which gives him either the impression he’s floating or that he’s wearing no pants. Instead of the pinwheel, he’s holding an equally nerdy, blinking “Time for Pie” sign.

But that’s okay with Rolly. He loves his resurrected messiah. On the night of the burn, the big night on Burning Man’s campus when everyone gathers to watch the fireworks and dust devils and the wooden Man falling in a swirl of flames, what excites Rolly is the “Last Man Standing” party held beneath Übie’s new flame-throwing penis.

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Friends sing karaoke — “Faith” and “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and “Hotel California” — while their faces are projected onto Übie’s head. Rolly and his friends are pleased as can be, as is the Burning Man organization. They’ve even mentioned it in the event’s daily newspaper as one of their favorite art pieces, and in a list of what’s In and Out (Out: Burning Man. In: Überman.).

If others were less impressed, asking “That’s it?,” Rolly doesn’t seem to care. “It was a big, dumb idea,” he says, beaming. “But it was our big, dumb idea.”

(Photos by Kevin Rolly. See more, including photos of the actual Burning Man, at here .)

December 13, 2005 in Essays, LA Weekly | Permalink | Comments (0)

Burning Woman

Bmcover_1

VC REPORTER
PUBLISHED 10/07/04

BURNING WOMAN

BY MOLLY FREEDENBERG
PHOTOS BY JEFF CLARK http://www.jeffclarkphoto.com


I’m on my knees in the dust as my boyfriend liberates a handful of curls from my head with a pair of scissors. Behind me, a wooden structure the size of a bathroom is on fire in a burn barrel. In front of me, two neon-bedecked art cars are parked. A girl in white fake fur gets off one and gives me a bottle of sweet-tasting liquor, then kisses me on the lips. A friend takes photos as another handful of hair leaves my head and joins a pile of dark locks on a nearby chair. I hear the snip snip of the scissors, the oon-cha-oon-cha of the electronic music coming from one of the cars, the laughter and cheering of people watching my first-ever serious haircut. Tears escape my eyes. I take another absurdly large swig of liquor. It’s sometime between midnight and dawn. I’m wearing a leather corset, a velvet jacket and increasingly less hair. Within hours, I will be riding a fire cannon while the sun rises over a desolate desert landscape and my hair, with its 26 years of memories, associations and pain, smolders in a pile on the ground below.
This is Burning Man.

But this is just one moment of Burning Man, and one moment of my experience of it, at that. There are as many descriptions and explanations of this annual event as there are people who attend—and every year, that number grows. Some would call it an art festival, a spiritual retreat, a utopian city, a summer camp for grown-ups. Some take Burning Man very seriously, such as the people who refer to it as “home” and organize events like “Hands Across the Playa.” Others see it as an opportunity to take nothing—including the event itself—seriously, such as those who staged a protest against “Hands Across the Playa” (carrying signs like “Holding Hands is French” and trying to play Red Rover with straight-faced hand-holders). Many maintain a certain ambivalence about the event, going every year but complaining about the price the whole way.
That’s why it’s hard to answer the question: What is Burning Man? And it’s why people will tell you that you can’t understand Burning Man until you’ve been.
But there are certain things I can tell you. The undisputable facts about Burning Man are this: it’s an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada (the nearest town is Gerlach, about 100 miles from Reno) during the week encompassing Labor Day. It was started on a beach in San Francisco by Oregon-born Larry Harvey and some friends when they ritualistically burned an effigy of a man. Soon the event grew so large, Harvey & Co. had to find another location: the notoriously uninhabitable dry lakebed referred to as the playa. Every year, a city is erected and then torn down—it’s now reached 30,000 people and, for one week, is the seventh largest city in Nevada.
The idea is radical self-expression. People wear costumes, build crazy art projects and then sometimes burn them, supply themselves with everything they need, and exchange no money except for ice and coffee—the only amenities an American dollar will buy you while there. Vending, advertising and political leafleting are forbidden.
So is making a mess. Signs everywhere remind you to “Leave No Trace.” People carry Altoids tins for their cigarette butts and ashes, and carry their garbage home with them. It’s like Brigadoon: When participants and organizers leave, there is no visible sign that the event ever took place.
Just about everything else about BM is subjective. So what you’re about to read is an account of a week in the life of one particular burner.

IN THE BEGINNING
Though Burning Man officially takes place for a week, it lasts much longer than that for most burners. After that first fateful visit, most people find much of the rest of their year is related to the event. When you get home, there are “decompression” parties where pictures and slides are shown, dust-covered costumes are modeled and people are gently eased back into their “real” lives; then, as Burning Man approaches, there are “recompression” parties, where people can get amped for the upcoming even; and in-between there are camp fundraisers, theme parties and regional events nearly every weekend.
After my first Burning Man, I spent the whole year shopping for costumes, planning dances for performances, learning to spin fire, devising and creating an art project for the outer playa, packing, stocking up on food and meeting with friends about our future camp. This year was different. I wasn’t sure I was even going until early August. I’d started a new job, moved in to a new house, and most importantly, had just entered a beautiful phase of my relationship—a stability I wasn’t sure I wanted to subject to the rigors of Burning Man.
I had no art project planned, no strong investment in my camp, no dances to choreograph. I hadn’t picked up my fire toys in months and hadn’t bought a new costume since Halloween. But I decided that on a personal level, I had to go.
The few days before I left were a frenzy of preparation. I dug my sleeping bag, tent and costumes out of dusty corners. I bought 12 cans of tuna, 12 boxes of Tasty Bites (packaged Indian food from Trader Joe’s), two bottles of Charles Shaw, an entire box of Emergen-C, a container of powdered Gatorade, a camelback water pack, duct tape, beef jerky, salty chips, GORP and a bag full of energy bars.
In the middle of all the preparation, I worked fourteen hour days finishing a project, responded to old emails, and generally made sure I could leave guilt-free. Everything had to be in its place because out on the playa, I wouldn’t be reachable. Nor would I want to be.

SATURDAY
My friend Katie and I left Santa Barbara at 4:00 pm. We took turns driving, stopping near midnight in Berkeley for my college friend, Nathan. There, we strategically repacked the overloaded car, leaving behind three six-packs of Diet Cola, a pair of thigh-high boots, several plastic containers and a headrest from my car. Then we were on the final stretch.
It was still dark when we stopped at the Albertson’s in Reno and spilled out of the car, giddy. A car packed as full as ours, driven by a girl with dreadlocks, was parked in front of us. Soon, a van pulled up and three boys in black gothic-wear tumbled out. We all exchanged knowing smiles. Inside, it was obvious the boxes of water that filled the display-space were for us.
We drove the final three hours with Katie and Nathan sitting on beer cases and water bottles, but no one complained, knowing it was just part of the journey. Getting to Burning Man isn’t supposed to be easy, or everyone would go.

SUNDAY
Soon the sun started to rise and the sagebrush lining the road became sparser. The playa is a true desert: it’s a flat, cracked, dry lakebed stretching infinitely—and identically—in every direction. The ground is beige-white. The sky, though brilliant with colorful sunrises and sunsets, is almost always a monotone grayish-blue.
Nothing lives there. No bugs, no weeds, no trees, no plants are stupid enough to try to exist in the heat and the dust. During Burning Man, there aren’t even dogs—they’re banned because of the extreme conditions. There is nothing alive on the playa except for the people who travel there. It is post-apocalyptic.
We followed orange flags to Will Call.
“Welcome home,” said a greeter at the first gate. He wore a jumpsuit and took sips from a beer (though it was 7am) as he scanned the car for illegal passengers. (For a largely volunteer-based organization, Burning Man is remarkably good at keeping out the riffraff—and kindred spirits who can’t afford the $250 tickets.)
The second greeter asked where we were camped. Clan Destino, we said, referring to a group that started as friends, then became a Burning Man camp, then morphed into a performance troupe, arts collective, party planning company and family. He gave us a map of the city, a guide to the week’s activities, a hug and another “Welcome home.”
The streets of the city were carefully mapped by GPS, camps placed months in advance. Signs on every “block” represented time on a clock (the city radiated in arcs from 2:00 to 10:00, with Center Camp at 6:00 and the Man himself equidistant between 9:00 and 3:00, in the center of a semi-circle).
We finally found Clan Destino at 9:30, almost the end of the city. An impressive bamboo sculpture stood at the front of our camp. Several normal camping tents lined the edge, along with Siobhan’s old-school trailer; two wooden tea houses; and two A-frames built over the beds of pick-up trucks. In the center were two teepees made of canvas and large branches, leading to a three-story-high white-fabric pyramid. Along the other edge, neighboring another camp, was a large truck donated by Hansen’s (on loan to a company employee, the logo blacked out) and the Silverstreak Lounge, an Airstream trailer lined from floor to ceiling with red fake fur.
Then came the greetings—all as though we hadn’t seen each other in years. It’s special to see friends on the playa, even if you just saw them yesterday. It’s like the first hug you give a bride or a graduate after the ceremony, because you know something’s different now. After all, this is a spiritual place.
But it’s also a huge party—and I’ve quietly wondered from the beginning if this can truly be a part of an adult lifestyle. Or if it’s a manifestation of generation-wide (or society-wide) latent adolescence. Does growing up mean growing out of Burning Man? Some burners do have families and real jobs. There are NASA engineers, doctors, lawyers, as well as traveling hippies and Rainbow children and trustafarians and college students on summer break.
But there’s no denying that Burning Man is debaucherous; whether that means staying up all night talking or having casual sex with other men just depends on where your usual boundaries lie. The whole point is unabashed, childlike play. It’s your chance to be the person you always wanted to be, dress the way you want, act the way you want, create the giant playgrounds you dreamed of building in your living room but now have the skill, funding and permission to build. But can you be a grown-up and still build forts?
When I arrived on the playa, though, those doubts slipped away. Contrary to my fears and suspicions, Burning Man was still magic for me.
I worked as much as I could before the sun got too high. Last year I’d slept in my tent, which was a mess of dusty bedclothes and inside-out costumes and during the day became a suffocating oven. This year, I made a bedroom in my boxy Scion (bought with Burning Man in mind), inflating an air mattress, and using safety pins and bungee cords to rig red velvet curtains over the windows that faced the sun.
I set up my tent as my pantry and closet, stacking boxes of food and water on one side and boxes of costumes and warm-weather gear on the other. Soon, I got too tired to work. I found refuge in the white pyramid, which was kept a good 15-to-20 degrees cooler at all times by a swamp cooler (run on melted water from food and drink coolers). Someone made blended vodka and Hansen’s Monster Energy Drink cocktails, which Nathan and I sipped while sitting in overstuffed chairs in front of the fan.
“Burning Man sucks,” I said, the absurdity of being this comfortable in such an uncomfortable place not lost on me.
“Yeah, this is lame,” said Nathan, sipping from his chilly drink while the temperature neared 100 degrees outside.

MONDAY
Nathan spent the morning putting enough lights on the bar car to pass Department of Mutant Vehicles (DMV) inspection—an example of the rules and regulations that have begun to characterize the event as it’s grown. Rumor has it that the event’s first years were so heavy on “radical self-expression” that people brought guns, pets and dangerous art projects—all experienced at your own risk. Several years ago, you could still burn your art right where it stood; now there are designated “burn platforms,” to which all projects must be dragged.
The increasing elements of mainstream culture creeping in to Burning Man are always hard to take. At the same time, Burning Man has also sprouted its own version of “mainstream,” within the subculture’s confines, most notably a Burning Man aesthetic—however paradoxical that sounds.
There are several major categories of Burning Man fashion: Mad Max gothic (leather, lots of buckles and straps, shaved or dreaded hair), some version of hippie (bindi jewels on foreheads, lots of flowing fabric, body painting and bare breasts), a version of the candy raver (clothes and accessories that glow in blacklight, neon colored fake fur hats, glitter on everything), and post-apocalyptic stripper (tiny shorts, shitkicker boots, lingerie, practical hats and goggles).
Each camp also has their own subtle rules: In ours, it was boy shorts, altered/handmade dresses, fishnets, platform boots, bell-bottomed leg warmers and tons of costume make-up for the girls; cowboy hats and 70’s-themed button-up shirts, sarongs, leather Utilikilts and fluffy fake fur coats for the guys.
Last year one friend arrived at her first Burning Man looking aimlessly eclectic; this year she arrived in full-on “Burning Man” regalia, with a head-full of fake dreadlocks made from yarn, a black Utilikilt, white tanktop and big, buckled boots. Though I was pleased to see her finally comfortable as “one of us,” part of me missed her individual style.
“You look great!” my campmates cried. “You’ve lost so much weight!”
Is that still the measure of beauty, I wondered, even out here? Fashion and weight? Were we redefining gender identity, or simply reinforcing it?
On the playa and off, the men of Clan Destino did the hard labor—building the structures, driving the cars, telling others what to do. Meanwhile, the women dressed up, looked pretty, danced sexy and provided the emotional core.
It seemed interesting that in this world where anything goes, where everyone is equal and regular social mores don’t apply, that traditional gender roles still seemed to get played out—and not just in our camp. For the most part, it’s men who carry wood for the effigy of The Man, men who build cars with fire cannons and fight in the Mad Max-themed Thunderdome outside the Death Guild camp. Women wear pasties. They hang provocatively off art cars and graciously accept gifts given more readily to their sex than the other. The men work with their hands; the women work with their bodies.
There are exceptions, of course, and more so here than anywhere else. You won’t be shunned if you reject these roles; and, in fact, Burning Man is more tolerant of gender-bending, alternative lifestyles and general freakishness than any place I’ve ever been. But many people choose to live within social convention, barely masked by iridescent paint and large furry hats. How radical is this really?
A few hours after dark, several of the girls went for a pee break together and took some mushrooms. Then the whole camp clambered onto the bar car to go to a “club” on the other side of the playa (a huge canvas dome with a DJ inside and palm trees “planted” in the dust outside), where there seemed to be an endless supply of bar-scene-type men interested only in cute, half-naked girls and what could be done to get them more naked.
It was too much for me. I started to walk home with Katie and her boyfriend, then realized I didn’t have to go home. Just because I didn’t like the scene I was in didn’t mean I couldn’t find another one.
I start walking alone along the Esplanade, my fur-trimmed velvet coat billowing behind me. People passed by, riding their bikes in groups of two or three or twenty, laughing and talking. I felt outside of it, invisible.
A man on a bike approached me from behind. “I was drawn to talk to you,” he said, and at first I was skeptical, but I let him walk with me, since for some reason I didn’t get the sense that he wanted to have sex with me.
We found our way to a group of couches clustered around a smoldering stove outside a dark camp. The man explained his mission on the playa — to stay sober, provide a secure emotional space for others (a reflection of the Naka-Ima training he’d just gone through).
I told him I was nervous about what it’d be like when my boyfriend arrived. I was afraid I’d lose myself in him, or that I’d lose him. I was afraid we’d break up; and if we did, I was afraid of being alone. “I believe in betrayal and heartbreak,” I told him. “I don’t believe I can be loved.”
He held my hand while I cried, and didn’t let go until I stopped.
We walked towards Center Camp, where he took a photo of me under a giant metal lotus which spat fire, and then we separated. I never saw him again. I still don’t know his name, and I don’t mind.

TUESDAY
Nathan and I went on a search for a friend from college. It’s notoriously hard to find people at Burning Man, even if you know where they’re camped, but we went to the Playa Information tent—where you can register yourself and your location—just in case.
We never found our friend, but in line we ran into another acquaintance, who told us all about the camps we hadn’t seen, including Snuggletown, which advertised all sorts of sex and touching events but apparently was full of desperate middle-aged people you wouldn’t want to touch.
We visited Kevissimo at Foot In A Bucket Camp, where he washed people’s feet, and met up with Finger and Juna, who lived in an all-pink tent.
Later, a friend I’d met at Flipside, a Burning Man spin-off event in Austin, came to visit me at our camp’s bar car. When offered an alcoholic beverage, he declined and I was impressed. Then he put several drops of GHB in his Hansen’s soda and I was a little disappointed; but I realized I shouldn’t have been surprised. He is the man who once said, “If it doesn’t get me high or fuck me, I’m not interested.”
Around sunset, I joined the girls for our nightly ritual: grooming on top of the bar car while drinking Kahlua, vodka and soy milk. We cleaned our feet with baby wipes, slathered them with lotion, put them in fresh socks and replaced our shoes. (The playa dust is hard, and you could walk across it barefoot comfortably—but you shouldn’t, or you’ll get playa foot, a painful condition when your skin dries and then cracks due to the alkali in the dust. Most people wear flip flops with dusty feet, or tennis shoes, hiking boots or platform shoes with socks.)
Then we applied make-up for the night. We talked about what we’d wear later, and how our day was, getting our first buzz of the evening as the sun set over the mountains and the entire playa cheered.
There was a burlesque performance in our camp that night. The circus performances in our camp are always stellar, as the art requires strength, skill, technique and hours of practice. And the dances, though usually thrown together at the last minute, always impress the crowd.
Our camp broke up according to gender after the performance. I don’t know what the boys did, but the girls set off for Paddy’s Mirage, an Irish-style “bar” run by people actually from Ireland, on the other side of the playa.
The wind started blowing before we left, and by the time we were halfway across the playa, we were in the middle of a complete white-out. Dust flew everywhere. All of us wore face masks, goggles and warm coats. We couldn’t see ten feet ahead of us. The only indication of where we were was the neon glow of the Man, and the glow from the few brave souls who were trying to fire dance in the storm.
Siobhan and I walked together, our arms linked and our hands gripping our masks, laughing at our predicament. We both hate being too hot or too cold. We’re both sensitive to the sun, we don’t like being dirty, and neither of us particularly likes wind. But for some reason, we put up with these conditions year after year, and even look forward to them.

WEDNESDAY
Nearly everyone who goes to Burning Man has at least one emotional breakdown. And each person has a different explanation for why it happens. It could be the pure stress of sleep deprivation, dehydration, intense heat, a diet devoid of fresh anything and, for some, the over-consumption of intoxicants. It could also be the effect of watching scantily clad women two sizes smaller than you parade past your boyfriend in an endless stream of glitter and leather and breasts. Or it could be the over-stimulated child syndrome; maybe at Burning Man, we are all just kids who’ve spent too much time at the birthday party without a nap. Eventually, we’re bound to tantrum, whine or just plain collapse.
So it’s been for me every year I’ve gone. Here’s my theory about why it happens:
Burning Man is meant to be a place where we are all free, where everything that keeps us from being our “true” selves in day-to-day life is absent. Which sounds great, and it can be. But that also means everything we use for an excuse for why we’re not happy enough, thin enough, in love enough, or just plain enough also is gone.
On my first day of my first year, before finding the camp I’d driven to meet, I wandered the desert feeling ugly, lonely, thirsty, hungry and in desperate need of a beer. Then I had the sickening realization that my misery was all my own fault. If I couldn’t be happy at Burning Man, the one place where I could shape my own reality, then it must be my own choices, my own neuroses and my own fearful monologues that were holding me back—on and off the playa. The experience was overwhelming, exhausting, and intensely personal and emotional. It seemed no wonder, then, that people often chose to use drugs to escape or cope with the terrifying nature of being faced—perhaps for the first time ever—with themselves.
My second year solidified this theory. I arrived on the playa on Saturday (almost a full week earlier than the year before), and fresh out of a relationship. I also had my art project to construct, and a strict no-drugs policy, which meant I was awake, alert and working during the daytime hours (when my friends were sleeping) and sleeping during the cooler nights (when my friends were partying).
By Wednesday, I was seriously dehydrated and found myself suckling on Gatorade and Emergen-C water in a friend’s tent. I felt better the next day, but was throwing up in the med tent and getting three bags of glucose through an IV by Saturday.
This year, I stacked the odds in my favor: no art project, no dance to choreograph, no camp projects to oversee. I’d gone to therapy the day before my departure, and had bought a camelback, whose water-filled hose rarely ever left my lips. Still, the playa got to me by Wednesday night. It was time for my breakdown.
It just so happened that this was also the biggest night for my camp. The Mutaytor, a percussion band made up of about a zillion musicians and dancers, was using our stage, and before the performance, a burner couple planned to get married. As my camp went about preparing for the event, I got more and more lightheaded and dizzy, until I was afraid I couldn’t make it to my pee-spot behind my car without falling over. I drank water. I drank Gatorade. I ate salty snacks to replace my electrolytes. I ate fatty foods in case I was malnourished. I lay down and waited, but it only got worse.
Soon I was crying. Not just little tears dribbling down my cheeks when some sad thought came into my head, but uncontrollable eye leakage. I didn’t even know why I was crying, but I couldn’t see through the tears. My nose was snotty. My whole head was filled with mucous.
Outside, a thousand people were having fun in my living room, and I couldn’t join in. My body and my heart were telling me they were done, done, done and there was nothing I could do about it.
To make it worse, my boyfriend Jeff, the one person who’d consistently taken care of me at Burning Man, was missing. He’d just arrived and was working on a fire cannon for the Viking ship in another camp. When he finally showed up, hours after he promised, he was too energy-drained to help me—or even to stay. He took off to play with his friends, promising to be back soon, and to sleep with me in my Scion. I felt alone, panicked and pissed off; but I was too sick to react.
Two friends sat with me and helped me sort out the source of my breakdown. Could I really be tired or dehydrated? After all, I’d been drinking so much water I was peeing every half hour, and I was eating salt at every meal. I spent most of the daylight hours resting and so far, I’d been fine.
The only variable that had changed was Jeff had arrived.
Despite my best intentions, I had to admit my focus had changed. From the minute I saw him, I’d stopped thinking about me and my needs and started thinking about him: what he wanted, what he was doing, what he’d think about what I was doing. Physically, I’d followed his lead, walking to several camps (instead of riding the bar car, as I would’ve preferred) and staying out in the sun longer than I otherwise would have. And emotionally, I was expending huge amounts of energy trying to hold back the jealousy, fear of abandonment, insecurity, mistrust in him and in the universe, and the feeling of being trapped that always seemed to surface when we’re on the playa together.
What little energy I had kept afloat with vitamin-infused water was completely drained within twelve hours of seeing the man I was in love with.
My friends held me, let me cry, told me their own stories of losing themselves in relationships. Soon, Katie brought over two trays of Mediterranean food from a nearby camp, which I greedily devoured. Nathan checked in on me regularly, bringing me water and holding my hand.
Without even asking, I was getting my needs met—and by people who didn’t have to meet them (as I thought moms and boyfriends were obligated to do).
I started to feel better.
As my headache subsided and I felt capable of walking upright, I changed clothes and went out to the show. My friends made a place for me on top of the bar car, where I could see the Mutaytor set. I wasn’t feeling 100 percent, and since more than half the crowd seemed to be on some kind of psychotropic drug, I still felt pretty disconnected from the whole scene. But it was a nice change. When I finally went to sleep, I felt calm.

THURSDAY
I woke up Thursday morning alone. At first, I couldn’t decide how to feel about this. I was pleased to have gotten a full night’s sleep, without having to share a too-small mattress with my blanket-hogging boyfriend, but I was also gripped with worry, fear and anger: Where was he? Had he slept somewhere else? With someone else? Had he spent the whole night drinking or doing drugs and breaking our relationship agreements?
I went through my usual morning routine: wash with baby wipes, brush my teeth, cover myself in sunscreen, eat some breakfast.
I watched the front of camp for Jeff’s return, and resisted the urge to ask every person in camp if they’d seen him. And then I made a decision. I needed to get centered. I rode my bike alone across the playa, heading for the Temple of Venus, a camp I’d heard about earlier in the week when a friend said, “If there’s one thing you do at Burning Man, do this.”
Along the way, I saw a man in the road offering a fresh aloe leaf to the cracked and burned skin of a passersby. Vagina Appreciation Camp was on the left hand side, Bad Idea Theater on the right. I saw the book exchange, a mobile playa library parked near a cluster of shaded couches. But I didn’t stop.
At 2:00 and Mercury (the first concentric circle behind the Esplanade), I got off my bike.
A pathway led to a temple with white columns and white billowing fabric, where several women sat around a fountain. There were tents on all sides of the temple.
A woman named Mindy, who wore boy shorts, a camelback, boots and nothing else, greeted me and another newcomer, an older woman with a head full of braids. Mindy explained the camp’s purpose: to serve women’s needs, and teach them how to ask for what they want. The only men in the camp were there to provide services. Each tent catered to a certain set of needs.
In the Psychic tent, there were tarot card and energy readings. In the Emotional, you could get energy and therapy work done. The Spiritual tent was a sanctuary for meditation and prayer, and the Body tent was for massage. And in the back corner was the opaque Sensual tent, where women could choose from a menu of services ranging from kissing and erotic massage to deliberate orgasm (using mostly fingers and sex toys).
“I don’t know anyone here, and I want to get laid,” said the braided woman next to me. Mindy put her name on a list and led her to the Sensual tent. This whole process could have been awkward, but it remarkably was not. Mindy was kind, unflustered and easy to talk to.
I asked for water, which she brought me, and chose the Psychic tent first. Entering, I took off my shoes and joined a short-haired pixie on the floor. Next to us, a woman was doing a reading for someone else.
The pixie lit a fat bundle of sage and passed the smoke over me. Then she asked me to shuffle a deck of cards with prints of butterflies on the back and choose one to help me approach my life with a certain direction.
I chose Kindness.
I was annoyed. I was hoping for strength, or power, or self-love. Kindness, I thought, means I have to do what other people want. I have to do what Jeff wants. The pixie corrected me. It was about approaching all people—myself, most of all—from a place of kindness and love.
I left feeling lighter, and calm.
I crossed to the tent directly opposite, the Emotional tent. There, an older woman led me through a series of therapies intended to help me change my physical experience of painful memories—and therefore my emotional recollection of them. I chose a moment when, as a child, I lay alone in my bed while my pediatrician dad was out on rounds and my stepmom watched scary movies with my brothers. I felt completely alone, terrified, powerless, abandoned and angry, without any way to do anything about it. With the help of this woman, I took the image of the incident, turned it into black and white in my head and sped it up like an old movie. Then I added my favorite scent, freesia, to my experience of the moment. By the end of the session the power and intensity of the image had disspiated. I again felt lighter—and I couldn’t seem to dredge up the same panic, or rage, that the memory of that night used to inspire.
I mounted my bike and headed towards camp—and this is when I saw Jeff. He’d been half an hour behind me all day, looking for me, having been stranded in a friend’s camp the night before.
I was angry, annoyed, relieved and disappointed, but mostly I wanted alone time—I just wanted to eat, write and nap.
Amazingly, there was no crisis. We continued our evening without major conflict. Later, we crawled into bed together, happy and blessedly uncomplicated.

FRIDAY
A beautiful day—sunny, clear and even a little chilly. Jeff and I went for a ride on the Viking ship, a beautiful car my friends spent months designing, building and welding. It had a dragon’s head, a sunken bench area in the back, flat platforms to sit on in the front, a pole in the center (for dancing on or just holding and looking majestic), and a chain running from front to back that was strong enough to hang onto.
Some friends from La Conchita sat in the back eating cucumbers and carrots, which were delectable after days of dried, packaged food. I sat in the front and drank a cold beer.
But soon I tired of the Viking ship. It was too insulated, too predictable. All of my favorite experiences earlier in the week—from running into a mobile bar where blue-painted people poured tequila directly into our mouths, to finding a tent where we could make our own beaded necklaces, to the random encounter with the Naka-Ima boy on the Esplanade—happened out of chance.
Jeff and I got off the car and found our way to Gigsville, a collection of camps mostly from LA, and home to a camp who call themselves Rule Brittania and wear hats that make them look like British gentry in India. They were going to “colonize” other camps, which meant sticking flags in the dust and claiming those areas as part of their “empire.”
I loved the people, and this village. There are two aspects of Burning Man for me: the glamorous, performance-based side involving DJs and drugs and spectacular costumes—the side Clan Destino represents; and the irreverent, absurdist side which doesn’t take anything, including Burning Man, too seriously—like Gigsville.
People in Gigsville are the ones who protested Hands Across the Playa. They also staged the Loud Mime Rampage, where people dressed in striped shirts and berets and ran around the playa screaming, asking for drinks, and getting in people’s faces saying “You’re in a box! You’re in a box! How do you like it?”
I would’ve loved to go out colonizing with them, and in fact considered camping in Gigsville this year to be part of such activities, but I was feeling sick again and took it easy instead. I’d run out of water—a hazard of spending too much time away from camp—and had gotten stuck on the other side of the playa during what I call “Death Time,” the hours between 3pm and sunset when it’s hottest and driest. (I’m convinced this is part of the reason the whole playa cheers at sunset. Not only is it strikingly beautiful, but sunset means those miserable hours of headaches and lethargy are about to be over)
Around sunset, Jeff and I headed back home, ate some dinner, and then got ready for schoolgirl night at one of the other camps. It was freezing cold—the weather is unpredictable on the playa, and can change from boiling hot to raining to major sand storm to 32 degrees with little warning—so I wore pants under my schoolgirl skirt and a puffy down jacket over the whole ensemble.
We headed toward Center Camp, where Jeff bought coffee and a man played “Sweet Child of Mine,” “Low Rider” and “Iron Man” on bagpipes to a crowd of tired revelers splayed on couches.
Then we discovered that “Schoolgirl Night” was just two girls in plaid skirts dancing in cages. So we decided to go look at fire art instead, and spent the rest of the night chasing flames across the playa: a pendulum powered by four fire-spewing rockets at each corner, several large metal sculptures all spinning and burning at once, a fire tornado created by several giant fans.
The playa was alive with lights and music and costumed people in varying degrees of intoxication. And there were more people. Period. The weekenders had arrived and were ready to party. The port-a-potties would be a mess the rest of the event. The streets would be crowded all day and all night. Lines in Center Camp would be longer, and more people in plain clothes would be wandering about. And Burning Man was almost over.

SATURDAY
The day of the burn.
If it weren’t for events like the burn, performances in camp and the arrival of friends, we might never know what day it was on the playa. But Saturday, the night almost everyone at Burning Man gathers to watch the wooden sculpture burn, is the one calendar day everyone is aware of.
We’d completely run out of water, so Jeff went on a search for supplies. He found a camp that had nothing but water and alcohol, but wanted mixers. So we exchanged cartons of Monster energy drinks, Hansen’s smoothies and sodas for jugs of water.
Then we visited a friend’s project called White Noise: a little white house with white walls, white picket fence, a white tree, a white mailbox full of gifts people had left and a white bed and white dresser, a white book with white painted pages and a couple of empty scrapbooks people had written in. “Great place to fuck,” someone had written, “but it’s a little dusty.”
Jeff made Tasty Bites for dinner and put them in cut-off lids from water bottles, then we rode our bikes out to the bar car, where people had already started to gather. We climbed on top of the bar car, all squishing in; some of us on E, some of us not. Down below, a new friend did a disturbingly accurate rendition of MC Hammer’s “2 Legit 2 Quit” dance along with the music from a neighboring art car.
Then the burn finally started. The bottom burned first, then the geodesic dome the man stood on. Finally the fire started licking at the man’s feet. Others grumbled that it wasn’t going as planned, but I liked it. There was this suspense, this question of whether the man would burn or not. The heat of the fire combined with the cool night air made huge dust tornadoes, which spun out towards the crowd of fire dancers and onlookers. Several people broke from the masses and ran through them. Then finally, the flames licked up, the dome collapsed and the man—now burning—fell into the fire.
Thousands of people rushed the man. Now there was just a mob with a subtle circular motion near the center—like any outdoor concert around a mosh pit.
Everyone got off the bar car and said “Happy burn” and “Happy new year.” A friend handed out blow pops. The people on drugs started making plans for the night, debating which DJ would be at which dome. I was impatient and walked out to the sand. Finally, Jeff and I walked back to camp and took a nap on the couch, which I found strangely comforting with everything going on around us. It felt right to be in my clothes, out in the open, not in our “bedroom.” It wasn’t a commitment to be done for the night, but just…napping.

SUNDAY
Jeff woke me before sunrise. He’d borrowed a friend’s golf cart and bundled me onto it with my sleeping bag and fur blanket. My teeth chattered as we drove to the trash fence, an orange plastic fence meant to keep your garbage from leaving the event, that also acts as a boundary. On the other side, three girls in white makeup and black clothes walked arm and arm on the other side. A lone figure danced. A naked man did yoga.
The sun gradually peeked over the distant mountains and bathed the playa in brilliant yellow light. This is what everyone talks about, I thought. I’d never seen sunrise on the playa before, an admission which brings the same reaction at Burning Man as I get when I tell people in the real world I haven’t seen Lord of the Rings. “You what?”
Most people see the sunrise because they’ve stayed up all night on drugs or adrenaline; and I’d stopped doing drugs and started getting enough sleep long before I started going to Burning Man.
A small minority get up early enough to see it; and then there are the crazy health nuts who run naked laps around the perimeter of the trash fence and see it every morning. But nearly everyone acknowledges sunrise on the playa is a special time.
It’s a soft, magical, quiet moment when all the intensity of neon and glitter fades into a calm, natural light. Faces look angelic. Skin glows. The all-nighters who will look aged and sallow by noon somehow still sparkle at sunrise. Jeff and I got into a serious discussion about the meaning of Burning Man, the changes we’d seen over the years, and our ideas of identity with a sweet man dressed in Death Guild black leather and wearing an “INRI” tattoo across his belly.
Later, I visited my Gigsville friends, but they were already breaking things down. I drank a Pabst Blue Ribbon and rode to the Temple of Venus, but they were packing up too. Everything was coming down—and so quickly.
I met Jeff at a camp where a chemistry student from Berkeley made us pineapple and Malibu Rum slushies with liquid nitrogen out of giant tanks. When we returned to camp, lots of our friends had already gone, leaving empty spaces where their tents and cars used to be. Those of us who were left walked to the temple, a quarter-mile long edifice which (along with Center Camp) acted as a book-end for the ashes of what was still a sculpture of a man yesterday. We walked in twos through the dark, occasionally passing a bottle of wine between couples.
In front of the temple, there was a bit of a crowd. Some people with laser pointers turned the temple into their own light show. Otheres were horrified—as though this were like defacing the Vatican. “This is fucking meaningful!” one woman shouted. “Turn off your lasers!” At which point, no one did. Everyone was restless and irreverent.
Many people consider the temple burn more personal than the Man. (Some say the temple is the new Man, just as ‘gay’ is the new ‘black.’) Every year it’s been built, it’s been a delicate, intricate, impressive structure dedicated to a lost friend of the artist. Inside, people can leave notes, trinkets and prayers that will be burned with the rest of the building. Two years ago, after meeting Jeff and knowing I’d be ruining my relationship at home, I scrawled “What have I done?” and “I’m sorry” on a wood block. It’s also where Jeff went, alone, to commemorate the day (always during Burning Man) that his mother died. When the temple burned that year, we both cried.
This year, it wasn’t nearly so personal for me, but it was every bit as beautiful as it had always been. Two bridges stretched towards the center, spanning a quarter mile and converging at a two-story pagoda with a tall spire on top.
The fire started at the bottom and worked its way up (instead of racing in from the sides, as I’d hoped). It was lovely, but slow. I wandered away and found myself at the Chaos bar car. I finished my wine and had the bartender make me a drink (rum and Hansen’s) in my wine bottle. Someone commented on my dark hair, smooth skin and bright eyes. A new guy asked for a drink, then asked if the bartender wanted money.
“Money?” I asked and laughed.
He looked embarrassed. “I know, it’s not about that. But I don’t have anything to give her.”
I explained it’s a gift economy, not a barter economy, and he’d obviously never heard the phrase gift economy. He liked it. He was in a sweatshirt and jeans, and had a bike leaned up against the railing. Later he asked for a cigarette and offered me a dollar, then stopped himself.

MONDAY
It was early morning, still dark, and I didn’t want to go to sleep. Until now, I’d been fine with “missing out” (a.k.a. going to bed even if the world’s best DJ was spinning next door), since I knew there’d be more to see and more time to see it.
That night—or rather, that morning—was different. Suddenly I seemed to be making up for lost time. I drank more than I had all week. When I started to get sleepy, I took measures to stay awake. And I wanted to cut my hair.
Perhaps it was the alcohol. Maybe I was trying to cope with the impending end of what had been my best Burning Man so far. Or maybe I realized that Burning Man, an event that consistently changes people’s lives, redirects their focus and often acts as a catalyst for personal transformation, was the perfect place to take such a step—and I only had a few hours left in which to do it.
The idea wasn’t a new one; I’d been contemplating it for nearly six years. As a kid, I’d hated my frizzy curls. Then, when I learned to love them as a teenager, I began to associate them with femininity and sexuality. In college, I had several boyfriends who were horrified at the thought of me without my trademark long ringlets; and nearly everyone else I’ve ever told about the intended haircut—including my colored, bleached, dreaded and braided Burning Man friends—begged me not to do it.
For those reasons, I was wearing the same hair I’d had while struggling with anorexia as a pre-teen, while surviving my first major heartbreak and while watching my father die. I’d had this hair through drug addiction, years of chronic illness, starting and then leaving college, falling in love and coping with heartbreak yet again. Every day, cutting it seemed harder, and more significant. But of course, that was part of the reason I wanted to cut it: freedom, liberation, growth.
Most of our camp had gone to sleep. Jeff, another friend and I stood around a burn barrel with a group of strangers, watching the flames and basking in the heat made by the destruction of art.
It must be now, I thought.
I went alone to my tent to get some scissors, and had several moments of panic. Is this the right thing to do? I wondered. And the right time to do it? I’d felt sure and excited while near the fire, especially with Jeff next to me, but now… What was I doing?
I talked to people around the circle. One girl with hair like mine said she’d cut hers once, but immediately wished she hadn’t. Another said it’s just hair; and I cut a lock in response, but it felt forced—my own spontaneity, and the permanence of the action, scared me.
I asked others about how short to go, and when I explained what it meant to me—that it was more than just an aesthetic decision—they unanimously agreed I should go very short, if not shaved. Everyone seemed to understand why I needed to do this here and now.
Jeff asked me several times if I was really ready to do this.
I pushed any other doubts away. It felt like standing on the edge of the pool, preparing to jump. If I waited until I was ready, I thought, or tried to go in slow, I’d never make it all the way in. I sensed that once I got past the shock of the cold, I’d be glad to be in the water.
An art car arrived, then another, and people spilled out as I knelt on the ground between them. Jeff stood behind me and began to cut. My eyes were closed. My head grew lighter. I began to cry, then stopped. Jeff asked how short I wanted it and I said really short, then drank more alcohol.
Between snips, Jeff reached down and kissed me. It felt intensely personal, intimate, scary. It was like having him beside me during surgery, or through a life-and-death crisis. I’d never felt closer to him, or more grateful to have him with me.
As the sky grew lighter, we took the shorn locks he’d collected onto one of the art cars. At the trash fence, he finished, then emptied the hair onto the playa, doused it with white gas and drew a line away from the pile with more fuel. He handed the lighter to me.
I thought about all the years, all the experiences, all the limiting notions of who I am that were tied up in those strands of DNA—now separate from me.
I flicked the flint. A flame raced towards the pile. Jeff held me as I cried and watched it burn. It felt like being at my own funeral—or maybe a baptism—and again, I was grateful he was treating the event, and me, with the same solemnity I felt.
We shared a bottle of whiskey—I didn’t want to get sober yet.
Then we returned to the car, where we climbed onto one “wing,” where a giant fire cannon was welded to the car. Above me, the sun was rising. Below me, a small fire smoldered.
I straddled the cannon and let several large bursts of flame go. I felt more sexual than I ever had. And free.
Bm_2

December 10, 2005 in Essays, Features, VC Reporter | Permalink | Comments (53)

Home Sweet Hospital

living | My Life • close up

(published 7/14/05)

Home Sweet Hospital
Life Inside an Eating Disorder Treatment Center
by molly freedenberg

All client names have been changed to maintain anonymity.

BeforeI checked into an eating disorder treatment center in 2001, I had fantasies about what it would be like. First, I imagined it like a spa, serving fresh fruit smoothies and sandwiches with sprouts, providing massages and acupuncture, holding yoga and tai chi classes every morning. I also figured that a place like Pacific Shores, a co-ed facility for adults suffering from anorexia, bulimia, and compulsive overeating, would be full of people like me: motivated, dedicated grown-ups sick of obsessing about food. But within five minutes of entering the nondescript building on Ventura Road in Oxnard, both expectations were dashed.

The building looked more like a dentist’s office than a healing retreat, with brown carpet and stark white walls and low ceilings. I was given a daily schedule, which didn’t mention anything about pedicures or Reiki treatments, but did list multiple process groups, feelings check-ins, and educational seminars for every day.

My roommate, Nicole, was a 19-year-old anorexic/bulimic with blonde hair crowning a normal-sized head that was perched atop an unnaturally spindly frame.

“So how many treatment centers have you been to?” she asked, in greeting. I was stunned. How many? Wasn’t the whole point of this to go to one hospital, get over your eating disorder forever, and then go on with your life?

Apparently, the answer was “not necessarily.” It seemed Nicole had been in treatment centers, on and off, through all of her teenage years—and she wasn’t the exception to the rule.

Sarah, an 18-year-old bulimic/overeater from the South, had been to one center five years prior, for anorexia. Rick had been to several drug treatment centers near his home in New York City before ending up on the West Coast. Others, like Lara, had been to so many hospitals she dropped their names proudly into conversation the way some people would refer to Eton or Harvard. There were repeat visitors from England and Texas, men and women. And some, like spunky 23-year-old June and fake-fingernailed Lisa, had even been to Pacific Shores before.

This initially made no sense to me. I’d starved until I lost my period, binged until my stomach hurt, taken laxatives, tried crazy liquid diets, exercised compulsively, overdosed on diet pills, and just generally obsessed about my body for 10 years before going to the hospital. By the 10th year, I was so fed up with it, I fantasized about driving my car into the ocean—then quickly reasoned that getting help couldn’t be any worse than suicide. I hoped that the hospital could rid me of my disease forever, and naïvely believed it would happen in a few easy days. I couldn’t imagine doing this more than once—the humiliating removal of belts, shoelaces, and shampoo (a potential laxative) from our suitcases; the infantilizing way we were given monitors for everything from waking up to taking meds to going to the bathroom; the cultish 12-step speak injected into every conversation.

Ritual de lo Habitual
But after five weeks inpatient at Pacific Shores, and five weeks outpatient, I learned that the reasons for repeat hospital trips are complex. First, there is the fact that eating disorders are notoriously hard to kick. The Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Related Eating Disorders (ANRED) reports that only 60 percent of people with eating disorders with treatment recover, while 20 percent never improve. (One reason, suggest people in the eating-disorder-inclusive 12-step program Overeaters Anonymous, is that fighting an eating disorder, unlike kicking alcohol or cocaine, which you just stop ingesting, requires you to learn to moderate your “drug” of choice.) Even for those in the 60 percent, recovery might take 7 to 10 years.

Second, many clients at treatment centers don’t exactly go willingly. One bulimic soccer mom, for example, got an ultimatum from her worried husband: treatment or divorce. A concerned employer gave a similar choice to Ellie, a 50-ish anorexic from Northern California. Nicole’s parents didn’t even give her a choice. These were often the clients who hid their egg yolks (the part of the egg with the most fat) under broken shells to look like they’ve been eaten, who woke up at 4 a.m. to do sit-ups in the dark so nurses wouldn’t catch them, and who threw up in the showers we all shared (because they could be heard everywhere else). They either didn’t think they had a problem, or they didn’t want to give their problem up. Their purpose was to do their time, appease their captors, and gain as little weight as possible.

Then there’s another group of people with a subtler motivation: They want to stay inside. Some get well, leave the hospital, and then immediately relapse, leading to another hospitalization. Others hover carefully on a precipice—well enough not to get kicked out for insubordination, ill enough not to get discharged. A few (like me) do everything in their power to get better, and then panic when it’s time to move on.

It may be hard to imagine that anyone would want to stay in a hospital—where everything is regulated, confined, and contained—any longer than they have to. For example, the only time we went outside was for the morning walk (during which we had to wait at every street corner like

preschool children) or between sessions, when we were allowed onto an enclosed 10-by-10-foot patio. We ate out of plastic trays with pink covers, and spent our days listening to lectures or exploring past traumas. Television-watching was limited. There was no coffee.

However, for people whose issue is control—and the fear of being out of it—this kind of world is comforting. The structure, the lack of responsibility. The ability to ignore real world concerns like money, kids, jobs, car maintenance. The mandate to focus on yourself.

I grew to love the predictable ritual of choosing my meals for the week, of enumerating my goals for the day and announcing my feelings at the moment. I felt drunk with success when I cried reading a letter to my emotionally absent dad, and vicariously so when a 700-pound New Yorker took her first unassisted steps in two years. I wrote in my journal religiously. And I made friends.

Though some might refer to the hospital as a prison, I found it more like summer camp. Nicole and I would put on our jammies and giggle before bed. One night, we had a condiment fight at our table, launching packets of ketchup and Sweet’N Low through the air. We wore slippers and cuddled on couches; we met in each other’s rooms to apply face masks (even, sometimes, the men); we developed self-deprecating inside jokes (e.g., “You make me want to puke. Literally.”). We were a Girl Scout troop, giving each other patches for eating a whole lunch, or appropriately expressing anger.

When the doctors said it was time for me to leave, I didn’t want to go; I was scared to be on my own. Lucky for me, my desire to get better was stronger than my drive to stay safe. I soon got a job as a reporter at a daily newspaper and moved to a house on the beach with another alumnus from Pacific Shores. I went to 12-step meetings religiously, then grew out of them. I started dating again. I moved on.

But not everyone did. My roommate at the beach house relapsed a few months later and went back to Pacific Shores and struggled for another year before finally recovering. Others, like a girl from Davis so bulimic she’d been declared dead in the emergency room three times, disappeared, presumably slipping again into her illnesses.

And then there are those like Nicole, who have probably gone back and forth, in and out of hospitals for the past four years the way they did before I met them, asking each other, “So how many treatment centers have you been to?”

Now I understand. Of course, I can’t say I’d ever want to be back there again. I love my life now too much to give it up. But there are days I long for the safety and comfort of those rooms, of that daily structure, of having a team of people taking care of me. And in many ways, all I’ve done since leaving is recreate the friendship and safety I felt at Pacific Shores. Luckily, I no longer need my eating disorder to do it.

December 10, 2005 in Eating Disorders, Essays, SB Independent | Permalink | Comments (3)

Reporter's Notebook: La Conchita

This piece was originally published in the Ventura County Reporter 1/13/05, and then mentioned here . I have since written several stories on the family, the area and the politics surrounding this issue.


This wasn’t supposed to be a first-person story.
I first heard about the La Conchita mudslides when my roommate called at 8:30 to say there was no point in getting on the freeway to go to work in Ventura. At that point, the mudslides were an anomaly, a freakish expression of Mother Nature that was inconvenient but in no way tragic.
I still felt this way at 2:30 when my boyfriend, a professional photographer, called from La Conchita. Some houses had been buried. The situation was getting more serious. I spoke to my editor, and soon I was off, too, to report on what was happening.
I still hadn’t even brushed my teeth when I found myself near Carpinteria, arguing with a Sheriff who was just doing his job but finally let us through. All the way, I thought about the people I know who live in La Conchita. Charlie. His sons and fourteen-year-old daughter. All the friends and family and significant others who called Charlie’s house “home” and Charlie their “dad.”

Remember021I MET CHARLIE WOMACK when I was six years old and going to kindergarten at Hollywood Beach School in Oxnard with his son Orion, but I don’t remember that. What I remember is meeting his daughter Cory, a former bartender at the Sans Souçi and now The Drink, and then Charlie again on my first trip to the Burning Man festival, where he was camping with the people who later became my closest friends.
Charlie, who at 51 was easily my parents’ age, quickly became a peer. He was always sweet, kind, generous and peaceful, a kind of hippy patriarch for a wide range of kids and adults. He opened his home, his heart and his wallet to anyone who needed it; and at the time of the slide, could’ve had anywhere from six to 15 non-blood-relatives living with him, including the most recent transplants: Jimmie Wallet, his wife and their three daughters.
I didn’t always understand Charlie—a carpenter with the willingness to give more than he had. I wasn’t always comfortable with his half-way-house lifestyle or his role as fun-DJ-party-guy in conjunction with his role as the father of a 14-year-old girl. But those were my issues, and my over-identification with his teenage daughter. I knew that if anything happened to Charlie’s house, there were going to be scores of people both emotionally devastated and also homeless. And if anything happened to anyone living in that house, an entire community of people was going to need support.
This was what I thought of when I arrived on the scene, trying to park behind other media vehicles and then forging my way through the first mudslide, which submerged cars three-fourths of the way to their roofs and knocked entire sections of concrete wall into the ocean. I wondered if Charlie’s house was OK, and what it would be like to interview him in this kind of situation. I didn’t even wonder what it would be like to interview his kids about their father’s condition—and eventual death.
As a reporter, I’ve always been squeamish about emergency situations. I’m never sure how to handle the situation—feeling a strong pull between my ambition and my editors who want the best story, and my compassion and humanity, the girl who wants to help and respect the victims.
As a kid, I always thought it was rude that reporters interviewed grieving, scared or injured people. I’ve never wanted to be one of those reporters.
But later in the evening, I began to understand the role of a reporter. As friends who knew I would be on the scene started calling my cell phone, wanting to know if Charlie and his family were OK, I realized Jeff and I were the eyes and ears for our friends. We could be somewhere they couldn’t be.
And that’s the larger role of the media, too. Though the reporters and photographers may not know someone involved in, or affected by, every disaster and event, the media’s purpose to be the eyes and ears for the people who care about what’s happening. For me, suddenly, it became not about “getting the story” (which I’ve never been good at anyway—which is why I left the Star and moved to the Reporter), but about telling my friends what’s happening; and explaining to people who aren’t my friends why they should care about this.

Remember401I FINALLY PARK MY CAR on the far side of the first slide and make my way into the small town. Most people who drive the stretch from Ventura to Santa Barbara know La Conchita in some way—either as the road sign which promises food they don’t need, or as the place they can fill up with regular and Corn Nuts when they realize they can’t make it to Santa Barbara without either one.
Now a nearly 30-foot-high pile of mud covers 15 to 20 houses over a four-block area where rain suddenly loosened part of the adjoining hillside, managed to level some houses, split others in two, move an entire bus from one side of the street to the other and buried anywhere from six to 12 people.
What was different about this slide from the one in 1995, said a spokesperson for the Ventura County Fire Department, is that the earlier mudslide was a slow, gradual release of the Earth. This one, however, was incredibly sudden and violent. All but a few houses were completely buried, invisible from the top of the debris pile.
Residents had little warning. Some reported hearing a rumbling, then saw the mountain come loose and move toward them. The people trapped inside the rubble may not have known what was happening before the debris locked them inside what may be their muddy graves, said emergency personnel.
The place is teeming with people, few of them civilians. Fire departments from several cities, sheriffs from several counties, EMT, reporters and cameramen are all there.
They won’t let me past the yellow tape, so I walk around. Tessa, Charlie’s fourteen-year-old daughter, stands behind one of the lines. As soon as I see her, she grabs onto me. She’s near tears. Her Daddy is in there.
I cease being a reporter. I put away my notepad, and avoid helping the other reporters on the scene whom I know from a former job, a former life. I find Annie, whose sister dates Charlie’s son Isaiah. She’s holding on to two of her dogs—a medium-sized and a small one—held together by one single rope. She tells me Charlie’s still in the house, buried beneath the mud. Her boyfriend Griffin, who was sleeping in a bus-made-living-space outside the house, survived with a broken leg. Her twin sister Brie lost all her pets. Brie’s boyfriend and Charlie’s other son, Orion, are up on the hill, trying to dig out their father.
Everywhere, there are fire trucks, emergency vehicles, people in matching uniforms. It seems the only civilians are people I know.
The sheriffs won’t let us through to find Brie (whom Annie wants to find so her mom can take them to Santa Barbara before the rain starts again), so we snake our way around the southern side of the tape, through someone else’s backyard. Annie finds Brie and they embrace. I climb onto the roof, where Tessa is sitting with other family members and neighbors. I can’t help but cry as I look out over the towering pile of mud and the rescue workers, like ants, who are dwarfed by the enormity of it. The platform Charlie built for the top of his bus, where his band would sometimes play, was turned on its side and pushed across the street. The top of a teepee Charlie built for himself in the yard, where he may have been sleeping, barely peeked out of the dirt about half a block away. Pieces of walls, sections of furniture, entire trees and more mud than you can imagine covered everything else—including people. Including Charlie.
I think about him again. For me, a twenty-something with a stable family, a history of trauma, a freakish streak and a serious issue with feeling like an outsider, Charlie was always the unconditionally loving father-slash-cool-friend-slash-self-esteem-boosting-guy. His hugs were always warm. His promises were always sincere and manifested. His connection with me—eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart—always felt special, unique and real. I know I could’ve called him at 4 a.m. on any night to help me out of an emergency, and he would’ve come. In fact, he rescued so many people—on large levels and small levels—that it’s hard to imagine what half my friends would’ve done without him. And even harder to imagine that now he was the one needing rescuing.

Remember03 IT BEGINS TO GET DARK. And cold. I’m starving. I can only imagine the last time the families of the victims, who wander aimlessly from backyard to backyard trying to do something have eaten. Or the victims themselves. When was the last time Charlie had a meal? I heard he was sick, and might’ve been in bed if he wasn’t on some kind of spiritual hike in the hills. What kind of sustenance had he ingested before the slide? Was he trapped in a muddy hole, suffocating and dreaming of French fries?
There is much waiting. Tessa, her brothers and a friend of the family, who ran on the train tracks from the roadblocks to reach the scene, say a prayer. “God, bring us back our families,” they say. Later, he tells me what Charlie means to him. “He was my dad, you know? Not my blood dad, but he was my dad.” They all take turns crying.
The men and women in matching yellow and orange rain gear are digging, chain sawing, and mostly standing around making people nervous. A body is found. Tessa is sure it’s her dad and she begins to wail.
“No no no no,” says the teenager, screaming as her aunt and another friend hold her. Photographers turn their attention from the pile of mud to Annie, Brie, Orion, Isaiah, Tess and others.
“Get that fucking thing away from me,” someone says to one photographer. There is a flurry of activity while someone tries to confirm whether the body is Charlie. It turns out it’s not, but that only comforts any of us to the degree that we still don’t know. It doesn’t mean Charlie’s alive.
Finally Annie, Brie, Tessa and Tessa’s aunt leave. It gets dark and cold. Isaiah and Orion won’t leave. Neither will Gator (Jimmie Wallet), who is at times calm, at times falling apart, thinking about his missing 2- 6- and 10-year-old daughters, as well as his wife. The three men had tried to help the rescuers, but were asked to leave the scene. All they can do now is stand in the street, on the roofs of houses, and watch and wait. At one point, Gator collapses onto the sidewalk, bowing into Child’s Pose with his arms over his head. Hours pass. Someone brings water and orange juice. We offer the boys our cigarettes, which they smoke gratefully. A body is removed on a stretcher—rescue workers confirm it’s a woman. It’s not Charlie.
There are fire trucks from all over, now: Montecito, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Long Beach, all shining football-stadium-strength lights over the scene. A block away, the public information officer holds a press conference. Up here, though, finally, the cameras and reporters are gone.
It’s now near 7 p.m. We hear the sheriff’s radios broadcasting that the hill is unstable and anyone who stays does so at extreme risk. They’re advising us all to leave La Conchita now, including the press.
Jeff and I decide we’re more of a hindrance than a help—we can’t dig, we’ve given away all our cigarettes and now we’re just dead weight. We are not Charlie’s closest kin; we are simply loving friends lucky enough to have jobs that allowed us to be on the scene. We navigate the complicated obstacle course of sheriffs, mud and debris to get out.

TWO HOURS LATER, the phone rings. They’ve found Charlie. Orion identified him. He’s dead. With a smile on his face. The ripples went through our community quickly. We are a close-knit group of friends, and any loss would have an impact. There was denial. Tears. Multiple phone calls. Decisions to meet up as soon as possible.
La Conchita is a small town of fewer than a hundred houses. And the mudslides, though terrible and destructive, only affected four blocks of the town. But within those four blocks, under a mound of impenetrable mud and dangerous debris, a friend of mine struggled for his life—or at the very least, spent the last moments of it trapped in a dark hole, alone.
No photo, no video clip, no quote from a bystander can tell you that.
Not even I, safely back in Santa Barbara, in contact with the family only by cell phone, can imagine what it’s like to be having breakfast one moment and seven hours later identify your father’s own body. And his smile.
But I know that I’m angry at the rain tonight. And at Charlie for continuing to live in that house after the 1995 mudslide.
And I’m sure soon I’ll be in denial again, with the help of my can of Coors Light, and then on to whatever stage of grief comes next.
And I’m also grateful for the fact that the sky, the streets, the lawns are miserable. Because so am I.


Charlie Womack’s friends have established a fund to help pay for funeral expenses. Contact Jessica Lunsford at 259-8885, or send checks to “Charlie Womack Memorial Fund,” Santa Barbara Bank and Trust, 250 S. Mills Rd., Ventura, CA 93003.

January 15, 2005 in Essays, News, VC Reporter | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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