Margie Fishman

The News Journal

Playa del Fuego (translation: beach fire) is a regional Burning Man event.

Saturday’s festivities were nearly drowned this year by Hurricane Matthew.

Ticket revenue last year was just enough to cover the all-volunteer operation and more than $16,000 in arts grants.

They came for the flames, the friendship, the freedom and the free flapjacks.

They came from across the globe to the winding back roads of Townsend in their psychedelic VW buses and Mercedes SUVs, passing amber waves of grain, squat ranchers and an “Elect Perot” sign, to their beacon in the desert: the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club.

Burning Man in Delaware? It’s been happening here for 15 years, attracting thousands.

You haven’t heard? Many on the inside would like to keep it that way.

Playa del Fuego (translation: fire beach) is a regional Burning Man event that has no posters, police barricades, selfie sticks or Heineken-sponsored domes.

It’s a celebration of pulsating creativity, self-reliance and civic responsibility held twice a year — spanning five days over Columbus Day and Memorial Day weekends.

Saturday’s festivities were nearly drowned this year by Hurricane Matthew, yet one participant chose to reimagine the menacing clouds as a seahorse. Another twentysomething sage told a reporter that expectations, such as clear skies, are the root of dissatisfaction.

Confused? Imagine if “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” had a child and named it Siddhartha Sparkly Pony.

Or just envision the muddiest, wildest summer camp adventure ever.

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Here, you’re permitted to covet your neighbor’s wife (with consent), but not to pass judgment, litter or buy anything. In this do-ocracy, everybody has a volunteer job.

“It really reinforces your faith in humanity,” says Andrew, a longtime Playa participant from Dover, who, like others, declined to give his last name. “I know that people are going to respect me. I know that no one is going to be hungry.”

PDF, held on more than 30 acres off Fleming Landing Road, is one of about 60 formally sanctioned regional Burning Mans across the world, including Frostburn in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Transformus in Asheville, North Carolina, and To The Moon in Sneedville, Tennessee. All operate under the flagship experimental event’s 10 core principles (three of which start with the word “radical”).

The first is “radical inclusion,” which means that all are welcome. Playa “newbs” or “virgins” are greeted by a “hug inspector,” who whoops “Welcome Home” and asks first before delivering a spanking.

That open-door policy is at odds with preserving Playa’s cozy family vibe. Ticket revenue last year was just enough to cover the all-volunteer operation and more than $16,000 in arts grants, allowing 10 works to be set ablaze, according to the nonprofit’s annual report. No major injuries have been reported in recent years, even as some participants have flouted rules by fire-driving (fire-walking with a car) and suspending themselves from the vets’ helicopter frame.

Understandably, several burners worry about outsiders, including the media, destroying their chi. The nonprofit's board members, who go by Playa names like “Lizard” and “DirtyGirl,” declined requests for comment and said they have no established media policy apart from a lengthy list of exclusions for commercial photography. Similarly, the vets who own the property didn't return phone calls.

"It's like a big human carnival," explained one grizzled vet who was enjoying the spectacle last weekend. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

"This isn't some secret club," added Rowyn, a 22-year-old from Philly who delights in lighting her hula hoop on fire for an interpretive dance, even though it scars her wrists.

"But you have to be safe and know what you’re doing."

It’s unclear how many people actually attend Playa, which began in 1998 with a small group of local burners gathering on the beach of Assateague Island. The organization has estimated that more than 1,200 tickets have been sold in each of the last two years. But participants have counted double that number at the spring and fall events. Either way, it's a diverse group by race, ethnicity and age.

The original Burning Man now attracts 70,000 parched, sand-blinded participants to the Nevada desert, including Silicon Valley millionaires and celebrities like Paris Hilton in rainbow fur and goggles.

Local burners say Playa is what Burning Man was in its infancy, before it became “establishment.” Even The Simpsons and income-tax crusader Grover Norquist have attended the weeklong hedonistic fest.

"You mean the big burn in the desert? That's not a real Burning Man," one flannel-wearing Playa burner from Washington, D.C., said Saturday. "It already has permeated popular culture."

Burners lament the rise in plug-and-play campers in Nevada — "the parasitic class" — who bring Persian rugs and hired help. Last month, a group of alleged vandals cut power, glued doors shut and dumped 200 gallons of water on one luxe Burning Man camp called White Ocean.

It's also increasingly cost-prohibitive to lug all your survival gear to the middle of nowhere. Burning Man released new $1,200 Da Vinci tickets this year, three times the cost of regular tickets.

Tickets to Dover's Firefly Music Festival cost upwards of $300 for four days. Corporate sponsors slap their names on cocktails, beauty bars and air-conditioned lounges for the estimated 90,000 attendees.

Now compare that to four days of commercial-free entertainment for $50. Playa tickets sell out months in advance at playadelfuego.org. Private Facebook groups offer ride-shares and extra tickets sold at zero markup.

But you have to be in the know. One attendee, who works for a Wilmington law firm, said he would be clueless about Playa had a friend not alerted him to it. Members of the surrounding community have labeled the event "Freaks and Geeks," but they're fuzzy on the details.

And, like the participants, they'd rather not have their names associated with it.

“They do their own thing. They don’t bother none of us,” said a woman who works at a live-crab restaurant two miles from Playa’s gate. "It's just a concert."

Kids and birthday suits

Once inside Playa, attendees can partake in any number of good, clean fun activities like guerrilla lawn Othello, reflexology foot massage, workshops on reclaiming ugliness and “the art of not being on fire,” and a second birthday celebration for a puppet named Fuggles.

Elaborate tent camps ringed by RVs imitate saloons, hookah lounges, karaoke bars and fondue stations. Festooned with belly dancer scarves, glowing top hats, Asian parasols and whatever else is handy and fabulous, dwellers stir pots of soup in steaming cauldrons, offer meatballs and sausages to crusty strangers.

“Grilled cheese!” catcalls a pasty white guy wearing a skintight leopard-print dress.

There are raunchier delights, of course. Show your breasts and win a stack of bacon or dollops of glitter from a grandmother. Paint your own genitals. Learn about the pleasures of polyamory, testicular saline infusion and sexual therapy animals (“How can I make better eye contact with my goldfish during coitus.”)

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Within an hour of entering the gates, you're basically guaranteed to run into a full-on naked guy (the second will appear shortly after), and you’ll try to keep your eyes glued to his face as you compliment him on his, um, camera. There's also the pantsless woman wearing white face paint and a naked Slip 'n’ Slide, where fat rolls bounce joyously and there's no time to look cute for Facebook. (Nudity is prohibited within view of the street).

Closer to the front of camp, Oksana Kiseleva breastfeeds her 1-year-old daughter.

"I think it's a good thing that when you see nudity, you're not going to be obsessed with nakedness," the New Yorker said, adding that baby Angelica has attended five festivals during her brief existence.

Children of all ages are permitted at Playa (there are separate adults-only areas). Two boys played slingshot recently while a guy wearing a red teddy gyrated to trance music.

“It’s like television,” explained Andrew, a member of "Balls Camp." “You don’t have to watch that channel and nobody is going to force you into it.”

The retiree skipped Playa this year because of a scheduled surgery, but has embraced the cooperative spirit and gift-giving that are the soul of the event. An illuminated balloon chain, spanning at least a quarter mile, symbolically links campers from end to end.

In years past, Andrew has given out handmade bottlecap jewelry and full-size Snickers bars. In return, he has received frilly aprons, a box of Bulleit bourbon and an 8-foot bunch of bananas.

But the greatest gift, he says, is unconditional acceptance.

“They’ve given me the ability to go somewhere and not feel the anxiety of going there," said the gregarious African-American man who is over six feet tall.

"There are a lot of people saying I’m not my brother’s keeper, but you are,” he continued, choking back tears. “That’s what life is really about. And Playa has been able to stay that way.”

Fire and rain

Let’s get one thing straight: They don't burn a real pony.

It’s a totem, a tribute to Assateague's wild horses, and it separates Playa from Burning Man, where a human effigy is reduced to dust.

The pony is conceptual, standing more than 12 feet tall, comprised entirely of LEGO-like rainbow blocks.

Saturday night is the main event. (On Sunday, they burn other random works of art, along with cardboard cutouts of deceased pets).

In center camp springs a rustic nightclub with whiskey shots, a leaky tarp and a DJ spinning from a white plastic dome. Two women grope each other in a tangle of sequins and fuzzy tails in a cage ablaze. A middle-aged man wearing khakis eggs them on.

Nearby stand 10 tanks of flammable gas. Occasionally, a passerby will press a button and a torch will shoot flames synchronized with the techno beat.

A drum circle convenes, and a group of 10 hypnotic fire dancers, including a topless man and woman, roll fiery batons like wagon wheels and spin like whirling dervishes and engage in a perilous display of rhythmic gymnastics.

The drumbeats build tension and intrigue as if it were a luau or a scene from "Eyes Wide Shut." Just before 10 p.m., the pony’s underside is torched.

"Burn Pony Burn," the crowd chants, as a volunteer firefighter snakes a hose between a hairy guy cocooned in a shark-themed snuggly and a bald man cradling a wine bottle.

But the rain mocks the fire. One firefighter tries to accelerate the action by drilling a hole in the pony's hind leg. This only causes more smoke to billow from its back like wings.

Twenty-six excruciating minutes later, the animal's head crashes to the ground, causing the structure to take on the appearance of Stonehenge.

Eventually, it is reduced to a heap of boxes as the crowd cheers some more.

There is something primal about destroying something that man fashioned from nature.

But it goes deeper than that. Playa is about impermanence — magical moments bubble up then disappear.

And then you're back to the "default world," as one attendee remarked, where the guy wearing enough eye makeup for a "Swan Lake" performance with a hole in his earlobe the size of a chestnut is a mere stranger. And no one offers you a Costco bag of cashew clusters without expecting something in return.

The hope, though, is that not all of the fairy dust has rubbed off.

Shortly after attending Playa, Andrew met a motorcyclist struggling to pack some items from an estate sale.

Andrew quickly fished out a bungee cord from his car.

“What do I owe you?” the man with only two wheels asked.

“You don’t owe me anything,” came the reply. "Take what you need. Give what you don’t use.'"

Contact Margie Fishman at 302-324-2882, on Twitter @MargieTrende or mfishman@delawareonline.com.

The 10 Principles of Burning Man

Radical Incusion

Gifting

Decommodification

Radical Self-Reliance

Radical Self-Expression

Communal Effort

Civic Responsibility

Leaving No Trace

Participation

Immediacy

Source: burningman.org