By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong

This is your brain:



This is your brain on drugs:



This is a wonderful example of my famous Obscured Box Technique titled Dancer #3:



The woman who modeled for D#3 used to be a dancer. Which is a euphemism. Now she's completing her undergraduate in Economics from Columbia and interning at an investment bank. Really--how fabulous is that? For ease of typing, and a certain personalizing factor, we're gonna call D#3 Natasha from here on out.

So I get copied on a note a couple of months ago that goes something like this:

Two friends of mine and I are renting an RV and driving cross-country to see Burning Man. We need a fourth person. Don't you think it would be fun to take a road trip with three beautiful Russian girls? Let me know.
--Natasha

In retrospect, why I didn't go escapes me. Too much stuff to do, I suppose.

Manoman, you are getting old
That had something to do with it, I guess.
Would it help if I whistled the theme song from the Viagra commercials?
I like the ones where the two people always end up sitting in tubs.
Yeah, except why aren't they in the same tub? Given the general gist of the pitch, if you know what I mean?
I don't know. But can we move on?
Sure. Be my guest.

Well, to make a long story short, I found myself at the Capitol Region (if that's what they even call this place) version of Burning Man a couple of nights ago. Hosted by a guy named [redacted for his own protection], it took place in a 40-acre field outside Saratoga that was chock full of trees, barns, tables full of things to drink, exotic sculptures of gargoyles, and a bunch of sagging sofas. Plus a 30-foot high sculpture of a man made out of packing crates, lumber, pine trees and other flammable materials. See pictures one and two above (#1 being the man to be burned and #2 being that man burning). I wish I had a picture of one of the sofas.

And while perhaps not the world-class barn-burner of an event that the real Burning Man is, I didn't have to listen to three girls doing shots and talking in Russian while I drove an RV across Kansas.



This is a portion of the crowd. I didn't check with the police, but my rough count was perhaps 450,000 attendees. I apologize for the picture, but I was listing about 30 degrees to the right by that time.

The Lord moves in mysterious ways, doesn't she?
How so?
Well, you didn't go to Burning Man with the strippers but you ended up getting your ya-yas out just the same.
Exactly.
To quote Richards/Jagger: "You can't always get what you want/But if you try sometimes/You'll find you get what you need."
Nicely said.
And you had a lovely time, didn't you?
Yes I did. The company was great.
Did you tear most of your clothes off, rub blue body paint all over yourself, and dance some kind of pagan ritualistic rhumba with the fire dancers?
No I didn't.
Half a million people thank you for that.
I thought about it though.
The fact that you didn't actually do it, however, is just further proof of a benevolent deity.
Amen.