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NARR: SFX - AMBI [sound of bar at happy hour underneath opening narration] In the back of a wood-paneled bar on Third Avenue near St. Mark's Place three women greet each other.
TAPE 1 [BURNER WOMEN AT HAPPY HOUR] [kiss] "How are you doing? I'm good. How are you?" (:05)
NARR: They could be any group of corporate New Yorkers drinking whiskey together after work. But they don't actually work together. They're connected by the Burning Man festival. Natalie Wilson started coming to this happy hour so she wouldn't feel so lonely after first moving here from San Francisco. She knew she wouldn't feel like a stranger in the burner community.
TAPE 2 [NATALIE WILSON/BURNER]: "The people here--a lot of them--are corporate by day and freak by night. Yes we have our day jobs and then we have this outlet where we can be more expressive and creative and more of our own personality can come out." (:12)
NARR: But many burners keep their love of the festival a secret. Take the case of a woman who calls herself Special Agent Rae. That's the name she wants to use in this story because she didn't want her co-workers to know she goes to burning man every year. In the past, she told her co-workers about her plans to attend the festival. They had bad misconceptions about what the festival is:
TAPE 4 [ACCOUNTANT/BURNER]: "The first year before I went I told somebody at work where I was going and for the next two months all I got was: 'Oh you do drugs, you do drugs, there's sex everywhere.' And that is absolutely not the experience." (:12)
NARR: Burners have to work hard to party out on the playa. The 50,000 people that go bring their own food and water, live exposed to the sizzling heat and freezing nights of the desert. They try to leave no trace by taking out all their garbage. Anna Darling has attended Burning Man five times. She says it's takes a huge effort to just get there and survive:
TAPE 5 [ANNA DARLING, BURNER] "Well it's not like you can show up tripping on acid and expect to have everything fall into your lap. You have to prepare. It does require your blood sweat and tears to just go into being out there in the first place." (:16)
NARR: Burners put a lot of effort into creating aret and raising money to attend the festival. For example one group of burners recently held a costume ball to raise money for the costumes they intend to take to this year's Burning Man.
NARR: Burner Stefan Pildes came early to help decorate. A sculptor put the final touches on a foam statue of a Celtic god while the DJ tested the sound system
[ambi of scraping underneath]
and Pildes spray painted flowers made out of newspaper.
[ambi of spray painting]
Pildes said Burning Man inspired him to change the way he works for a living. He used to work full time as a video editor for corporate clients. But now he only works when he wants. Meanwhile he's become so skilled at hula hooping out on the playa that he started a hula hoop performance company. He says the people at burning man helped him pursue something that really interests him.
TAPE 8 [STEFAN/BURNER] "It's mainly about community and it's about realizing the most authentic version of yourself."
But not every burner in New York can afford to live the same way they do on they playa for that one week every year. Teagan, another accountant who goes by a burner name, says her authentic self only comes out on the weekends and at Burning Man. During the week she says she wears a suit, glasses and her black hair combed straight. But on the weekends, she wears a black and pink wig with long shoulder length braids and purple contact lenses. She says she loves working on burner projects because its an escape from a career choice she says was a mistake:
TAPE 9 [TEAGAN ACCOUNTANT/BURNER] "It's just like loads of fun and I mean. It's like, I guess my creative outlet as well because my everyday life is just not that creative and it's pretty boring." (:09)
Teagan is looking forward right now to work with other burners on projects for the upcoming festival, that will take place this year from August 25 to September 1st.
SOC: Michelle Stockman, Columbia Radio News.