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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

RV DAY 17: SPARKLE PONIES AND SPANKY’S WINE BAR

Happy Independence Day campers! Did your 4th of July involve a couple of sparkle ponies, a sword fighting tranny, a drunken genie, naked flame throwers, hippie stew, an exploding frog bat, and fireworks so close you can feel the debris? That pretty much sums up how we spent our week celebrating Independence Day.

For the past few years, hundreds of burners* gather at Black Rock City, NV for an unofficial Burningman occasion called the 4th of Juplaya. It is supposedly what Burningman used to be before it became a huge organized event with undercover cops. We picked up Colin, our first guest and Justin’s oldest friend since three years old, at the Reno airport and spent the day preparing for the week. Their parents are also close friends who must be wondering what the boys are doing “camping in the dessert.”

Colin and Justin tried their luck in fishing at Pyramid Lake, an Indian reservation, but they couldn’t even catch a cold, so we made our way to the Frog Pond where Spanky’s Wine Bar camped this year. The Frog Pond is located a few miles outside the dessert, or “playa” as it is called, so it is not nearly as hot and dusty. We were the only camp there while everyone else camped on the playa. The Frog Pond has a natural hot springs that attracted many burners from morning to night, quickly turning the hot springs into “hippie stew.” There was no way in hell we were getting in without our immunization shots. Across the street from the Frog Pond was a shooting range where I fired a shotgun. The kickback hurt like hell but I was glad I did not dislocate a shoulder. One camp created a giant frog bat that was filled with gasoline so a bunch of gun lovers can shoot at it and make it explode. We were all there to watch the burn, then we left when part of the area caught on fire.

Spanky’s Wine Bar not only served free wine and beer, we also featured a bondage wall where you get tied up to be spanked. Next to the bondage wall was the orgasmatron - a riding contraption with a massive vibrating Hitachi (guess what it is if you don’t already know) which provoked a protest when a male patron was told the orgasmatron was only for women. He and his friends came back an hour later with picket signs made out of cardboard. You can also play a game of dirty dice at the bar where you roll dice to perform certain dares. Justin’s punishment from rolling a nine was rubbing an ice cube all over his penis in front of the whole bar (you may call him “Ice Dick,”) then he had to pole dance like a stripper for rolling a seven.

Spanky’s is comprised of an eclectic group of about 20 fun and crazy characters that I couldn’t even make up if I tried. There was Admiral Pain Joy, our camp leader / DJ who loves walking around in a pink thong and doling out funny one-liners on the microphone. There was also Suzi, our favorite tranny who loves swinging her Japanese sword while drunk. When Buck from Boston was trying out the sword, I warned him to be careful not to chop off his penis – he couldn’t believe I said that in front of a transvestite. My friend Jacki and I were called Sparkle Ponies because “we don’t do any work other than stand around and look pretty.” While it is meant to be a backhanded compliment, we owned up to it and decided that we will create our own camp at Burningman called My Little Sparkle Ponies. We will decorate our camp with sparkling objects and My Little Ponies and invite everyone to join us so they can do all the work like set up our camp and cook for us while we get dolled up and dazzle them with our wit. Sounds pretty true to life anyway – that is why people like me marry people like Justin. Another example: when Jacki got a flat tire, Mark quickly came to the rescue and changed it for her while we blew bubbles. Finally, there was Tex the Lurker. He was a clean-cut 20 year old who appeared out of nowhere and did not belong to our camp. But he was often seen behind the bar drinking wine and inside people’s trailers pilfering food. The balls on that kid!

On our last night, we drove to the playa to watch fireworks. The fireworks were just as spectacular as they would be in any big city, but this was even better because we were only 50 yards away so the fireworks were directly above us. Mark decided to take Tex the Lurker with us so he couldn’t go through our belongings while we were gone. When we visited another camp, Tex wasted no time in serving himself a drink. We quickly returned to our camp, abandoning him there so now he was someone else’s problem. We realized that he left his backpack at our camp, so we did what anyone would do – go through it! We found his passport which one of us drew a Spanky’s Wine Bar stamp on the page next to the Holland stamp – won’t say who it was because everyone’s fingerprints are all over that thing. There was a flame baton and other random knickknacks that he must have stolen. We also found a note he wrote with “bike, money, job” and a list of people he owed money to. The next morning while we were shutting down the wine bar and cleaning up, the always resourceful Tex the Lurker showed up at the pond with his new friends. After mooping** up the pond, we met up for our last lunch at Bruno’s in Gerlach, said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. Until next year, Spanky’s…

Next stop: Jackson, WY. Over and out.

*Burners: (n) People who participate in Burningman
**Moop: (n) Matter Out of Place – to moop up means to clean up all the moop

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