Aussielicious

Well, after 3 weeks, 10 flights, 3 cities, countless miles and millions of stories, I’m home. It’s been an amazing trip and I’ve met some amazing people. I’ve laughed. I’ve cried. I’ve laid drunk and vomiting in the desert in the middle of the night and while not all of it was flawless, I wouldn’t change a bit of it.

I will no doubt take a few days to start going through photos and video footage but to start the blogging back up again I’m sharing with you a video from the very talented Vincent from Wallaby Way who is a friend here in Sydney who went to Burning Man.

Welcome Home – A Burning Man Adventure 2011 from Wallaby Way on Vimeo.

Can I describe Burning Man? Probably not. It’s like a giant school camp without teachers, a heap more originality and TONNES of dust. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before but I intend to see it again. Did I find it life changing? Not in a big impact straight away kinda way, but the vibe, the generosity and the spirit are things that definitely should be carried on through  regular life.

Thanks to Dannation for giving me a ride to BM. Thanks to the Back Country Boys for their hospitality and generosity. Thanks to the Scenic Boys for being as lovely and gorgeous as I’d hoped. Thanks to all the gang in our camp with their youthful bodies and six packs for providing the eye candy and inspiration for the gym! A huge thank you to everyone that I met along the way and bonded with in the desert. I will post more I promise but enjoy the video!

Being a keen nudie and a first time Burner at Burning Man this year, I’m just wondering how many people actually wander around nude there? I’m kind of assuming that the media and a lot of photographers focus on the nude people because it makes the story more sensational and figured that the proportion of nude people isn’t as high as we are led to believe.

I have some cool costumes/outfits organised to wear but I do want to experience that freedom of walking around nude as well while I’m there. I’ll report back for you all.

Dusty and Garet of Scenicboys fame have just gone live with their new business venture Scenic Boys Adventures. These two boys were born to be roaming the beautiful wilderness near Seattle (or anywhere) so it makes perfect sense for them to be your guides if you want a camping adventure.

They are offering three different options for you to book currently for people of various adventure levels. If I was in the area I’d be booking their guide services for sure. The boys will pick you up, cook for you and supply all the necessary gear for you!

Every now and then I go through a phase where I have trouble sleeping at night. Apparently I’m in one of those phases now. I either can’t switch off when I go to bed, or I wake up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. The preoccupation at the moment seems to be the logistical task of getting myself to Burning Man. Some of the guys I’m going with have offered to lend me a tent and help with other bits and pieces but the actual task of physically transporting myself there and back is stressing me out.

We have a company here in Australia that you can hire second hand minivan’s kitted out for very basic campervan use for one or two people, or five desperate back packers. I can’t seem to find anything like that in the U.S. There is a company in San Fran and L.A. that does small vans fairly reasonably which could work for me. Once I start getting things organised, I’m sure I’ll sleep better. I hope so.

Matthew Brown has featured on these pages in the past with his beautiful videos. He is a friend of the ScenicBoys and has captured some beautiful imagery on camping trips with those boys. They obviously trust in his vision because they agreed to appear in this promotional video for a singer that Matthew has been commissioned to do. There was very little budget, no brief and no time. Somehow Matthew has come up with this gorgeous video with all those constraints. He used three of the singer’s songs edited together, painted Dusty and Garet in body paint and set them loose in the wilderness. Gorgeous.

Matthew is hoping to do his own version of the video with different music and using more of the footage that the record label wasn’t comfortable with, ie. the nude stuff.

Dusty and Garet have just posted their 2010 recap of all their adventures camping and touring with friends. Their friends? Lots of lovely boys who they seem to talk out of their clothes a lot in spectacular locations. Fingers crossed 2011 is the year I’ll get to meet these boys.

Scenic Boys: 2010 Season 4 from scenicboys on Vimeo.

Garet and Dusty, aka the Scenicboys have just posted their video from Burning Man and once again it looks like a fantastic time for them. Sadly they won’t be going next year so I won’t go burn with them but I am determined to get there in 2011. The savings plan starts now.

Scenic Boys: Burning Man 2010 from scenicboys on Vimeo.

To everyone heading to Burning Man, which starts today I think, have a fantastic, amazing and safe insane time and feel free to share your photos with us. It’s an experience I was hoping to have this year but that didn’t work out. Enjoy it for me.

ScenicBoys: Burning Man from scenicboys on Vimeo.

Having never celebrated Beltane, the explanation on the Scenic Boys site does come in handy, but whatever the meaning of it, this trip that the boys took recently really does look like a lot of fun. Take a bunch of clearly very close friends, partners, some camping gear, some shiny hooded capes, a couple of video cameras and a fun attitude and you get a great weekend away.

I’m posting two videos from this weekend that the guys went on. One is the Scenic Boys usual video of their adventures, capturing the fun, with some explanations from the boys of the area etc. They have such a passion and enthusiasm for the wilderness and their friends that comes across whenever you watch one of their videos.

ScenicBoys: Beltane Celebration from scenicboys on Vimeo.

The other video is by one of their mates, Matthew. I’ve shared a couple of his videos on here before. He’s got such a great eye for detail and is movies are richly soaked in vibrant colour, crawling with little creatures and edited beautifully with a great soundtrack.

Horizon… from Matthew Brown on Vimeo.

With my dad’s heart attack, work not exactly thrilling me for a long time, the recent strangeness and tension with my flatmate and my grandfather also in a bit of a decline I really feel like taking off to a warm tropical island somewhere, taking off my clothes and relaxing intensely for a while. When I get back (in this fantasy land) all the stress, tension and bad stuff will be gone. In it’s place will be health and happiness.

Dusty and Garet have such a positive vibe about them and clearly adore the hell out of each other. This is the spin I’m trying to put on everything. It all happens for a reason. It feels at times lately, like I’ve forgotten my own promise to “mine the clouds” this year. Next weekend I’m away with family and very dear friends and the weekend after that I’m going nude camping. Bring it on I say.

ScenicBoys: Virgin Islands from scenicboys on Vimeo.

Garet and Dusty have just put together another video. I have to say, without knowing them personally, these guys just have such a vibe of good about them. I am seriously hoping to catch up with the boys next year, possibly at burning man.

They are currently taking donations towards saving the wilderness in their area. Anyone that donates can get prints of some of their photos or if you donate $100, you can get a Scenic Boys book! So head to their blog and donate from there.

ScenicBoys: Glacier View Wilderness from scenicboys on Vimeo.

I knew they wouldn’t let me down. The Scenicboys have put together a video of their time at Burning Man. The email I got from the boys a week or two ago basically talked about burning man for a few paragraphs but the ultimate message was that it wasn’t something that could be described in words. How FUN!

ScenicBoys: Burning Man from scenicboys on Vimeo.

Matthew Brown is a guy who makes beautiful movies. I came across his work through the Scenicboys whom he is good friends with and goes on camping trips with. He’s made this very powerful movie using footage that he’s taken on trips with Garet and Dusty and their other Scenicboy friends, combining it with audio from bigoted supposed Christians in the U.S. It makes for quite a sobering movie with the audio being I presume intentionally quite at odds with the luscious imagery of these very healthy, happy, loving gay men enjoying life.

GAY = SIN from Matthew Brown on Vimeo.

Dusty and Garet, who collectively make up the Scenic Boys, sometimes with others, have just posted this video of them enjoying a white christmas and Snowpocalypse as they’ve named it with friends. If I was going to have a white Christmas, I’d have to travel a long way but hanging out with friends enjoying taboganning and a hot tub and nude snow angels and all sorts of other merriment, I would love to have a Christmas like this.

ScenicBoys: Snowpocolypse 2008 from scenicboys on Vimeo.

Every time I see the videos and photos of the scenicboys I find myself with a dopey grin on my face. It’s rare in this world these days to see two people so happy and seemingly perfectly suited to one another. You can tell they just bounce off each other’s energy and enthusiasm and shared passions. Garet surprised Dusty with a week long trip to the Carribean to mark their 2nd anniversary.

Being the total romantic I am, it makes me happy to see these guys on their adventures together. There are vague plans for me to get to the U.S. next year and I’d love to catch up with these two if I can.

I used to call myself a hopeless romantic but as a reader pointed out, even if I let go of the expectation of finding love and romance, I don’t think I’ll ever give up hope.