On 05/04/01, argus wrote:

> > (GoTT helped me focus my priorities and become more grounded
> > than I think I've ever been. Ask me in person for details if
> > you're curious, but part of it is that I'm quite entirely
> > uninterested in putting a lot of my own energy into small,
> > intentionally exclusive events. An ocean refuses no river!)
>
> so you'll be buShackin cheese then, or is burningman intentionally
> exclusive?

First off, lemme apologize if that overexcited parenthentical comment of mine gave anyone any weird feelings (unless they're kinda feeling you used to get when we'd climb the rope in gym class, in which case, go for it!) The benefit is sure to be a beautiful thing, YOU'RE a beautiful thing, each and every one of you (yes, even you lurking back there, don't think I haven't noticed), it is simply that my own trip has changed.

I forgot about this for a little while, but Todd indirectly reminded me: what bianca does at Burning Man is a big part of what's led me to this new trip. See, we share love. Every year, we put months of hard work into creating a space that provides happiness to ANYONE who shows up. Most of the time we don't even know them, we don't know their experiences until their story shows up on a web search and we all suddenly get warm fuzzies thinking about how we were able to create a fun safe happy shacky environment that really made a difference in somebody's life.

The fun we'd had at Burning Man inspired Todd and I to keep playing together, culmnating in a near-perfect set at the Semiconscious Liberation Army's one-off funk event in Oakland. Unfortunately, very little from that night was successfully recorded. Todd caught a couple of our prior practice sessions on minidisc, which I've linked from here.

This is where I got good, thanks largely to playing with Todd. Our first tag-team session was Thursday evening; afterwards we gathered some more friends and wandered around most of the night, then came back in the morning to join forces with Dan Haskvoec and Monk E to play a nice morning shackgroove set, partially captured on minidisc.