So, I went to Burning Man. If you don’t know what Burning Man is, it’s hard to explain for those who haven’t been there. It’s basically a temporary artistic kibbutz-like city that holds about a few thousand insane rave-heads for a seriously intense weeklong party in the middle of a desert in a nowhere part of Nevada. It’s a place where you can slug back a glass of wine at The Death to Barbie Camp and Wine Bistro, watch black and white spaghetti westerns as you eat spaghetti at a saloon while sitting on couches in a dust storm, and do a balloon of nitrous while someone paddles your heiny as the theme song of Facts of Life plays on a toy 45 record player running on a Solar Powered generator. It is painfully hot during the day in the vast wasteland, but when it becomes dark, it’s another world.

One particular night, I went out with my Burning Buddy, Zev, a fallen Hasidic Jew from New York, to venture into the vast sea of sand. Zev showed up at my tent wearing a zebra suit, wicker cowboy hat, and carrying some pure ecstasy pills, a.k.a MDMA (or as I like to call it, Run DMC). We easily tossed back the pills and headed out. Little did we know what awaited us. The drugs started to kick in almost immediately. I knew this because we sat on the cold sand for forty-five minutes in absolute awe of a mile long strip of three feet tall white lights thinking it was the most
beautiful thing we had ever seen. A neon fish bicycle rode by us and we smiled in our overwhelming joy and love for humanity. Then all of a sudden we saw it.

It looked like someone built a metal roadhouse and glued every crevice of the thing with pink roofing insulation. Either way, we were standing in front of The Pink Pussy Cat Lounge. We slowly wandered inside. The interior of the Lounge was the same as the exterior — pink and soft to the touch. And when you are rolling your butt off on the pure stuff, it feels amazing. As we heavy petted the maze of walls, we came upon the first room. We sat down on a pink furry bench and gazed around. There weren’t that many people around, but the five people that were there were all exuberantly overweight and fondling each other. It seemed we landed ourselves in a middle aged porno sponsored by Weight Watchers.

After some time, Zev and I decided to wander some more. Every hallway, every room in the Lounge was that same raw cotton candy color. Every room, except for one, it was green. It was green and small and it had one open door and a two-way rectangular mirror on the opposite side and handcuffs dangling off one of its green walls. We found it, the kidney of the Lounge. But the green furry walls, the handcuffs, the two-way mirror is not what surprised me when we stumbled on this room, but the buck naked, liver spotted, eighty-year old man with a fluorescent pink dildo strap-on covering up his giblets standing in the middle of it, did. We tried not to notice him, but it was difficult. There wasn't anywhere to sit. You couldn’t lean against a wall without feeling dirty, and it was such a cramped room that really you couldn’t glance anywhere without seeing the geriatric man with the dildo dangling between his legs. We stood there; our legs wouldn’t let us walk out of the room. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the shock, or maybe we were subconsciously curious what was going to happen next. The elderly man shuffled his way toward me. He hunched over and got close to my ear and said, "Would you mind if I ask you something?” Wary, I replied, "Sure." He leaned in closer and said, "Would you mind watching as I go down on your friend?” Stunned, I answered, “"Um, no, but I think you’ll have to ask him first.” The old man took a few steps toward Zev, and uttered a few words. Zev, with an odd smile on his face, shook his head, no. The old man sauntered up to me again, and said, "Can I ask you another question?” What else could he possibly ask me, I wondered? "Sure,"” I replied. He said, "Well, it’s more of a proposition. Would you mind holding this strap-on as I go down on it?” It’s pretty hard to floor me. But I was floored. I pondered his proposition for a few seconds and then said, "Let’s give it a go.” I mean, when else am I going to be in a Pink Pussy Cat Lounge in the Kidney Room with an eighty-year old man asking me to hold his pink dildo strap-on as he goes down on it? The situation doesn’t come up often. And the man, for all intents and purposes, seemed quite pleasant with nice manners, minus the fact he was naked and sporting a dildo. He unstrapped the item and handed me both straps. He got down on bended knees as I held the straps taut. Then he started flicking his tongue around the phallus. After a moment or two, Zev and I shared a look that it is time to move on. But, Miss Manners does not tell you how to get out of a delicate situation like this, so I had to improvise. I screamed at the top of my girlie lungs: "Deep Throat it! Deep Throat it!!” And the eighty-year old man unlocked his jaw, curled his thin chapped lips around the tip, and bit by bit took in the ten in a half inch latex dildo. Bingo. He hit pay dirt, and not just once but three times. I was wowed. Yes, I’ll say that again, I was wowed. I looked at Zev. He looked at me. What else could you do when you see this amazing feat but applaud? As I clapped for the naked man, I wondered to myself, how did he get here? Did he wake up one day and say, what I really want to do is exchange this sweater vest and pleated khakis for something a little more airy. He tried jogging suits but they didn’t do the job. He then tried mesh tank tops and short shorts. There was no stopping him. The flood gates were now open and he was getting closer. After a lot of combinations he decided no shirt and just a pair of tighty-whities worked for him… at least it did for awhile but something was missing. He wasn’t getting the freedom that he was craving. Then he tossed on a pair of banana hammocks. Sweet. With his junk properly snug as a wrinkled bug in a synthetic rug he ventured down the halls of the old folks home. After giving ninety-year old Mrs. Sanger a heart attack they told him, he had to express himself in different ways. He couldn’t handle it and busted out of the home and finally after hitching rides around the country he found his Mecca, Burning Man. Here, the world was his smut ridden oyster and he could dress or not dress however he liked and be among the people, his people. And that’s exactly how we found him, for one glorious week, he could be himself without “The Man” keeping him down, telling him what he couldn’t and could do. I felt bad for him. I would let him be whoever he wanted to be. I wonder what would happen if I brought him home. There are practical uses for an elderly naked guy with a strap on. He would never be approached by bums asking for change. I mean, where would he keep a quarter? And if he was walking with him, the homeless wouldn’t dare to bother me either. That chick must be a certifiable freak to associate herself with a naked old guy. I wouldn’t have to deal with lines at the movie, at the grocery store or at the ATM. He could pretend to me my dad, and deter dudes from asking me out. “Have you met my dad?” And they’d say something like, “Um, oh, nice pink dildo, sir. I’ve uh, gotta go.” But I brushed off the idea, patted the naked man on the back, and then Zev and I awkwardly excused ourselves and left the Pink Pussy Cat Lounge forever.