So I realize I recently posted about the amazeballs indescribableness that is BLAZING SWAN but, in a surely hopeless effort at a minimal amount of timeliness, I’m gonna go head ‘n do it again. ‘Cause I just got back from the 2016 Blaze, and lemme tell y’all in advance, this year kicked my fucking ass. So much so I’ve been home sick for days, with plenty of time to rant…  And for all y’all newbies who’ve never heard of a Blazing Swan, it’s basically what Burning Man should be, Aussie style.  Or check this: Blazing Swan.

As last year’s Blaze brought you Nina’s Top 10 Things That May Happen To You at the Blazing Swan, involving naked unicorns, free shots, and cunt rocks, this year we’ll venture further afield, to explain:

Nina’s Top 10 List of Shit Not To Pull At Blazing Fucking Swan

So come to the Swan, the next one’s in only 374 days (I’m not even gonna lie, I’m fuckin’ totally counting), but under no circumstances whatsoever attempt the following:

10: Do not fuck in the Swan’s ass

This may seem simple to avoid, but this year’s swan was actually a double-swan so awesome that you could walk into their asses and climb up their backs. To which my bestie (I love you, Hobo!) of course responded “Ooo, it’s a fucking room!” Which I should’ve taken literally, obvs, but did not, until the next evening, when I was woken from my lil’ nappy-poo by the sounds of… yup, you know what.  Apparently the Swan’s ass gets a lotta visitors and the “fuck room party” migrated to her tent, conveniently located about four goddam feet from my head.  Grump. But it’s cool, the ridiculously high-decibel moaning and groaning motivated me to get up and go dance.  You know, after I surveyed the entire neighborhood to see who else she’d woken up.  Current count stands at 6 of us.  DAMN.

And no, in the name of modesty everywhere (hahahahahahahahahaha), I’m not even getting into what she did, in broad-ass daylight, the next day, in that tent.  Nope, nope, nope.

9: Do not bring shit gear

And speaking of that neighboring tent, a short list of things you should not purchase and expect to keep you safe / dry / sane at the Swan:

• $15 K-mart tents with no fly and the shortest tent pegs made by man;
• K-mart air-matresses, which in fact do not stand up to spiky death-dealing double-gees and require emergency replacements supplied by lovely ole’ me (I love you, my new fav Canooks!);
• Any type of footwear not made of impermeable plastic (I love you, cowboy boots! Sadly, however, you are not particularly water- or mud-proof…)
• My head-lamp.  Fuck you, my brand new headlamp that busted on DAY FUCKING ONE. Yes, fuck you in the Swan’s ass.
• Thongs only. ‘Cause taking a header off a corn-hole board in the pitch black, owing to helping my lovely friend (I love you, Pussy Shaman!) re-stake his $15 K-MART TENT (yes, there was more than one fuck-wit who pulled that shite) with only my FUCKING BROKEN HEADLAMP has left me with bruises and bloodiness I may retain for some weeks.

8: Do not glitter-fuck your besties. Again.

Now as some of you know, your fearless Nina occasionally moonlights as The Glitter Queen of Blazing Swan. She has been known to use whole cartons of glitter (sorry dude, I know it wasn’t mine, but The People Required) in one go, to destroy working men’s hair-do’s for upcoming weeks (sorry my Turk, I thought you were the Scotsman!), and once to actually apply so much fuckin’ glitter someone was picking it out of their ass for a month.  Whatevs, Ninas live to glitter.

So it’s Sunday night. It’s been a fuck of a day.  I mean a fuck of a week. And my buddy (I love you, Spa-Owner!), being a tad more intoximicated than usual, has just fessed up to a mighty, might sin. He’s actually admitted the following:

S-O: “So, I’ve actually never been glittered.”

Me: “?????!!!!!!!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!??”

S-O: “Umm, well, I’m kinda shy.  So, umm, would you like, umm, glitter me?”

Me: “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

So S-O got glittered, and he looked AMAZING AMAZING (well, he looked SPARKLY SPARKLY in any case), as did everyone else, and we all were filled with joy!  Two days later…

The Swan is over, and trust me, Blazing come-downs are rough, so I’m trolling through facebook attempting to relive the best week ever, when I see a shot of S-O in his glitter face.  It’s just as fantabulous as I recall (go me!), until a couple comments later I realize it’s happened again.  ‘Cause S-O’s s.o. has just commented that glitter was actually discovered inside his person.  Fuck me.  Or them, apparently.  Soooooo not my fault!

7: Do not get naked painted by a unicorn in a thunderstorm

Ok, so this was also like, totes not my fault. Also I wasn’t naked. But still things managed to head hella south hella quickly…

Back to Saturday, which had basically become Day of Naked, except of course it was raining.  Like, nowhere near the apocalyptic flood of Blazing Swan 1, but well more than was pleasant, and the mud was rising…  Eh, fuck it, the Unicorns are having a body-art-painting exhibition in their dome (yes, they have a DOME), and the dome is dry.  And it was totally the saddest thing, cause right after I got bikini painted (yes, yes, go ahead and paint my nipples, that’s totally not the rudest thing anyone’s done to me even TODAY, and thanks very much for asking consent first (I love you, dude who’s name I TOTALLY REMEMBER NOW! HA!)), the Heavens once again opened and wrathed upon us. Like, Jesus damn, we hadn’t even been thrown outta the Church yet, what did we do to deserve this shit?? But the Unicorns, being Unicorns, were undeterred. And oh, they marched, in their soggy, streaking, once-beautiful art, and it was joyous. I marched my ass at a half-run back to my soggy-ass hobo-camp (see #4) to wait for the naked apron party (nudity optional, aprons required?). ‘Cause Naked Day!

6: Do not miss your call for the lip synch battle

Ok, so like,

a) This was not my fault;

b) I realize I’ve been saying that a lot, but like, seriously,

c) This was not my fault.

Yes, it was pointed out to me that I actually designed, laminated, and gifted out schedules of every bloody event at the entire damn Swan, of which I did indeed keep one on my person, but still.  How the fuck was I meant to remember how to read when shit was occurring, especially given my known fondness for bad wine??

In any case, some lovely people (I love you, Disco King, my Turk and the Llama!) had decided, drunkenly, a couple weeks previously, to sign me up to the Lip Synch Battle Saturday arvo. Which I swear I heard as “blah blah blah SINGING IN PUBLIC blah blah Sunday.”

Me: “Sweet!  Can I pick the song? Y’all damn well know I only sing one thing…”

The Turk: “Haha, we know, we already downloaded it!”

So blah blah long story short, I was drunk somewhere on Sat, waiting for Day of Naked, stopped for a wine-run, absolutely convinced the Battle was Sunday, and my friend runs up like, “Yo! Nina! They’re calling your name!  Aren’t you meant to be like, rapping or some shit?”

Me: Fuck

So I ran to the tent and omg there were like 300 people watching, wtf.  Like I couldn’t even get in to my own performance!  That I’d missed. Also I’d prepared literally NOTHING and was wearing…. well, let’s just say they used to be leg warmers and leave it at that.

So I shoved and wheedled and whinged and shoved and made it to the stage, and then this happened, and it was AMAZEBALLS:

Nina’s Amazeballs (haha) Lip Synch

And that is why you should never be late when your friends sign you up for public awesome-embarassment.

5: Do not spend 2.5 hrs alone in your tent googling death shit

So not to like, get into shit or whatever, but sometimes you get into shit.  And then that shit gets into you.  And then you realize you may’ve imbibed a tad more shit that you might should’ve.  Yes, even those of us with Nina-levels of tolerance.  And then you go:

Me: “Yo, Hobo, I gotta siddown.”

Hobo: “Cool.”

Me: Yeah that ain’t fuckin’ doin’ it, “Yo, Hobo, I gotta go flat in my tent for a bit.”

Hobo: “Cool.”

So I head to my tent, decide that water is HEALTH (oh, and I’ve only managed like 500ml of the shit in like… 48 hours? Fuck me). Yes!  Water!  Water will totally fix and restore me to health!  So I open a water and pour the entire fucking bottle onto my pillow. Directly.  Didn’t even like, aim for the mouth.  Oh well fuck it, water is for healthy people anywho.  Yup, and food is for fat people, ’cause fucker, I’ve had 1 piece of bread for dinner 😦  And then I do a face-plant, full on glitter-face, into the pillow-water (I do NOT love you, my Wee-Friend, for so terribly glittering my face!).

About 30 minutes later, I levitate my water-glitter-face and get some actual agua into my actual mouth (success!  This night is now officially a success 🙂 and whip out my phone.  I find that dicking around with my bestie (yes, dears, my actual bestie is my iPhone.  Deal with it) often sobers me.  Or at least distracts me from my obscene insobriety…  But not last Thursday, man, whatever I’d done to my brain was just hella un-soberable.  And that is how I spent the next two hours half-dozing / half-googling things I should REALLY not have been googling in my mental state.  On the other hand, I was entertained as a cunt on a rock, me in my now plaster-glitter-face, dank-ass pillow (it’s cool, everything else in my tent got dank-ass-ed the next day anyway, when the rain kicked in) and kinda half-dressed idiocy (I swear to God my corset turned into a goblin and tried to choke me the second I got in my tent.  It took an act of willpower I will never again equal to subdue the fucker, but oh, subdue it I did).

Upon deciding that I was now sober (hahahahahahahahaha bald-faced idiotic lie) and that I could no longer listen to my Swan-ass-fucking neighbor who had clearly relocated to the inside of my skull (See point #10), I exited the tent.  With clothes, promise, though different ones, as I didn’t actually reconcile with my corset-goblin for a couple days…  And proceeded to have the most absolutely fascinating conversation I’ve ever had, with the Wizard and his adorable gf.  I’m reasonably convinced that this convo was not in fact fascinating for them AT ALL so, AGAIN and now publicly, I’m sorry.  Bad Nina.  You’re welcome for the vision of my fish-scale-like glitter-water mess of a face though 🙂

In any case, some peeps went out dancing after that, I had like, literally the best 4 hours of my life after that.  SO totally my fault 🙂

4: Do not expect things of the Hobos

My camp at the Swan is amazing.  It is Silent Disco, occasionally Naked Silent Disco and, for the better part of this year’s Blaze, Soggy Not So Much Disco.  That said, we are also not the most… coordinated of camps.  Nor the most well fed.  Nor the driest when God opens the Heavens and shits thunderstorms all over my glitter.  In fact, we are hobos.  Homeless, couch-surfing, often tent-less, ever-entertaining hobos. Like, when our friend Sharon mentioned she was gifting us two cases of free NICE wine, we jumped, even though her explanation went something like, “Y’all’re hobos.  I’m trying to up your game.” Ignoring the fact this is just patently impossible, it also didn’t help that we demolished those 24 bottles in about 24 hours.

We also aren’t so coordinated on the food (see #3 below).  Like, we had a shit-ton left over, but none of it actually like…. went together?  Seriously one night I had to feed the Canook this:

 

Which he housed after I’d made him a “white bread-“special sauce”-bbq sauce-feta-cheddar-pickle sandwhich.” We also had “corn spaghetti” for brekkie once, though I will say it really wasn’t terrible.

On the other hand, we, or at least I, am pretty dang good at housing people.  Our couches are always open, even when random Italians drop off some passed out dude who face-planted in front of our tent, off a combo of too-many-substances / wayyyyyy-too-little-sleep.  I even covered that fucker up!  I mean, with a dirty stolen poncho, but it counts 🙂 I also directed helpers for the seizure dude, babysat The Saddest Girl I’ve Ever Seen (omg stop fucking crying already, Ninas want to dance!), and cushion-barricaded our poor dear Bysil, who’d become homeless and was sleeping on our foul-ass couch. 

Oh! Side note! K-brew is amazeballs! (unrelated, she’s just pissy she never gets a blog mention and I don’t want her defriending me 🙂

3: Do not take on The Wizard

Sunday dawns.  It is slightly less dank.  I am not feeling…. amazing.  I am in fact feeling even worse than previous days’ “like shit in a blender on fire.” Perhaps its the two hours sleep I’ve had? Clearly it needs a cider…  During my cider run, another Discoer who will forever remain unnamed (I love you… You!) decided that Today Was His Day to Get Fucked.  I mean, with beer, obvs.  And in his defense, he really went for it, no half-way measures.  He straight-up challenged the previous Swan’s Wizard of Beer to a game of Wizard, which kinda goes like this, except apparently Aussie cunts have way more entertaining variations.  So the game was played, and won, and a number of other challengers had their asses handed to them in the process.  No one was injured, well, that’s a lie, but we’re “not talking about that”, and I glittered many more faces and bits and bobs.  Unfortunately, karma is a dick.  No Name played too hard and missed dinner, thus subjecting himself to my famous and amazing “tasty cheese slices n’ sriracha on white bread”, while the Wizard had an utter and most entertaining fail and didn’t even win.  Ha!

2: Do not go to Church

So, shockingly, it turns out you actually can be kicked out of a bar at the Blaze…  Erm, I mean, “politely asked to drink some water and, you know, maybe just take your shit-show elsewhere.” And honestly, that lovely homemade-absinthe-slingin’ bartenderess kinda had a point.

Clearly we’d been swiggin’ shots up in the Church of Beligerence, which is AMAZING, btdubs, when my dear friend (I love you, Short Stuff!) turned to me and said:

SS: “Hey, so do you think the Albatross would let me measure his penis? He’s really tall.”

Me: “I’m fairly certain he’d let you do that right here in this bar, yes.”

SS: “OOOO,” drunky mumbling, “Will you ask him for me??”

Me: “…” Pokes The Albatross on shoulder.

The Albatross: “…” Drops trou, penis appears.

Me: told you so. (And I love you, the Albastross!)

SS: “Erm,” drunky mumbling.

Me: “You didn’t really think this through did you, what with not having a ruler or anything.”

SS: “Erm,” drunky mumbling, increasing in sadness.

Me: “It’s cool, my extended hand is exactly 8″ long.  Don’t ask.”

Measurement is taken.

Me: “Yeah, that’s about 7.5 inches.”

The Albatross looks on in general boredom.

SS: “But, but, what’s inches?”

Me: “I don’t fucking know, I’m American.  They’re inches!”

Surrounding crowd of friends and strangers: “Erm,” calculating calculating, 5 minutes pass…

The Engineer: “Yeah that’s like 18.5 cm. Soft.”

Me: ohmygod this is going even further downhill quicker…

SS: “Wowwwwww…”

Me: “Dude, SS, you know he’s gay, right?”

SS: “?!?!?!  No!! No!! That’s not right!!  The inhumannnnnnity!!”

Suffice it to say The Albatross quickly departed for soberer pastures, SS was asked to water herself, and I departed on a wine-run.  Successfully thrown out of Church!

1: And finally, Do not fuck with the Unicorns

Now this may be impossible to believe, but it also turns out you actually can be thrown out of a fucking Burning Man. Like, seriously, what in the name ever-lovin’ Christ could anyone possibly do to get thrown out of a communal orgy of firey death explosions, naked, glittered fuck-wittery?  Lemme just elaborate.

So trouble’s been a-brewin’ in the merry ole’ land of Oz. For the past six months-ish, I’ve been hearing some disturbing rumors of an upcoming war between the Unicorn Camp and Fort Swan.

Side Note- yes, we are all adults here, hypothetically, it’s just that some Blazers like to dress up as unicorns upon occasion, and other Blazers like to build tanks.  Whatevs, that bit’s fine.

No, the problem seems to be that unicorns are fond of things like glitter and rainbows and rainbow-colored butt-plugs, whereas Fort Swan is fond of flamethrowers and strippers and all things non-rainbow-hued.  Personally I very much enjoy both sides of the fence, but what I enjoy even more is All Out War Between Unicorns and a Tank.

So things slid downslope, and a week before the Blaze I realized that Fort Swan was now armed with literal flame-throwers, a fucking flame-shooting tank, unicorn-hunting net-guns, and what appeared to be an actual honest-to-god helicopter. That shoots fire, clearly, ’cause like, Fort Fuckin’ Swan.

It got so ridic that I hesitantly felt out one of my Unicorn buddies to make sure they knew what was coming (I love you, TezOz!), which conversation went:

Me: “So, uhh, you know Fort Swan is planning a Unicorn hunt, right?  Like, with net-guns and a cage some dude welded up to cage you?”

TezOz: “Omg they made a cage? Can we get naked and fuck in the cage??”

At which point I said, yeah I’m out, all a y’all’re on your own, and I can’t fuckin’ wait to watch this shit!

So it’s Friday. I’ve been to Church (yay for absinthe on Good Friday, sirs!). The Unicorns are parading about 50 strong, predominantly in their birthday suits. Fort Swan, on the other hand, is armed.  Heavily.  Mainly in army gear, occasionally in nurse outfits…  And the Unicorns are heading straight for it.  Jesus fuck me, where am I??

In the end it went off pretty well, the Fort was indeed penetrated, but they put up a good fight.  A naked Unicorn was indeed net-gunned and caged, but she seemed to enjoy it?  A flame-throwing motorcycle was violently humped by a half-ass-naked Unicorn, but it survived.  And no one got flame-thrower-ed, so there’s that!

But wait, you ask, who’s been banned from the Swan?  What actually went down on the last night at the Blaze?  Sorry y’all, in the best interests of everyone present that evening, very much including your fearless narrator herself,

“Nothing happened, nothing went down, everyone is fine, nothing happened at all, and I don’t wanna fuckin’ talk about it.”

I had a motherfuckin’ fantastic time, however, and even got to entertain myself with a giant flame-thrower, so I’d say everyone’s a winner?

P.S.- Amongst the innumerable things you totally should do at the Blaze, apparently such as sleep a grand total of 25 hours is 6 nights, is my hands-down fav of the year:

DO discuss how quantum theory applies to your personal life situation, with an engineer, whilst utterly fucked off your face on God alone knows what. You will learn amazing things, such as:

Theorem: Past Nina is done, no need to worry about her or her disasters.

+

Theorem: Everything not actually happening currently is in reality happening to Future Nina;

1. Addendum: Future Nina will never actually arrive (thank fuck), what with her being Future Nina and always staying handily in the future and all;
2. Addendum: There are, in fact, an infinite number of potential Future Ninas, as everything is possible, therefore,

Conclusion: All things Nina cares not to do, disagrees with, cannot fucking deal with, or otherwise gives negative fucks about, will henceforth be referred to Future Nina’s Problems, and will not be dealt with by me.

We like this, and we call it Quantum Nina.