Kevin Allison (4:45)
You might call it a phobia, a fear. I would say it was a medically reasoned fear, but I had developed this fear that my leg was gonna fall off. I know that maybe sound crazy like phobia, but it was very real. It all kind of stemmed out of the fact that I had a hip replacement recently. And I was very concerned about doing any little thing that might jar might upset the joint cause it would fall apart. I remember I was in the doctor and I was fairly young, I was 40 years old. And he looks at my X ray and goes, and he's Russian. He goes, Mr. Hearst, you have hip of an 80 year old man. An 80 year old man. That's not good. And he says, you're going to have to have a hip replacement. So I do that and I notice he has the model of the hip in front of me. And so I'm playing around with it and it just comes apart in my hand and I kind of laughs, I broke your model, doc. And he goes, it is not broken. But what holds it together? I mean, this is just a model. The real one won't just pop apart. And he goes, no, that is the real one. But what holds it together? You, you hold it together. Your muscles, your body, it holds it together. And I was freaking out. I was responsible for holding me together. That's the way your hip works. I thought, oh crap. And that's allowed this kind of fear to fall into my head that if I bent too far over or moved too much this way, or if I jumped or tripped or something, it would just pop off and my leg would flop around like some boneless chicken. And so in this kind of hysteria and panic mode. And I was on disability from work for like three or four months as recuperating, doing rehab and all of this. My girlfriend had gotten this call from her friends in San Francisco that they were all going to go to Burning Man. And I thought, yes, that's what I need. I need to go to Burning Man. Really not fully considering my hip, would I be ready in the three more months to actually walk around in the desert and party the way I wanted to party needlessly? We go to Burning man and I'm already Starting to panic because there are thousands and thousands of people, close to 50,000 people. The circumference of Burning Man, I think it's about 10 miles. And these people just arrive out of nowhere. And a city develops. And I'm really excited because Margo's friends are theater people. And I always, you know, I'm a theater geek from high school. And they're also. And she said, now be aware, they're gay, but the whole camp is gay. And I thought, well, that's fine. I don't have any problem with it. That's great. And so we get there and we meet her friends Charlie and Mark, and they tell me that the camp's name is the Little Crack Whores. And of course, little spelled the cute way L apostrophe I L. And the logo is kind of like the Coppertone girl, but this is more of an androgynous figure. And you realize that the crack, it's not, you know, it's not drugs. It's. It's ass. And these are a bunch of guys that are really having a lot of fun in the desert. We get our tent set up, and we're outside of the main tent. And the main tent is amazing. One of the guys, this older gentleman, was an architect, and he'd gotten these. I don't even know quite what they are. They're kind of like billboard tarp kind of things. And they weren't Abercrombie and Fitch, but they were something like that. So they were all these, like, male torsos that are just muscled and no fat. And the tent itself looked like something out of the Arabian Nights, the kasbah kind of a thing. And so inside this giant tent, there were all everybody's little tents. And then the hangers on, which was me and my girlfriend, were on the outside. And I'm very excited. I'm really kind of nervous because my hip doesn't feel right. And what's also embarrassing is that I can't really even put on my shoes and socks. And so my girlfriend has. Has to put them on for me. So it's like kind of the level that I'm at, but I'm excited. We go and we start meeting people and everyone is nice, but in that kind of nice way. You know, it's like I said, oh, they think I'm Margo's straight boyfriend. And we gotta be, you know, watch our P's and Q's around. Who let the straight guy in here? And I said, this can't stand. And so the next Day, they had a big party, a little crack whore party. And Margot, my girlfriend, decided that. That she was going to. Had packed me some costumes. I forget what it was, but it was something stupid as, like, husky girl or, you know. And so I had this little blue jean skirt and a yellow kind of frilly chemise that was kind of off the shoulder. And it allowed a little midriff or muffin top in my case. And I thought, you know, heck, I'm gonna do this. And so I get dressed up, and my hair was kind of long at the time, so I got us this flowery headband. I put on makeup and. And I'm all excited to get out and show the guys that I'm, you know, one of the girls. And I realize that the jean short skirt is too short and that if I lift up my. My stuff, as it were, kind of would peek out, like, peek a boo. Hello. Oh, my God. My stuff is, like, just out. And there I was like, I know I wanted to be a crack whore, but how much of a crack whore did I want to be? I know that maybe that's not the most politically correct, but, you know, hey, when in Rome. So I thought, you know, I'm going to be proud, hold my shoulders back, and if the stuff is peekabooing out, then let it peek a boo. And they just loved it. And they were like, oh, my God. And I forget. They called me Carla, I think, for a while. And it was. It was great. Now I was one of the guys or one of the girls or whatever, and was kind of accepted, and we had great fun. And Charlie and Mark, Margo's best friends, I got along fabulously with them. It's so rare in life that you meet people where you just feel instantly at home. And Charlie's from the South. He's originally from Kentucky, and he's about my age. Mark's a little younger, and he's from Trinidad. And they both look famous. I don't know how to put it. Mark looks like he could be like the love child of Mick Jagger and David Bowie. And I was telling Mark that I just. I want to go dance. And so he slips me some ecstasy. And I'd never done ecstasy before, which I highly recommend because I was so touchable. So felt so good to be in my own skin. And after being so worried about my leg falling off, it was nice to not have to worry about that. And so we would go out dancing. And I got to talk to Charlie, and he was also from the south, and so we really commiserated on living these awful Southern childhoods. And I told him about my dad. My dad was such a horror show. Just a horrible person who I. Now I look back, I think. I'm pretty sure he thought I was gay because I loved to dance. And he would say fun things like, turn off that God damn nigger music. I don't want no son of mine flouncing around like no goddamn faggot. And I'm telling Charlie this, who grew up in Kentucky, and it's like we understood. And he still got that little bit of an accent and it just felt like home. And he was telling me about how his brother would always tease him calling him Charles Nelson Riley. And it was great. And he kept on mentioning. And I remember being astounded because art was popping up everywhere in Burning Man. Every empty space there would be some art. And not just art, but the people were art. You know, it's like people talk about being in New York, that you can really be yourself, but it's more of an apathetic because nobody cares. But when I was there, I felt like not so much people cared. But everybody was so glad that you were being a performer. They didn't want you to sit on the sidelines and if you dressed in some crazy outfit or whatever, you would get applause. People would come up and give you some water or a treat or drugs, you know, if you're very lucky. We'll be right back.
