The NFL, Destiny's Child, and organic dog food irrelevant?

While I generally prefer to write my own stuff rather than just re-post the work of others, this is too good to pass up.

Mark Morford, SFGate.com (the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle) columnist, went to Burning Man '05 to blog from the Playa (and hell yes I'm jealous; I mean, why isn't someone paying me to blog from the world's biggest party??). Unfortunately, BM this year coincided with Hurricane Katrina, and while the revelers reveled, the news of the flooding, the devastation, the death, and the pitiful federal response mounted.

Readers of Morford's blog responded via e-mail. Morford explains:

And these e-mails, with more than a little bitter condescension or holier-than-thou snicker, asked me this: "How the hell could you be out there dancing and reveling and drinking badly mixed margaritas and eating camp-stove-cooked gourmet food and imbibing all those unholy joys when the worst natural disaster in recent U.S. history just hammered Louisiana like a Republican hammers welfare?"

This is what they argued. Doesn't it make Burning Man seem completely trite and superfluous and overindulgent? Don't you feel more than a little, you know, silly, trying to write about your childish little otherworldly sexed-up art-rave survivalist-camping thing with even the slightest hint of seriousness in the aftermath of this horrible tragedy and loss of life and the fact that we have a grossly inept president who sits around the ranch smoking stogies with his oil cronies and chuckling while the corpses of thousands of poor mostly black Americans bobble around Louisiana and Mississippi?

And of course my reply is, well, hell yes, of course Burning Man is utterly gratuitous, and excessive, and more than a little ridiculous, especially in the wake of Katrina -- just as, say, NFL football has become suddenly pointless, and also the auto industry, and celebrity, and organic dog food and ornithology and Destiny's Child or the fact that the ultraviolent cheese of "Transporter II" took in $20 mil over this past tragedy-thick weekend, enough to repair at least a few schools and roadways in Biloxi. You have a point?

These are, after all, the weird swipes of the universe, the jarring simultaneous juxtapositions we cannot control, a wild sybaritic celebration contrasted with an epic heartbreaking disaster and you cannot, as a BM participant, escape the painful and weirdly fascinating irony of it all. We all feel small and heartbroken.

But here's the thing: While the circumstances and the remoteness of the event meant most Burning Man participants had little or no idea of the extent of Katrina's wrath, as soon as news did begin to trickle in, the call went out and Burners immediately rallied and funds were immediately raised across the camp, and word has it that the money gathered reached into the tens of thousands within two or three days, with zero PR or advertising or formal pleas from Angelina Jolie or the Red Cross and sans any blank-eyed stares from our useless president.

Hell, on one level, everything becomes moot and hollow in the wake of epic death tolls and a massive karmic shock. Everything seems trite and pointless and more than a little insulting to your deeper consciousness. Sept. 11 was the death of irony and humor and pop culture for a good six months. Horrific events like Katrina inject a temporary numbness into all sense of play. Death and inexpressible loss trump all cultural protests. Same as it ever was.

But there's another angle, too. Let us argue the obvious but necessary flip-side notion that, in the wake of any national disaster or mounting death toll, it is exactly those things that celebrate life that we turn to because they offer salve and balm and resurrection of spirit.

Well said. As we head off to enjoy yet another weekend of merriment and mirth, let us not forget that it is important to celebrate life and friendships. Let us also proudly proclaim that we need neither tax breaks nor MTV to convince us to care about our fellow man.