Drowning Man
by Tyler Hanson
On a side note, side story that has to do with another "Floating World"
I once was part of. In 1995 I was fishing in the Bearing Sea around the
1st of Sept. I was a cook on a huge 360' factory trawler. I needed/wanted
to do something in honor of the Burn, being some 3,000 miles away and
with no land in sight. So I cut out this cardboard figurine of the man
that was about 2 feet tall. And went out on deck, with this very proud
shit eatin' grin on my face, and poured lighter fluid on the cardboard
dude. I then attempted to light the "man" on fire. Which was to no avail
as "the seas were angry that day my friends." So I threw him overboard.
The 30-60 mph winds caught the figurine and twirled it around, with the
100's of birds that are always flying along side the boat acting as our
escorts, till he finally fell to the sea. It was and is still a beautiful
image in my head.
I said "Fair enough, the drowning man." And went to go back to my cabin.
But, my captain, oh captain my captain, had watched the whole thing. And
he was looking down at me through the windows of the bridge with the fire
I needed to light my man in his eyes. His mouth silently yelled "Get the
hell up here!". I climbed the stairs, and enter the bridge where for 15
minutes he was yelling and cursing about fire on the boat and what the
hell was I thinking, dumb shit for brains and on and on. I tried to get
a few words in. But trying to explain Burning Man to a captain who has
spent more time out at sea than he has on land was pretty much a futile
attempt.
Needless to say, the only reason that they did not fire me, and did they
ever want to fire me, was on the grounds that The Man was my religious
belief. And therefore, it would have been religious discrimination had
they done so. How they came to this conclusion, all on their own, is still
a baffle to me.
The rumors on the boat that spread around the crew of 150 in the following
days, were that I worshiped/followed this cult from somewhere in Colorado?!?
And they actually sacrificed people once a month by burning them in these
bonfires way out in the middle of the desert. And as part of this "belief"
I needed to sacrifices a figurine once a month or else I would perish
in...god knows what.
So to comprise my religious practices, the mate, who was from Norway and
very interested yet confused as to what "Burning Man" was all about, told
me in his "Wegi" accent: "Ah you know, if you have to, you can burn a
figurine of your "Man" in the incinerator once a month."
I never did though. Drowning the Man once gave me my fix. And seemed to
fit so much better while I was floating through the endlessly surreal
world of the Bearing Sea.
