I’ve been percolating the idea for this trip since even before Jan. 23, when I first discussed it on my personal blog. Beyond simply covering the events, the journey is a big part of how I’m envisioning the story. I’ve never driven past western Nevada or anywhere near this far (seven hours to Black Rock City and another 16 on to Denver). Hell, I don’t even own a car and don’t particularly like the things, opting instead to get around mostly by bicycle (which I’ll also do in Denver and BRC). So this is sort of a Bizarro version of my last project of this nature: covering the Towards Carfree Cities conference with daily posts to this blog.

But the automobile is a huge part of our national mythology and ethos, so much so that the streets of Black Rock City (which are renamed each year according to the art theme) are this year a tribute to American cars: Allanté, Bonneville, Corvair, Dart, Edsel, Fairlane, Gremlin, Hummer, Impala (the very vehicle I’ll be driving on this trip), Jeep, and K-car.

My alternative transportation compatriots howled over this apparent celebration of fossil fuel consumption (a real U-turn from last year’s Green Man theme), just as they complained when the Democratic National Convention organizers decided to ban bicycles from the convention grounds (Note to readers: I plan to avoid referring to the site as the Pepsi Center and will stick with Mile High Stadium, instead of its silly new INVESCO Field at Mile High moniker, because the corporate sponsors didn’t pay a dime to me or the Guardian).

For Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, America’s stubborn affection for automobiles represents a real challenge. On the final night of the convention, Al Gore is expected to renew his call for drastically rolling back fossil fuel consumption to the massive crowd that drove or flew to Denver for the party. All the experts say dealing seriously with climate change, air pollution, or declining public health means we all have to drive less, but politicians say so at their peril.

As for Larry Harvey, he’s just trying to be provocative. After announcing the theme, Larry told me, “There was a cascade of denunciations and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It pricked people where they should be stimulated.” He asks critics to read his essay explaining the theme: “It says that America has lost its way.”

But he also said that the disaffected Left and other critics of what America has become need to find a vision of America to fight for, something to believe in, whether it’s our Bill of Rights (pictured on Burning Man tickets this year) or some emerging manifestation of the country. “Americans need to find our pride again,” Harvey told me. “We can’t face our shame unless we find our pride.” In that, he sounds a bit like Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party pols that will grace podiums next week.

I’m still dubious and tend toward Tolstoy’s view of patriotism: that it’s a bane to be abolished, not a virtue to be celebrated. Larry and I have talked a lot of politics as I’ve covered the event over the last four years, and those discussions have sharpened as he’s subtly prodded participants to become more political and as burners have reached out into the world through ventures such as Black Rock Arts Foundation, Burners Without Borders, and Black Rock Solar.

This is probably a good time for some of those disclosures I mentioned. I’ve become friends with many of the event’s key staffers (some, like BWB’s Tom Price, through reporting out their stories). This year, one employee (not a board member) who I’m particularly close to even gave me one of the few “Gift” tickets that they have to hand out each year, ending my five-event run of paying full freight (and then some). Many of the event’s top artists routinely get free tickets, and they’ve also been distributed to members of the Board of Supervisors (who have in turn passed them to their aides) and other community leaders.

I, like many San Francisco journalists, am also friends with many Democratic Party operatives. One of them is Donnie Fowler, who lives here, consults with Al Gore, ran John Kerry’s Michigan campaign in ’04, came in second to Howard Dean for DNC chair, and will be driving back to Black Rock City with me after Obama’s acceptance speech next Thursday night. And I’ll state flat out that I want a Democrat in the White House in January and consider Republicans at this point to be, well, not evil exactly, but certainly corrupt, dangerous, hypocritical, naive, discredited, untrustworthy, and simply bad for the country.

So if you’re looking for objective, dispassionate analysis, this isn’t that kind of project. I sincerely want both the Democratic Party and Burning Man to succeed, but I’m sort of like a disgruntled lover of both, grown bitter and critical of their many shortcomings. In fact, I’m sort of hoping that they’ll be like cocoons, dying off in their old forms as they spawn something new this year.

Yet I’ll be a far more credible source of information than many of my supposedly objective colleagues in the mainstream media, simply because of how I work: I call events as I see them, eschew political spin, rarely let powerful people speak off the record (and never let them say contradictory things in public and private), refuse to join any political faction or even sign petitions, and feel no need to curry favor or cultivate friendly sources by pulling punches. It’s the only way I know how to work and it’s served me well through 17 years writing for newspapers in California.

Like Hunter S. Thompson wrote in Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72, my goal is to report and write, “as close to the bone as I could get, and to hell with the consequences.” He ignored the clubby, confidential modern conventions of political journalism, and I will as well. Instead, I’ll try to cut through the bullshit and tell you what Democratic power brokers are really saying. As the good doctor wrote, “The main trick of political journalism is learning how to translate.”

I’ve been rereading Fear and Loathing as I prepare for my trip and plan to draw from its lessons and essence, without descending into cheap mockery. The other voice in my ear these days is that of Jack Kerouac, whose On the Road is the seminal guide for San Francisco to Denver road trips: “Now I could see Denver looming ahead of me like the promised land, way out beneath the stars, across the prairie of Iowa and the plains of Nebraska, and I could see the greater vision of San Francisco beyond, like jewels in the night.”

As I wrote in the paper, I may be nuts to take this trip. And I know full well how crazy many of the characters are who I’ll be encountering on the playa (from Chicken John to Steven Raspa) and in the convention hall (from Chris Daly to John Burton). These are two groups that have watched America slowly and steadily go insane, going a bit bonkers themselves in the process.

Yet I’m drawn to the same types of people as Kerouac, who wrote, “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn…”