BUGGY NAKED

A brief explanation, if that is possible, is probably appropriate here. At least I’ll make this attempt…. Using the names of “real” people, by the way. I’ll just have them doing things that perhaps they didn’t really do. I figure that for many of these friends, it’ll be their best shot at fame. Suspend belief… All ye who enter here.

Back in the early 90’s when buggying was just getting started, at various times I’d meet up with friends out at a desert dry lake, hauling 4 buggies and a variety of kites to try. I needed 4 buggies; 1 to ride and 3 to share, so others could learn to ride.
On one occasion, out at El Mirage Dry Lake (“Elmer’s Garage”) in California, with Chuck Abney and Ron Gibian, sometime in ’92 or ’93, when the weather was sunny and breezy but chilly, at the end of our day, out in the middle of a vast open, desolate dry lake, we decided to commemorate our wonderful experience with an homage to the winds and open space.
We took off our clothes and went for a nekkid buggy ride.

We took pictures and video.

It was not entirely a random act. Earlier in the year, at a more traditional kite festival, one of the more traditional kiters remarked that this new buggy-thing looked quite dangerous.
Here was another failure to grasp our cultural reality.
We encapsulate ourselves within a ton of steel and go hurtling down a ribbon of asphalt, separated from opposing hurtling tons of steel by yellow paint on the ground, but don’t always recognize it
for what it is.

Oh Yes. Kites and buggies are dangerous.
They are so dangerous… We do it NEKKID!
So There!

Just shooting my mouth off.

But the seed had been planted and it bloomed
that afternoon on the playa.

Off and alone like that, shedding one’s clothes can be a truly exhilarating experience. Most of us never venture beyond our bedroom and bathroom without covering ourselves in some fashion.
Now the power from the wind is flowing in through our fingers, through our body, and out through the tires into the ground,
in praise of traction. Clothes cease to matter.

Besides, for men at least, the buggy is a very modest craft.

The buggy is small and compact, able to access places denied more traditional land sailing craft.
Portable enough to be easily loaded and unloaded alone, it also breaks-down quickly for even more compact transport.
The meat of the matter (if you’ll excuse the obvious pun), however is that while seated a man exposes very little of his personal package except to those standing immediately in-front-of, or overhead.
Both very precarious positions.
Literally and figuratively.
Hence the adage that it is a modest craft –
especially if you keep going.

All this is leading somewhere…
Nowhere of any great account, but it does help explain
why I don’t open personal mail in front of strangers…
Or my Mom.

It was quite the hoot to buggy nekkid and then be able
to shock the straights with tales of our exploits.
Oh… Did I mention we shot video too.

The tales were told and retold. In the retelling, facts
were misplaced and enhanced, and the tales became fables,
relating some mystic past and the brave and lonely few
whose deeds we speak around the evening fires, who led the way.

Then Andrew Beattie, from over the pond in England,
started saying to earn a Buggy Naked pin,
one needed to be photographed whilst buggying naked
and send the photo to me, along with a sum of money
and one would receive a sterling silver Buggy Naked pin.

Oh Gawd! Now we had to design and produce a pin!
Luckily Scott Dyer, out in Las Vegas, Nevada,
also thought the whole thing was funny
and had the ability and equipment to do said task.
The sterling silver Buggy Naked pin was a reality.
And I began receiving pictures of naked men in the mail.
Naked men flying kites whilst in a buggy.

The first time it happened - in front of my then-girlfriend
– she listened patiently to my convoluted explanation and then inquired innocently “But why are they sending them to you?”
Further explanation was deemed pointless.

So there it is.
A bad joke gone horrible awry.

Some might note the absence of any women in the photos.
Alas, ‘tis true.

None have (as yet) been submitted.

I have personal knowledge of various women who have
joined the naked ranks, but due to pervasive prurient
interests, have chosen not to make public the evidence.
I applaud them.

As much as I enjoy seeing women naked, I have to admire
their choice of making a distinction between doing the act
and having to announce the doing of the act.
They know what it truly means… And that’s good enough.

As long as everyone had fun and the experience was positive…
It’s all good!

One last caveat:
As kiters/buggy’ers, we care. We see someone with their kite down, we buggy over to check if they need help. In the future, one might approach with caution until certain they are clothed.
Just might be another recruit about to join the unclad ranks.

BUGGY NAKED!

Corey Jensen
March 2007