BAAABS

The Itch

Skip Lester / Mad Dragon

I want to build the Bad Ass Amazingly Awesome Black Sheep, a cousin of BAAAHS that suffers fiery flatulence.

Skip spinning fire on the playa, the setting sun just over his shoulder.

Team Outcast

I'm gay and I've been gay as blazes since I could walk. I was raised by career enlisted military parents. After 9/11, I joined the Marine Corps at 17. I served as an infantryman in Iraq on two deployments between 2006 and 2008.

Combat there shaped me in ways I’m still understanding. Honoring my fallen brothers remains both an honor and a duty, but I came to reject war and violence. With age I came to see us as pawns, and to recognize how much we shared with the people we called our enemy.

In my unit, I was a twink too gay for the Marine Corps. Among the gays of Hampton Roads, Virginia, where I went to high school, I was an outcast for being a Marine.

Team Outcast’s black-and-white group portrait in Iraq.Skip in a vehicle turret in desert uniform.A younger Skip smiling and giving a thumbs-up.
Team Outcast, November 2006. I’m second row, far left.
A laptop with a ‘My other computer is a CRAY’ sticker and the words ‘Let’s get this exascale.’

After the service, I studied math and computer science at the University of Washington Bothell. I volunteered as a math tutor and worked as a mathematics teaching assistant. I spent eight years as a software engineer, first at F5 Networks and then at Cray Supercomputers, where I did my proudest work.

I wondered if another Marine infantry veteran of the war in Iraq had ever sat where I was sitting. When the industry contracted, I faced another crisis of identity. Today, I’m an artist, welder, and painter. Relinquishing old identities is hard, and we cannot unlive our choices. At times I felt like some grotesque unicorn that no one could relate to.

The black sheep grew from that isolation: an artwork about finding belonging without sanding away what makes us different. Finally the tapestry of who I am no longer feels like a burden, but rather somehow a blessing.

Why troll BAAAHS?
It’s all love.

I adored BAAAHS for seven years before camping with her for two, including the honor of driving on many nights. BAAAHS kept bringing me back, in a way. I was going to the burn to dance to her Disco beats, and later to spin fire there for her.

BAAAHS, the white sheep, with people gathered on her deck on the open playa.
BAAAHS, the San Francisco sheep.
Skip rolling a lit dragon staff over his arm alongside BAAAHS.

A Seattle relative

I think of BAAAHS as the San Francisco sheep. baaabs would be her Seattle relative. A little grungier, maybe more for the punks, but equally welcoming to all. I want to carry forward the love, connection, and queer joy I found there.

I am a fire spinner and poofer builder. I want my car to be a fire car. BAAAHS can’t toot fire with her Tyvek construction. I’m designing fire in from the start so that baaabs has propane farts.

A fire staff overhead at night, with the city lights across the water.A crowd gathered around a tall burst of flame, its light spilling across the ground.A second flame plume after dark, throwing orange light across the scene.

“baaabs is a flammable art statement about finding self-love without approval.”

— Skip